Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Beginning of The End - Revenge Of The Podcast

Episode Date: September 21, 2015

The year was 2005. George Lucas returned with the third (and final) film in the Star Wars series: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. Again, taking in the criticism from the previous two productions, has the director finally found a focus? Is this a good conclusion to the Phantom Menace series? Griffin and David begin their investigation with the opening battle sequence. And as is tradition of stunning off screen action, the movie starts at the END of the Clone Wars. Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are in space fighters, R2D2 is basically Inspector Gadget now and every 45 seconds a new droid is introduced with the intention of later being merchandised. Also, we meet new characters General Grievous (the limping, coughing leader of the droid army) and a surfer Gungan. Plus, discover Chancellor Palpatine has been kidnapped by Count Dooku (who may have lost his head.) Join your hosts in this week’s episode as they try to take it all in.

🎵 David. Griffin. I have a bad feeling about this. Oh. My name's Griffin Newman. I'm David Sibbes. This is Griffin and David present.

Revenge of the Podcast. Revenge of the Podcast. This is our new mini-series. Do they say, I have a bad feeling about this in this one? Oh, yeah. They say it a lot in the second one. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

They say it within the first 20 minutes of this one, which is what we're covering today on today's episode, as is tradition. It's tradition. We have so many

hoary old traditions. We break off a mini-series which is the first, up to the first crazy edit. Yep. So there's, what do you call it?

It's not a wipe edit. It's the one that's- It's like a windshield wiper edit. It's like the clock edit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the hands of a clock yeah we're

doing the first battle sequence slash lightsaber fight slash plane crash 22 minute it's a i just called it a cartoon episode it's like an episode of you know samurai jack i have an analogy well except it's not a masterpiece right i have i have an analogy I want to throw out later in the episode. Let's just set the table quickly. Yeah. Because who knows? Maybe first time listener. It could be.

This is my series. It started out as us doing a limited series about The Phantom Menace, a film that we thought never got a sequel. Yeah, we're real stupid. George Lucas' sci-fi opera clearly had big plans, bigger narrative ambitions. We found out at the end of' sci-fi opera clearly had big plans, bigger narrative ambitions. We found out at the end of that miniseries that, in fact, there was...

A sequel. Called Attack of the Clones. Yeah. Real good. The second Phantom Menace movie. Yeah. We took a brief detour into judging the judge. It's okay.

Let's stick on Star Wars for now. The original question was, what is the Phantom Menace about? Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. And then with Attack of the Clones, it was, what is The Phantom Menace about? Oh, yeah, right. And then with Attack of the Clones, it was, is this a good sequel? Wait, do you have a core question for this third film we've just uncovered? You don't. I don't have one yet.

I mean, I have to make a confession. I, this week, for two reasons, only watched up to the point that we're discussing today. Okay. One is I thought, let that we're discussing today. Okay. One is I thought, let's keep it fucking pure. Okay? I have now uncovered the memories

because we didn't know this movie existed and then we realized we did in fact know it existed. I know why I buried the memories. I'll tell you that much. I saw it three times in theaters and I don't remember

I don't remember like any of it. Really? Like you really don't? I remember the end only. Sure. I feel like. I was watching this shit and I like none of it was Really? Like you really don't? I remember the end only. Sure. I feel like. I was watching this shit and I like,

none of it was ringing a bell. But so I watched the first 22 minutes because I was like, keep it pure. Actually don't have the knowledge of where it's going

when you're watching it. You know? And only talk about it what the beginning sets up. And two was poor time planning on my part. Yeah. That's the real reason. Time two was a poor time planning on my part. Yeah.

That's the real reason. Time management. I put it on last night and just couldn't turn it off. Yeah. I'm just bringing up the opening crawl. I don't have a core question yet because I haven't seen the whole thing yet. But I think it... Shoot.

I'm trying to find the right way to word this I feel like it has to be something about like now that we know he's made three of them George Lucas writer and director we've been analyzing these movies from the stance of like what was he trying to do what did he want this to build to

we now have the complete picture the Star Wars trilogy the Phantom Menace trilogy that's true right yes I feel like the question has to be like complete picture. The Star Wars trilogy. The Phantom Menace trilogy. That's true. Right? Yes. I feel like the question has to be like

what was Does this conclude the story well? Yeah. I guess that's the question. Is this a fitting end to the Star Wars trilogy? That's the question.

That's the mystery. That's the investigation. We figured it out. There we go. Jeez. It's like pulling teeth with you. I's the question. Yeah. That's the mystery. That's the investigation. We figured it out. There we go. Jeez. It's like pulling teeth with you. I haven't been sleeping well. A long time ago. Uh-huh. In a galaxy far, far away. We talked about this before. I just

want to stop once again. Not discussed enough that these are period films. For crying out loud. I really, yeah. It's so ridiculous. They're period movies. They're period pictures. Stop saying period. They're period pictures. Uh, period. They're period pictures. Yeah, they're set a long time ago. Long time ago.

I'm rolling over my power cord right now. All right, there we go. We're reading the crawl. It's always exciting to break off a new crawl. Yeah, right? It's a good way to start. We like a crawl. We like a good crawl.

By the way, this movie is garbage. I haven't only watched the first 22 minutes. Yeah, just a frothy shit. That's what this movie is. I'm trying. I want to be. I don't just only watched the first 20 minutes yeah just a frothy shit that's what this movie is I'm trying I wanna be I don't cause David it's immediately worse

than the other two David we can't get this cynical and negative we're gonna make it to 10 episodes you don't want me to be negative cause we got to do 10 episodes this might not be a 10 episode it might not be

I don't think it can be it might break us I don't know we're gonna see I want it somehow looks worse than the last one I will say

I got some really good guests lined up I haven't talked to you about it. What? Yeah. Not specific dates, but I've been like reaching out to people and getting time frames of like, okay, I'm off work these two weeks. I'm back this week or two weeks. So like, let's talk about that. We're going to have some fucking killer guests coming up.

All right. Here's the opening crawl. Excited for the guests. Yeah. Okay. War. Oh, I mean, David, come on. David, come on! The Republic is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Sith Lord, Count Dooku. Okay! Okay, kind of cool. Although,

you're like, oh, why didn't we see that? Crumbling? That sounds fun. Like, let's watch some of that. But anyway. But, David, it's not worded as the Republic has crumbled. It is crumbling. We're mid-crumble. We're gonna get to see some of the fucking crumble. Now, this this sentence not not not quite so much like fucking active we're in the act there are heroes on both sides evil is everywhere what yeah i don't know what that really means so you're saying like there are good people and bad people on both sides of

this i guess yeah yeah i mean of course a A little less compelling. It's a war. Not every person is. Alright, now here we go. Heroes, but there's evil. And now we've got like a. Wait, say that sentence one more time. There are heroes on both sides. Okay. Evil is everywhere. Well, it sounds like. It's very existential. Yeah, it also, it kind of contradicts itself. Don't forget evil is everywhere. There's heroes on both sides, but there's

evil. So he's just saying. Good and bad. Okay, fuck. Mix, it's a mix. Rainy and sunny. Okay. All right, now this is about his blinding a left turn. This is a U-turn. Okay. I'm going to eat some peanuts while you read this. In a stunning move, the fiendish droid leader, General Grievous,

has swept into the Republic capital and kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine, leader of the Galactic Senate. Okay, first off, George, a little, you know, to describe your own move is stunning. Yeah, pump the brakes. Yeah, pump it. You know what I'm saying? Like, you're not saying like- And not like the Black Eyed Peas pump it.

A man of stunning power. You're saying like a stunning narrative turn. Yeah, right. Yeah, okay. In a stunning off-screen narrative turn, a person you've never heard of- Okay, wait, give me the sentence again. In a stunning move, the fiend-destroyed leader, General Grievous, has swept into the Republic capital and kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine, the leader of the Galactic

Senate. Okay, okay, okay. So Palpatine's a hostage. Yeah. Pretty cool. Which is interesting because we also know Yeah, he's pulling the strings on both sides. Right, and we don't know who Grievous works for. Who he is, or what he is, or what's going on, or why he's fiendish. Yeah, no, okay. So I'm kind of liking this

now. Okay, so Grievous. I'm not. No, I am. I'm liking this a lot. I got a stiffy. Grievous is a droid general. Does that mean he is the general of the droids? Does he command all the droids?

Is that his job that they went, okay, clones, one side. Humans, non-cloned humans, one side. Droids, one side. Three sides, like a triangle or do they is he did they need a general and they were like let's build one as the separatist droid army attempts to flee the besieged capital with their valuable hostage two jedi knights lead a desperate mission to rescue the captive chancellor dot dot dot i wonder which two it's good to know it's interesting to note that like this preamble really only speaks to the first 20 minutes of the movie.

The rest of the movie, this doesn't really have anything to do with. Which is maybe... Because the first 20 minutes solves this issue, the kidnapping, and the war, 90% of it at least. Maybe how the crawls would function. Maybe just set up. So we have mysteries. It's just a backstory. Right.

Okay, so the two Jedis, I'm guessing, are going to be Yeriel Puth and Yaddle. And you're absolutely... Yaddle never shows up again. We actually never talked about that. She's only in episode one. She's not in the council in the other ones. They fired her. Yeah.

This is a good sidebar, just because lateral thinking, no one listening would have this thought. Yaddle and Yermian, queer man Yeriel Poof makes me think of, last night I was reading our reviews on iTunes. Okay. Producer Ben, a.k.a. Produer Ben, a.k.a. Ben Ducer, a.k.a. Hello Fennel, a.k.a. Mr. Positive, a.k.a. The Haas.

Hey, that's great. I'm so excited to hear that people are leaving reviews. That's so awesome. 25 five-star reviews. Oh, that's really great. Thank you, guys. That's so great. One star review.

What? From some fucking Sith Lord. Oh, really? Out there. I don't know who it was. They didn't write the review. Did he identify himself as a Sith Lord? You're not supposed to do that.

They did not write the review. They just left the star. Oh, they just gave a one star. Can you pull it up, though? Because we have- I'm trying to find it. The internet in here is do that. They did not write the review. They just left the star. Can you pull it up though? I'm trying to find it. The internet in here is really bad. We had a review that corrected very nice things people had

to say, including the two reviews written by Ben. Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Ben. And you'll know which two they are because one of them is signed the Haas and the other one is signed Mr. Positive. But one of the reviews pointed out that we have been making a big faux pas across too many series the jedi with the cockroach face who we have been calling clue clune this entire time yeah is in fact called plow clone oh shit that's how you pronounce it. It's like showclone. Sorry about that. His name is never said aloud.

I believe that's part of the problem. Apologies to Plowclone. Yeah. Apologies to the cockroach race he represents. He's got a cockroach face. Okay, well, I'm just loading these reviews. They'll be ready in like 20 minutes. But, hey, you know what?

Keep it up. Keep rating. Keep reviewing. Unless you're a fucking Sith. We got no time for your one-star garbage. Three or higher. Guess what one star garbage three or higher guess what five or higher okay how about this six or higher

well no then no one's gonna leave a review because they won't figure out how to leave a six star review have you been watching the review yes the best did you see the six star episode that's my favorite show on television it's the best I give it six stars me too ladies and gentlemen I'm throwing down the gauntlet right now.

If you give us a one-star rating or review, you are not allowed to listen to the show anymore. Boom. Done. Done. Fuck you. Done. No fucking siffs allowed. If you give us one star or you write a nasty comment, you're fucking out. You're out. I'm deeming you a siths allowed if you give us one star or you write a nasty comment you're fucking out you're out i'm deeming you a sith you gotta wear that on your fucking chest

like a scarlet ladder have fun getting employed you gotta go door to door when you move to a new neighborhood and knock the sith really they really struggle with getting employed they really tough to find a job once you've been you know identified Sith Lord. Yeah, but here's, for me... That's actually not true. If you ask me... You've seen this movie. If you ask me, it speaks a lot to the way

that our country stigmatizes mental illness. Do you know what I'm saying? You're saying the Sith are mentally ill? I'm saying I don't like what they do, but perhaps we should investigate

what leads someone to become a Sith in the first place. Hey, I found our podcast on iTunes. Okay, let's read some reviews. Here's some reviews. I think the Sith are mentally ill. Why would any sane person want to be a Sith in the first place. Hey, I found our podcast on iTunes. Okay, let's read some reviews. Here's some reviews. I think the Sith are mentally ill.

Why would any sane person want to be a Sith? It's not cool. We have a parental advisory. Really? It's a content. Okay. Well, it was all that TC-14 talk. I had to make a call there.

I do talk about robot pussy a lot. All right, well, here's the Crab Things review. Okay. Quote. The title of the review is review. Okay. Quote. The title of the review is Mr. Positive. Quote, hate these guys. Attack of the Clones is dumb. Five stars.

Five stars. So thank you for that. So, oh, he's a bit, don't know if he's a Sith or not. Here's Jenna Carley. Yeah. Very informative. I learned a lot about Rachel Bilson's personal life. Great show.

That's all we can ask. Five stars. I'm really glad we could be at service. Yeah, that's great. From Lawsondell. Okay. Fanfic. This is just for the fanfic episode.

Unbelievably sexy. Five stars. Well, David, it sounds like it's time for you to drink my diarrhea, because you- No, thank you. Hated that episode, didn't want it to happen, tried to shut it down, and we got fucking specific fans who are only here for the fanfiction. And that was Ricky Irwin who pointed out that you're saying Plo Kloon wrong. Yeah, good guy, good guy, good man.

Um, I'm trying to... Cold Milk. The most delightfully offbeat and weirdly insightful film pod... No, this one's actually just nice. It's not weird. Thank you, though, Cold Milk. It's a great man, Chris Cookson. I like this one.

Cold Milk has one line I really like if you can turn your screen over alright uh uh Griffin's enthusiasm stories and willingness

to potentially sabotage his career for a joke really carry the podcast whereas my more understated tone compliments but you know

he really just likes you well he's an old friend of mine we were friends like 10 years ago literally butter I love this podcast and listen to it almost daily

to fall asleep my girlfriend however is not a fan 5 stars don't leave us a review girlfriend yeah this is my favorite comment they're saying

our podcast is literally butter or that's the username literally butter is the username saying our podcast is literally butter or that's the username? Literally butter is the username. But our podcast is literally butter. I love that he loves it. I wonder what kind of dreams he's having and also is he saying we're a snooze fest?

I listen sometimes to a podcast to sort of doze off. It happens. I couldn't fall asleep last night so I called up a I pulled up a YouTube playlist of all the time and talking about pizza. Sure, sounds great. I just listen to all the time and talk about pizza. Okay, Patrick Cotner, hey Pat, says, all the movies.

I hope they do all the movies. Every movie ever. Five stars. Well, I mean, we used to think there were only six movies in total now we're starting to realize they're more and more so i think we might be able to do that um and finally i wanted just the one star review yes it's a review really yeah no no listen to this okay okay from five top e a t one ng which stop eating okay in lean speak okay

stop eating on mic it's disgusting one star eat some peanuts right now for that motherfucker so yeah we have 25 reviews

24 of 5 stars one one star still pretty good doesn't hurt our average rating that's actually really gross. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, Ben's like turning your mic down right now. Turn it up. So. This is, I just want to say, record time for us to avoid talking about the movie. Yeah, seriously. We're 20 minutes into episode one. Oh, no.

I let it run a little bit. So we're probably only about 11 in. Okay. So. This movie begins with a huge opening battle over Coruscant. to run a little bit, so we're probably only about 11 in. Okay. So, this movie begins with a huge opening battle over Coruscant. Yeah. Between a bunch

of triangle-shaped ships and donut-shaped ships, and I guess there's a lot of smaller ships kind of weaving around. A lot of smaller droids. But you can't really, yes, droid ships and stuff, you can't really tell what's going on. I gotta stop you already, because this is my first complaint I have about the movie. Yeah, please.

This is not what, how a Phantom Menace movie is supposed to start. Okay, so how is a Phantom Menace movie supposed to start, in your opinion? With an assassination attempt, as the second movie does? Crawl, crawl, crawl, crawl, crawl. Yeah, does that. Then fades into just space. Then we see a ship go by. Yeah, that's true.

The first one, it's the Jedi ambassador ship, you know? And then the second one, it's Amidala's ship. Yeah, Royal Cruiser, whatever. Yeah, and this one, it's like we see the sun, and then we kind of pan down to Coruscant, and then we see this epic battle is happening over Coruscant. A billion ships. This movie is kind of saying it's zooming out as

wide as possible. This is something I'm going to talk about a lot. It's really trying to show off how much detail it can fit into a frame. Which is annoying. Congratulations. Great job, Georgie. Tons of detail. I hope you're happy. Drink that detail in a cup of my diarrhea.

Mix it in with diarrhea. I got a fucking diarrhea McFlurry machine. You can pick your mixin'. Your mixin' is details. Carry on. We pan down. Yep. One ship, the central ship, sort of flies by in classic Phantom Menace fashion.

Yeah. But there's so much other fucking shit going on. What usually happens is ships flying by. Right. then there's like a big action right and then there's like a lull right and then yeah yeah we get to something so in in clones we got ship goes by lands there's a lot of silence you see people standing there it's like peaceful it lulls you into it explosion it's a bad opening in ph, we see the ship going by. They're communicating permission to dock,

this and that. The ship lands. There's like four minutes before they get in, but it like, it situates you into the world. Not this time.

War! My brain immediately turned off. I know, it's really terrible. It's such a fucking overload. Well, especially because it's like, yeah,

it's a cartoon. It's just a cartoon thing you're watching. It's just like, meh, meh, me, especially because it's like, yeah, it's a cartoon. It's just a cartoon thing you're watching. It's just like. And it's 17 minutes before we have more than one line of dialogue at the same time. Real long. Right? So you've got. I like the balance between like actors.

Because this shit's going on. I don't care. You've given me no reason to care. Don't assume just because I watched the two other movies. Maybe do your big space battle at the end. Like in Phantom Menace. Where it doesn't work, but it works better than this. You gotta let us get into our seat.

You gotta let us kick our shoes off. You gotta let us re-situate ourselves. War! War! War! War! So? So just...

We've got Anakin. We've got Anakin and we've got Obi-Wan. They're in fighter pilots. Both in fighters and... Obi-Wan's got our old buddy R2. No, no, no. Anakin has R2. Obi-Wan has R4. Oh, fucking R4.

That red piece of shit who gets his head ripped off. Yeah, that was kind of fun to watch because I hate R4. By buzz droids. Yeah. And then we had vulture droids. That's the other thing. Every 45 seconds he's introducing a new- Look at those.

A new toy for you to buy. Yeah. But they're like naming it and then showing the three action features that toy will have. I mean, one of the most- It really made my blood boil and I had forgotten about it. It's like when the Buzz droid is on Obi-Wan's ship and R2's trying to zap it and Obi-Wan's like, Hit the center eye! It's literally like a Star Fox game.

Like, it's, you know, he's just giving video game instructions to the, like, programmer of this video game that will come out. And they're giving you instructions for the toy. Which is like, if you hit the center eye, then the thing explodes, the spring-loaded feature. Did you have a buzz destroyer? No, I didn't. I will actually say, I don't know if I bought any Revenge of the Sith.

Is that true? Yeah. I don't know if I bought any Revenge of the Sith figures. Is that true? Yeah. It was in a period of my life where I thought I had no time for childish things. You put away your childish thing. Yeah, and then I got a little older and I had disposable income, and now I spend all my money on toys again.

Yeah, cool. Good job. Yeah, I'm doing great. But Merchandise Spotlight might come back this season. I don't have one prepared today, but they ramped it up agained it up let's do a couple there was some weird shit they ramped it up again um but but it was they they really put pedal to the metal and like i know uh uh i was reading about the history of uh phantom ass toys recently sure um the uh the big selling point for this movie was they were like we we're not going to focus on characters. We're going to focus on ships and fucking droids.

And you see it because this movie starts and it's like 80,000 ships. Oh, my God. All these fucking missiles flying. There's so many droids in this movie. Yeah. And there's missiles flying. There's this extended thing with like Obi-Wan distracts the missiles by sort of zipping around.

And Anakin goes into like a spin that makes them collide. They're like torpedo missiles. Yeah. They're like torpedo missiles. In addition to the laser shit we've had. Yeah, sure. And you've got the buzz droids that crawl all over your ship and rip it apart piece by piece. And then the vulture droids are the ones where their legs flip down. They were in the first one. They were in Phantom Menace a little.

At the end, Attack of the Clones. And now they're a big fucking thing. Yeah, yeah. I don't know don't know I'm 26 years old right I feel a million I look like I'm 12 but I'm 26 and I just sat there and I was like god I'm so sick I get a fucking headache

like I felt like a grandpa watching this opening I just was like to kids like, I mean, it kind of reminded me of transformers, which I think had come out a year earlier. 2004. I think it's transformers. The first one.

Oh, no, sir. 2007. It's okay. Yeah. No, sir.

No, of course it's not 2004. Wow. They've made only, they've made four of those things since 2007. That's crazy. Um, where like when I,

I remember when I watched transformers at the end, I was like, I don't know what's happening. Like, my eyes can't track this. I love the first Transformers. I like it, too. But even that's an example of, like, okay, that movie starts in media res with, like, the attack on the military base, right? Transformers does? Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you see a military base that, although heightened to a bay degree, behaves like how we know a military base behaves in the real world. In Transformers. Yes. Sure. And they're like, what's this? I'm struggling to recall. Weird signal.

What's this? And then the helicopter turns into a robot. It functions sort of as a horror sequence. You know, the beginning is good. I just think the end is horrible in Transformers. Sure. The rest of the movie is good. It becomes chaos.

But that's the opening. And then from there, we go to Shia LaBeouf. And we have like 30 minutes of character work before the Transformers end. Totally agree. You know? And that's, like, we're talking bare minimum shit here. It's not even, like, fucking rich characterization, although I do think First Grand Tournament is a very, very functional blockbuster. Yeah.

It's a functional blockbuster in a way the sequels are not. No, the third one's great. Third one's easily good. I like the third one. It's a masterpiece. It's not a masterpiece, but it's really good. Yeah, but two and four are horrendous. Almost unwatchable. Four was such a bummer. Yeah. I like the third one. It's a mess. It's not a mess. It's really good. Yeah, but two and four are horrendous. Almost unwatchable.

Four was such a bummer. Yeah. Two is the worst. This is like, that's the other thing is George has always been like pretty reserved in his cinematic style. I agree. Even though he's doing like space battles. No, a lot of slow pans, a lot of, you know, yeah.

And he centers the frame and the action happens within the frame. And if there is any movement, it is a slow pan. Phantom Menace has really clear action. Really clear action. Attack of the Clones, not so much. Well, I think there is until the end. When we get to the war where he openly said, I just went to the special effects scenes and come up with it. And this one must be the same process.

This feels like from the get- get go he did that for everything well because it's three years on you've got better technology one imagines you know show off but it also feels like he's so dispassionate about that he's like because what they say in fucking attack of the clones it's the last scene of the movie

is the war breaking out and he said you know basically what I wrote in the script was all hell breaks loose right and i handed it to them and said one page interpret that how you want yeah right he wrote one sentence he didn't describe any of it yeah this it feels like every page of the script he went something crazy happens you figure it out and then there are two lines of you don't think he wrote lines like yeah like look out buzz droids hit the center eye that's what i'm saying i think he wrote one or two lines of dialogue so that

they know what to reverse engineer the toys around and how to make them work. Oh, you hit the center eye the thing explodes. It's the button. It's button activated. And the video game designers could do that and the rest of it was just like, I don't know, more stuff happens with drones. But it feels like it's made by 70 different filmmakers. The camera's fucking whizzing around

spinning around, doing fucking tricks doing an ollie, a 180. Yeah, ooh. Yeah. Not to mention, okay, do we want to go through this narrative? It's hard to go through a narrative war because there's so much chaos

I can't remember what fucking happened. No, I know, but like, in the pilot sequence, when they're in the, you know, Obi-Wan and Anakin are bantering. Yes. It's sort of the same as Declan Cohn's.

Yes, two different ships. A little better. Just a little bit better. Make this argument. I feel like we've switched positions now. Ewan McGregor is much bigger in this movie than he is in the last two. But I think he's appropriately sized. No, I agree.

That's what I'm saying. He's finally like- Playing at McDermott levels. Quite hammy. He's eating the ham. And it's good. Way better than- It's a delicious honey baked ham.

In the first movie, he's kind of a non-entity. In the second movie, he's too serious. Yeah, but he's got some gravitas in the second one. Some. But in this one, he's kind of a non-entity. In the second movie, he's too serious. Yeah, but he's got some gravitas in the second one. Some, but in this one, he's actually got it, in my opinion. Yeah, with Sliced in the Ham. And Hayden Christensen, still bad. Yeah, I would contend worse. Worse in later scenes, but in this scene,

he doesn't completely just deliver every line in a total monotone. I'll say this. I think his line readings are- Once he gets to the romance word and everything else. say this. I think his line readings are- Once he gets to the romance word, you know, and everything else. I was going to say his line readings are more natural. I would correct that by saying his line readings are less unnatural. Correct? I think we agree his line readings are less unnatural within the first 22 minutes of this

movie. Right. Yeah, at the start. But then he gets back into the old habits. In the first 22 minutes of the movie. Yeah. His line readings are less unnatural. Yeah.

That having said, I also think he is 50% less charismatic than he was in the first movie. And I do not think he was charismatic in the first movie. I think I agree with you. His line readings sound more like how a human being talks, but it also feels like they just woke him up. Like he fell asleep in between each line and they had to shake him in the green screen cockpit. He went, uh, Obi-Wan, I don't know what to do about these droids. Even more than in the second movie. And this is truer later,

where it's more just like actual dialogue scene, it really feels like George Lucas just said to Samuel L. Jackson, like, okay, say you sit over there. And Samuel L. Jackson's like, oh, you sit over there. And he's like, we got it. But didn't let them read this one. He was like telling them the land, having them repeat it like a pirate. Yeah, right, exactly.

It really feels that way because, yeah. But he and Christian, okay, so we see him. He's got, Anakin's got long hair now. Remember when he was like a sandy blonde little boy? Yeah. Okay, the second one, his hair's a little darker. Sure. He's got the Jedi braid. But he's got, yeah, he's got the sort of crew cut.

This one, he's got dark. He's got an Obi-Wan haircut. He's got this long shoulder, yeah. Oh, but Obi-Wan's haircut was long but still neat. That's true, it was straight. This is more, you know, L'Oreal sort of bouncing. Yeah, yeah. He's got some sheen.

He looks mad dirty. Yeah. I can't tell if he dyed his hair or if it's gotten darker. Maybe, force dyed. And he's got scar across his eye. He's got a little scar. And so it's supposed to be like, oh, this is an Anakin, I guess. And of course he's got a robot arm.

He's got a robot arm. With like a black glove. Yeah. Need it even be said, this movie starts and the Clone Wars are wrapping up. Oh yeah. Right. We didn't even, I mean, we joked about it so much, but like, yeah. Yeah. This is the last big battle of the Clone Wars. And Anakin's got the scar on his eye. We just don't,

I guess, oh man, it looks like he probably had a crazy battle. Something must have, he must have grown up a lot. We don't see any of that. Just gotta say yeah the clone wars makes no sense based on this battle go on they the separatist army has somehow broken through everything to get to one assumes the most impregnable part of republic space right the coruscant must be at the center of everything yes Yes. So they've gone all the way in. And yet this is

their downfall somehow. They capture the Chancellor. That doesn't work out. They get the Chancellor back. But then is that it? Are all their ships destroyed? Is this like a last gasp effort? Is that the idea? How did they get all the way in is my question. Yeah, I don't know. Well, obviously.

Back to Hittin' Christensen. We should watch the the clone wars show maybe it explains that stuff yeah we should there are two different shows we've discovered one one directed by jay tartofsky who's one of i would contend our finest living filmmakers i mean he doesn't make films but sure he did make a film it was called hotel transylvania and it fucking rules i've never seen hotel transylvania i forgot that was uh ready for me to throw my soapbox down on the ground for a second? Okay. That movie gets no credit because Adam Sandler's in it? Yes.

But guess what? And all his cronies. It's like the Happy Madison crew doing all the voices. That movie is written by Robert Smigel. It's got fucking good jokes. Yeah. It's got fucking good ass jokes. Did they do two?

It's coming out in like two weeks. No, but I mean, are they involved or did they pass the... I don't know if Smigel wrote on it. I don't know. Jenny Tardowsky still watch it. Good ass jokes. Did they do two? It's coming out in like two weeks. No, but I mean, are they involved or did they pass the... I don't know if Smigel wrote on it. I don't know. Jenny Tartofsky still directed it. Jenny Tartofsky, who did Dexter's Lab. No, I love Jenny. Samurai Jack. Right, yeah.

Star Wars The Clone Wars, the 2D miniseries, is one of the finest purveyors of real expressive character animation. Tartofsky and Smigel wrote Hotel Transylvania 2. Really? Yeah. I'm fucking I'm so jazzed. You're there. That's my most anticipated movie of the fall. Hotel Transylvania is a film that is so immensely visual that even

though I think the jokes are good and a lot of the Sandler cronies who often sound like they're kind of fucking phoning it in who often on screen feel like they're phoning in their performances in this movie give active engaged performances that recall their earlier days

on SNL when they gave a shit you could watch all of Hotel Transylvania on mute and you would get every single story plot point because he fucking

uses animation like Chuck Jones he does it's really expressive he's not limited to the physics of how a character would behave

I love Pixar but Pixar is pretty traditional and like, here's a model and we'll animate that model as if they are a puppet. Right. Hotel Transylvania characters' bodies are changing to fit their moods. They're becoming larger and smaller. Their arms are stretching out. It feels like a fucking Looney Tunes cartoon. It rules.

Okay. You know what else is cool? Monsters. Monsters are the best, David. Everyone should watch Hotel Transylvania. Great. On mute. But then there was Clone Wars.

He made that. No, but then there was another Clone Wars. Oh, right. So that was based on his style, but he had no involvement in it. And also it was 3D animation. It doesn't look as interesting. Yeah, and it ran like five seasons. And then they made a movie of it.

Some of it recently. I've been trying to get into it for the sake of this podcast. I've only seen a smattering of episodes across. I'm going to try to now go through and watch from the beginning.

I've heard it gets good like season two. Yeah, no thanks. Anyway, so the Clone Wars are over is our point. This is the point I was going to make.

The end of the Clone Wars. It feels like what they're trying to show is that Anakin's grown up, and he's found whatever sort of inner peace, because he doesn't seem whiny. He doesn't have the same sort of, like, devil-may-care attitude. He's a little more grounded. Definitely.

And boring. And he's not, like, challenging. Yeah, and boring. It's true. Boring. But Obi-Wan is trying to counteract by just being like, oh, oh, oh, Obi-Wan's in his house. He doesn't say that. It'd be great if he did that.

Yeah, he's being a little more boisterous. He's almost hitting boss and ass levels of play. Hey, Ben. Well, is it that Obi-Wan is still a bachelor and Anakin's got the old ball and chain? He does. Anakin definitely seems like... He's got a real King of Queens vibe going on.

Where he's just like, God, fucking domestic life is tough. King of Queens starring Kevin James who plays Frankenstein in Hotel Transylvania which you should all watch it's available on Vudu who does Buscemi play

Buscemi plays the wolfman he's so good in it he's like a he's like a wolfman who's got like seven cubs and he's just so fucking tired

because he's got to take care of seven wolves all the time he's just slumped over and he goes like I gotta get time away from the kids Molly Shannon's his wife it's a great movie Hotel Transylvania I wish they had called it He's just slumped over. And he goes, I gotta get time away from the kids.

Molly Shannon's his wife. It's a great movie. Hotel Transylvania. I wish they had called it Hotu Transylvania. Did they? I'll admit, who plays his daughter? Selena Gomez in a surprisingly emotional voice I mean I've seen the trailer For Hotel Transylvania 2 a couple times

And like you know it has like a couple solid laughs I thought I was really disappointed by the trailer For the this could be a whole episode about We gotta get it off of this track right now I was not planning on seeing Hotel Transylvania and was like I can't believe Jenny Tardofsky Did it doesn't even look like his work and then I had A flight get delayed and I like went to the nearby

Movie theater because I had three hours to kill and was like this movie fucking rules and no one's talking about it and it wasn't nominated for best animated film. Wasn't it? No I was about to ask. No and like some shitty bullshit was instead. This is like pure animation. It's like everything animation can be. Well now I really want to watch it. It's really good. Okay.

Great comedic character animation. It was nominated for a Golden Globe. Yeah. But not an Oscar. They got it right for once. They're usually pretty good about it, actually. CeeLo Green played Murray the Mummy in the original film,

and they recast him with Keegan-Michael Key. Is that because of the whole CeeLo saying it's okay if he rapes people or whatever, if they're asleep or something? I forget what he did. CeeLo Green, he goes, it's not possible to rape someone if they're asleep because they're asleep. So they couldn't say no.

So he's saying like it's like, you know, who knows? 50-50. Is that his argument? Like, you know, you didn't know yes, you didn't know no. You definitely didn't hear no. And to that I say, hey, CeeLo Green, enjoy not playing a mummy anymore. That's your punishment. And you owe millions of dollars.

So that year, the nominees were Brave, Frankenweenie, Paranorman. So they were like, you're wrapped. Dude, 2000. Yeah. That's a picture wrap on CeeLo Green. Just want to say, 2012, pretty stacked. Yeah. Brave, which I don't like, but you know.

I think it's okay. It's okay. Frankenweenie, which is pretty good. I'm not a huge fan. And I'm a huge Tim Burton defender, as you know. I think it's okay. It's okay. Frank and Weenie, which is pretty good. I'm not a huge fan. But, you know, I can... And I'm a huge Tim Burton defender, as we know. Not a huge fan. Paranorman, which is the deserving maybe winner of that year.

Was probably my second or third favorite movie that year. Great movie. 2012. 2012. That was my second favorite movie. Wreck-It Ralph, which is also fantastic. Is really solid. And would maybe also be my choice.

I like Hotel Transylvania more than Wreck-It Ralph, I will say. No, thank you. And then The Pirates Band of Misfits, which was the one that kind of snuck in, but it's really a cute movie. I would go Paranorman, Hotel Transylvania, Wreck-It Ralph, Pirates, Brave. Was that the lineup? Yeah. Frankenween.

I don't like Frankenween. It was better as a short. Okay. Anakin is boring. He's real boring. He's got nothing going on here. But he's more fun in this than he is later. Yeah.

You know, like he only gets more boring. I haven't watched it yet. All right, all right. We gotta just talk about the 22 minutes. Give it pure. I don't wanna talk about the whole movie. No. They're shooting around and they're droids coming in and shit's going fucking bananas.

And it's white noise. I was watching a fucking Spielberg documentary that's him talking about his own work. Recently it was like Spielberg on Spielberg. Sure. And he was talking about 1941

and Georgie, Stevie Spielberg, Stevie Weavey is really- A friend of Georgie's. Yeah, a friend of Georgie Porgy. Stevie Weavey I think is very interesting

because he's very candid about his failures. Yeah, definitely. Very clear eyed about that. He's a really good like self-analysis. Yeah, no, he's great. Yeah, and then,

so when he compliments himself on stuff, you're like, you can get away with that. Yeah, he's really happy with this, because you can tell. Yeah, he knows when he's good, and he knows when he's bad. And he was talking about 1941, and he said, you know,

I realized when I was sitting there in the theater, everyone was sitting there with their ears plugged. Go on. People were complaining that the movie was too loud. For which movie? 1941. Oh yeah. Which was famously his first flop. He was coming straight off of Jaws and Close Encounters.

It's before Raiders. Right. He has Belushi and Aykroyd who, like a year before this movie came out, pulled off the Holy Trinity of what was it? Animal House was the number one movie in America SNL was the number one TV show in America

and the Blues Brothers had the number one album in America. So John Belushi couldn't have been bigger and Ackroyd was like his best collaborator. Absolutely. Right? And he's like I'm putting fucking Ackroyd and Belush in an action comedy. Spielberg's gonna go to fucking war.

He's got a huge budget. Ned Beatty. With like a weird premise. Warren Oates. All these weird character actors. Great character actors. Yeah. And the movie's just such a big flop. And everyone thinks Spielberg's cooked. It wasn't a flop money wise but it was just it was seen as a flop. It was a disappointment. And it was not liked. Yeah. No. Absolutely.

After all of his movies had been like he had yet to make a movie that wasn't like a wild success. Well, The Sugarland. Was a wild success in relation to whatever, whatever, whatever. He said it was too loud. Sure.

And he was like, I didn't mix it any louder than my other movies. But it was the illusion of there was no silence in the movie. I had no moments of rest. So you're sitting there and it's action, action, action, then comedy and people are yelling and the bullets are flying and there are lights and everything. And even visually

it was too loud. There was too much going on. The people felt like they couldn't rest. And he was like, that taught me the most important lesson as a filmmaker that you need to have these sort of peaks and valleys. I miss quoting it. He worded it much more perfectly. But he was like, you know, the small moments are what are effective and build up to the larger moments. And Spielberg is a master of silence.

Knows when to really, like, pull back and make you focus on something. Not even use Johnny Williams' score. But George Lucas. Well, this movie is like the first 20 minutes are just fucking 1941. And it's interesting because he also talks about Lucas in his commentaries. Like, energy and how, like, the movie is slow here and then it picks up speed and we don't want to lose momentum. Like he seems to be attuned to this, but then it doesn't show. My favorite moments in favorite moments in Phantom and Clones, especially in Phantom, are the moments that are a little quieter.

There's moments where he just has ships going by, as we said, within frame or just a very, slow sort of pan you know things like that it's like okay there's a nice sort of rhythm to this and this is like the first 22 minutes of the movie are like a wash for me because there's so everything's flying by so much is going on every line the characters say is like a fucking one-liner there's so much or like horrible piece of information yeah expository terrible like cl It's just, my brain just shot off. Okay. And like, we got the battle, and then I think as you're mentioning,

there's this thing where they crash into the ship. Oh, right. Into a crazy crash. Oh, they barely make it in. Yeah, and there's a bunch of droids in there, and like R2 has like four things. Okay, we gotta talk about R2. We gotta talk about R2.

He's running around. He lights them on fire. He sprays We gotta talk about R2. He's running around. He lights them on fire. He sprays them with oil. R2's suddenly Inspector Gadget. And it's really annoying. It's really fucking annoying. R2 has, by and large, been a tactical robot.

Yeah. He's a repair droid, basically. Right, and he's just simple, utilitarian. He's not meant to move around. You put him in the ship, you repair his ship, right? And in the second movie, he had this brief moment of insanity where he brutalizes C-3PO and flies around,

but it doesn't have any relation to anything, and it just sort of felt tacked on. And also, the only special power we saw him use was the rockets. Even knocking off C-3PO, he did that in a way that was consistent with his movements in the first movie, if that makes any sense. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dragging C-3PO's head was like okay he's got like a cord all of a sudden

he's got like four arms that come out of his body like he's like holding a cell phone he's like holding those blue lines on his chest I know I know they're like little arms aren't just like they flip out they're like articulated with like multiple joints in them and then he's also got that data spike thing plus he's got the like the rockets

yeah and he can shoot he can fucking pp oil he pps oil and then he uses the rockets to burn people with the oil he's fucking he's inspector gadget and he's goofy but not only that and i watched him moving so fast too i watched the movie with my girlfriend last night she had some insights humble right because she hasn't yeah because she hasn't seen this movie. I don't think she'd ever seen this movie. Okay. She'd seen the other one.

Okay. And she was just really horrified, especially when he pees oil all over them and then sets them on fire. Yep, gross. The big battle droids. And she was like, he's not supposed to be violent. Like, R2's like a cute little guy. He's sort of an ornery little guy, but it's like a shockingly violent scene.

Imagine if those weren't robots. I would contend that these first two 20 minutes are entirely violent. No, they're crazy. Now, this movie is rated PG-13. The other two movies are rated PG. George is pushing it. George is literally like, check it out,

because someone is beheaded in the first 20 minutes. Even the droid violence seems weirdly more visceral and frightening than it did in other movies. Like I don't know if I'm just misremembering, but every time they like slash a droid, it's done this very angry way. Yeah, sure. And then the inner guts of the droid are like this bright seared orange that looks looks kind of like yeah and the droids talk a lot too they're like oh my god like whereas before it was just kind of like you're knocking down like like you know it's a house a car being knocked over by like a fly swatter yeah now it's something

like you're cutting things in half and these things seem to have feelings and their deaths are more grotesque right and it all feels like they almost look when they're split up a little more organic than they used to. Sure. Not like he's literally implying they're organic. It might just be because there's more technology so they can just make them look a little better

and that almost bites them in the ass. But there's a lot more red and orange that recalls the viscera of the human there's also the clones like that's not like this movie has added this other cgi person thing we'll get to them very important sidebar we should talk about because they are in the first 22 minutes in the opening fucking thing when like anakin and obi-wan are talking over their intercoms and like making fucking jokes or whatever they're like sir And they like cut to a clone trooper.

Yeah. But he's not a clone trooper. He's a clone, but he's like wearing just like a fighter pilot uniform. Yeah. He's not wearing the standard clone trooper armor. No. Armoire.

And he- It's Tamar Morrison. It's Tamar Morrison. And I was like, why does his face look weird? It looks almost like Tamar Morrison is CGI. Right. And I realized what it is, is he's wearing not like a stormtrooper

helmet but like a fighter pilot helmet that's like a helmet with a visor orange visor yeah the visor is fucking computer generated the helmet is fucking computer generated so it's like i don't know if you ever use um uh like facetime and there are filters you can do on facetime i haven't this is a thing you can like put bunny ears on someone's head or whatever. And so there's like a tracking thing in your computer that like looks and like when you move your head the bunny ears stay roughly on top of your head. That's pretty cool. But there's some lag time.

If you move around quickly the bunny ears are floating around. I didn't notice this although it obviously looked super CGI. Jumped out to me. I was like what what looks unnatural here? It's literally the only organic thing in the frame is his face. And even that doesn't look right. Because there's CGI and the visor over it and the helmet.

And it's like when his face is moving, they're trying to move the helmet around it. Hey, guess what, George? Put a fucking helmet on a head. It's also, let's talk about. Put a helmet. All right. Okay. Okay. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. On a head. But it's really creepy because there's this whole thing where they have to get to the Star Destroyer thing. And the clones basically block the laser fire and die. That's kind of their job. Anakin's like, let's go help them.

And Obi-Wan's like, they're doing their job, dying. The whole clone thing is, they don't get into it enough. It's really weird and creepy yep so really strange C-3PO's R2-D2's

going all go-go gadget yeah Anakin and Obi-Wan start like trying to make their way through the ship we meet this fucking guy Grievous mm-hmm Grievous is a robot

the worst he's a robot the worst character in all three movies worse than Jar Jar Binks worse than what's his pants? Oh, Newt Gunray. Worse than all of them, in my opinion. Well, this is a very important point. We meet General Grievous.

He's a robot with a cape. He's a robot with a cape. Now, my girlfriend said, and you wanted me to repeat this because I told you last time. I always say this for the podcast. Why is the robot wearing a cape? Is he cold? Yes. He's made of metal. Metal conducts temperatures. No, metal, think about how cold metal gets. But robots,

he's a robot. Why would he be cold? None of the other ones wear capes. Because he's made of metal. Metal gets cold. I don't understand. The logic is airtight here for me. Think about how cold metal is in the winter. He's coughing. He has essentially what feels like a smoker's cough. Yeah, because he's got a cold. That's't understand. The logic is airtight here for me. Think of how cold metal is in the winter. He has essentially what feels like a smoker's cough. Yeah, because he's got a cold. That's why he's wearing the cape.

He's sort of like, bring the Jedi to me. Like, it's the most bizarre character. David, no, see, this tracks for me. This is set in the winter. He's wearing a cape because he's cold and he has like a common house. I really hate it. I mean, he's got the flu. I don't know.

He's wheezing. He looks somewhat organic. I mean, there's like- You're my least favorite person. I really hate him. He's got the flu. I don't know. He's wheezing. He looks somewhat organic. You're my least favorite person. Oh, thank you. You're my best friend. Yeah, he has organic pieces. He has eyes that are kind of snake-like. And the flesh around his eyes looks like singe.

Maybe he was a man rebuilt. Right, it was burned onto him. Yeah, something like that. Like he's Robocop. And then not to spoil the rest of the movie because you don't want to talk about it, but he has some sort of internal organ. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, no, it like that. Like he's Robocop. And then not to spoil the rest of the movie because you don't want to talk about it, but he has some sort of internal organ. Oh, that's cool.

Yeah. No, it's not. I remember that now. General Grievous is there at his base and he's like... This feeds into the white noise thing of the movie that's going on. They introduce him and he's got seven different ticks at the same time yeah he's got a cape he's limping he's coughing he's got weird eyes he collects lightsabers in his jacket i already can't pay attention to this character because

too much is there's too much business there is entirely and not only that we've been told this is like a important character yeah who somehow kidnapped the Chancellor. He comes off immediately like a fool. Like a fool. Like he's decrepit. Yeah. He doesn't seem to be able to like walk around really well. This whole Chancellor kidnapping plan isn't working.

Absolutely not. He takes the Jedi's lightsabers and literally puts them in his pocket. Yeah. They immediately just call them back. Like you couldn't put them in, like, a locked box at least? He's like, ah, I'll add it to my collection. Opens jacket, has a pocket, puts them in the pocket.

The jacket doesn't close. There's no zipper. It's a cloak. It's not a jacket, it's a cloak. It's a cape. He's got a cape pocket. It's literally, what? Why do you, like, put them away. They have force powers. They can make anything go into their hands. He's a bad character. They can make anything go into their hands. He's a bad character.

He's the worst character. There's so much more to talk about with him. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Now, I think that he's in the cartoons, right? Yes. Like, that's where his backstory lies. He's really cool in the Johnny Tarkovsky cartoon.

I bet. I'm sure. He fucking makes a meal out of his design, and they make him an almost silent character, and so he's just a physical present. Wait, we forgot to him an almost silent character. And so he's a physical present. Wait, we forgot to mention his accent, because he has like a Dracula accent. He's like, bring the Jedi to me. It feels very inspired by Hotel Transylvania. It's a very Hotel Transylvania vibe.

Blah, blah, blah. Now, I read that Gary Oldman almost played this role. Yeah, and then I heard John Rhys-Davies almost played the role. And instead, a guy who worked at Industrial Light & Magic played this role. How did that happen? I have no idea. Was he just in the canteen and was going like, and Dracula, and George Lucas was like, hire this man.

I really think Georgie Porgiou wanted to get this movie over with. Yeah, it's possible. Because I believe Oldman couldn't do it because the movie has these weird union rules and you had to be like, you know. That was the rumor I heard, at least, that that was the reason he couldn't do it. I think it also just fits into his... I've been trained in lightsabers by Kotoku!

The same part of him that would rather CGI a helmet rather than put a helmet on a head, would rather just get a guy... Oldman's fussing? Fucking Jimmy over there can do it. Get a guy from down the hall. Oh, should we have one of our finest living actors? No, that guy over there mopping up.

Have him play Grievous. Can you do a voice? I'm trying to find this guy's name, the actor's name. Whatever. No, I'm interested. But this is a very important point, David. Matthew Wood. Yeah, right.

Go on. But it's also so important point, David. Matthew Wood. Yeah, right. Go on. But it's also so modulated. I mean, it's like whatever voice he's doing, it's also run through like 17 filters. No, I mean, it sounds awful. There's so much fucking going on. You can barely tell what he's talking about, not that it matters. There's so much camera movement, too. There's so much fake CGI camera movement that you barely can get your bearings within a single frame, David.

So much visual information. So much noise. He's a sound editor by the way. That's who Matthew Wood is. Well it sounds like he did two bad jobs on this movie. I just bought like a new fucking sound system for my TV and it sounded all burnt out. I was like is my

thing not working? Okay did you get one of those bars? Yeah I did. Yeah those things are good right? It's fucking great. My friend has one. He really likes it. Got a Yamaha sound bar from Costco. Can't recommend it or not. They're sponsoring us? Yeah, yeah. How much did you pay for that? Costco? Yeah. Uh, it will, okay, so here's the thing. It's usually, I think probably $2.50 in any other store. Yeah, yeah.

Costco's price was $2.19. Guys, get yourself over to Costco. Get yourself a Yamaha. Oh, David, I'm not done yet. Oh. Because Costco had an immediate in-store rebate. No need to mail it in. $189. Damn!

Yeah. Anyway, carry on. And they had Samsung as well for $189. They had multiple options. Costco's the best. They're sponsoring us. Please sponsor us. Grievous is like,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What's going on here? No, wait. We should actually pull back because in between the space battle and Grievous is the Dooku fight. I'm talking about the very first introduction of Dooku. Oh, okay.

Grievous. I'm actually going back further. This is before he captures them. Which is just when he sees that they're coming towards him. And he turns to like a Neimoidian and goes like, whatever the fucking dialogue is. I don't remember something.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the Neimoidian, and it's a new Neimoidian I don't think we've seen before. Yeah. Goes like, sir, the Jedi's are coming for us. Yeah, he has an American accent. I know.

I noticed that. This is huge. It is. It's interesting. They're like, maybe this guy should talk different. Yeah. He almost sounds like a Californian surfer. Yeah, no, you're right.

You're absolutely right. He's looking at some- Like, sir, the Jedi's are approaching. Yeah, and General Grievous is like, use use the blaster shields, you know, spaghetti. Yeah, make a pizza pie. He's like a diner chef. It's too bad Jax or Jaxer's not in this one, by the way. Not at all?

No, I know. Fuck this movie. Yeah, just turn it off. TC-14 comes back though, right? Griffin. Double fuck this movie. It does feel like in a severe instance of too little too late. Someone finally prevailed on George.

Or the Georgie Porgie was trying to go like, see, they don't all sound like that. It was just those specific characters. But Newt Gunray does come back and guess what? He sounds like that. Yep. Yeah, no, I know. Yeah, you're saying like, look, he just has an accent from his planet. Those guys, specifically,

they're all regionally that was not Chinese aliens. Maybe that one grew up in space China. Yeah, space China. This guy grew up in space Valencia. He sounds like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. For one minute. He's got like two lines, yeah. And he goes like, sir, I think the Jedi's are here.

So no, but I think that is after the Dooku fight. Because they have Palpatine with them. There's one line he has before the Dooku fight where they seem to approach. Okay. So let's talk about the Dooku fight. Because this is actually insane. They're getting through.

They get into a room. They just get into a room, by the way. I mean, okay, no. There's some business with like an elevator shaft. They go up, they go down. R2's like... It's like some Magna Guards. But once they get to the room,

the room is just fucking empty. Empty room. Palpatine's sitting in a chair with something bound to his hand. He's tied to the chair. But he seems weirdly calm. He does. Thank you so much for showing up. Whatever. They come up and they're talking to him.

I feel like he has a couple interesting lines. He's basically like, Watch out, he's a Sith Lord. And Obi-Wan's like, oh, okay. Before Dooku shows up, there was like an exchange that I'm forgetting that I thought was kind of interesting at the time. But whatever, we'll talk about it when we watch the movie fucking nine more times. Yeah. He's very calm. He goes, oh, no, look, a Sith Lord.

Turn around, Dooku's there. Dooku's there. He does this embarrassing CGI jump down. Okay. This is the third Yoda jump that has happened so far in this movie. I know, a Sith Lord. Turn around, Dooku's there. Dooku's there. He does this embarrassing CGI jump down. Okay. This is the third Yoda jump that has happened so far in this movie. I know, it's crazy. We talked about how the Yoda jumping around thing was like the moment where Attack of the Clones just totally breaks in half.

It's Uncanny Valley, like we said with JD. Morgan Evans, former guest, referred to him as being like Flubber. He said, Yoda just turns into Flubber. He's just Flubber. Gorg Morgan there. Thank you. There are three Flubber jumps in yoda just turns into flubber he's just flubber they're like gorg morgan there thank you there are three flubber jumps in the first 22 minutes i mean like with the elevator obi-wan does a flubber jump yeah no he does obi-wan does a total flubber jump where he suddenly just becomes a cartoon ragdoll yeah then r2 doesn't flubber jump yes no question doesn't know yeah

and chris lee and chris lee and we talked about how like oh clearly there's some doubles in this because he's an old man. Yeah, he's old. But it's done pretty seamlessly in clones. It's better. They figured it out. They choreographed it smarter, I think. So they had to do that less.

And they're doing wide shots. They're doing wide shots. And obviously he's bouncing off of an unreal thing anyway. So the unreal thing can bounce. And also his fighting style was very classical. Yoda's jumping around, but he's standing there and sort of just fencing. Right, exactly. He's got his arms outstretched.

He's very weak. This one, he's showing off for a minute when he does this somersault. You know he's faked the entire time. Because his head is barely connected to his body. I know. He does a somersault just to show up. He could have walked down the fucking stairs or just jumped straight down. Instead, he does a fucking flip.

And then he's doing crazy motions. He knocks out Obi-Wan. No, I'm sorry. Before he knocks out Obi-Wan, I really want to highlight Obi-Wan's line of, don't worry, Sith Lords are speciality. What Sith Lords? All right, Obi-Wan killed one Sith Lord. One time.

One time. And too late. And then Dooku chopped off one of them's arm and put a know, put a fucking, you know, boiler on the other one. So that was a draw at best. Right. So they thought. So I don't know about Sith Lords or our speciality. They thought that the Sith Lords were dead. Right.

At the beginning of Phantom Manus, they think Sith Lords no longer exist. Absolutely. They kill one Sith Lord after he kills Obi-Wan's best friend and mentor. Very true. He did kill someone. Forgot about that. Kills him but like too late. Right? Yeah. Doesn't

kill Dooku. Nope. Let him get away. They still don't know who the actual Sith Lord is. I'm sorry. That's not your speciality. Nope. Your speciality is killing. I mean maybe that George is trying to be ironic that he's saying it to the real Sith Lord. I don't think so. No probably not. I think his speciality is battle droids, which

big whoop, anyone could kill a fucking battle droid. He could kill a lot of them. I could fart on a battle droid and it'd break in half. Anyway, as you say, they kind of chat with Dooku for a second, where Dooku's like, hand over those sabers, gentlemen, we don't want to make a mess, and they're like, ah, fuck you, we're gonna fight you. And then he just drops

like a staircase on Obi-Wan. Yeah. They're fighting like crazy. In like the shittiest cgi as well yeah obi-wan's like pinned it looks it looks terrible oh there's one line where he goes like this time let's fight two against one let's fight the same yeah yeah he said something like that it's like yeah right oh right smart yeah maybe you shouldn't he's mature yeah i know that's basic fucking logic if you're two good guys there's one bad guy don't go like you go first by the, Dooku had lightning powers last time. Those are mysteriously disappeared this time. Not sure why. He could have saved his own life

had he... Almost throws this fight, it feels like. Yeah, it feels like. It really is pretty bad. It feels like Hari Kari. Because, yeah, he and Anakin fight for a bit. He has this thing where Anakin's like, my powers have doubled since I last... And he's like, twice the pride, double the fall. How much later does this movie take place?

Several years. I think so. Actually, I could try to find out. They're watching the fight. Palpatine is fucking loving it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's just like, get him! Good Anakin, good! He's just going like, oh, interesting.

Like, he's fucking having a ball, right? He's playing both teams and he's just enjoying the fight. Then what happens? It's been three years. Just to let you know. So it's a three-year war. Anakin. Anakin chops off in a kind of a weird fluid move, chops off Dooku's hands.

Both of them. Yeah. Gross. Really violent. It's pretty nuts. It's pretty jarring. Dooku falls to his knees. Yeah. Anakin catches his blade like with ease and just like gives him the old

sort of, you know, puts them to his neck. He's got like chopsticks going. He's got like a blade in each hand pointing the opposite direction so he's got a blade against each side of his neck. Yeah, of course. And Dooku's just looks like a sad grandpa all of a sudden. He's just so upset. He's so defeated. And Palpatine's like,

finish him. No, he literally says, kill him. Kill him. Just like a command. It's not like he's requesting it. No, he goes like,

good, Anakin, good. Kill it. Kill it. And Anakin's like, oh, duh, I don't know if I should do it. That's not the Jedi way.

That's the Jedi way, God, yeah. Anakin's getting really gay. Yeah, yeah. Just kidding. You're really gay. And Palpatine literally, you would hope maybe that there would be, Palpatine would really sort of try and sell this and be like,

oh, you got to kill him, he'll come. You know, like, he just said, do it. Isn't there a moment too where he goes like, remember what we talked about? No. He just says, do it. It might happen after he kills Dooku. But there's a line in here that implies that they have been meeting and talking a lot. They were supposed to know that, yeah, that Anakin's gotten very close with the Emperor.

I mean, the Chancellor. Right, and it's like, well, show us that. No, no, no, they won't. And, um... That should have been happening too. No, no, no, thank you. And... That's an interesting dynamic. Maybe that should have been on screen. The developing of their relationship. How they go from 0 to 60.

The end of Phantom Master, he's like, I'm gonna keep an eye on you, boy. Attack of the Clones. Attack of the Clones, he does almost nothing. Pats him on the shoulder. Barely corresponds with Anakin. We shall watch your career with great interest.

Right, right, exactly, right. And then in this one, he just, something, everything good happened off screen. Anyway, Anakin chops off his head. And he's immediately, like,

he's so even-keeled about it, right? Anakin? Yeah. He's like, I don't know if I should. Palpatine's like, you shouldn't. He's like, okay, I will. Decapitates.

Head rolls. Gross. What the fuck is this movie? Okay? And then Anakin goes like, I shouldn't have done that. That was a bad idea. Yeah, he goes, that was a bad idea. Which, by the way, no it wasn't.

Yeah. Like, kill the Sith Lords. They're magical wizards of dark evil. Like, I don't actually really get why it's supposed to be like, no, they should probably die. They are impossible to imprison. But he was like so wracked with guilt. They shoot lightning out of their hands for crying out loud.

He was so wracked with guilt about the slaughtering, the genocide of the Tusken Rangers. Which was pretty horrifying. Let's not. Yeah. No, agreed. Right? But he was very emotionally affected by that. Yeah, this one he's just like, ugh.

You know what? That was a mistake. You know what that was bad bad on me anyway he frees palpatine and palpatine's like no no it was good it was good yeah i don't know now this movie really is about how every character's internal logic radar is broken yeah because palpatine is basically just like a serpent at this he's like yes like, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then he's like, Palpatine's like, we gotta go, forget Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan is-

Palpatine's got a big foam finger that says Sith on it. Obi-Wan is literally lying peacefully with like a staircase kind of touching his ankle. He looks beautiful. And Palpatine is like,

he's a beautiful slumber. He's like sleeping beauty. He's dead. And Anakin's like, don't worry about it. Just like. He says. His fate will be our own. Yeah, right.

So they take Obi-Wan. But why isn't Anakin like, hold up. Like, excuse me. Like, I just like stormed this like whole starship. I can pick up the stupid staircase for one second. Why are you pushing this? Yeah. Because Palpatine doesn't drop it.

He's like, no, there's no time. And Grievous gets away. Well, yeah, there's a whole scene where Grievous like steals their lightsabers and R2 and then R2 does this like decoy trick where he like turns on all his devices at once.

And then they use that distraction. He has the magnifying glass coming out of the top of his hat. They use that distraction to grab their lightsabers from Grievous' cape pocket. Yeah. And then there's a lot of business with the starship

starts going down and then they level it off and then they crash it. And they're trying to fucking bring it back to the forest. It sucks. And it's so hard to fucking watch. And yeah, Grievous escapes, I guess. I don't know. He gets in a ship or something. So remember how we thought that the choice to let Grievous,

sorry, Dooku get away at the end of Clones was unfulfilling? Narratively? On a dramatic level? Talk about unfulfilling. And then we were like, it must be because they're setting him up as the big bad. And then he's like the intermediary boss. Yeah, not even.

He's the first boss. Grievous is the intermediary boss. Yeah, not even. He's the first boss. Grievous is the intermediary boss. That's how shitty Dooku is in this movie. The coughing robot with a cloak and snake eyes is the intermediary boss. Grievous is, Dooku is on screen for three minutes. Yeah. And for two minutes and 54 seconds of those three minutes, it is a, It's a CGI a Christopher Lee head

on a cartoon rag doll. It's a Flubber. He's a Flubber. Christopher Flubber Lee. Right. This is what I would equate the first 22 minutes of this movie to. I would say it is like watching someone else play a video game. That is a really

good point. Because... Except a bad video game. My roommate will watch me play The Witcher 3 like wrapped with attention. Yeah, but that's a video game. That is a really good point. Because... Except a bad video game. My roommate will watch me play The Witcher 3 wrapped with attention. Yeah, but that's a video game with a strong narrative arc. Exactly. I'm saying, if you're watching someone play a war game or a space battle game, you're like, that would be fun if I was doing

that. Maybe. If I had stake in this because I was controlling it and was trying to get through and it feels very mission based, like, shoot this, get this, knock out those droids. Yeah, all that shit, right? Activate oil slick. Right, they are, like, giving you video game commands like they're an NPC. Yeah, yeah, hit C left.

Yeah. The only time I could get engaged with this movie was I went, this would be fun to play. I guess so, yeah. Because to start in media res with this, with so much fucking sound. And fury. And fury, right? I guess so because to start in media res with this with so much fucking sound and fury and fury right just this white noise

this cacophony of just fucking nonsense happening we don't care about these characters we already haven't cared about them for two films

you're dropping us in and not even giving us time to re-assimilate you know like get our bearing and so it's just like the only way I would have stake in this

is if I was actually trying to make this shit happen if I was trying to pilot the ship and instead you're just watching it and going like the only way I would have stake in this is if I was actually trying to make this shit happen. If I was trying to pilot the ship. And instead you're just watching it and going like, can I get a turn or can we watch something together? Because it's not fun for me to watch. The other problem which we've talked about before, which recurs through all the films, is that the Jedis, it's like watching one of those YouTube speedrunners who knows everything already and is really committed and boring and focused. And arrogant. This might be hard for some of you, but for me... They walk into what seems like a crazy situation and like,

yeah, don't worry about it, slice, slice, slice, anyway, move to the next room. There's no fun. They're having no fun. The Jedi's are douchebags in this movie. They're so cocky. There's no struggle. We have so much to talk about with the Jedi. It's someone doing a speedrun of a video game. It's watching someone do a speedrun of a video game that's not. You're right. It's watching someone do a speed run of a video game

that's not great. And at the same time they do that and it's not great. But then Senator Palpatine is basically Chancellor is like I'm evil.

Oh hi Chancellor. Nice to see you. Anyway let's keep going. They're so stupid. And let it be said McDermott's killing it. Great. We're going to have a lot

to talk about with him. We have a whole episode on him killing it. Great. We're going to have a lot to talk about with him. We have to do a whole episode on him. No. No! He's so good. I love Sith. But, I mean, you wish the movie would rise to that level of fun, you know, to that level of theatricality.

But it doesn't. Yep. Well, this has been episode one of Revenge of the Podcast. Yeah, I guess we're done. Is there anything we missed? I don't think so. I think so. I mean, we'll rewatch it. I'm sure we already forgot a ton of things.

But, you know, we don't see Padme. We don't see some of our old faves, like, you know, in this first opening sequence. Oh, no. There's no Padme. There's no, like, 3PO. No Dexter Dresden. There's no Mace Windu. No Mace Windu. Yoda. There's no Ellen Sl, there's no 3PO. No Dexter Dresden, no TC-14. There's no Mace Windu.

No Mace Windu. Yoda. There's no Ellen Sleazebag. I know. No, no. I mean, he comes back, right? We'll see. Why fucking set up that thread about him trying to go on the straight and narrow if we're not going to see him turn out well?

I want the end of a boyhood. Yeah, where the migrant worker went went to school and became like a- Your mother's a great woman. I actually really like that scene even though people hate that scene in boyhood. Because that scene is so out of the blue weird. Like, you know, because they're just in a restaurant and he's like, Hi, remember me from like an hour ago? You told me to go to school like while you were walking away like over your shoulder?

Well, I went to school and I really appreciate that advice that you gave me and you're like oh yeah nice job white lady you told like you know the migrant worker to go to school but I like I think David Ehrlich made this point to me but I seized it and remembered it is like boyhood's about like watching someone slowly develop and

not really realizing it because you're with them all the time but this is like it's a drastic development off screen. Yeah, I like that too. And it's like, yeah, time has passed. People's circumstances change wildly.

Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah, I wish it wasn't played out racially. It's a little... It is. Yeah, but I like the idea of it. Yes, I do.

Boyhood's a good movie. Yeah, what was I... Why was I acquitting it to Boyhood? You're talking about Ellen Sleazebag, I know. Oh yeah. We want him to come back

and go like I don't know if you remember me but I met you at a bar. Episode 4 is probably about that. I'm just assuming now we're so stupid that there's an episode 4. Well Disney did buy the company

so I'm assuming they did that in order to make an episode 4. Maybe that's what it is. That's probably what we could probably look forward to an episode 4 from Disney sometime in the next 5 or 10 years.

I mean it takes a long time for movies to get off the ground. Yeah. Well, we'll be talking about this movie for a bunch of weeks. And then after that, I don't know. We'll go on to other movies because we'll have to wait for episode four to come out. We got some great guests coming up this season. People hate the bit.

We got some great guests. Yeah, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Ben's looking at me with just scorn. You're being a real sleazebag right now. Yeah. We got some great guests coming up. David doesn't even

know about them. They're going to be fucking exciting surprises. They got tons of Twitter followers. Let's turn this off and you can tell me who they are.

They'll push to the top of the charts. All right. Tons of Twitter followers. Let me take some guesses. Taylor Swift. Yep. That would be amazing.

What if Taylor Swift came on this podcast? You know what I've been thinking a lot lately? Shoot. I think Taylor Swift would like me. Yeah, probably. I think she would would like me. Yeah, probably.

I think she would think I was fun. I'm not saying she would like like me. Yeah, no, go ahead. Although a boy can dream. But I do think we'd hit it off. And we'd shake it off. If you know what I'm saying, David, I think Taylor Swift and I would shake it off. Ben, turn off his microphone. I know, yeah. Please rate,

review, subscribe. Yes, listen to other UCB Network podcasts. So you're going through a breakup? Yeah. Shake it off Turn off his microphone I know yeah Please Rate Review Yes Subscribe Listen to other UCB network Podcasts So you're going through a breakup Yeah Ménage à trois with Murph and Diana You tell it

You're telling me to tell it Or that's the name of the other podcast No that's the name of the show Okay You tell it Long form conversations Long form That's what I was thinking

Please yeah Do Listen to all of those. Subscribe, rate, review. Don't be a fucking Sith. Five stars or nothing. That's great. And once again, remember, if you give us one star, you are not allowed to listen

anymore. Or be a guest. Think through on that, Taylor. Dear, oh dear. That is all I have to say on the matter. I look forward to watching the rest of this film. Unlike with Attack of the Clones where I loved

the beginning of the movie and then knew already that it didn't pay out, I'm going into this with the opposite opinion. I know you hate this movie. I do. When I look at the first 22 minutes, I'm going, who knows what happens in the back? We just dissed it for so long. Yeah, but When I look at the first 22 minutes, I'm going, who knows what happens in the back. We just dissed it for so long. Yeah, but I've only seen

the first 22 minutes. I don't know. This movie is the worst of the Star Wars movies. Impossible. It's not impossible. In fact, it's very likely. Impossible. Yep. Although I haven't liked one thing that's happened on screen so far other than E. McDurand's performance. Thank you for listening. We'll be back next week with Taylor Swift.

Will we? Yeah. We'll be discussing sound mixing. We'll be back next week with Taylor Swift. Will we? Yeah, we'll be discussing sound mixing. We'll be discussing... Taylor Swift is like a J.D. Amato level savant when it comes to the technical aspects of sound.

She's been in the music industry since she was 16 years old. You think I'm fucking joking. I'm not. Taylor Swift will be our guest next week talking about sound mixing. She'll teach me a thing or two.

Yeah. She knows we're at the UCB Training Center. Why do you think I'm bringing her in? I'm glad you're taking the hint. I've been realizing some old episodes, Ben. You haven't done some of the edits

that we asked you to. That's true. All those times I told you to edit out. Mention of your father's financial problems. Yeah, I think fucking you added some in. It feels like some episodes you dropped audio from other episodes. Ben does a great Griffin. Taylor Swift will be coming here next week to talk about Matthew Wood's

sound mix on the film. His sound editing on the film. We'll give Ben some helpful pointers and we'll try to hit it off. Look, just as friends. I'm just looking for friends. If you want something more, I don't know. That's fine. I just think we'd really get along. I think we have a lot in common. Great. Thank you for listening and as always shake out