Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Last Jedi

Episode Date: December 18, 2017

On the day of it’s release in December of 2017, Griffin and David discussed Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi. This episode is sponsored by Dollar Shave Club and Sci-Fi.com’s Cerberus Rex.

I only know one truth. It's time for the podcast to end. Good, yes. But see, the joke is that this is the beginning. Of the podcast. Of the episode. And the podcast isn't going to end. It's not.

It's 2018. It's an end of a year. It's coming. Yes. This is the end. It's time for the podcast's year to end. After this episode is completed. It's beginning now.

A one-week Christmas break. Hello. Merry Fennelmas. Happy Fennelka to all of you. I've been dropping fennel from a lot of previous episodes, so I wanted to make it up here with some holiday greetings. We've been phoning in Ben's introduction. Let's put it on the table.

There's only so much time in the day. Yeah, it takes a lot yeah it takes a lot out of me we've been dming it in we've been aiming it in yeah the thing people don't know is that when i start the introduction we have um a a registered nurse come in and hook me up to an iv drip because i've started there are a couple episodes where i pass out in the middle of doing ben's introduction uh yeah and then we have to hold for like an hour or two to resuscitate me before we can finish talking about hollow man spoiler alert we talk about hollow man in our hollow man episode also in the basic instinct episode in most episodes i don't know whatever who cares hi this is blank check with griffin Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David.

Griffin Newman. Sims. My name is Griffin Newman and I rock the mic. Baby Sims. Baby Sims. Also rock the mic. Yeah. This is a podcast about filmographies.

Directors who have mastered success throughout their career and given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. Okay. But before that,

before we blossomed like a butterfly out of a cocoon, our earlier larval state... Very larval. Yes. Highly larval. Was that of a No Bits Pro Smiths podcast, a podcast about the Phantom Menace trilogy. Mm-hmm.

But it became a trilogy and we were... I up wikipedia wikipedia we we talked the wars yeah we used to be a star wars podcast for like a whole year we talked about the prequels for forever and then we tossed off some episodes about the original movies that are very uh contentious and uh was going to say friendly and fun and light. And remember when we recorded all of those in like three days? I know. Well, you know what the other thing about that is? And just like look at how time passes, okay? When we recorded those episodes, I was retired, right?

I had retired from entertainment. My career was over. Is that how like, what was that thing you were talking about? Voluntary, involuntary celibacy? Oh, incel? Yeah. I was in red. You were like one of those virgins who was, yeah. In red.

Okay, go ahead. Involuntary retirement. Okay, go on, go on. You know, I was going through a rough period where I was blacklisted from the industry due to not being talented enough. Due to disinterest. Complete

lack of interest in you. Yeah, but then somehow I got people to hire me. It's called the blank check bump, my friend. Thank you. That's what it's called. And in the opposite direction. When we were recording our episodes about the sequel trilogy, which of course is A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, the sequels, right?

Yeah. We were very stressed out because we had not seen The Force Awakens yet. It was right before The Force Awakens came out. But a lot of your friends, your colleagues in the world of film criticism had seen it. Right. And you had this irritation about the fact that it looks so close and yet so far. I didn't get into the press screening for Force Awakens two years ago. And you've slid like

Giffield into the last two Star Wars movies early. So we saw fucking Force Awakens together for the first time. It was fresh for both of us this. But Rogue One and now The Last Jedi you're sitting there with me and with Ben, producer Ben, the

Ben Ducer the poet laureate the Haas Mr. Haasative Mr. Positive the tiebreaker finest film critic the poet laureate birthday Benny

the peeper the farthead the meat lover we had really good seats reserve seating soaking wet Benny white hot Benny I bought those tickets

that's what I was saying thank you graduate to certain tolls over the course of different researches producer Ben Kenobi Ben H. Amelon, Ben Say Ben-y-thing, dot, dot, dot, Ailey Benz with the dollar sign, Warhawks, Purdue Urbane, and Ben 19, the Fennelmaker. And I reordered a little bit today because most relevantly, Kylo Ben.

True. Yeah. Ben Solo. But really Kylo Ben. Really Kylo Ben. Really Kylo Ben. Really Ky Kylo Ben I was there too but you had seen it for a second time you were fucking old pro

you knew your way around the movie and the first time I saw it which was three days earlier at the press screening which is not that much but it feels like a lifetime especially because I'm logging on and you and Esther Zuckerman and fucking Rylaws

you're throwing out inside jokes about porgs porg jokes inside porgs and I it is for one the press screening audience was amped and really really

appreciative and loud and like laughing and clapping and like really into it where's that our audience was a little bottled they like cheered at like the movie's like two or three largest moments but apart from that we're pretty much like quiet right uh correct um but we also didn't have an uprising at our theater unlike some theaters oh wait what happened in some theaters do you not know about this thing an uprising okay so theater, unlike some theaters. Oh, wait, what happened at some theaters? Do you not know about this thing? An uprising. Okay, so these theaters, these multiplexes, every screen pretty much is devoted to Last Jedi

so that they have a screening going on every 20 minutes, right? Yes. Because we ended up sitting next to a friend, Patrick Hotner. We did. Patrick walks the walk, Hotner. By total chance, he had the reserved seat next to us. He preserved in row H at Theater 6 of the 34th Street assure you, I would not have let that happen on purpose. No, I was horrified.

No, it was nice to see Patrick. But I ran into friends in the lobby, in the escalator. And I was like, are we in the same theater? My friend Stephen Kelly I saw in the escalator. And it was like, are you at the 1030? And he was like, no, I'm at the 1020. I'm at the 1029. Right.

They're like this regular. So they're kept on a really tight clock because they're trying to squeeze as many showtimes as they can on every screen, running nonstop. With a long move. Not only that, we weren't allowed into the theater like 15 minutes before it started. I think they were really having the

tight times between be really tight. They're bumper to bumper. So some AMC with like 16 screens, I don't know what city it's in okay sure they uh one of the screenings one of the like you know 10 45 screenings where people have like bought their tickets fucking three months in advance i am to see star wars trailers around everything's normal movie starts no sound yeah great zero what you want so it's just like yes i was doing the star wars david's doing the crawl

and the and the floating star wars title silently uh god that would be so upsetting right because you really need that you know so immediately everyone knows something's wrong right but but like the sound isn't even i would be bummed out if i didn't get that initial blast but then the sound was turned on a millisecond after uh-huh that'd be bummed out if I didn't get that initial blast, but then the sound was turned on a millisecond after. Uh-huh. That would be bummed out, too. But they're going through the crawl, and there's still no sound. So within one minute, people are eating each other, I'm assuming, right?

Right. They start going out to the lobby and complaining, and they're like, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do. And they're saying, like, restart it. Yeah, of course. Restart the movie. Of course. We need to get off on a good foot.

Yeah. Restart it. And they're struggling to figure out what it is, restart it yeah of course restart the movie like we need to get off on a good foot yeah restart it and they're struggling to figure out what it is and it takes like 15 minutes where the film is playing now into dialogue scenes with no sound jesus and like some people are still in there watching this but a lot of the crowd has come out and they're like mutiny and also the first section of this movie is all sound correct it's not there's not like dialogue is not what's you know matters here although you get some a plus police and whimpering oh we're gonna we're gonna get to all of it but so they're they're out now chanting and you have people with

fucking swords right with like laser swords they can cut through anything yeah and they're like chanting restarted restarted restart. These poor AMC employees. And then this one fucking AMC employee comes out and he goes like, okay, we've identified the problem. Sure. The sound is back on in the theater because most of the theater has now left that screen. Right. No one's like still in there. So we've identified the problem.

The sound is back on. Unfortunately, we will not be able to restart the film. So my jaw just dropped. We can refund your tickets and you can pick a later showing. back on unfortunately we will not be able to restart the film so my jaw just dropped we can refund your tickets and you can pick a later showing it's like but the fucking all of them are sold out sold out oh my god and and their videos online but it led to police being called in i'm not it didn't turn violent but the amc employee i think was so terrified for his well i would be terrified i feel bad for the amc employees to be clear because i also feel bad

for the really ask for this i feel bad for the AMC employees, to be clear, because they didn't really ask for this. I feel bad for the cops who showed up and then just saw a bunch of kids in X-Wing suits going like, yeah, they're just chanting restart it. This isn't a police matter. Did you see my favorite tweet about Star Wars? Which one? About the town.

No. There have been so many great, everyone's been out there on their A-game being funny. Yeah. Shout out to Ben Meckler who has my favorite tweet thread. Oh, that one's good. I won't spoil it for you. About the Vidalia onions.

Okay, Google Ben Meckler Vidalia onions. This is from Dan Klein. So fucking annoyed. Crowd at my last Jedi screening wouldn't stop chanting, The town, the town, over and over again until the theater buckled and played ben affleck's the town instead that's a joke about the restarted thing though that's why i'm bringing it up yes the town yeah but you watch the video of all of them like swarming like the

lobby surrounding this like 18 year old amc general manager and it feels like an episode of the twilight zone like it feels like all right shirley jackson's the lottery all right but we started the 34th street amc which is pretty mediocre theater it's a real middle of the road multiplex yeah and the seats are really bad yeah bad seats awful i mean like our seats were like our view was fine but like the seats are just cruddy which is also fascinating because it because it's a relatively recent theater on the grand scheme of things. It was opened in like 2003, 2004. I think AMC is just revamping theater by theater. You know how the

Times Square one's nicer now? Right. And I think this one just hasn't happened yet. Also maybe because it's the newest of the AMCs that it's now the last in line to be renovated. But God, it certainly isn't looking great these days. No.

It's also this annoying theater where the bathrooms are on a different floor. Well, that's the worst thing about it. Although those bathrooms are appreciably massive. They're great. But yes. Yes. IMAX bathrooms. But we saw it there.

Yeah. And we watched the movie. So that's the end of the episode. Thank you so much for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Oh, no, no. I wanted to just say what I thought of the movie. So that's the end of the episode. Thank you so much for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Oh, no, no. I wanted to just say what I thought of the movie. Oh, okay.

Good. Yeah, I liked it. Good. Okay, so now we're done? No, I liked it too. Oh, yeah. Okay, all right. Cool.

All right. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, No, it's the song. Everyone knows the song. Can I propose something? Can I propose something? So we did our ending song, but can we just do a postscript where we go in a little more depth? Well, this is like at the end

when sometimes Ben will slip in the outtakes. All right, so this is the postscript about the movie. Just a little more depth. You know, a lot of people are like, great, they liked it. Swipe, delete. But you know, if you just want a little more depth,

this is the postscript, right? Sure right sure ben not interested in my bits no it's fine it's fine let's get into it this is like the eighth time ben's recorded with us in the last 20 minutes yeah right now we've recorded the entire verhoeven miniseries plus bonus episodes correct uh and like palette cleansers and stuff like that we've already started our next mini series if we haven't announced yet. Yep. We're like fucking zooming. We're at hyper speed, baby.

A few parsecs ahead of everyone else. Correct. Well, you know, we are connoisseurs of context. And so it's important to note, we saw this Thursday night. David, you've seen it twice. I had seen it before. We've seen it once.

I did not have, the first time I saw it, I was really on edge. Yeah. Really, this movie really like i was i don't know if you were you you seemed very into it i was sitting next to you you were doing a lot of like thumbs upping and a lot of very anxious person you know i'm i have you definitely were doing a lot like moving around and like yeah yeah at one point i noticed you laughing at me doing a

jag of scratching different parts of my body for 45 continuous seconds it was pretty fun i literally did like yeah but i mean i was like that i had esther next to me who i uh would grab a lot i feel uh where esther and i i feel are close enough maybe esther is a great i can grab her shoulders in emotionally taxing moments of the last jedi i don't like talking during movies unless i have a really good joke. Oh yeah, like that one time you leaned over and you said it's Luke Skywalker. Oh yeah,

that was a really good one. Where you pointed at Luke Skywalker and said that's Luke Skywalker. Okay, I thought you were going to spoil

my other joke. No, no, your other joke you can do. Yeah, thank you. That's fine. I slapped you

a couple times and I pointed at the screen and then I said it's Luke Skywalker. Right, right, right. But the first time I was really freaked out

the second time it was a little more like... My point is, my communication method when I'm watching movies and I don't want to get into long conversations is to thumbs up

at the screen to show approval to the movie. Right, yes, yes. I like what you're doing right now. Yes, yes, yes. I do a lot of thumbs upping.

I just feel, especially with these movies, the first time I see it, I'm so nervous about literally just capital W. What is going to happen? You know what I mean? I felt that during Force Awakens,

but I was more sure knowing that you liked the movie, that our friends liked the movie. It's not like halfway through, someone's just going to like poop and they're going to be like, the poop is the Jedi or something. I don't know. I was trying to think of like a terrible thing.

Right. Yes. I mean, that would be kind of actually rad if that happened in the middle of the film. But, you know, the critical response has been so positive and even like David Ehrlich, who does not like the Star Wars films, thinks they do not rise to the level of

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. A take that no one has ever had any problem with on our podcast. It's not something that message boards are still complaining about months later. We love you, David. We're going to have you back soon. Yeah, Ehrlich's going to be on very soon. Because he's listening.

And I'm sure all of you are going to love that episode. But he loved it, so I was like, oh man, this seems to be like a Star Wars movie that everyone's going to get behind. And in the last 24 hours since it's come out a lot of a lot of conflicting opinions this movie is divisive although i have been struggling to parse the difference between what seems almost like organized yeah from a very vocal you know sort of part of the star wars online fandom it's like this sort of like almost like campaign-esque like that was bad that was bad let's push that out right away reminiscent of a lot

of these fandoms you know these days well that's what our culture these days is all about like very very loud vocal minorities yeah

waging wars on things with these complaints of things like it's too funny it's too wacky but also which we'll get into yeah

and this is going to be a spoiler spoiler heavy episode obviously so and also right now we're at the end of the episode like we're already in like the post roll like bonus content of the episode that has ended so who cares exactly uh who cares no one's listening right now i really think that i really really genuinely think no one's listening to this episode. Zero people. No one's interested. No. That there's, I think a lot of people had a lot of ideas of where this story was going to go. Uh-huh. And they were surprised at Ryan, to write and direct a Ryan Johnson's perhaps like sort

of, you know, story choices. His interest may be in a couple of characters especially. Bold story choices. One character in particular. Yes. And I, you know, I don't think it's a perfect movie. Oh, interesting. I do.

I don't know if I think it's a great movie yet. Oh, well, I totally think it's a great movie. I know you do. Yeah. I like it a lot. Oh, my God.

Ben, listen to this shit. I'm still stewing over it. I definitely need to see it more times to process more fully. I'm going to make you into stew. No, I like it. I like it a lot.

I think it's a good movie. Uh-huh. I'll say this unequ. To process more fully. I'm going to make you into stew. No, I like it. I like it a lot. I think it's a good movie. I'll say this unequivocally. It leaves me really excited about the future of Star Wars. That's fine. That's cool. Do you know what I'm saying? Yes, of course. I maybe had a more visceral sort of charged experience watching Force Awakens, but Force

Awakens is like a movie that's all about trying to just be like, you love Star Wars! Yeah, but also like, meet these people. That's what Force Awakens is all about. But in all my conversations about Force Awakens since then, my thing's always been like, okay, but where do they go from here, you know? And this makes me feel like Star Wars is evolving into something...

With a future. With a future! And something new and adapting for the times and not just being a revival tour. I'm really worried about something. What? I had much more hope for the future of this franchise when Colin Trevorrow was at the helm established of episode nine. You got two good entries.

How do you close out a trilogy? You need a visionary. You call the captain. You need uncompromising. Captain Colin. I got him. Griffin like fell down you call the captain you go

make it happen captain you say make it happen captain and then Colin Trevorrow it turned out he was too good a director to make Star Wars Episode IX and that is the problem and let's make it clear here

he approached him and just said Colin with tears in her eyes, like, I can't make you do this. You're too good. This is exclusive. We're going to bust this open right here. Scoop Troop.

I feel mean. Get out your ice cream scoops because here's the story. She saw the Book of Henry and she just was like, no. Yeah. She said, I don't want to make a movie

that's a masterpiece. No, I'm not interested. I'm not. I'm here to make product. I'm here to push product, Colin. There's the door. Yeah, so that's what happened and that's why Colin's off. So we have J.J. Abrams for episode 9 and I'll be fine, but it's

just... Whatever. It does leave me excited. Okay, so let's talk about... Do you want me to give you the crawl? I want to ask you about two things before that. Okay. You used a term today in your run of tweets responding to the weird backlash. What I believe you called middle of center film Twitter?

Left of center film Twitter? Right of center film Twitter, sorry. Can you explain to me what this is? Okay, so I saw a tweet from Ross Duthat. I forget, you know, the guy, he's a New York Times op-ed columnist and he likes to write he's you know he's a

political op-ed columnist who's very whatever and you say you're saying that's his voice he talks like no he's an Atlantic

alumnus I should say but you know but he he writes about pop culture too right like he likes to have takes and he's a

conservative a little competition is what you're saying yeah I'm really aware no he's a conservative columnist little competition is what you're saying. Yeah, I'm really aware. No, he's a conservative columnist. Okay. Oh, I'm listening. Yeah.

But young-ish. Ooh. Ish. I mean, anyway, and he tweeted. Young conservative, like 61, 62. So I'm waking up and I'm just looking at my Twitter. Yeah. And I see someone quoting him saying, and here's his tweet,

impressively strong anti last jedi consensus among right of center film twitter and now he says i haven't seen it so i'm gonna have to weigh in which look i love think pieces from people who haven't seen movies one of my absolute favorite but he's highlighting people again on this sort of and i guess it's sort of like this kind of like they're not even all film critics but like right wing uh or you know sort of soft right to middle right wing oh pundits and people like kyle smith of national review and sunny bunch of the free beacon so right to center literally weighing in on culture politically right leaning people who are adjacent to film Twitter. Right.

And so, I sort of click around and look at all these guys' pieces that they all wrote and then I think about the movie and I posted what I thought was something that was definitely

not snarky at all where I was like, I wonder why right-of-center film Twitter didn't like it. Scratching my chin. Yeah. Well,

these are the same people who felt that Rogue One was an attack on the Trump administration because it features space Nazis. Which, let me say it again. God, remember that. I've said it before, I'll say it again. If you're watching a movie and you feel that the space Nazis, who are depicted the exact same way that those space Nazis have been depicted for 40 years of a film franchise,

maybe they're not making fun of you. Maybe you've become a space Nazi. It's that thing in Justified where it's like, you know, you wake up in the morning and you meet an asshole. He might be the asshole. You meet assholes all day. You might be the asshole. Maybe you're a space Nazi now. All right. Anyway, so that's what I was referring to. What was the other thing you wanted to say? Um, well, so, so speaking of this there is uh a star wars merchandise website that i frequent um that i uh have strong moral objections to ben and i just looked at each other with what i can only describe as dread you did and resigned dread get ready for the merchandise

spotlight coming because it is i'm'm going to do a fucking tutorial. That's great. I can't wait to kill you. I'm not just going to describe something. I'm going to do a presentation. I can't wait to commit the sin of murder. Yeah. But this website sucks.

They have really good photography. Do you want to say the name of it or are we not drawing attention to it? I'm wondering whether or not to include it. Jedi Temple Archives. So, I mean, he's purporting that he's sort of like the fucking Jocasta New of the Star Wars merchandise. Everyone's favorite character. Right, you know? But he's sort of, he's got a good database of merchandise.

But he lords over the other rival Star Wars sites. He wants to be in good graces with big Hasbro. Which, mind you, Hasbro's angling to buy out Mattel, which is the Disney fox of the toy world which no one's talking about. We need to talk about the movie. Jesus Christ. He's a toy boy. Let him go. We're leading with this. What's up? What's up with Jedi Temple Archives?

Hasbro buying Mattel would be a monopoly. I don't care. What's up? Create moral conflicts within the entire tour industry. Yeah. This guy has been on, he loves Star Wars. He loves the merchandise. He's even a decent prequel defender, right? But he has been staunchly anti Kathleen Kennedy's Star Wars.

Okay. And he always cites her as being the person who owns this Star Wars, this incarnation of Star Wars, and is always referring to the agenda that she's trying to push with her movies. Oh, this sounds bad. Yep. And, you know, I mean, I'm not racist. I just think, you know, if you're going to put people in different races in movies, you shouldn't make a big deal out of it. It should just be normal.

I hate this shit. Which is what these fucking movies are. We're going to move past this really fast unless you have something else to say. No, he's been really against fucking hated Force Awakens, hated Rogue One. He's been shit talking Last Jedi. When all the good Last Jedi reviews came out, he found the one that was bad and was like, well, some people don't like it. Sure. I was ready for this guy to take it down.

And he really liked it. Yeah, he liked it. I was just looking at his reviews. And he's pretty much like a right of center like fucking Star Wars dude. Same type guy. So it is interesting to me that I don't think it's just a political ideology thing. I think it is, he's challenging our relationships with Star Wars. I agree.

Which I think is definitely the most- Challenging. Powerful element of this movie. I would say. Yeah, that's the thing I unquestionably like about this movie. The other thing I like about this movie is sort of the beginning part where there's the Lucasfilm logo through to the credits. Those are my favorite parts of the movie. I'm not going to weigh in on things I think don't work because they're still stewing in my brain.

There's some things where I'm batting around my thoughts on execution. I'm going to execute you. I know you will once we get to the merchandise spotlight. Oh, God. But I do think I like everything this movie is saying. I like everything this movie is doing. All right. We're doing the crawl.

Okay. Star Wars. Nothing but Star Wars. I'm going to sing it and you read the crawl. Star Wars. I'll turn to sing it and you read the crawl. I'll turn his mic down. Thank you. The First Order reigns.

Griffin, what do you think of that first line? Yeah, it's cool. Keep it going. Usually you offer opinions on the thing, on the crawl as we go through it. Wait, I'm going to save it up for when it counts. Having decimated the peaceful republic. Decimated, oh fuck! Having decimated the peaceful republic. Decimated, oh fuck! Having decimated the peaceful republic,

Supreme Leader Snoke now deploys the merciless legions. Okay, now at this point I'm going, Snoke, could have used less of that guy in the previous movie. Are we going to go heavy on Snoke? I'm saying, I'm playing the role of me at this point watching the film. Understood. I got a little brain. Because I think Snoke is dumb.

I don't know what I'm about to be taught. Very true. Deploys the Merciless Legion to seize military control of the galaxy. Only General Leia Organa's band... Cool, still cool. Get excited every time I hear that title. ...band of resistance fighters

stand against the rising tyranny, certain that Jedi Master Luke Skywalker will return... Another cool title. ...and restore a spark of hope to the fight. I like spark of hope, but it's a pretty straightforward crawl. I'm not done. But the resistance has been exposed.

As the First Order speeds towards the Rebel base, the brave heroes mount a desperate escape. Dot, dot, dot, dot. I like the word desperate because I like stakes. And this is a thing that I think Grant Johnson does really well in this movie, dot, dot, dot, dot. Now, I like the word desperate because I like stakes. Yeah. And this is a thing that I think Grant Johnson does really well in this movie,

which is keep the resistance with their backs up against the wall. Correct. They're up against the wall and they just, you go,

oh, that's the last wall. And then he breaks through the wall and he puts them up against another wall. Todd Vanderwerf pointed out that this, this sort of fleeing plot line is somewhat, somewhat, somewhat vaguely related to the episode 33 of Battlestar Galactica.

I don't know if you've ever watched Battlestar Galactica. It's one of the greatest ever episodes of television. Okay, I've only seen the miniseries. Okay, well, you're a big old poop. But I also love this. You seem really happy with me in this episode. I love you so much. I'm really into this movie.

Mary Fennelmas. Yes. Sharpening a knife, folks. Yes, I am. Big old steak knife. No, you know, and like I love, yes, the fleet is what we can see. It's just. It's contained.

A bunch of ships. That's all we got at this point. Right. Because, you know, some people have that complaint about Force Awakens. Like what's the infrastructure of these two things? We're jumping in in media res and the First Order and the Resistance have both been launched and are at cruising altitude. Right. But, like, where did this come from? Loosely explained.

Who's running it? Right. Who's bankrolling it? Right. And now you have a better, like, the Resistance was, you know, something that I didn't think about. The Republic was not allowed to have an army because of how that went last time. Badly. Not good.

Not good. No good, very bad, don't do it. The whole problem with them having an army was that when the Emperor just went like, by the way, we're an empire now, then he had an army to enforce that with. So no army, right? So they had to take out a lot of bank loans to cover a lot of clones. This is true. Now, Sifo-Dyas was deep pockets. Then he fucking died

and left them with the bill. Deep pockets. He stuck them with the bill. They called him Deep Pockets Sifo-Dyas. He put down a deposit. Sifo Deep Pockets. He did have the deepest pockets

in the galaxy. We all know that. Yes. But then he died. He did die. Off screen. We never met him. He never existed.

So he's probably still alive with my grandma and TC-14. All true. TC-14, just off the top of the, not in the movie. Not in the movie.

Okay, can I run down a couple people who aren't in the movie? TC-14, not in the movie. No. Jimmy Smith's not in the movie, playing any character. Unfortunately.

Watto, not in the movie. No. Gragra, not in the movie. Not that we know of. Dexter Jetser, not,

not in the movie. Not, not in the movie? He's, I'll say this, he's not, not in the movie. But he's also not in the movie. Not in the movie? I'll say this. He's not not in the movie. But he's also not in the film. Porgs?

In the movie. Gorgs? Not in the movie. No. That's an episode 9 thing. Gorgs? Yeah, Gorgs. They'll come back.

Episode 9 is Rise of the Gorg. Yeah. Armand Asante? Gorgs? Yeah, Gorgs. They'll come back. Yeah. Episode 9's Rise of the Gorg. Yeah. Uh-huh. Armand de Santi? Not in the movie. Really? He wasn't one of the foxes? No.

Okay. All right. I thought so, too. Uh-huh. But then you chucked the credit. Because the bone structure. Yeah, right. Yeah.

Are you done? Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. The heating's been off in my apartment for two days, and I'm losing my mind. He's just a homeless person right now. i don't know the heating's been off in my apartment for two days and i'm losing my mind he's just a homeless person right now i don't know i don't know how else to describe this down to your dunkin donuts i'll have coffee yeah uh all right so we've got as the movie opens not a shot of a spaceship going overhead not a shot of a spaceship sort of silhouetting a planet, which is what Abrams went for. We go into this like crash zoom

onto the Rebel fleet. It's really cool IMO. Yeah, David's holding out his fist. And Williams' J-dubs is going wild right away. I don't know if you, but I'm listening to the score a lot. I haven't yet. Oh, it's so good. Yeah. How do you feel about this?

Look, I'll say it didn't pop to me in the first viewing, but the same thing happened with Force Awakens, which I now think is a great score. Amazing score. Obviously, this is borrowing a lot of his, much like the original sequels. He's using a lot of the themes he sets up in the Force Awakens. Yes, yes.

And mixing them around. So we're crashing in on the Rebel fleet. Yeah, you're not, you're no response to this. No, I'm into it. I'm'm letting you you've seen it twice you got a crash yeah to the rebel fleet yeah it's cool cool stuff yeah so the opening sequence is a big space battle and the resistance fighters yeah yeah right um a big space battle and very quickly we see a cool X-Wing and who's that little head poking out of the back well

it's our old friend Bobby Bertram 8 uh huh well we also are seeing the people the rebels

the resistance is leaving this planet yes and there's that great shot of Billy Lord looking at the sky oh yeah and you see the Star Destroyers

arriving by hyperspace in the sky yeah pretty cool a lot of Billy Lord in this movie yeah yeah i liked her with her little her little cinnamon buns yeah she's got little sort of uh cinnamon bumps right like not like a cinnamon but like a box of entman's like yeah like donut holes little donut holes yeah um yeah what is her character called conix is that right i think right? I think it's Connix. I believe it's Connix. I think the name of the character.

Correct. I nailed it? Yes, Cable Coconics. I was going to say nailed on the first try, but technically that was like a hyper try because I guessed five times in one go. But she's, yeah. All right, so yeah.

So big space battle, right. And we were with Poe. He's in his X-Wing. Yeah. And he's taken on this dreadnought ship. There's another Resistance woman who we get a lot of in these scenes. In the A-Wing? Yes, right?

No, there's that woman with a lot of schnoz. There's a woman with a prominent nose. She's on the main ship. Yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying her and Connix are kind of the two point people when we need exposition or we need a human reaction shot to what's going on. Yeah, here, I want to call up that actress's name.

Who is she? Because she just feels like a very Star Wars-y actress. She does, in that she strikes me as some kind of esteemed British stage actress, right? Right, who just has a good face. Who is she, though? Why do I not know? Connex? I'm guessing maybe Connex is her character's name.

Connex? You know, you hit once with that, but... I'm feeling good about my odds. Send me to Canto Bight, baby. I'm on a roll. Okay, so yes. You can describe this better than I can because you've seen it twice.

I'm still trying to remember. Amanda Lawrence is the actress's name and she's playing Commander Daisy. Okay. Amanda Lawrence is the actress's name. And she's playing Commander Daisy. Okay. She's cool. Yeah, anyway. But no, it's right.

Poe is stalling for time. There's this big dreadnought ship. Yes. Sort of like a new Star Destroyer thingy. I don't know. It's got big cannons. Yeah, but I mean, major props right off the bat. This movie has no Death Stars. Yeah, no, true.

Zero Death Stars. Yes. no, true. Zero Death Stars. Yes. It does have big guns. But it doesn't feel the need to eviscerate planets to create stakes, which I like. I also felt like this movie,

maybe for the first time, at least for me, I was able to grasp more how the battle is going to go. Like the strategy of it. The military strategy element of it. It felt way more clear. Actually, it was like,

oh, they're like battleships. that's kind of what I mean about the the 30th the Battlestar Galactic thing right yeah where it's like we're really they've never like even thought about like shields before in any kind of major way

this movie also gets into like war profiteering and stuff oh oh which like I think is really cool guys this movie is fucking great it's a good movie but yes you know like there was all that

like fucking jerk off talk when Rogue One came out which I don't know if you know this but this Star Wars movie is a good movie. But yes, you know, like there was all that like fucking jerk off talk when Rogue One came out, which I don't know if you know this, but this Star Wars movie is a war movie. Well, right. I mean, I think that was more what Gareth Edwards' pitch was and then that got sort of smoothed out. Right. And it was really just in the aesthetics of like how he shot it and how he choreographed the fight scenes and all of that. But this is a movie that's actually more concerned with the DNA of war than any Star Wars movie I think has been before. And showing how wars are actually fought in boardrooms and in fucking... I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I know what you mean. I mean, right. or one of the main pulses of this movie, which is something I'm trying to write about, is that it's about what the rebellion actually is rather than just the good guys. If that makes sense. Like about the motivation behind being a rebel rather than just being a good guy. That's also, but look,

that's the cornerstone of Star Wars. The reason it's connected over all these years is it's about these choices we make with the power we have i think this movie is way more interested in that than most of the star wars movies i agree but i think he's honing in on something that's elemental you know i mean it's that my argument is kind of not that so now i'm worried my take is bad thing i don't know no i it's just like the rebels have always just been the good guys yes and in this that's not really true they are good guys uh-huh but he wants he wants them to be rebels like this is a movie about like the value of being in a rebellion rather than being a good guy because finn's a good guy but in when this movie begins

he is not a rebel he was never never really a rebel. And this movie, you know, his arc especially is about him accepting the concept of like being a rebel. Let me finesse my point. Please. What I think the Star Wars movies are about are what makes a person good, what makes a person bad. Uh,

yeah. And I think this film is very interested in that. You know, the act of choices we make, our actions versus our words, you know, those sorts of things. And this movie, like, really doubles down on that in a much messier way, which I love.

Agreed. I love all the politics of this movie. All right. So, big space fight, though. Right. First, he's just like, here we go, baby. Let's watch Poe Dameron be, like, a badass dogfighter who's, like, better than everyone else. And that's the thing.

And can do it just on pure like ego alone. I think regardless of where you stood on Force Awakens, I think everyone had the exact same criticism. Love it or hate it. Everyone walked out of that movie with the exact same criticism which was not enough Poe Dameron. Sure, because he was kind of a character that was almost added midway through the movie. Like he

wasn't supposed to live and then they were like, oh we're gonna keep you around, but he doesn't do a lot. And then you got fucking Oscar Isaac. You got, like, a fucking supernova, you know? So this movie knows we got an ace up the sleeve. We're going to play it, and we're going to play it well. So you were happy. You were giving a lot of thumbs up.

I love him. He's one of my best friends I've ever had. Have you been reading the Poe Dameron comic book? No. It rules. I don't read these things. I haven't been reading the Star Wars comics as thoroughly as I should, but the Poe Dameron comic I cannot recommend enough. Charles Suley writes it and it characterizes him

really well because I think Poe Dameron's a really interesting inversion and deconstruction of Han Solo. Because Han Solo's whole thing is acting like he doesn't give a shit. And Poe Dameron totally gives a shit and wants you to know how much he gives a shit. He gives a shit.

He wants to be a hero, but he's also still maybe a little too obsessed with the performative aspects of being a hero as leah puts it yeah so beautifully in a line that i assume was written by carrie fisher because apparently she wrote most of her own lines cool get your head out of your cockpit yeah that's a real carrie fisher joe yeah it's so good i think i think that's the real Carrie Fisher Joe yeah it's so good I think I think that's the kind of thing some fans are annoyed about though why is Leia making a cock joke I have problems with

certain comedy moments which we'll get to later oh I have problems with no comedy I know you love everything about this movie we get it except for one thing what

I don't know I'll think about it too short yes that's it too short he takes out the dreadnoughts so I can recommend this

a lot of times when you read the comic book adaptation spin-offs of movies it feels like fucking fan fiction yeah the characterization of Poe Dameron is so good it actually made me love the character even more going into this film

we're talking about it right now it's two and a half hours long so Poe is kind of doing that bit with the commander so funny he's like communicating with he's doing a real can you hear me now so funny

it's great comedy he gets ten comedy points Hux even reluctantly gives him the comedy points very well ten points your favorite character great comedy he gets 10 comedy points Hux even reluctantly gives him the comedy points yes very well 10 points your favorite character he all right so Hux is there he's on the he's not on the dreadnought he's on like whatever the lead ship but he is as you noted he's been made up even to be look a little pastier and his eyes have like eyeliner on them like he's got like red bags yeah like and he's doing full grimace and his voice is even weaselier he's just so resonant

in 2017 to me that character, even in 2015 which he was very funny in and he's doing the same bit which is like almost a parody of the British villain right he's so, like that's the guy that's the little red pill guy

I find all of Star Wars so resonant in 2017 because this whole thing about the dark side whether they take the form of the first order or the Sith or what have you right

the empire it's these guys who are like actively choosing to be bad like we have a lot of villains in film franchises who think they're doing

the right thing right Hux is bad Hux likes to be bad which is like these fucking red pill guys we're dealing with where they're doing the right thing. Right. Hux is bad. Hux likes to be bad. Which is like these fucking Red Pill guys we're dealing with where they're like, I want the fucking power. Right. And I'm going to choose to play the shit.

What's the bad thing? That's my opinion on that. I'm Mike Chernovich. You know, like I'm going to fucking own you hating me. But I just love Hux. I love him. We got married. You did.

Congratulations. And my apologies to Joanna. I could have stopped it. They asked if I had any objections. What are they? You know, one light fighter. He just, every line. With this wing ring I D the web. God, I can't

fucking talk. Jesus Christ. So Poe takes out the cannons on the dreadnought. BB-8 helps out. He like zaps his own head for a second, right? That's cool when he's inside the guts of the thing and he stretches his head out like Inspector Gadget. And also another funny bit with plugging up the holes in the dams.

But it's like it said circuits. All this comedy I'm totally into. Okay. So the bombers come in. You got this big bomber run. Lots of dog fighting. The first space battle we've had in these sequel movies is great. This is when we have have what's her name uh rose's sister rose's sister whose name is page tico uh tico is their last name yes um um played by veronica and go okay

i think an excellent nearly silent performance i i mean i yeah it's so good i think that's great it's really good people I think that's great. It's really good. People in our audience were groaning, but I mean, it is sort of wrenching, I guess. I think it was more that.

You know, like, you know, her sort of, but I love that whole sequence feels like the fucking, like the baby carriage in Battleship Potemkin

or something, you know, she has to activate these bombs to take out the dreadnought, which is Poe's big, like fucking all or nothing. Yeah, he's like, we got to do, we got to take this thing out. And Leia's like, comenought, which is Poe's big, like, fucking all or nothing, all in move.

Yeah, he's like, we gotta do it. We gotta take this thing out. And Leia's like, come on, fucking cool. Leia's thing is like, we did what we were supposed to do, which is, like, stall for time so that we could all flee. And there's a great bit of really just effective, simple visual storytelling, because I think Rian Johnson's best at just sort of

just economic, concise, fucking punchy, you know, information told visually. But when Leia looks down at the monitor and sees all the ships with the X's over them, it looks like a battleship board, you know? I love that he just holds on to that tech from the original movies, the sort of look of it, the wire frames. And Carrie Fisher was an actor of enormous empathy, and you just see the pain of like every one, it's perfect. The wire frames. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Carrie Fisher was an actor of enormous empathy and you just see

the pain of like every one of those people mattered. These are not just ships that went down. I agree. It's so good. But meanwhile,

Paige is in there trying to set off these bombs and she has all sorts of hijinks with the remote control which slips out of her hands and you get this moment

where she kind of makes this decision wordlessly. Right. Beautifully acted that she is going to sacrifice herself. She's laying on this sort of catwalk. All she can do at this moment is choose to use her remaining energy to kick to get the remote to set off the bombs.

Which she does and she dies a hero. Yes. And we see she has this piece of jewelry, this sort of medallion thingy. Half of like a friendship. Right, right. Exactly. Charm necklace. Yes.

This is the first time we saw the inside of that ship too It's like huge rows and stacks of bombs. Yeah, it's cool Yeah, it looks really cool So, oh, a victory Poe Dameron's coming in like all fucking coffee Dameron, there's this great shot of his X-Wing flying into

the transport and stopping and like and stopping and landing really fast and he yeah he's just like dreadnought down like we did it right and leah's like fucking no she slapped him in the face yeah yeah you're demoted cool your jets like people are dead do you take out a dreadnought who cares time to celebrate yeah uh also we see hucks get like uh face planted by a giant general Snoke head yeah that's his punishment yeah he dunks on him pretty hard does dunk on him pretty hard and let's say this right off the bat Snoke is great in just head form you know I love it when it's just his head pops up he's like general yes yes uh Snoke also looks so much better in this movie he does they

they probably had more time because his like, in Force Awakens, like they kept changing what he looked like, right? Like he was like, his design was up for debate. I think if you did a side-by-side comparison, they've changed the design a bit.

That's probably true. They clearly plus the technology and just spent more time on it and the performance feels better. The character is more to do. Right, and obviously, he's now not a hologram, I guess. So you have a little more

light on his face. But even when we get to the hologram thing, I remember seeing Force Awakens and going, like, why do they need to fucking mocap this guy? This could just be a dude in makeup. Yeah, right, right. And this time they really fuck with the proportions of his skull and the scarring and the damage, so it really is— Yeah, because he's, like, real skinny, you know?

Yes. And then his head's kind of bulbous. Right. His, like, cheeks barely exist. Right. Yeah, he's weird looking right um but you dug smoke i was all about snoke in this movie snoke maybe was my standout for the film could have been bigger he could have he could have been bigger he was big they made him

like minute bowl size instead of like godzilla right he's like maybe eight feet yeah it's like eight two yeah yeah good reach you know um yeah good wingspan yeah yeah okay so so leia puts poe in his place hey demotes him and says you're not the fucking movie star here it's about people and this is it's about a cause this is not a one-off thing in the movie that is not going to get this is poe's arc in the movie yes is like yeah you're the best i mean yeah you're great good at piloting yeah but like that's not gonna win this war that's also the arc in the movie yes is like yeah you're the best i mean yeah you're great good at piloting yeah but like that's not gonna win this war that's also the arc of the movie is what what does it mean to be heroic what is the heroic thing to do you know i'm nodding very forcefully i'm just moving my whole body you know what this is this is a fucking anti-virtue signaling movie get off no wonder people fat ass and do the

work and don't look like you need a fucking applause break when you do it uh yeah a little bit yeah i mean you know she's she's thrilled i'm sounding facetious when i say that but that is kind of what the movie is it's a movie it's called action movie yeah um it's about doing the right thing right for the right reasons yes and then to wrap this a little bit up before we get to go to the island sure

we also have this scene where Kylo Ren uh huh with his helmet on yeah goes to see Snoke uh huh

uh right as Hux is leaving and Snoke berates him yeah says you suck yeah fuck you I thought you were a big deal this is where a lot of his turd, your dick is tiny.

The lair. Okay, so this is, I mean, for one, this is an incredibly good looking movie. Correct. It's gorgeously designed. Yeah. It's really well shot by Steve Yedlin.

Very well lit. Well, part of the job of a cinematographer, right? Yeah, but I'm saying specifically. It is. I want to single out. The lighting is lit and and uh you know ryan johnson has said we went into this with red being like we wanted red to be this sort of very crucial color in the movie and this yeah this throne room which is just all blank red pure red right but like lit red walls like red lucite walls that are glowing and then what I love which is like Snoke was basically like

yeah red red this is all red you guys are gonna wear red I love gold and then can I have a gold cape yeah

a caftan he borrowed Meryl Streep's caftan from the post yes spoiler alert he asked people if they want a blintz

and a blunt yeah he looks like a Christmas tree fairy he gets in a smelting accident he's got this amazing we're doing two different bits. I know! But they're both good.

I was trying to get you onto my bit. No, I liked your bit. Join me here. My bit. Dun, dun, dun, bit, bit. Wait, and there's

one other thing that happens. Our good old friend Finn wakes up. Yes, and of course wants to know where Ray is. Right, and he's in a tube suit that looks awesome. It does, I love that. He's leaking all over the place, he's a little discombobulated. Poe's happy to see him. I like that

they're still nice space friends. They are. Of course not the nice space friends, and of course they're not hashtag the two friends, but they are nice friends in space. Yeah. Agreed on everything you just said. But yes, we do have that. There's nothing really else to that. We'll get to more of that.

Obviously. Yeah. Rose comes in later. Right. Okay. So now we go to, it's just important. We see Ben being berated for his failure against Ray.

Yeah. And like, if you're so such a big deal, why'd you get beaten by a girl who'd never held a lightsaber? Snoke is kind of verbalizing the criticisms of people who think that Ray's too powerful and force away. And Ben is like, you know, Kylo is saying, like, I killed Han Solo.

And he's like, yeah, and it fucked you up so bad, Ray beat you. Yeah. Which is, I think, a thing that's important to get on record. Because obviously he got shot too. Yes. And that's sort of a visual reason for his ineptitude, you know? But, like, it's also that he's completely rattled by killing his father. 100%. In Force Awakens.

Because Snoke's thing is, like, you got too much of that Solo shit in you. like it's also that he's completely rattled by killing his father 100 in force because that's snoke's thing is like you got too much of that solo shit in you and he's like solo shit i fucking killed han solo and he's like don't act like that was a fucking easy thing yes exactly don't act like he came get out of my sight and take that ridiculous thing off which he's talking about the mask right so kylo smashes it crushes which apparently is something that ryan johnson asked kathleen kennedy in his initial pitch for the film can i get rid of the mask yes he was like uh you Kylo smashes it crushes it which apparently is something that Rian Johnson asked Kathleen Kennedy in his initial pitch for the film

can I get rid of the mask yes he was like essentially the way this pitch worked she brought him in and sat him down and said

we want you to do episode 8 what do you think and he was like I don't know let me think about it he claims he did not think that's what they were gonna right

maybe a spin off I don't know and then he said well can I read the Force Awakens script and they were like sure here's the script and he said, well, can I read the Force Awakens script? And they were like, sure, here's the script. And he said,

okay, well, there's a bunch of things I'm going to want to do. Here they all are. And one of them was, I need to smash his helmet really early on. And they were like,

fine, yeah, it's fine. Which also makes sense for the arc of this character, which I think is the most interesting arc of the film, and I think is the best performance of the movie. It is.

Driver. Driver is unbelievable. Unbelievably good. It's an extremely good performance i remember when he's great in the last that fucking what's it called uh that uh sitting shiva movie with zero jews in it um this is where i leave you yeah when that was like adam driver starting to take off and sean levy the great auteur sean levy the maestro himself. Uh-huh. Trevor Rose, the captain, and he's at least the lieutenant.

Come on, come on, what's up? He said, like, I was on set with Driver, and I went like, whoa, this is the major actor of his generation. I was like, fucking Sean Levy, you don't know anything. Who would be a major actor of his generation? And it does kind of feel like Adam Driver is, like, shaping up to maybe be, especially when you look at the fucking directors he's worked with.

Yes, he's great. I have no objection. I love Adam Driver. He was my blankie winner for best actor last year. I know. He might, I mean, let's see where he sells into my blankies this year. That's me looking at my watch for the blankies? Yeah.

Oh, they're in a while. Look, we'll get to it. Look, this episode's steaming ahead, full speed ahead. Ding dong, ding dong. Oh, wait a second. Okay, look, I know we got great momentum going. I just need to step out of the bathroom quickly and I'll let this person in. Okay, the doorbell made you realize that you need to step out to the bathroom so another person can come in.

Okay, well, as you get up to go to the bathroom, let someone in, please. That's what I'm going to do. I just, okay. Ding dong, ding dong. Yeah, I know I'm coming. Ding dong, ding dong. Hello. Hello. Yeah, I know, I'm coming. Hello. Hello.

Hello, sir. What are you doing here? Perhaps you do not recognize me. We're in the middle of a podcast. Perhaps you previously knew of my mustache. Do not recognize me with the whiskers on my chin, the sides of my face, my cheeks. We have never met before. You are a clean-shaven man.

Well, no, I mean... Oh, you're saying you have a mustache. Well, no, I mean, clearly you've said I'm clean-shaven, so that must be accepted as canon now. No, I'm sorry. I was looking at my computer and I wasn't looking up. No, I'm running with it. I'm clean-shaven now.

Okay, great. Who are you? You've never met me great. Who are you? You never met me before. Who are you? My name is Rich Uncle Pennybags. We've never met before. So I know Rich Mr. Pennybags. What was his name again?

We only met him the one time. Moneybags Pennybags is the nickname. Look, I have to level with you, okay? Yeah, sure, Rich Uncle Pennybags. I know you didn't add with a Rich Uncle Pennybags previously. Oh, okay. But that's not canon anymore. Unfortunately, we found out that Rich Uncle Pennybags was part of a giant Ponzi scheme.

Okay, can you just send the money back right away, Ben? Dollar Shade Club, here's your money. So I am actor Christopher Plummer, and I have now replaced Rich Uncle Pennybags. So if we can accept this as just a new continuity, we're going to get it out in time for Christmas. You do have the gravitas required and no makeup on your face. But how did you get your face so clean shaven? Well, you don't become a Rich Uncle Pennybags by spending a billion dollars on every razor. You fools.

I look at you common lay people. How much do you spend? $2,000, $4,000 a blade? Well, how much do you spend? Can I talk to you for a second? Please. Because I used to. I used to.

That used to be my life. Right. But then I found Dollar Shave Club. Uh-huh. And for $5 a month, they send me a whole package what razors replacement razors okay shave butter okay for the shaving yes body cleanser yeah all of this is encouraging but here's the problem. Go ahead. I got a stinky butt. Butt wipes. What?

They're in the package, too. And for five bucks, you can get this package. Yes. And after that, replacement cartridges, they ship for a few bucks a month. So you can keep shaving. Ah. Because, you know, I used to just shave once. A decade, by the looks of you.

And then just be in a panic. Yeah, exactly. Well, all right. Thank you. But instead, now, now with dr carver's shave butter with the butt wipes with the body cleanser yeah and it's all i'm looking great it's all delivered right to you yeah of course it means no more annoying trips to the store or cruising up and down i was looking at the shelf upon shelf like what the hell is this product what do i do

with that it's all figured out for you, you seem really freaked out about shelves. I get so lost in these stores. They just hold things. It's like the end of... The hard locker. Yeah, exactly. I'm a long-time blankie. Let me ask you this question.

Thank you, Mr. Plumber. You just turned 88, by the way. Happy birthday. Thank you. Fin is a fiddle. What I'm saying is you don't need all the money in the world to do... I see what you did there. I liked it a lot do Dollar Shave Club.

You just need a few bucks a month. Let me ask you two follow-up questions. Yeah, please. Dollar Shave Club. That sounds like a great company, great products at an affordable price, great customer service. All true. And it comes right to your door. Can they help negotiate the release of my kidnapped grandson?

I think that's going to be a premium edition. You're going to have to talk about that with someone at the company because I don't know about that. Now, that's going to be a premium edition. You're going to have to talk about that with someone at the company because I don't know about that. No, that's a joke, of course. I broke character for a bit because... Right, because you're playing J. Paul Getty in an upcoming movie.

Right, but that's not this. Which I guess we're plugging. Yes, no, this is a different disgraced character that I've had to be replaced in the role of... Rich Uncle Pennybags, of course. So it's nice to see...

Here's my follow-up question. Yeah. Dollar Shave Club. Uh-huh. Let's say I want to get a Golden Globe nomination. Really quick. Let's say we wanted to wrap this up really quick. Yep.

We'll go on. But the movie wasn't finished, and there was no way the Hollywood Foreign Press will have seen the film in time to nominate. Oh, my God. Do you think I could order enough razors to send to every member of the Hollywood Foreign Press in order to bribe them into nominating me? I have no idea.

I want you to love Dollar Shave Club as much as I do. That's what's important. So if you want to try the first month of their razors. Or our listeners. You or our listeners. With, you know, you get the shave butter, you get the body cleanser, you get the butt wipes, all that for five bucks. Then you just go to dollarshaveclub.com slash check slash check is there a promo code that that's the promo code to get the starter set five bucks a month tell me the

url blank check no no dollarshaveclub. org. Dollar Shave Club. Jesus. Dollar Shave Club dot com slash check. Okay. Check. And just once again, to very briefly make sure we're all clear on the canon. I am totally clean shaven. I am Academy Award winner Christopher Plummer. The timeline is roughly before the Golden Globe nominations have been announced.

Yeah. And the real rich Uncle Pennybags, which is his nickname, Moneybags is his real name, was involved in a Ponzi scheme. All true. Thanks so much. Anytime.

Go see All the Money in the World Christmas Day. Oh, and hey, Griffin, how you doing? Oh, hey, good. I just had a big poop. I wish there was some way for me to wipe my butt. Dollar Shave Club. Anyway, so we're going to talk about... No more needs to be said. We're going to talk about Akto.

Akto. The island of Akto. Which we've glimpsed in Force Awakens. Force Awakens ends with a helicopter shot, like we all asked, of Rey holding up a lightsaber for Luke Skywalker. My least favorite shot in Force Awakens. It's a little annoying. I don't like helicopter shots.

It doesn't bother me quite as much on rewatches because I guess it's just sort of ingrained now. Sure. I get it. I'm a drone guy too. But no, yeah. In the end of the last movie, Rey goes to Luke. And we pick up in that gesture. Offers him his blade. Holding out the blade.

He takes it. And then he chucks it over his shoulder. Chucks it over his shoulder. I love that so much. I like that. I was immediately like, oh, wait. I love, wait. I didn't get, I didn't see that coming at all. And then what's the next thing that happens?

Luke goes into his little hut and he changes out of his regal white robes into some grungy bullshit. Tyler rags. He looks like the Fisher King. And then as Rey, he looks like the Fisher King. He does. As Rey retrieves the lightsaber from some porgs who are in this movie. Yes. The porgs.

They are in the film. We can confirm that. Yes. Because there was debate over whether they'd show up. Whether they'd be in the movie or not. They're like anime penguins. Yeah. Yeah.

They're based on the puffins that really live on that island. Okay. And they are like penguin chickens. Where do you land in the Porg Wars, the Great Porg Wars of 2017? I'm pro-Porg. Very solidly pro-Porg. I like that they're puppets. Me too.

Makes me really happy. I also feel like they're really used in moderation. Yeah, no, for sure. It's not like they save the day. No. They're just like these sort of funny little creatures that live on this island, which is a weird island. they're just like these sort of funny little creatures that live on this island, which is a weird Island.

Another creature that lives on this Island is a giant milk producing. I mean, how do you describe it? Like manatee giraffe. Like, I mean, what is it? Right.

And we see Mark Hamill, Mark Hamill, milk, it, milk, squeeze that nipple, the nipple straight into the bottle and then drink the green milk that comes out blue milk

whatever that's where it comes from it's poor that's canon with with glee and then look at Ray like a crazy person

yes and then immediately walk over somewhere else and get a giant like pole and like go over to a cliffside and catch an ichthyosaur

yeah he's just being a real stinker this looks and basically doesn't talk to her at all and he's kind of being. Yeah, he's just being a real stinker. And basically doesn't talk to her at all. And he's kind of being a Yoda. Like he's being like, fuck off. Well, that's the move.

He's being a little trickster. That's the move he's made. Yeah. You know, because Yoda abandons the universe after his great failure in which he caused the entire universe to be taken over by a Sith Lord. Pretty much unilaterally. Great job, Yoda.

Which is amazing. One of the most impressive things this film does is it actually makes the Phantom Menace trilogy better by acknowledging that the fucking Jedi Council were too busy up in their ivory tower to pay attention to what was going on. They actually allowed everything

to happen. It brings that up. Bunch of stodgy old fools on their fucking poop chairs. True. Not even a dollar shave club butt wipe to be seen. True. And they let it happen. They let it happen. They caused their own demise. So Luke's kind of like, you know what? I don't

know if the Jedi's were a good thing even. We shouldn't be mourning them. Okay. Move on. But as I was saying, he has done the Yoda where he's like, Yoda went to Dagobah to never see anyone again. Luke has gone to this planet to die. Let me drink my milk.

Yeah, he wants to drink his milkshake. But Rey will not stop. Rey keeps pestering him with like, I'm from the Resistance. Your sister sent me and like the First Order is close to taking over the galaxy and we need your help.

Which is sort of silly because it's like, what's Luke going to do? Yeah. I mean, I guess the crawl is saying that he'll sort of rally people it's like what's Luke gonna do? Yeah. I mean I guess the crawl is saying that he'll sort of rally people to the cause

and I get that because he is the famed slayer of the emperor and turner of Darth Vader. Darth Vader. Right. And you could argue that the resistance

needs such a figure right now. Right. He is someone to sort of light a spark as people keep saying. Because Kylo ren is a larger than life figure he is so performative but he leaves people quaking in fear and terror as is

snoke's pretty performative uh remember we talked about his gold cloak yes color rents just a little more out there he's doing like the meet and greets he's like snoke snoke has a drive time radio show every day general that's how it begins. I don't know. What does he say? It's called Snoke and the Boomer. Oh, God. But yeah, but they need someone to inspire hope.

But that's not really why she's there. No. She's there because she's a little Jedi. She's a little Jedi. A little lightsaber grabber. A little bit teaching she needs some uh some tips when does he realize that she has duff horse well so um he he is keeps ignoring her and she sort of gets huffy and then she walks over she sort of feels called by something and walks over to this big tree yes and walks into it this big sort of feels called by something and walks over to this big tree. Yes. And walks into it, this big sort of smoky, weird gnarled sort of tree.

It's called like the, the, uh, of the wills or something. Oh, is it? Well, it has a name in the fucking Star Wars canon.

I'm forgetting. Oh, well, cause you know, the wills are, uh, the, um,

you know, the guardians of the wills. That's like what, uh, um, I think it's called the something of the will. Donnie Yen's character is a guardian of the wills that's like what a I think it's called the something of the wills Donnie Yen's character is a guardian of the will

and they are like an order of monks who preserve Jedi shit so anyway but she walks into this tree and it's like there's some books

on a shelf and Luke is intrigued that she knows of like to go to this place and that she's she says like I've been having these dreams all my life

I've seen these symbols I never know what they meant it's starting to become clearer to me so that's where she says, like, I've been having these dreams all my life. I've seen these symbols. I never know what they meant. It's starting to become clearer to me. So that's where Luke is going, like, wait a second. Who are you? Yeah. And she's like, I'm from the resistance. No, no, no. Who are you? Yeah. I'm from nowhere. Everyone's from somewhere. Jakku. Okay, that is kind of nowhere. Once again, good joke.

Yeah. It's great. You seem to be saying this with surprise. Because there are a couple comedy points I'm going to deduct later on in this movie. When? There are a couple times I think it goes a little too broad. Wait, just give it to me. I don't like BB-8 operating the walker. Oh, sure. That's not so much a

comedy thing to me, but okay. I don't like Luke dusting the dirt off his shoulder. Oh, I love that. I think that's a little too self-aware. I love that. Because the whole point is that he's trying to enrage Kylo Ren so much. I agree. I just think he plays it to the back of the house a little too much.

He just does this. That's all he does. I think he plays it to the back of the house. No, the whole point of that is that's a story that will be told for millennia. You can't spell Hamel without ham. And he wades through the water as well, but there are a couple moments where I think they indulge him a little too much. No, this is a Christmas ham. And he wades through the water as well, but there are a couple moments where I think they indulge him a little too much.

No, this is a Christmas ham. I agree. It's gorgeous and juicy. I sink my teeth into it. But there's a little fat. Sometimes you take a bite and there's a little fat. The BB-8 thing, I'm kind of with you on, but I think that's more them being like,

BB-8 should do something now. Yeah, I think that BB-8 moment can go fuck itself. That's the one moment in the movie where I was like, this can go fuck itself. I don't want BB-8 operating a fucking walker. But they set it up earlier. Yeah. So, sounds like you're really embarrassed right now.

No, not at all. I'm very confident. I'm a confident person. I've never been embarrassed in my entire life. Ben, you look like you're in shape and safe. We're all in weird head spaces today, are we not? I'm feeling great. I feel great.

Yeah. I disagree with that. I think Griffin's in a weird head space. you admitted yourself you were really stressed out today oh i have a lot of work to do and shit that's true but that's i mean that's not that uncommon for me cold and i haven't showered in 48 hours because the water's a bit of an honest when did you wake up when did i wake up because you said you had a lot of trouble sleeping uh yeah i didn't fall asleep until 6 a.m. Great. I think I woke up 10 or 11. Not great.

No, not great, Bob. And then I didn't get out of bed for like two hours because it was so cold in my apartment that I didn't want to get out of my tamale. Yeah, you were keeping

the hot box. I was bundled. I was hot box. Yeah, I was farting to keep myself warm. Well, apparently I slept for five hours and 46 minutes.

All right, do you want to start over? Yeah. I don't know what the fuck is happening. Okay. So, opens on. Great joke. I liked it.

Oh, you're going to call me out for dumb derailing jokes? Okay, I smile. Yeah, right. We're all in a great mood today. You guys are so mad. Just get ready for the merchandise spotlight. Okay. So, Luke is like, fuck this, you know?

The Jedi shouldn't be a thing. They were foolish. They were arrogant. He's interested in her, and she's like, I want to, and he's like, it's time for the Jedi to end. Yeah, done. Out of here. You want to have the Force? Fine.

Have fun. Jedi dead concept. Yes, that's his call, I guess. What happens next but it's really more also as we know he failed ben solo right he lost his jedi school yeah all these kids got murdered and this time it was a very emotionally taxing incident obviously ben was a sort of once in a generation, you know, a Mount Ben Hosley. Kylo Ren, who is kind of the Ben Hosley of Sith Lords, in terms of like power.

He's not a Sith Lord. It's in crucial note. There are no Sith. He's a Knight of Ren. He's a Knight of Ren. I'm sorry. He's a dark Jedi. Dark Force user. Whatever you want to fucking call it.

But obviously it's his nephew. It's the bloodline that he's connected to. Yeah. He understands that balance between the Skywalker and the Vader of it all. That and also he failed his sister. Yes. He failed his good buddy Han. Yes.

And kind of failed the galaxy. Yeah. So. Yeah. Legacy of failure galaxy. Yeah. So, legacy of failure there. Right, and he's looking back on the whole legacy

of the people who trained him and going like, Yoda might have fucked this whole thing up to begin with. So why should I be carrying on the traditions of this order

that maybe is inherently fucked? So, from this, we're going to cut back to the fleet. Sure. Where Kylo Ren

enraged because he just got a you know called a beta male by Snoke yeah he waved his

he waved his finger at him yeah yeah big long little spindly fingers yeah he kind of got caught gets in his pretty cool

little fighter craft what do you think of his fighter craft sort of TIE interceptor type oh cool spinny it spins good

attacks the rebel fleet because they're tracking them through hyperspace which shouldn't be possible right but uh apparently in rogue one did you read this no there's some little thing in rogue one where like you know how they like hack the empire files and rogue one and all that one of the files says like hyperspace tracking technology. Oh, cool. So they, uh, it only took another 80 years to perfect 20. Oh, sure. Sure. And like,

it's hard. Sure. And also the empire got blown up. Sure. You know, so, you know, yeah,

they start over. Give it a second. Right. They had to download like McAfee to do file recovery on those hard drives, which are burned up and all true explosion. Um, uh, Ben and David are both typing things now

I think David's filing a piece I'm not but I should be Ben is writing copy for other podcasts no I just wrote virus joke cut out oh cool

I watch him make all these little notes it's really funny foul recovery joke no okay so now you look like he attacks the fleet attacks the fleet

I don't know if there's something else you want to say here no and well because you seem to have something to say about the hyperspace tracking or was it just a mcafee joke yeah i think it's probably just all right fine uh attacks the feet blows up the main ship's bridge attacks the feet who are you a quinn tarantino movie blows up the main ship's bridge

leg it's sucked down into space what did you think of this did you think is this the end or were you like this can't be it because it would it's not hasn't been given enough weight like because that's what I thought when I initially the second I saw her get like blown into space what I thought and I will say this I might have fallen for it more had Carrie Fisher not died in real life because then you're like oh no we kind of knew they weren't killing her off because they had said over and over again like Leia's performance is gonna stand as it is i mean fit carrie's performance you know and like we're not messing with it at all we're not replacing anything and i also think if that was the decision to have her die that early on in the film they

would have edited and structured that sequence differently to give it more import if it truly was going to be her final moment. But you know who does die? Admiral Ackbar. The biggest trap of all. Esther went like, she was very shocked. It was a trap. I was trying to figure out

why they killed him off. Why? Did maybe the actor die? The actor did die, I believe. The guy who voiced Ackbar was like was very old yes like i'm sure who's like the voice of akbar i think it was marlon brando right ernest borg nine oh wow uh douglas fairbanks some other yeah the guy the original guy who voiced him died okay in 2016 right yeah so maybe that was it maybe it was just sort of like, you know what?

Yeah. Let's let Akbar have a noble death. And this movie also is, it's a real. Not that noble, really. Just gets sucked into space. It's not with the old and with the new movie. It is. It is very much like, you know what?

We can't just keep on relying on the old institution. It's true. And, you know, the resistance is so centered around Leia as this icon of the rebel alliance that first gave birth to the Republic. And yeah, it's true and you know the resistance is so centered around Leia as this icon of the rebel alliance that first gave birth to the Republic and yeah it's like you know

it's a crucial moment at the end of the movie when Poe is like leading people where Leia is like don't look at me like follow him like you know

where it's like she knows too like I can't do this forever Dave Schilling at Birth Movies Death had a review this movie I think is really good

where he said he thinks this film and it also, this lines up very well in terms of the time periods in which these trilogies are being made. Sure.

But this film is really about millennials inheriting and reckoning with the legacy of the baby boomers. Sure. I can see that. You know, it's like one political movement

a generation or two later dealing with the very self-righteous empowered we fixed everything sure i get that i get that read and being like nothing was fixed we're now inheriting twice as many problems because of what you tried to do sure and like our parents told us we could be anything right okay send us off to college participation right we're like 20 minutes into the movie and we've been talking for an hour plus this is gonna be four hour episode i cleared

off the whole day the studio schedule i have a hanukkah dinner to get to what if at this point right now when you're saying we've already been recording for an hour plus ben has edited the episode down so much that we're at minute 12 i mean that's what he should do you could do that that would be prudent he could cut this shit down no so So I just, the big thing that happens here is that Leia is floating in space. Uh-huh. Getting a little freezy. Yeah. And she sucks herself back with force powers.

She flies like Superman. What do you think of this scene? Because it is hotly divisive. Yeah. I don't know. Okay. I like that she survives. I like that she uses the force to survive yeah me too i'm not sure

how crazy i am about the execution of the moment itself visually all right well i disagree with you cool i mean i just i just i mean i just watched it and was immediately like spellbound by it and then as i was walking and i was so happy that she finally got a force moment that extended beyond her just sort of like sort of looking pained or whatever, which is what she's done in the other movies. I'll say I was 100% with it and was like pumping my fists until she starts

the actual floating. Like the flying back onto the ship. It felt a little too godlike to me, if that makes sense. But she's just sucking herself. You know, it's just moving. But you're doing the hand like that was part of it was like the whole hand gestures it's carrie fisher she's a fucking dead legend if they teed it up a little bit more with a force slap when he's when she slaps poe she like slapped him across the room or something yeah then i would

have been a little bit more like okay or even if they played like the electric slide while she's like force sliding back onto the ship. That would've worked. That would be more subtle to me. Do you know what I'm saying? I totally know what you're saying. And Ben agrees with it. Ben agrees. He's sort of going, I'm going to take a picture of you, Ben. So do that.

So Leia's back on the ship now. She's survived, but greatly damaged. She's unconscious, so she's going to go into the sort of the fin chamber, the revival chamber. And let's say this. I don't want to be morbid, okay? But like... This is something they wrote before she died, obviously.

Oh, 100%. 100%. And I've read a lot of people say that they thought she should have died that moment. That would have been a great hero death. I think there's only people saying that from the vantage point of knowing that the actor is dead. Yeah. Also, I don't... Why would that be a great hero death?

She just gets blown out of the ship? I agree, 100%. I think it's because then Holdo kind of enters and feels like she's going to be the new Leia, which she isn't. No. But the thing I was going to say is that's people wanting the movie

to be able to have an internal way to deal with Carrie Fisher's death. Oh, I think the movie does, though. Yeah, by thematics. But it keeps her alive at the end of the film, but it makes it clear the universe isn't about her anymore. Right, but it would be so hacky to me if she died on screen because it would just feel like what we're saying,

where they were like, oh, I guess we should kill her off because she died. Right, and Furious 7 is a very different case where he died halfway through the movie they had to rewrite the movie to work around that I'm not thrilled that you just brought up

Furious 7 I'm thrilled that I just brought up Furious 7 deals with it very well in its own way but if the force of if the last Jedi had tried any of the shit they try

you know digital recreation it would have gone over like a brick I agree 100% and also I think the ending of Furious 7 is a masterwork, but if Paul Walker had finished all the principal photography, I don't think they should have done any of that.

That was literally the only half the footage they needed, so they had to rewrite the movie. We agree. Let's not talk about this. I agree. I'm responding to fan criticism. Furious 7 is a perfect movie. Fan criticism seems to just be like, I don't like it. It's goofy. Those are her force

powers you know it seemed a lot of like it's also that's not how things have gone before right it's also weird simultaneously like i don't like how much the movie is goofy and i don't like how much the movie's cynical like i don't yeah it's true there's both of those criticisms luke isn't they don't like tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder but they also don't like him tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder. But they also don't like him saying that the Jedi order is fucked. Sure, but at least they knew that was coming. Yeah. That's in the trailer. That's in the trailer.

It's just pretty funny to me that The Force Awakens ended on Luke being offered the saber, and then two whole years later we finally see his reaction to it, which is like... I think that's a good joke. I think it's a good joke. How many comedy points? I gave it 10. I gave it 10. I think 15.

Fine. So Finn... But you have to put up five of your own. I'm only putting a good joke. How many economy points? I gave it 10. I gave it 10. I think 15. Fine. So Finn... But you have to put up five of your own. I'm only putting 10. Fine. So here's the new situation. The fleet is here. Yeah, I'm putting up five of my own.

Okay, the fleet is here. Leia's out now. She used up all her energy. She's in a healing tank. They can't jump to hyperspace because they seem to be being tracked to hyperspace. So they have to just keep outrunning the Star Destroyers. Yes.

And like sort of stay in this sort of static, you know what I mean, like fixed chase. But essentially the First Order is playing rope-a-dope with them. It knows if they keep on trying to race past them through hyperspace, they'll run out of fucking energy and then they'll just be stuck.

They'll be cornered. And that's when Muhammad Ali fucking takes them down, right? So now two big things happen one hey Leia's on bed rest for a little bit here's the new boss

in town her name is Space Stern yes that's her name Space Stern she fucking rules

our buddy Emma Stefanski Emmeline Holdo yes our buddy Emma Stefanski I believe it was the great Emma Stefanski I hope I'm not misattributing this to her

but I think it was her when I Love Dick came out said it's weird that Kevin Bacon's become the sexiest guy alive because he was never the sexiest guy alive there were other people

sexier than him and then he just stayed in it and now he is the sexiest guy alive and I kind of feel the same way about Laura Dern Dern just like persistence longevity legacy

yeah she comes on screen I'm just like Jesus Christ got purple hair got this sort of giraffe neck she's got a good six inches longevity legacy yeah she comes on screen I'm just like Jesus Christ got purple hair yeah got this sort of giraffe neck

yeah she's got a good six inches on fucking Oscar Isaac she's tall I mean Oscar Isaac is not tall Oscar Isaac's not tall

she's especially tall and she just fucking rules Laura Dern's 5'10 yeah pretty tall yeah

but she's probably got a heel on it's certainly big for an actress definitely has heels on has a lot of hair and she's just got a quiet

gentle authority and she's also got a quiet, gentle authority and she's also got fucking pink hair and space dirt. Rules! So, yeah, but so Poe is like, what's the plan here? Are we gonna go blow things up? What's the plan? Because his X-Wing gets blown up in the attack, so what are we gonna do? And she's sort of like, uh, here's

the plan. Because she was like Leia's protege, and she's like, look, I learned from Leia. We all know Leia. I'm not going to fucking do shit Leia style. I'm not tolerating your bullshit, Poe Dameron. You want to have fun adventures? Do it in a spinoff comic that only Griffin will read.

This is a main entry Star Wars movie. You play by my rules. We call that the Poe chair. You sit in it. So you'll sit there and if i need something from you such as an order of macaroni and cheese yeah i will let you know you're getting a provisional 12 issue run and after that we will negotiate so that's what's happening but finn seeing all this i gotta get the fuck out of who remember is essentially three weeks old yes as a person yes he had his little adventure yes

which was the first time he's basically been a conscious human being his love is real but he is not and then he was in coma you know he was in so he's basically still brand new he's looking at all this ray's not with him right uh there's this little beacon that she can find and now he's sort of been grandfathered into being seen as like an important figure you're a hero you're the traitor from the first order who like helped us blow up star killer base what a great guy you are kind of a savant i don't know if i can replicate it my my software slump is gonna be hard so he's but also he's like fuck ray can't come back to this because this is doomed this whole thing looks bad he goes to his escape pod to leave who does does he meet? Rose Tika. Played by? Kelly Marie Tran,

who is a UCB alum, a West Coast UCB-er. Oh, I had no idea. That was her main base. I mean, she had pretty much just done sketch videos, web series, and was a UCB performer.

She's never been in a movie, right? Correct. So her and I are exactly the same, much like Gal Gadot and I are exactly the same because we're both Jewish superheroes. Right. Kelly Marie Tran and I

are exactly the same because we're both UCB people who then became part of the most important franchise of all time. The two most important franchises ever. The Tick and Star Wars. Your parents are refugees who fled Vietnam during the Vietnam War, right? Or is that the one

difference between you two? I'm saying that's maybe more where I go into the Gal Gadot thing where we're both highly trained militant Jews. But yes, she is. You're right, UCB. Thank you. She also did some Second City stuff.

Yeah, she was like an IO. She did all the LA improv theaters. There's a really good Entertainment Weekly piece on her just like temping and working night jobs and taking classes and wondering whether she should quit or not and then getting Star Wars and not being able to tell anyone for like four months.

Right. I love her in this movie. I love this character. And how do you feel about it? He's doing the Griffin face again. Introduction of this character, 100% on board. I find her very winning, very just honest and open as a performer, especially for someone who has not been in a movie before.

Right. She feels completely unintimidated by her surroundings. Sure. It just feels like a very, very joyful, honest, open performance. I think the setup of the character is awesome. Her sister died, obviously. She's very sad. And she's working in the trenches.

She's part of this big thing. Works behind pipes all day. Right. She's essentially working in the mail room of the trenches. She's part of this big thing. Works behind pipes all day. Right. She's essentially working in the mail room of the resistance. She's like an engineer or something. And she views Finn as a celebrity. This is the hero. This is the guy. This is the inspirational story. He worked his way up from the bad side

to the upper ranks. He gives me hope that maybe I could make it happen someday, which makes Finn reevaluate his whole position because he just still thinks that he's some fucking noob. But he realizes now that he has some weight and power. Okay, but what's your criticism of this character? I think this character is missing like one emotional beat and I can't figure out what it is. There's like some emotional beat this character is missing for once I'd seen the end of the movie and knew the whole arc they were trying to pull off.

There's some beat missing and I can't identify it. Okay. I don't know. Which for me is like the difference between this character like... I think you'll see it again and maybe you'll settle down about it. You said that you have a whole hot take on what you like about the whole Rose Finn plotline. Because some people say that this is

like the plotline that is the least consequential could be lifted from the film. And you've been defending it pretty hard. Of course, it's crazy that people say that to me. I mean, it's inconsequential in terms of like what they get wrapped up in pretty quickly is this sort of like harebrained scheme like

out of a Star Wars movie Yeah, it's Star Wars-y and I would almost say where they're going to zip over to some planet, they're going to get a guy, they're going to break onto a Star Destroyer and they're going to break the hyp some planet, they're going to get a guy, they're going to break onto a Star Destroyer, and they're going to break the hyperspace tracker so that they can escape. Because she's resistance tech, and when he starts explaining to her this thing

about them being able to track... They figure out how the tracking would work and how we would disrupt it, and they're both janitor types. They both have worked in the bowels of ships, so they kind of get that. Him on the first order, obviously. So they go to Poe, who's the regional manager.

It's the highest-ranking person. They're they're really close no but poe's also like what the you know we need to fucking do something really really cool right like i think we should do sort of like a star wars thing right now right like i don't like laura durn's plan which seems to be like caution and moderation right not into that like what if we did something completely stupid yeah like hired colin trevor direct a star wars film and they're're like, let's hire Colin Trevor to break the site. And he's like, no, no, he won't do it.

He won't take my calls. Too talented. The captain? I can't even read him. No, no, no. But no, so they're like, what if we do all this crazy shit?

And he's like, go do it. And yes, spoiler alert, their plan fails. Yeah. It doesn't work. Yeah, it ends up being a real wild goose chase.

A little bit. They get caught up with some unsavory types. They see a little bit of the galaxy and they form a real strong bond. And the arc of the movie to me is more about Finn who is a baby who has no

concept of why the Rebel Alliance or Resistance or whatever should really exist apart from that the First Order is bad. He doesn't like the First Order. not who has no concept of why the rebel alliance or resistance, whatever should really exist. Apart from that, the first door is bad. He doesn't like the first order. Yeah. Uh,

understanding like the underpinnings of this galaxy and like what they're actually fighting against. Yeah. But at the same time, without the sort of like, it's not goofy and gung ho, like it's textured and like the del toro character is there to be like i get what you're saying kid but you know you know that i don't know if this is

exactly black and white over here universe right you know what i'm realizing and she is this character who's like you know i am the marginalized people of this galaxy right but she's also still entirely optimistic. Right. She believes so thoroughly in the good that can exist in people. I mean, the thing I love about this character and people probably just don't like this part of the movie maybe,

but like, is that when he's like, can't a bite, what's it like? And she's like, it's the worst. It's full of the worst people. It's the worst place.

And then he arrives and it's this like gorgeous casino planet with all this fun shit. And like, but like, and she she's like just what I thought. That's what I love about her. Sorry what were you going to say? I'm realizing I think the emotional beat I'm missing to make this entire plot line work for me is there's a lot

of Rose explaining where she comes from, what she's had to go through, what she's had to persevere past. There's one scene. I'm not saying there's too much. Sure, maybe two scenes. I'm saying you have her at the beginning, you have her talking about the sister. Her at the beginning where she talks about her sister dying, and then on Cantabite where she's sort of like look closer. I'm saying there's the correct amount of that.

She's offering some advice that Alan Ball offered in American Beauty. Look closer. Sure. Which, God, so fucking profound. Agreed. This movie could use a plastic blab floating around at some point. A plastic blag floating around a plastic blag I don't know fuck you

fuck you I didn't say it you're being so mean to me I love you I never get to talk on this podcast no no no let's just

we'll say bag we'll get a clean you never get to talk it's really true how you never get to talk on this podcast just say bag there's something I've been worried about

just get a clean take a bag okay like a plastic blag floating around. Did we get that? Did we get that? Yeah, we got it clean. That's the whole episode.

Cool. This is a great postscript, by the way. By the way, yeah. Really long. No, no, I don't think so. I guess it's about as long as our usual.

What's the beat you're looking for here? Cancel our podcast. The beat I'm looking for, I think, would make this whole plot line and their relationship... Sing for you.

Just that final bit. What is it? I want the moment where Finn opens up to her about his past experiences. That's fair. I mean... Because she knows his story, the legacy. Oh, first order this and that.

I want some moment when he relates to her because it's a lot of him listening to her talk about what she's gone through. Right, right, right. And I feel like they don't have the deep emotional bonding moment that I want. They're sort of unified by being in this high-stick situation together. I agree with all that. Nice kids. But I like that

his big moment is this literal and metaphorical triumph over Phasma, where he not only defeats her, and she is, because people are like, Phasma's really not a character in these movies, and now she's dead.

Yeah. And I say to that two things. One, she's totally going to come back in episode nine, and she's going to be all burned up and weird, and I'm going to love it. Yeah, me too. Or maybe she won't, but I don't know,

but I would be so into that. She's like, yeah, like burnt Phasma? Come on. Now she's bronze.'s bronze but yeah yeah she's like copper phasma yeah no but also like she's like she is just a stand-in for like the trauma of finn's life in the first order right he's the man she's the school mom not beyond that like the the tormentor the person who is like you are and she says it literally like you're a cog in a machine or whatever. You know what I mean? Like she has that line to him in this movie.

So he's defeating that part of his past, right? But then the, so that's his arc here. But her arc is that, is teaching him like the people matter. I agree. But let me ask you this. Okay. We're not going to, you know, that's how we're going to win. Not by destroying what we hate.

By saving what we love. I love all the messaging of this movie. But this is what i want to ask you i want to give ryan johnson a medal for that line when they're on that fucking balcony and they're looking out at those creatures doing the race do we know what they're called uh the fandral i can't i think that's what they're called and she talks about like no but look at what's going on underneath look at the coal that's being shoveled in to operate this this train right and pointing out the abuse of these children you know so sorry not fandrels that's a harry potter thing the fave years five years something like that okay anyway space horses don't you feel like if there was some moment where finn opened up to her and was like i

know that feeling and sort of talked about the sort of like pipeline of being a child soldier, being reared for that, spoke of whether or not directly or indirectly the presence of Phasma-like figures in his life. I get what you're saying. That might be cool. And it would also, I think, make

the Phasma thing land a little more heartily for me. This is the one time in the history of this podcast that you've said something where I'm like, no, I get that. Hey, finally.

No, I get what you mean, but I'm- First episode you let me talk. First episode where you realized that I'm a genius. You're just, it's famed for how quiet you are on this show.

Yeah. And like, how, you know, reticent you are to jump in. You muzzled me. You just had this triumphant moment where you actually like, you know, won me over. Yeah. It was a huge moment.

I succeeded. Now, David, I want you to sell me on something. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, how do you feel about like drama? I mean, love it. How do you feel about science fiction?

The best. How do you feel about podcasts? I don't know if it's going to be a lasting medium, but I mean, I'm with it how do you feel about science fiction the best how do you feel about podcasts I don't know if it's going to be a lasting medium but I mean what if it's more of like a sort of single episode podcast feature length okay like an hour and a half long

it tells a complete story like a you know like sort of like an old-fashioned radio play like a movie for your ears wow I should write ad copy exactly all right well I want to talk to you about this show for your ears? Wow. I should write that in copy. Exactly. All right. Well, I want to

talk to you about this show called Cerberus Rex. Okay. Good title. It is a science fiction show. Hour and a half

long. Sort of an audio adventure, I guess, as you put it. Movie for your ears. That's available to stream or download on sci-fi.com

that's sci-fi.com And that's not a domain name you come by easily. No, sci... That's a real deal domain name. That's sci-fi. You can get a high quality version of it for $2 or you can just listen to it for free

in regular quality version. I don't know if they have a Professor Crispy working on that high quality version, but it's possible. It sounded pretty crisp to my ears.

That might be where Professor Crispy is. That's why you always denounce the title because you are not Professor Crispy. No. They might have hired

the good doctor himself. I think that Jason over it at Cerberus Rex, he might have, you know, formed a dark alliance with Professor Crispy. Well, maybe it's a nice alliance. I think he's a good guy.

Let's say this too, okay? Oh, I like listening to audiobooks. Well, guess what? That's not the medium that this work was intended to be heard in. Fair enough. It's a book. And then someone's reading it, okay? No, this is like a radio drama.

I mean, I've listened to some of these, like The Message. I was talking about The Message. I like that a while back. You know, like there's this like sort of revival of like great old school radio plays. Let's talk about a level of intentionality. I'm going to sit down. I'm going to write a 90 minute fucking sci-fi drama designed for this medium. Going to get professional actors. Hells yeah. Voice actors. Yeah. But this medium. Gonna get professional actors.

Hells yeah. Voice actors. Yeah. But also like theater actors, screen actors. Yeah. Gonna have like music. Special effects.

Sound effects. Pew pew. Ding dong. Ding dong. Suspense. Yeah. And it's, you know,

gonna have like twists and turns. Like it's like a involving, like, you know, look, I like talking about butt wipes as much as the next guy all of us do love sponsoring love being sponsored by butt wipes but it's cool to talk about like you know an actual work of drama on this show and like promote that look i mean look we we love art we're patrons of the arts if if nothing else. Okay? And this is a work of art made by someone.

Jason Hardcastle. Let's say it, is a blankie. He is, yeah. He's a fan of the show. And he reached out to us for us to listen to the show. He wanted to see if we were into it. And we said, fucking, yeah. Talk about it on the show.

Yes. I don't really want to get into the plot of it. Because I feel like the whole point of it is the, you know, like getting sort of sucked in by it. Yes. But it's about these like scientists investigating a sort of, you know, physics mystery. It's got like kind of like an X-Files sort of vibe with like sort of a John Carpenter, the thing kind of atmosphere, if that makes sense. Yes. You know what I mean?

And it's great. And you guys should listen to it at sci.fi.com hells yeah hells yeah all right okay so now we're back on the island of akto so this shit's great yeah right yeah i mean like i feel like you liked the island stuff pretty much uniformly i was so excited that i was seeing Luke Skywalker in a movie. Sure. Interesting. See, like, I like Luke Skywalker. But it's not like... Han Solo was the one where I was like,

I was worrying about him and like I wanted him to be okay. Luke, I'm sort of like, Luke can do whatever he wants. I'm not going to worry about it. Han Solo is my favorite character. He's cool. Or was my childhood favorite character. I think I've become more of a Leia guy with time from the original sequel trilogy. Virtue signaling much.

Hey. Sorry. I'm kidding. She's the Lisa Simpson of the Star Wars universe. She's the best. But Luke represents so much. There's so much power in the idea of Luke Skywalker. And I also think the rush of watching Mark Hamill get a part like this.

And nail it and do well. That was the big thing for me. It's very exciting. Yeah, because he did mostly become a voice actor. And you'd hear him in interviews say like, yeah, I kind of resigned to the fact I don't think I'm going to get that big live action role again. You know, I thought I could age into being, like, an interesting kind of character actor, and it mostly feels like voice acting.

And then he does these sort of cameos where it feels like children of Star Wars casting him to show up for one scene. Even in stuff like Brigsby Bear, which he's good in, it's like, you know, he's being deployed as Mark Hamill, even if he's playing another character. I always think he's good. But also he's done a lot of animation voice acting, which is very big, very often. And so there's that question of, like, can he go back to live acting? He's really good, actually. He's really good. Like, I actually, you know,

I'm just sort of thinking about all the choices he's making. And he's kind of got, you know, I know He's also got a good face right now. He looks incredible. You know what I mean? He's aged into this. He looked like they did it right. Like, he looks like this grizzled, kind of like slightly freaky great glassy eyed work oh my god his eye work in this movie is great because that's

the thing like sometimes when you see people who are predominantly voice actors i know he's a different case because he started out as an on-camera stage actor right right when you see them on screen their voice can feel a little disconnected from their body sure because they've honed that one thing so much. But he's doing a full, incredible, rich vocal performance. He really knows how to play his voice like an instrument now. But then also, he's got this

incredible fucking clenched jaw, glassy eyed, broken, bottled fucking fear that he's holding onto in every single shot. Yeah. He's got some amazing closeups in this movie.

He does. When he attacks Kylo. Oh my God. That's it's intense. And it's also kind of really showing that even Luke Skywalker is going between good and evil. Yeah. Not so simple.

And I, and I like, you know, Not so simple. And I like, you know, I always like the meta energy of an actor so excited to be given the chance that you can feel how much they're fucking given into the movie. That he can't believe he's getting to play this part. You know? Yeah.

Even though he sort of talked about how freaked out he was by Rian Johnson's like take on Luke. Yeah. I think he thought he was just going to get to play heroic Luke. Right. Yeah, probably. Originally, you know? Well, how does Luke get won over to work with Rey after ignoring her for a while? He goes to the Falcon.

He's sort of exploring around because he's wrestling with the death of Han. Right, he asks about Han because he sees chewy yeah where's han what happened to han and then he goes and he sees the dice uh sees the dice which are this like very like minor piece of lore but they are in the original movie and they're not in all of them they're only in the original movie and force awakens oh really set dresser like forgot about them in the sequels um but i always knew about the dice because any of the Star Wars cards, they would always throw them in.

I think a lot of fans were like, Han was like, he had dice? What's this? It's not like Han was like, I'm the dice man! No, but it's like the fucking dice, the fuzzy dice. No, I know what you mean.

Of course. I mean, he did do the smoking trick. He did do the, yeah, of course. Put his arm around his head. Hickory dickory dock! Little smuff it. Why can I speak today? I mean, he did do that smoking trick. He did do that. Yeah, of course. Put his arm around his head. Hickory dickory dock. Little Liss Moffitt. Why can't I speak today? I'm literally mispronouncing every word every time I try to do a bit.

Correct. Well done. Do you want to get a clean take? Who does he run into? Little Liss Moffitt. Who does he run into on the Falcon? You're really struggling to remember this. Our buddy R2-D2.

R2-D2. Our good friend R2-D2. And what I think is a pretty cute little prod from Rian Johnson to JJ Abrams yeah R2

he's talking R2 says like you know essentially I think he's saying what the fuck's the matter with you living on this island watch the language

sacred island watch the language yeah and then R2 he's like nothing I'm not doing this no way I'm not interested

no way Jose nothing you could do yeah and R2 plays the Leia tape. Yeah. And he goes, like, that's a cheap shot, buddy. Which, especially now with the passing of Carrie Fisher, like, that was the moment that brought me closest to Tio. That's so good.

But I also do. Right? Yeah. It did get one. Yeah. And it just, it conjures up the optimism of his original story. Right. He's now so hard and cynical.

The thrill of the rebellion. Right, and he's seeing that Rey is like Leia, like him at that point at that age, where it's like they actually believe that they can save the galaxy. And maybe the people who think that that's possible are the people who need to be empowered to do so. At least try. So he starts training Rey and we pretty quickly have. Yeah, the music.

I mean, the music cue and you should listen to the score. And I believe the cue is that the track is called. Maybe it's called The Last Jedi. It might actually be called that. Like of Luke marching out. John Williams is just like hey man, I ain't dead.

Yeah. But he starts training Rey. We have my favorite scene in the movie. Which is? The first lesson. He says he's going to give her three lessons.

With the pebbles? Yes. Where essentially he's sort of probing her force powers. but beyond that he is explaining what the force is yeah this is in this way that films have never even tried to do before in a poetic manner it's it's like a terence malick sequence like it becomes like the tree of life it's wonderful yeah i really think it's it's very economical it's not over the top. Yeah. And he's just like, I mean,

there's also the line where he's like, what's the force? And she's like, it's this like magic power. You can make people do things and lift rocks and stuff. 100% wrong. And he's like, that's not what it is.

And then he does the thing where he tickles her finger with the leaf, which is really funny. And I'll give him two comedy points for that. I'll give him five. It's really funny. Cause he's like, look at him in that give him five it's really funny because he's like look at him in that scene when you rewatch it

where he's like oh yeah that must be the force that's what it is do you know what's the thing I find very interesting about this film Rian Johnson is on record as a Phantom Menace

trilogy defender uh huh okay I didn't know that and you know you wonder how much of that is like diplomatic now that he's like you know part of the machinery

but he seems to talk about intelligently enough and be like it's its own thing i respect it for different reasons there's a lot of him trying to bridge the gap between the two yeah and make those first three phantom menace movies work more in the larger context here right and he's sort of like not throwing out anything in the phantom Menace trilogy but getting into like a deeper thing where he's like I'm not saying it's not midichlorians. No no we're just not going to talk about that. And I'm also not saying it's everything they said in the original three.

Sure right. I'm getting to like I'm an old dude here. Here's what the force really fucking is. Here's what the force means to me. You know he's like what do you feel? And she's like life, death you know peace, violence. She keeps sort of... And he's like, in between it all, and she says, balance.

And there's these nice visual representations of all these things. But Luke's point is, right, balance. It's for everybody. This isn't a Jedi thing. Okay? The future of the galaxy rests on the undecided voters.

You know what I'm saying? You have your first order, you have your resistance. God. And it's like polarized time. Yeah. It's a polarized time. You need,

you need the people who are aware of the balance and moderation to be able to fucking nurture that. But then she like forces out and cracks things and flits and pebbles and has a vision of this like sort of dark place on the island. This like weird sinkhole. It's cool. And then also, he flips out. Yeah, he's like, you're too powerful. I've seen that power once before. This is like Ben.

I wasn't scared of him. I'm scared of you. And she makes it clear that she felt everything on the island other than him. He's turned himself off to the force. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's gone force sober now. Came here to die. Came here to die. Along with the Jedi Jedi so what's happening

at the same time as all this island shit is that Rey's having these conversations with Kylo Ren yes

they keep meeting each other in their minds yeah which I think is a really cool cinematic device I think it's awesome it's very simple

but it's done very well able to do this cross-cutting conversational thing. Yeah, where they're in their own rooms. And the only time you see them together in the same room, it's this kind of frightening sight. Yes.

Where it's like they've gotten so close that they can actually sort of manifest themselves in front of each other. Yeah, and I think this definitely feels like he had the opposite actor on each set doing this off camera. Oh, that probably is true. Because it's very— That's interesting. I wonder about that because that would have been such a task.

They're very focused performances. Yeah, yeah. You know? They're so good. Yeah, and they're really relating to each other even though they're in different backgrounds. Like, you know, you rarely get them in the same shot in any of these conversations. No. Everyone's probably have one of them peeking into the other one's place for a moment.

conversations everyone's going to have one of them peeking into the other one's place for a moment um but but it's that kind of like super analog trickery that almost excites me most in big movies like this um yeah doing shot reverse shot in different ends of the galaxy and it's like it's sort of playing in the pool of like the ray kylo ren connection where it's like oh are they related? Is that why this is happening? Are they in love? Is that why this is happening? Is Rey going to turn evil?

Is he going to turn good? This other thing that Rian Johnson is really trying to do, which is like, yes, all this is indebted to the previous Star Wars films. But I'm not making this the exact same dynamic

we've done before. These two characters as figureheads are going to be different than the protagonists and villains we've had before. But two characters as figureheads are going to be different than the protagonists and villains we've had before, but also what they represent, the forces that they're leading,

you know? Yeah. We're going to hang closer to the middle. Yeah, that's true. It's not so much about stark opposites anymore. But also it's like these characters are so, like their place in the world is so volatile. You know, like Kylo Ren's, the whole point of him is he's this like fountain of power and and since he got turned like ray is this sort

of fountain that's risen like and there are characters that are burdened by legacy he wants to be darth vader and she wants to be luke skywalker and both of them are starting to wonder like wait who are these actual people that i'm trying to be i love that about ray though that in the last movie she wants to be han Solo and in this movie she's like I mean he's cool but I think I might want to be Luke Skywalker. And we know that in the next movie she's going to want to be Watto. But

this is where Driver starts to really fucking blow me away. Because this whole movie is him just like a coin somehow balancing up on its side. Waiting to see where it's going to fall. And he actually creates an astonishing

amount of tension. Right. Trying to figure out where he's going to go. Yeah. And whether or not he's manipulating you, the audience,

whether he's manipulating her. Right, yeah. Or if he's genuinely that conflicting. And he does it all in a very bottled way. I mean, it's the thing about acting where it's like,

it's always more interesting to watch someone try to hold back than to show. That's what he's so good at. And he's trying not to show anything, but you're seeing the emotion seep out from all sides of him. The hatred, the vulnerability, all of it. I said this before you got here, comparing this performance

with Hayden. Yeah. It's like, he just kills it you actually i mean he's found a way to visualize through his face someone weighing the balance of his own morality i mean hayden had the problem of one who's was being directed by george lucas and you know two he was acting alongside tennis balls but three right he was playing this character where we're all like he's gonna be darth vader yeah so anytime he's a bitch sure sure uh not to you know but like not to be too glib about it but anytime you're saying and we're like darth vader's supposed to be cool man what the but i'm watching this movie and i'm going like

you know what you know whatever we are like an hour into the movie or whatever i'm watching and i'm going like two hours into the podcast yeah yeah uh i'm watching it and I'm going like... Two hours into the podcast is what you mean. Yeah. I'm going, there's a chance that by the time we get to episode nine, Kylo Ren's the hero and Rey's the villain. Like, they could pull this off. When I'm watching this movie... And they're starting to shake hands. The first time, I'm genuinely wondering, is that the trick they're going to pull?

Where saving Rey will be the focus of the ninth movie? Like, is that going to happen? And I'm, I'm concerned cause I don't want it to, because I just don't think you can pull it off, but it is amazing how close they feel. They feel to pulling it off.

Yes. Yeah. Um, and of course he's planting this thing in her mind of like Luke's version of like the massacre. Yeah. It's a little different from from my version Luke's version is I was evil and he you know he rebelled and my version is I woke up with Luke getting ready to kill me he tried to preemptively kill me yeah there's this sort of Rashomon like we see the

scene three times right and the third time is probably the closest to the truth which is like Luke thought about it he had the moment of weakness and even in thinking about it he helped propel ben you know into becoming right and that's the main reason that he cast himself out of society yeah that he felt like i don't want to be luke skywalker the legend i can't handle that he just loves that milk right off the tip just yeah yeah he's sucking right off the tip yeah um okay so now oh we the nuns fish nuns oh yeah they're fish just want to shout them out turtle nuns uh they're great and i love them so they live on the island and they're running bit with with like ray keeps smashing shit yeah like so we've we've covered a good degree of the canto bite stuff just by zooming ahead but oh. They're sent there because they need someone who can...

So they talk to Maz. An eighth-billed Lupita Nyong'o appearing only via hologram. I think that's a pretty good joke, though. Where she's having some kind of wacky space adventure that we should see in a spinoff movie, which is a union dispute, she says. Uh-huh.

What do you think? Yeah, it's good comedy. Yeah, whatever. I want maz and nine now i do too like i want maz to do a whole bit i miss maz she's great yeah uh but but she's like right go recruit my friend the master code breaker he's on kanto bite he wears a red flower yeah he co-wrote iron man 2 rock of ages everyone talks about his dick a lot. Yeah, which is like kind of a weird double standard that we haven't really started investigating yet. Well, we're starting to, I think.

Let's start digging into that. Well, you talk about dicks a lot. I do, but I think in a very positive way. I think in a very progressive way. They go to try to recruit him at the casino planet Canto Bight, which has become another point of people going like, this feels like prequel shit. And I look at it and I'm like, this feels like the good execution of what Lucas

was trying to do in the prequels. Here's what this feels like. It's awesome. One, John Williams is like, again, like, I'm not dead. He's throwing out some bangers. Oh my god, the score for this whole sequence is amazing. That long shot Ryan does where he pushes through the casino

and you just see 8,000 amazing creatures doing weird gambling stuff. Look, I love space drunks, right? Oh, space drunks. Yeah, there's that weird little gremlin who starts putting coins into BB-8. But up until now, we've only been in space dive bars where it's like, this is a hive of scum and

villainy. Right, because again, it's that cut of Rose being like, it's the worst place and you're like oh it's like Mos Eisley and then you cut to these people being like ooh they'll be like clinking their champagne glasses yeah right this is like a high thread count scum yes Thoreau looks great he slams his dick out in the

table he's but he's obviously he's your red herring right red flower red herring he's awesome and I'd love to see a whole movie about Justin Theroux, James Bond. Yes. Space Bond. But instead, they get thrown into the slammer. Because they parked in the wrong place.

Because poor people are not allowed to be in this casino planet. And they can sniff them out immediately. Exactly. And these are all war profiteers. Yeah, they're arms dealers. They're weapons people. That's what Rose is pointing out to Finn. That's how you Rose is pointing out to Finn what's the biggest business in the galaxy? wars

it's not called star peace baby so they get thrown in the slammer in the tombs, the drunk tank along with a lawyer played by full Benicio Del Toro now I have to say this is a big movie, this is a crazy big budget right?

Yeah. State-of-the-art resources. This one has the single most incredible special effect I've ever seen in my life. And I don't know if it's digital. I don't know if it's practical. I can't tell if it's a prosthetic. If it's an animatronic. They have found some way to make Benicio Del Toro look tired.

That was your big joke that you didn't want me to spoil, I'm assuming. Let's be honest. It was very funny. The second he showed up, yeah, it was very funny. I said, how'd they do it? How'd they do it? And I'm like, what? And he's like, how'd they make him look so tired? Pretty funny.

See, Ben, the joke is that Benicio Del Toro always looks sleep deprived. Benicio Del Toro looks like he's been in like he needs a Casper mattress he's been in hyper sleep since since the usual suspects because he's kind of doing the usual suspects

a little bit that kind of like stuttering he's got this stutter that he's added he's going full del Toro. I knew what they wanted. I like it. Oh, I love it.

I'm reeling into it. My favorite thing is when he goes to get something from his little bunk in the prison and it's his boots and he drapes them over his shoulders. Listen, are you kidding me? Star scum. Okay. He is star scum. I like star scum.

Yeah. I've been missing on some star scum. I also liked it. They're like, where are we going to find a cold breaker? And he's like, I can do it. Yeah. I can do it. okay he is star scum i like star scum yeah i've been missing on some star scum i also like that they're like where are we gonna find a cold breaker and he's like i can do it yeah i can do it and they're like uh yeah don't worry about it we're fine he's like i'm just saying i can get you into snoke's boudoir you know he's like and they're like yeah don't worry about it we don't want to deal with you it's only after he literally breaks out they're like i guess we should go with this guy yeah but he's like a space crust punk he's got a jughead hat and he's got like a pocket full of pins that he can use to like they're essentially like lock

picks right like space lock picks and he says he's a lawyer he's like a night court lawyer he's great yeah uh and then there's this whole sequence where they break the horses out and ride them around. Now, while I watched this sequence, I burst into tears and cried for the whole thing. Really? And then, like, the first time. And other people, as we were walking around, were like, I like the movie a lot, except for the space horses. Okay, I'm going to throw out a complaint that I think you're going to just go, nope, wrong, shut up. Uh-huh, great.

I think this— go nope wrong shut up uh-huh great uh i i think i just i was very locked into rose actualizing like her own feelings here with this sort of mutant agreed and i like the kids and 100 here's my great yeah it's a little one yeah yeah i think the compositing in this movie is a little dodgy i think whenever it gets into live action actors in a mostly cgi zone the compositing isn't as strong he's talking about compositing. Because it sticks out like a sore thumb. What? You mean just them running?

Yeah, when they're in the full CGI environment. I also think it happens during the battle with BB-8 on the walker and shit like that. There's some sequences where I think— Those are the two. It's like the Spielberg percentage thing. I know. We talked about 75-25. I know. Because I think Rian Johnson is pretty analog. It's like the Spielberg percentage thing. I don't know. We talked about 75-25. I know.

Because I think Rian Johnson is pretty analog. He's an analog dude. Yeah, I agree. And JJ maybe has a little more experience with that. You know, Gareth Edwards has a little more experience with that. You know, Force Awakens also has a couple sequences where the visuals are kind of flat. Like, you know, it's hard. This shit's hard.

I agree. There's just a couple moments where they look like color forms placed onto a CGI movie. I'm such a nerd. I am. Big old nerd. I'm owning it. But I just like the idea, I guess. I do too.

I like her getting the, you know, taking the saddle off at the end there, saying this is how it's worth it. The thing that Phantom Menace Trilogy defenders always throw out is like, look, JJ was just rehashing the old movies. Like, Lucas was actually trying to do new shit with it. And it's like, here's the best of both worlds. Here's like new shit that's actually well executed. Yeah. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This isn't like fucking Dexter Jetster's Diner, which let me say is like, I mean, good food and affordable prices. Yeah. But thematically doesn't make a ton of sense. Sure. It's just this weird fucking 50s nostalgia bet. Whereas the casino thing is like this actually

says something about the universe the structure of how it works. I agree. Now I mocked openly a tweet that said something along the lines

of like this movie's worse than episode three. Even George Lucas never made a film where half the storyline is pointless filler. And I was like

one have you seen the pod race in episode one? The best sequence of all time. Pointless filler. I mean, George Lucas is the king of pointless filler. That's what I call pod racing. That was, to be fair, an official CD, compilation CD compilation. See, there was released in on tattooing, right? That's what I call pod racing.

Uh, correct. Uh, also, uh, weird to Barack Obama to tweet that, especially since he's been pretty quiet recently. I think he finally found something he wanted to talk about.

Yeah. Um, so yeah, you've been mocking that. I know. I think all this works and I think it is. Yeah. I think this is not a pointless filler. Whereas I think something like the pod race, which I do enjoy,

is Lucas being like, well, I can't just take the kid. So I guess there'll be like a whole thing about a bet, a double bet on a pod race. But then this gets to one of my favorite elements of the movie, which is they're down in the trenches, on a pod ring. But then this gets to one of my favorite elements of the movie, which is they're down in the trenches

and they see these kids who are like slaves, you know, tending after these creatures. Yeah. And Rose and Finn are able to come to them

and be like, hey, look. There's this key moment where Rose opens her sort of French resistance decoder ring, yeah. Yeah.

And being like, we're in the resistance. Like, yeah. And you see them all just go like, holy fucking shit. Yeah. Because like, here are two kids who like came out of nothing no i'm saying finn and rose oh sure fair enough yeah you know it's like these are now relatable heroes this is true this is true they're they're similar to these kids yes their upbringing you

know mining planet for rose that's kind of meta thing about what Star Wars means to children. I love it. But it works. I love it. I mean, this to me feels like inherent to Johnson's initial pitch. Yeah. Because it's the ending of the movie for these kids. Do you think that's what his trilogy is going to be, if not directly, kind of? I'm wondering if, since it seems like Episode IX is going to be the end of the Skywalker saga,

he's going to make a new trilogy of new characters who are kind of the children of the outcome of these films. Maybe. Yeah. I don't know. He's also kind of talked about like going to the further reaches though. So like maybe it won't be as sort of like fate of the galaxy oriented. That's my hope.

Yeah. Yeah. A new hope. It would be a great new hope. So back to Octo. Yeah. There's the big fight between Ray and Luke. Mm-hmm.

Where she sort of confronts him finally and says, like, what happened with Ben? She also, before this, she goes down into the pit. Yeah. And does the infinite mirrors. Yeah, man. What'd you think of that sequence? She almost breaks into a Fosse number thing. Yeah, it's a Busby Berkeley sequence.

I think the compositing's a little dodgy. But. But. I actually rolled my eyes Berkeley sequence. I think the compositing is a little dodgy. But, but... I actually rolled my eyes at that. I was really annoyed about that. You did a full, like, fucking George Clooney

Ocean's 13 eye roll. Yeah, that was a good call. Thank you. But I like the sequence a lot. I love that... I mean, look, I love the dark, the cave of evil

in Empire Strikes Back. I love Luke, you know, facing off against, right. But like, yeah, the metaphor is clear, right? In that I like to me, the idea of this scene is. Oh yes, definitely. Totally clear. No, in the Empire Strikes Back.

Oh sure. Like the metaphor is very clear. Luke chops off Darth Vader's head. Luke's face is underneath. We get it. But he's his own worst enemy. But in this movie too, it's super clear. Well, I like that it's super clear. Well,

I like that it's more poetic. I know exactly what they're saying. She wants to see her parents and she's like, you know, like at the end of this long line of Ray's, like trying to get to some like final answer. Yeah. And it's like,

you know, he's telling us like Ray, it's about Ray. She has to make her own destiny right but you know she's looking for an answer that that there is no easy fix exactly but it's not doing it in the way where it's definitely saying all of our points in unison yeah yeah it's like one of those things where we're singing a song and he's like and home of the brave i do like that sequence a lot

but then right that's when she and right afterwards is when she confronts Luke and they have that little fight with the sticks I think that's cool where Luke's finally waking up

you know yeah they're in the rain and he snaps off the branch and he sort of stops himself when she gets the lightsaber Luke owns up to it and but his owning up is good

and it feels right yeah and she just kind of says something like look we need you now I'm saying it one more time I'm gonna go off right i know what i gotta do i think i can get ben i think i can win him back so you're coming with me or not and she holds out the lightsaber again and he's like hard pass yeah and she's like but is this hard pass like the way the blank track

always say hard pass where then it actually means that the performance is good coming up yeah yeah that'll be an hour seven if you want to skip ahead um and i can't believe i have to say well whatever it's fine she leaves him there she leaves him there and she goes she kind of pulls a luke skywalker and return of the jedi yeah where she just surrenders to her enemy you know right in chains you know but before we get to that sequence which is the best uh-huh uh there's this shot that you thought was so pretty right after that where luke is like i've failed and you know he's walking over to the tree and there's a shot you loved at the back of a character's head i love that shot it's the shot after that that i don't like oh okay what shot is that you didn't like i don't know we we were joking about this shot right at the end of the movie uh luke is having a moment of real

uh you know he's gonna go burn despondency burn down the tree the jedi library of six books or whatever it is and then he's got like a flare yeah the camera pans and then who do we see we see a fuzzy little head. Two pointy ears. Why, it's old Yoder himself. Yes. It's Yoder. The character we really came around on. Yeah.

Gets good later. Yeah. And surprise, there have been rumors that he was maybe in the movie Frank Ozzie. See, I had no idea. See, I had heard inklings. No idea. Do you want to know why I had inklings that he was maybe in the movie? Why?

Because I was really good about staying away from all the rumor mongering about this movie. Mm-hmm. Because of fucking Muppet fan blogs. Anytime Frank Oz was doing anything and they questioned him about it, he'd give weird, sketchy answers. Right, it's because you're too in on the Muppets. That's the thing. I was staying away from the wars, but the Mupps.

That's the crossover point. Yeah, and he was like, I don't know, maybe I'm in it. Yoda's in the movie. Yoda's in the movie. Yoda is in the movie. And it cuts around to his front side. And immediately, we all went like, wait, is this CGI? Is it a puppet? They've clearly harkened back to the older design of Yoda.

Right. Yoda, sorry. It is a puppet. Yeah. I think it's all puppets here. They got the characterization 100% correct. That's what made me so happy. I think at the opening

couple of shots when they're putting that force ghost filter on him. He's got the blue halo. That filter itself is so CGI that it makes the puppet

look less tactile. And as the scene goes on and they drop the filter and he becomes more physical presence next to Luke then I think the puppet looks great.

Great. Let's talk about the scene. Cool. Yeah. Yoder. Yeah. Yoder. more physical presence next to Luke then I think the puppet looks great great let's talk about this scene cool yeah Yoda yeah Yoda this is a great great scene

I couldn't believe how good it was here's the thing they got right yeah Yoda's a little stinker he's a little piece of shit

he's a little stinker like Luke Skywalker yeah this enfant terrible he likes fucking with people well and also it's like

he's a real prankster he's watching Luke once again not go through with something where Luke looks like i'm totally gonna burn it down and then he's like oh shit i probably shouldn't and so he just goes like boop and uh lights it all on fire himself yoda he's like who cares looks like those books yeah they were not they were not the dumb books yeah boring she ray's got it she she gets it don't worry about her yoda essentially is like a dude who took his career too seriously and then later in life was like oh it's all play yeah where he

was just like yeah jesus what 800 years of like fighting yaddle's appointment on the jedi i was the problem let me own up become the solution let me have some fun let me knock a stick around boil snakes i mean he's he's also just what joy what happened to george lucas right i mean that's Let me have some fun. Let me knock a stick around. Boil snakes. I mean, he's also just what happened to George Lucas, right? I mean, that's what Yoda is. Yes. Like in the prequels is older George Lucas. The problem is that he Benjamin Buttoned. Because it's in the younger Yoda that he's more George Lucas-y, old George Lucas-y.

Right, senility really helped Yoda lighten up. But I just like, you know, the thing thing about that's the pain of being a master, we are what they grow beyond, is such a lovely line about Obi-Wan's burden, Yoda's burden, all the burdens of all these Jedis who've tried

and kind of failed. But also, if Star Wars is going to continue to mean something, it has to be this generation's Star Wars, not a Star Wars that is too deeply continue to mean something. It has to be this generation's Star Wars, not a Star Wars that is too deeply rooted in the past. This movie has to fully bridge us into a new generation

that is not tied to the original films for emotional resonance. Right. Yes, yes, yes, yes. You know? And yeah, and he's saying, like, Luke, like, it's okay that you fucked up. Like, you should talk about fucking up. To Rey.

You know, she will learn from your failures. But also, this also this is ray's movie now true so just do what you can to help her right because she's the lead now uh love this scene just love what a little you know right little grover he is yoda uh he's a little stinker and then i'm just very impressed that ryan like knew took the swing you know right yeah we can reclaim Yoda dumb fucking self-serious Yoda he's a little stanker

and Rey gets in the Falcon goes into her little escape pod lands right on the ship and immediately is

cuffed or she gets there she sees Ren and she's like hey cool so that conversation we were having and he's like nope cuff her yeah you then did this whole you did this whole no no no with me for a while not nice not takes her to the throne room yeah ben's favorite place oh did we

talk about the red boys love those red boys they got all kinds of cool like new uh like lightsaber They got all kinds of cool new lightsaber weaponry. Yeah, they have light blades. A light whip. Crimson samurai armor. They look a little bit like the Dracula's armor from Bram Stoker's Dracula. It's a really good design. They look great, and they're totally faceless masks.

And you're just like, oh, they're just going to be really good background, right? Yeah, they might be. They could just be awesome set dressing. Right, like the Imperial Guards who never actually did anything. But in this scene, Rey is trying very hard

to like, she thinks she can get in there and fuck with Snoke and fuck with Ren. She has this whole plan that she's going to turn Ren because she, when she has this

charged conversation with him, she's like, I saw his future and he's going to be good. Yeah. And she keeps on trying to pull a fast one, force a lightsaber out, and they're like, what the fuck are you doing? This is an amateur

night. Yeah. What are you talking about? You're an open miker. This is the Snoke scene. Yeah, you think you can do like weekends, like three shows a night at the fucking Yucklebone in Boise? Uh-huh. You're not a road dog yet.

No, she's not a road dog. You're an open mic. You got five good minutes. She has the thing. Yeah, we're- Your opener's weak. He clonks her with- You don't know crowd work.

Enough. Enough. My God, man. You madman. Ben saw me to stretch for time. Yeah, I didn't put the light up. I got time. Yeah, I didn't put the light up. I got time. God.

So what's with this? Let me do my chunk on millennials. He clonks her with the lightsaber. That's cool. Yeah. What else? I guess his crucial line to me is where he says, check this out, Ren.

Yeah. I told you. You get so dark, there's going to be someone to balance it out. And Rey is like, he was close. And fucking Stokes is like, are you fucking kidding me? I've been maneuvering this entire thing. I bridge your minds. I know what a piss boy he is. I set the two of you up.

Everything's working according to plan. Don't think like you pulled anything on me. He's giving the emperor monologue from Return of the Jedi where he's like everything is my design and what I like about this is despite his design

being more monstrous I think Circus plays Snoke more human than McDermott's Palpatine in the later movies I think he's playing them like he looks super fucking gross

but he's just a very kind of like human evil. Yeah, he's a bad man. He's an asshole. A bad alien man, whatever he is. He's an asshole. He's a total asshole. He's like, ha, ha, ha. Yeah.

I like to kill things and be bad. Yeah, I like being bad. And now I kill you. Yeah. And he tortures her. She gets lifted. That's a great shot of her lifted in the air. Gets the Luke info out of her

finally took him to two movies and he's like great gonna kill you now Kylo's gonna do it right and we see Kylo's hesitation he's got the lightsaber

she's pleading for her life and then he's got the other hand going like this under the table right as Snoke is like I know what's happening yeah

you know like I can see him he's decisive there's no more doubt in his mind he's going to strike oh because there was that earlier moment too when he has the shot to be able to take out Leia on the ship and he doesn't take it and someone else does and you see him be affected he couldn't so easily kill his mother uh yes yeah um and we yeah that right that is crucial right i suppose that's sort of helping us believe ray as well right and he's fighting to be seen as decisive and unwavering uh and so snoke's like yep no i can tell you're about to do it boy and what does kylo do he takes that

lightsaber sends it right through snoke's tummy he takes luke's lightsaber spins it yep and turns it on cuts him in twain. Cleft in twain. Answering a question I have always had, I believe I have asked on this podcast, which is why don't you just turn someone's lightsaber off with the force? Uh-huh. And the only response I ever got was, I guess, if you're fighting someone, you know, they're too strong to let you do that. Yeah.

But he turns it on with the force. Yes. Cool. Cuts him in half. And then there's this amazing shot. And he, like, with the force yes uh cuts him in half and then there's this amazing shot right he falls in half it's so good it rules uh it's like uh when the brother is killed and walk hard yes and what's that line oh it's so good go go on go on i'm gonna find the line and uh then there's this amazing shot where they look at each other and they're like it's on now they each have a lightsaber and in slow

motion they turn out it's a wide shot in slow motion they sort of go back to back and I literally lean forward to the edge of my seat what did I do? you tapped me on the shoulder? no I went like that David was punching the air and I'm leaning forward

I'm letting out giddy squeeze. And then I'm all light. Yeah. Okay. Ben looks like he's surfing but confused. Yep. He was sort of throwing his hands out. What?

And then they just have this awesome lightsaber battle where they fight all these guards. Dewey, I'm cutting half pretty bad. That's the line in Walk Hard. Yeah. Dewey, I'm cutting half pretty bad. And they take them all out. And it like great we got that done we win no but that's that's so good though yeah right that whole sword that whole sword fight's amazing yeah it rules yeah yeah the thing where like she tosses him the her lightsaber and he like goes like and like puts it and she's been practicing

this kind of backhanded lightsaber style yeah she does like and like puts a hole in that guy. And she's been practicing this kind of backhanded lightsaber style. Yeah, she does like a nice little drop. Right. Very cool. Kind of like Ahsoka Tano. And then they win, right? Yeah. All bosses defeated. And she's like, okay, cool. So let's

go back to the island and we'll be good guys together. And he's like, no. I was just so delighted by all this yeah i was so happy that it wasn't like some kind of flop where it's like uh now ray's good and i raise evil and he's good yeah and out with the old and with the new we gotta drop this gone because like i was sort of enjoying snoke but yeah you know you don't know who he is and yeah if we're gonna care who he is they going to need to suddenly do like a ton of Snoke shit. You know,

this movie would have to be like very Snokey. Yeah. And then, you know, people over two years are going like, he's Darth Plagueis. He's, and it's like,

I was watching these people do this and be like, are you fucking crazy? Yeah. You think after seeing force awakens that that's the character they're going to sink all their energy into? People thought he was Mace Windu. Do you know that theory? Yes, because he's bald. That's all they had going for it.

Oh, God. Anyway, Kylo's like, no, now I'm in fucking... No, he's calm. He's calm. He's like, I want you to join me. Let the past die. Right, it's not about the resistance anymore. It's not about the First Order. It's about you and I ruling the galaxy together. We can make this right.

Because what's happening at the same time is that, you know, we'll get back to it. But Finn and, well, we should, whatever. You know, Finn and Rose's plan just kind of failed. Right. They've been captured. And the fleet's getting shelled. They've gone undercover as First Order officers. But evil BB-8.

Who's pretty cool. Yeah. And people were worried that was going to be like a big fucking thing. He's just a bad little roundy yeah he's a bad little to quote emily yoshida he's a bad little he's a bad bad little round he's a bad little roundy and uh so they're sort of captured now and uh yeah he he extends the offer to ray and she's like hard pass i mean it's again it's sort of it's an echo of something that's come before but in a totally new dressing yeah this sort of

you know join me and we can rule the galaxy yes she's not into it she you know is gonna get

well we don't know what happens because then cut back to the fucking space turn we gotta wrap up space turn cause she's being she's being really icy

and pose pretty benched I'm a little worried yeah and you know because I'm like, is she just going to be like the sort of, you know, cold lady character who Poe has to like sort of push aside? You know what I mean? Like, is this going to be her whole-

Well, because there's that thing where he like holds her at gunpoint. Yeah, where he's like, fuck you. Your plan sucks. Yeah. You have no way of dealing with this. So I'm going to like put you in the brig and we're going to do Finn's whole crazy plan. And then that doesn't work. No. And Leian poe which is great yeah with her old gun with the ring

uh yeah and then um space turn space turn i mean but well before we get to i just do you you like the throne room fight like how did you feel how shocked, I love it. How shocked were you by Snoke's death? All of it. Great. Perfect. But were you on board? Yeah, 100%. On board is the wrong question.

Were you prepared for that or totally surprised? Yeah, loved it. Loved it. And the double reverse, I loved it. Double reverse, pretty good. Yeah. But right, at the same time, you've got Finn's plan failing. Finn and Rose's plan failing.

Although, Benicio's having fun. Yeah, but I mean, yes. There's that cool little bit with her, you know, her jewelry thingy. It's a good conductor. Yeah. Yeah, we left out that whole thing. And the whole line he says to Finn where he's like, hey man, you know, everyone's bad. Yeah, because he made the wrong choice.

Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. Do you think he's going to come back? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's sort of the weird lando he's sort of like uh dark lando like right kind of lando except he doesn't like because when the

ats he started firing at them i'm like oh maybe he's in there right but he wasn't which was good because that would have been maybe a little too right lando without the people skills uh right yeah so while finn and yeah but like uh you know so while this plan of evacuation is being executed space space stays behind space space space space space to protect and then as you know the plan starts to fall apart and these little transfers are getting shot right she goes into hyperspace well because yeah leia's woken up at this point yeah and and shoots poe and is like shut up the plan makes sense, which is essentially like we go to this little base

over here. And she explains to Poe like, yeah, Holdo's doing the right thing. She's not about looking heroic. She's about getting

the work done. Maybe you should take a lesson from her. She's a fucking fighter pilot. She rules. I taught her. She's space darned. Your plan is one in a million

and like, you know, we've had luck with that in the past, but it's luck. She got an Oscar nomination for less than seven minutes of screen time in Wild. Maybe fucking shut up and pay attention. And excuse me, by the way, she's good.

Yeah, take notes. Oscar Isaac could have been in Wild. Space Dern is good. So the hyperspace. She goes on a fucking suicide mission. Just really quick. You know, Blue Velvet's one of my favorite movies. Yeah, of course it is

Hopper is so crazy Blue Velvet yes so Blue Velvet goes on her hyperspace ram I don't know

yes what did you think of that that's really nice and it's silent yes it's an image we've never seen before yeah I hated that

she was dying selfishly because I want a trilogy of Space Dern films. Yeah, I mean, yeah. She's kind of the Smiths of the new series, I guess. All about Space Dern. Yeah, she's my Smith. She's my Smith.

She's my North Star. Right. Okay, so now, great sacrifice. She's taken out a bunch of ships. Finn fights Phasma, knocks her down to become bronzed. rebel scum you were always scum rebel scum yeah get that one eye one shot at gwendolyn christie's eye yeah like that yeah um and uh i hope in the next one when she comes back as a zombie phasma bronze phasma and she

takes off her mask it turns out only that one eye looks human, the rest of her face does. She looks normal still underneath. She's like, oh, this is what I always look like. I'm one human eye and then I'm bug. I'm all bug.

She's cool. I like that they shoot at her and it just doesn't work. Yeah. That armor's cool. Phasma, who cares? Great. And so then,

what happens now? They're all sort of unified unified they know the place to go which is this salt planet there's an old base there and they can hide out there what's the name of the planet again it's called Crete love this planet

white and red so it's like oh is this Hoth no not cold it's not snow what is it Ben salty oh is this Hoth? No. Not cold. Salt. It's not snow. What is it Ben? Salty. Salty.

Guy spits it out. Salt. Salty planet. Garth Jennings goes like hmm. Gareth Edwards. Gareth Edwards. Yeah Garth Jennings is another one of those.

He's the Hitchhiker's Guide to Galactic. Hammer and Tongs or whatever the fuck they're called. Red dust though? Red dust is pretty cool. Because you know I like dirt.

I like when shit gets dirty. And this is good. And the red salt mines when they go inside the cave are gorgeous. Those like red stalagmite. Crystalline structures. Oh, boy. Yeah, love it. And the crystal critters.

Crystal foxes. They're pretty cool. Yeah. Love them. Yeah, good stuff. It's sort of like a shitty old rebel thing. You see them set up like the old rebel laptops, you know, like those weird little. Oh, now the resistance is like Occupy Wall Street.

They're like, does anyone have the Wi-Fi password? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but I like it. It's like, let's make it real fucking scrappy. And their plan is like, well, now we're here. We can call the old original trilogy bros who are still like scattered out there maybe, you know, using layers like use my code.

Yeah. Doesn't work. Right. No one comes. No one comes. And now the First order is there with their gorilla walkers yes but also atat is gorilla they're cool those things but also before then we've you know had this great scene which at my press screening everyone laughed out loud no one

laughed in our screening where hux is standing over kylo ren he's just got this look of like this fucking guy and like takes his gun out like he reaches for his gun and then Kylo Ren wakes up and he immediately

is like I forgot there's also that thing where like Hux is like what are we gonna do we don't have a leader now yeah well that's the next thing that happens

Kylo Force chokes him until he's like I mean we do have a leader he says the supreme leader is dead long live the supreme leader

yeah there's also the best gag in the entire movie if I'm gonna give one million comedy points to anything We do have a leader. He says the Supreme Leader is dead. Long live the Supreme Leader. Yeah. There's also the best gag in the entire movie. If I'm going to give one million comedy points to anything, it is a shot of a ship slowly lowering down thrusters. So good. I think to myself, that design looks a lot like- An iron. And then it is, in fact, just an iron.

Pressing the beautiful fascist uniforms yes so that happened an hour ago in the movie if you guys want to call that out a million comedy points and then

yeah they're sort of gearing up for this final battle and who shows up old Lukey Skywalker yeah where they're like

hope is officially gone he shows up he looks great he looks like old like sort of the Luke we've glimpsed in flashback cut his hair Luke yes yes yeah he looks even younger looks like old like sort of the Luke we've glimpsed in flashback cut his hair

yes yeah he looks even younger he's not wearing his like weird you know island robes right he's wearing

half snot sort of closer to like the return of the Jedi outfit the black sort of Jedi kind of thing and he's

he has a lovely confrontation with Leia I'm so happy they shot something with the two of them together oh it's wonderful. Thank fucking God. Where he's saying, sorry to hurt you.

I changed my hairline. That's really good. Yeah. I love Carrie Fisher. Gives 3PO a little wink. Yeah. 3PO is kind of funny in this movie. Yeah.

I like the Leia line where she's like, wipe that expression off your face. Yeah. I miss Carrie Fisher. It's rough. She's such a badass. Yeah. I just I miss Carrie Fisher. It's rough. She's such a badass. She is. She's badass in this. And then

there's this sort of final battle. They have these like creaky ships that don't really fly well so they have to put out like a little tripod and sort of like

monoskis. Monoskis. Yes. And they've got open cockpits which I love. And Rose is kind of having to like nudge Finn and help him.

They're going towards this big sort of blaster gun they have. And Finn thinks that he has to make the sacrifice. Yeah. He's everyone else. I mean, Poe has that moment of like,

he's learned his lesson where he's like, this is a suicide run. We're not going to destroy this gun. Yeah. Like as much as we might want to be badasses. Right. So break off. And Finn's like,

Finn is now like, no, we got to do it. Like, you know, right. He's ready to die. Yeah. Rose, no, we got to do it. He's ready to die. Rose saves him.

Yeah. I love it. Says the line you love. We're not going to win killing the things we like. And now I've forgotten it. I find it a little sweaty that she's passed out. Then he shakes her. She says this one line beautifully, kisses him, and then passes out again.

When she comes to, she's very alert. And then she immediately passes out again. Star Wars. It's Star Wars. It's Star Wars. Come on, man. But then Luke comes out. Fucking lone man. And they realize, oh, Luke's taking the hit for us. He knows we need to survive so that the resistance can exist. This is our opportunity to escape. How do we get out of here? Let Luke

take this. Lone man facing out against the ships. Their escape is less important. It's the Luke thing. Everything you got against them. Yeah but I just love Adam Driver in

this scene so much. Yeah. And also I love that joke the similar joke where the when the Millennium Falcon shows up and Rey is helping out.

Yeah. With Chewie. Yeah. And they she like diverts the TIE fighters. Yeah. And Oscar Poe is

like they hate that ship or Finn is I can't remember one of them. Yeah. And that's that's funny. And that's funny. Yeah, it's funny. It's good comedy.

Because it's, you know, it's the Millennium Falcon. Yes. So they fire everything. Luke is unscathed. He brushes the dirt off his shoulder. It's great. A little too much paprika on the sandwich. No, I clap.

And you do. And then Kylo comes out for the confrontation yeah david i like to clap i all right oh ben hated that you're trolling oh go on um and uh luke tries to convince kylo no he doesn't what do you mean that that he's wrong no he doesn't. What do you mean? That, that he's wrong. No, he doesn't. Not really. He just,

he says, I'm not here. You know, like Kylo Ren's like, are you here to apologize? And Luke's like, no. And Kylo Ren's like,

good. Yeah. And then Luke is essentially saying like, you can't beat me. Yeah. You strike me down. I'm never going to leave you. Yeah,

back off, motherfucker. Just like your father. Yeah. Kylo Ren tries to strike him down and doesn't work just like it hasn't been working yeah it goes right through him i just love how driver is playing this mix of like total fear and total rage in one person at one you know like you know like luke is so frightening to him so can i ask you something that's been it turns out

luke's like a forced projection like he's like manifested himself on this planet. What do you think the movie accomplishes by doing that when he's going to sacrifice himself anyway? Uh, what do you mean? The whole point is that he's keeping Kylo, like he would just get destroyed immediately. Like one shot and he's dead.

The whole point is that he's stalling. Yeah. I know that. The whole point is that he buys the many minutes of time by like, and beyond that it's really important that he looks like the man kylo ren last saw sure he looks like luke who we've seen he looks exactly like luke in the flashbacks yeah rather than scraggly old you know you know alien tit milk luke right and then you get the reveal that he's like phase three Iron Man

where he wasn't actually there and he's back in the cave wearing the white robes. He's literally like this like ghost of Christmas past for Kylo Ren. Like that's what he's doing. Yeah.

I also I'd also just would not make a lot of sense that Luke got there. Sure. How the fuck would he get there? Sure. I mean we see his X-wing

in the water. Yeah. Like you know under the water. Yeah. But he like his door is made of an X-wing in the water yeah like you know under the water but he like his door is made of an X-wing like piece

yeah he salvaged that like that ship's not really like so it's like he's got a book at Henry House right and um I think it's just also like

you know Han did cool Han shit flying around and shooting stuff right yeah but like Luke is a Jedi yeah it's cool that he does

a crazy Jedi thing yeah sure you know and he lets himself go he sort of surrenders to the force in the way that Obi-Wan did But Luke is a Jedi. It's cool that he does a crazy Jedi thing. Yeah, sure. And he lets himself go. He sort of surrenders to the Force in the way that Obi-Wan did. I think it's a nice different way to kill off a legacy character when Han obviously got a saber. Before he was a hologram, that's what I thought was going to happen was that Kylo Ren would charge at him before he gets there.

He would turn into the ropes. Right. And instead they do it back in the cave. I think what I didn't like about that is, one, that's Obi-Wan. So it's sort of like you're rhyming it too much. gets there he would turn into the ropes right but i think instead they do it back in the cave i think what i didn't like about that is one that's obi-wan so it's like sort of like you're rhyming it too much and han's death is so obi-wan yeah it's such a like specific echo of it right and i love the thing of luke on the rock seeing the twin sons of tatooine as he dies that's such a smart image you got really choked up. It's so good.

It's really good. And it's so like poetic. Like this movie is poetic in a way. These movies usually can't be bothered to be, or don't have the strength, you know, whatever, don't have the sort of time to be maybe,

you know, that is a very like simple, effective image. And, and meanwhile, borrowing from the past, but you know, using it for an interesting new way

Rey has landed on Crait and they've all tried to find an escape out of these caves and she does some cool Jedi shit too she gets them all out lifting rocks

and her and Finn she gets to hug Finn she gets to meet Poe which is a really good joke it's a good joke they never met yeah

and you know they're like what are we going to do the resistance we're like we're gonna bootstrap it here and leia's like we got everything we need like look at everything we oscar isaac chewbacca three porgs bb8 yeah uh the other droids yeah bobby bertram eight yeah uh they got a good skeleton crew they've got that sort of alien guy who sort of...

Yeah, the... Ello Aston? Yeah, he's cool. He's so cool. I love that guy. He's nice. Yeah. Do they still have a PZ-4CO?

You know that guy? He's like the blue droid with the long neck, the giraffe neck. I don't know. I don't know. He's a really cool design who's been at the Resistance base in the last two movies. I can't remember if he's still alive at this point or not Constable Zubio is there obviously

you got Connix yeah she's still around I think Connix is still there Connix am I right about Connix yeah I love that look Rey gives where she sees this

bond Finn and Rose have made she doesn't look jealous or sad she just sort of acknowledges it I think she looks a little sad in a way that's A little wistful perhaps. Yeah.

Oh maybe I don't know if that could have been a thing with us but now Probably not. Right. And it's the sacrifice of the Jedi.

She also has the great long goodbye with Kylo where they see each other again. Yeah. Don't say anything. I think that's very well handled.

I think it's all There's also a really nice joke of when Leia sees Chewbacca for the first time. She gives him a long hug because everyone criticized the last movie.

Oh, really? I didn't pick up on that, so I will watch for that. It happens earlier in the movie. No, no, of course. But she goes like, Chewbacca! So nice to see you!

Love you, Chewbacca! Because at the end of Force Awakens he walks right past her. And, you know, The Empire Strikes Back ends on such a bummer, right? Yeah. You think this is how

the movie's ending with this, like, we got a good team and then there's, like, this, like, fucking Vandy Fair, like, fold-out, like...mer, right? Yeah. You think this is how the movie's ending, with this, like, we got a good team, and then there's, like, this, like, fucking Vandy Fair, like, fold-out, like, Annie Leibovitz spread, of all of them, like,

posed perfectly like a Christmas card. And a shot of the Falcon, like, flying through hyperspace. And you're like, huh, odd ending. And then it cuts to a really beautiful ending. I think it's gorgeous.

Like, the kids telling the story of Luke's... This little Cinderella boy. The kids from the, you know, casino planet from the little sweeper in the basement telling the story with the ring he's got the dolls of luke's uh you know triumph and like that's doing a little more you know the whole passing on the legacy jesus he has to do the merchandise spotlight he's passing on the legacy yeah yeah and then his his shitty slave master alien yells at him and he goes out with his broom and he looks off but what does he do with the broom? You didn't pick up on this?

What, he starts swinging around like a lightsaber? No, he calls the broom to his hand. Oh, right. Yeah. Yes. He's got force power. That's why I think this kid's going to be a key figure in whatever the Brian Johnson thing is. Yeah, like some older version of him.

Yeah, exactly. I don't think it's going to be this kid. No, I think it is. I think it is. It's going to be that kid. They're going to wait 40 years for him to become older, though. Right, it's going to be boyhood. No, I think it is. I think it is. It's going to be that kid. They're going to wait 40 years for him to become older though. Right. It's going to be boyhood.

That's what he's doing. Boyhood. Yeah. What's your fucking merchandise spotlight? Oh no. The worst kind of merchandise spotlight is when Griffin immediately like looks at the floor. It backs up.

We know it's a visual bit. We hear rustling. A great visual bit for our fan. He's got a purple bag. It's from Toys Russ. Toys Russ. Toys Russ. purple bag. It's from Toys R Us. Toys R Us. Toys R Us. What's your favorite branch of Toys R Us that you go to?

Well, there's a new one in Times Square now, but I don't know how permanent it is. And then there is the one near here at Herald Square. New York City lost its best Toys R Us, which was the proper Times Square one. There's one in the Bronx that I like to go to because no one goes there and sometimes they have good items. But this is unimportant.

Interesting. This is unimportant, David, okay? Okay. Because since The Last Jedi, product line was revealed around August, September for Force Friday. I have been inundated with at tweets. When are you going to weigh

in on this? Okay. The new advancement in the toy line. Because you may remember in the year 1999, Kenner announced that now toys talk. Yes. The invention of the Comtex. Figures too small to include a voice chip themselves came with

plastic dog tags that you could swipe across a reader that vaguely looks like a prop from the film in order to make toys talk. Yes. A conclusive failure. Mm-hmm. Except for this podcast. I liked, and I brought in a little bit of a second wind.

Right. Clearly, they would never try something like that again. Except they did. These crazy bastards did it. In the same way that the new fucking trilogy rhymes with things in the old trilogy, they have created the Force Link. Oh, no. Okay?

So here's what this new fucking toy line is. The smaller figures, which is not my scale, usually. I tend to be a six-inch man. Sure. But I'm delving into the three and three-quarter-inch waters for the sake of this spotlight, buying items I would not have bought otherwise. You just removed a cloak,

a plastic cloak. Okay, this is the Force Link starter set, okay? I know. So this isn't even a toy. It is. Oh, okay. Because it comes with a little Kylo. Okay.

All right, that's cool. And a little cloak. And then rather than the communicator you had to get for the Comtech chips which was stupid this is even dumber you have to wear this thing

on your wrist it's like the size of a fucking it's so big yeah it's really shitty and you have to wear it on the back of your wrist

like this which is really counterintuitive it looks like the beacon that they have in the movie much like the Comtech was supposed to look

like that fucking thing. So you have to wear this thing on the back of your forearm and then flip your wrist up to activate it and you put a figure in your hand and then when you It was working before.

Because the angles are the problem. There we go. Okay, so now if i swing it makes lightsaber noises and if i tap it i mean i guess like sure i guess i can see that if you are a kid who wants to play with your toys yeah it's sort of i'm not i'm a serious adult collector right it sort of hides the like you know you can do it all in one hand I guess is that the idea of it

okay you want to hear my take yeah I hate it I think it's dumb yeah it seems ridiculous I think if you want to hold toys in your hand

and make noises you can make them with your mouth this takes so many tries to get right alright but also they had to buy one get one 40% off deal

we should let him keep going I mean we'll get it in amazingly I have a hard out four hours from when we started were you? Alright, alright. But also they had to buy one, get one 40% off deal. We should let him keep going. I also amazingly have a hard out four hours from when we started. Didn't think to mention it.

That's Ray. And the guard thing. So are those guards a knight of Ren or are they just guards? No, they're elite Praetorian guards. So we still don't

know what happened. Ben's head is literally down on the console. We still don't know what happened to the Knights of Ren, right? No. Yeah, interesting. Ben's asleep. I wonder if they'll have a role in Jesus Christ. I should have gotten Space Nisio.

I wish I had gotten him. I want to hear Benicio Del Toro. I'll say the audio quality on this is better than the ComTech chips but I think it's even dumber. We should say that Space Benicio Del Toro is called DJ. I don't know if his name

is really said. I'm pretty sure his name is Space Benicio Del Toro. Here's how Del Toro likens his character. Okay. To a knife. I'm trying to make this.

This is so stupid. These guys don't talk. Yeah, they don't have any lines. They're talking about the Red Boys. Mix a sword knife. Do you think they like Red Bull? Yes. Ben just had to move his whole head to say yes.

All right, that's enough of that. Okay. You know, really crinkle it up, though, yeah. I'm with the resistance. See, you wouldn't have known that if you hadn't bought this. The first doors are everywhere. Everywhere. True.

That's a bad product. All right, make a prediction. End this. Enough, I'm not done. Del Toro likens his character to a knife, saying if you grab him by the blade, he'll cut you. If you grab him by the handle, he can be very useful. Let's talk about this more.

We haven't had enough episode. I think it makes 215 this weekend. Uh-huh, sure. They're predicting 210 right now. Yeah. It opened, it had 45 on Thursday night alone. It's going to have about 100 on Friday, they say. Yeah, sure.

I think the backlash is going to even out. I think the early critics were like overly enthusiastic. I think now the hardcore Star Wars obsessives are overly negative. And I think we'll end up with people going like, yeah, I like Star Wars. Right. Good movie. Excited about the next one. I think it will make significantly less than The Force Awakens.

But it's also worth noting that Empire did the least of the original trilogy. Well, it'll make less than The Force Awakens, of course. Nothing's going to make more than that thing. It'll make like $6.50 like 650 no it'll make more than that i think let's that's a good bet you're saying 650 it's gonna crack seven i i'm gonna go like like let's say 750 i'm essentially betting it makes in between force awakens and rogue one so 750 okay uh rogue one made 530 is that right 560 right rogue One essentially made 500 and Force Awakens essentially made a billion.

So if we're going Price is Right rules without going over, I'm going to stay at 600. Okay. So I can have, I'm claiming the 600s. I get it.

I get it. I get it. Okay. You can have it if you want. I just think I'll be closer. I'll take it. But I don't know. Maybe I won't be.

I mean, I don't stop that. I'm not actively. I mean, I don't stop that. I'm not actively doing it. The thing doesn't turn off. I regret buying these. This isn't my scale. I'm a six inch boy. Okay.

What are those? Three and three quarters. You realize what that sounds like, right? I know. You think I'm not owning my bit? You think I'm not a master of comedy? Well, I don't know. I marked cutting out your cock jokes.

Don't do that. Fat cock. Cut that out. There's no room for that kind of talk on this podcast. Fucking shit. Sacred podcast. That's a three and three quarter inch. Performance review.

Weaker sculpts. Mark Hamill. Less room for articulation. Limited paint ops. Mark Hamill. Less room for articulation. Limited paint ops. Mark Hamill. Yeah. Good. Everyone's good in this movie.

Who are we getting a bad review to? I don't know. Maybe you really hated Daisy Ridley in this movie. She rules. I'd still like to take her out to a pasta dinner. No, we're not having your little routine about the sad boy taking Daisy Ridley out for dinner. You're right. You're right.

You know what? Yeah. I've come into some money lately. I have a steady job in the Starver TV show. I'll take her out to steak. Okay. Steak, lobster, or vegetarian equivalent. I don't know what her diet is. Unfortunately, she only eats fish. Okay, then I'll take her out to a lobster dinner.

I was reading about her diet recently. She watched some documentary that freaked her out about food production. Was a vegan for a while. Realized out about food production, was a vegan for a while, realized she could not hack it as a vegan, so she reintroduced fish, but that's it. Okay. So, Griffey Nooms, on the record, hey, Daisy Ridley, anytime you want a bronzino, it's

on me. Sounds good. I don't want to brag, but I'm on a streaming TV show, so we're both doing okay right now. That's true. You're the star of Star Wars. Yeah. She's like optioning things, you know? She's like a fucking mog right now. That's true. You're the star of Star Wars. Yeah, she's like optioning things, you know. She's like a fucking mogul now. Yeah, well, I don't want to brag, but

you own her in three and three quarter inch plastic size? Yeah. I'm with the resistance. We get it. She's with the fucking resistance. Bronzino, baby, on the record. Anything else? It'll just be a nice dinner. It'll just be a nice dinner. Nice Bronzino dinner. I want to keep your notes. I feel like you

need to see the movie again, obviously. Yeah, I do. What are your plans? See it again in a theater. Great plan. I'll probably see it again this weekend. I mean, do you have any set plans? No, I don't have set plans right now. But I'll see it again soon. Do you think this is our greatest episode ever?

I don't know what the fuck is going on anymore we've also been on like a good run that's the thing and we were like oh here's a gimme going back to the well Star Wars we can't fail

and this has been a train wreck Ben has literally left the studio it is now midnight New York City is on fire I'm surrounded it's snowing outside

I'm surrounded by merchandise I have no place for in my collection. I have a Star Wars display and this will be incongruous next to the rest of it. As I said, the scale is off. I'm going to put a fucking three and three quarter inch Ray next to a fucking six inch Lando? What a bad ending. What a great movie. That's a good movie. A good ending.

Where does it go in your rankings? Or do you need to see it again? I need to see it again. What are your rankings right now? Right now, I'll tell you. Right now, my rankings are I think I literally go Star Wars. You go four. Empire Strikes Back. Five. Return of the Jedi. Six.

I cannot decide whether I place this and Force Awakens are kind of neck and neck right now. Different reasons. And then I go Phantom Menace. Wow. Rogue One. Attack of Clones Revenge of the Sith.

Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm definitely... I know it's hacky, but it's like, yeah, this is number three. Ahead of Jedi? Yeah. That's dumb. Nah. Jedi rules, and it's fory but it's like yeah this is number three Ahead of Jedi? Yeah That's dumb Nah

Jedi rules and it's for cool kids Is it? Yeah it's for cool kids No this is a movie that just has actual things I've never seen

in a Star Wars movie before and what I'm talking about like over and over again where it's like poeticism like attention to like camera detail and design detail

that I feel like has been lacking for you know even in like Force Awakens yeah which I think is a nice movie with cool robots

and monsters and a movie that's willing to take narrative risks narrative risks moral stands coming on the world we're in today

Ben Zanger the podcast is still going on thank you very much for listening to this post script at the end of an episode I think we kept it kind of short this time for the end of an episode. I think we

kept it kind of short this time for the postscript. The episode itself was really short. That's a good point. This is just bonus content. No one's listening to this. This is just for Patreon subscribers. Yeah, you're right. So this is the longest postscript we've ever done.

Wow, I think Ben's like pretending to be mad and failing and he's just mad. Ben, can I give you a present? Do you want a Red Boy? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you feel better. You like the Red Boy.

Do I get a toy? His sword cuts in half. Yeah. Do you want Kylo or do you want Rey? I think I want Kylo, even though it's a tough choice. I like them both. Yeah. I mean, those are my faves.

Where's my... Yeah, see, look, now you guys love it. It's a great time. I mean, I just don't want that insane apparatus. I'm not giving it to you. I want the apparatus. That's the only thing I do want. Because then you'll know who's in the resistance?

Yeah, I'll tell you what I want. I want this apparatus, and I want a Space Nisio. Because the only use for this apparatus is to be able to make Space Nisio talk. Yeah, that would be cool. I like the idea of his voice coming out of this. You don't like these? I mean, they're pretty cool. They're pretty solid.

They are kind of little. They're little. Yeah. I feel like my action figures when I was a kid, they were a little bigger than this. No, your hands are small. That is the classic Star Wars size, and lately they've been making them bigger.

But that is the old vintage Star Wars size. I never had a lot of Star Wars, though. I mostly had X-Men. Oh, those were bigger. Those were five inches. Those were, yeah. Look, you can get me started on scales. I can go deep into it.

The industry is in turmoil right now. Hasbro buying Mattel would disrupt everything. They would own both DC and Marvel and it would be a big issue I'm getting a phone call it's my landlord hopefully the heat's turned back on

I hope so David wrap up the episode thank you all for listening please remember to rate, review, and subscribe thanks to Ange Ferraguto for our social media, Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for our artwork, Leigh-Anne Montgomery recording the theme song, and that's it, right, Ben?

Oh, go to blankies.reddit.com for some real nerdy shit. And as always, let's find out. Okay, I appreciate it. Yeah, let me know what's going on, but I appreciate the amount of energy you're putting into this. It's frustrating. Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, let me know what's going on, but I appreciate the amount of energy you're putting into this. It's frustrating. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Talk to you soon.

Bye. And as always, I still don't have heat in my apartment.