Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Podrace - The Phantom Podcast

Episode Date: May 4, 2015

The podrace sequence is the one part of this movie viewers seem to complain about the least. Griffin and David this week tackle all the elements of the Boonta Eve Classic including who are these racers and their backstories, discuss Watto and the Hutts, as well as gambling for ownership of a boy. Watch along with the hosts and discover new details you may have missed. Also, quick shout out to David Schwimmer (Friends) and vegetables.

🎵 Hello. Good morrow. Welcome to the Phantom Podcast. I'm Griffin. I morrow. Welcome to the Phantom Podcast. I'm Griffin. I'm David. With us always is our poet laureate, producer Ben, the Benducer. Hello, fennel.

Hello, fennel. Hello, fennel. Yes, Jake. Welcome to the Phantom Podcast. Last week we tackled a difficult subject. We tackled Jar Jar Binks. We tackled Griffin Newman's 10th grade essay on racism. Yep, yep.

I was going to say my Messiah complex for solving the racial ills of the world. And for the second time since I wrote my infamous 10th grade paper back in blackface. Or can you show me how to get to racism street i forgot that that was the subtitle right right and it was the cover story of the new republic that month the saint anne's ram but sure uh much as that uh uh essay uh setback race relations 2 000 years i think setback race relations to a long, long time ago. In a galaxy far, far away. I think last week's episode might have caused

similar damage to white people at large. So this week, because of that, and because I've had a crappy morning so far. I had problems with my health insurance, and so I was not able to refill my anxiety medication,

which has given me preemptive anxiety attacks about the anxiety attacks I'm going to have. I also put on socks with holes in the heels today and then wore the shoes that have the itchy heels. So my heels are bleeding. I forgot to tell you guys that. We talked for a good hour before recording, but you did not mention that your heels were bleeding. We were talking about which supporting performances in Adam McKay movies deserve to Oscar nominations. The answer is several. We came up with six or seven.

Because I would also, I didn't even, Gary Cole and Talladega Nights for sure I would nominate him. Gary Cole, Talladega Nights, Michael Keaton and the other guys. And Paul Rudd and Anchorman. Paul Rudd and Anchorman. Paul Rudd and Anchorman. It's got to be Rudd. Oh, agreed. It's got to be Rudd. No question.

And he's yelling at the pandas? Yeah. Like three performances in Step Brothers. Yeah, basically the cast of Step Brothers. The cast of Step Brothers. Oh, yeah. Anyway, that's not what this podcast is about. This podcast is about Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace,

which, of course, was the first and only entry in George Lucas' planned Star Wars saga. He had a whole vision, but we all know that films chronologically start with the first one, and that's what we all saw, and then we never saw any other ones because I don't think they were made. As Gary Cole says, if you ain't first, you're last. Hey, nice tie-in. Bam. But I'm in a crappy mood. ain't first, you're last. Hey, nice tie-in. Bam. But so I'm in a crappy mood. Sorry.

No, it's fine. How are you doing, Griffin? Misa not doing so good right now. Okay. But we want to tackle something easy and fun and light. How about we discuss a thing that everyone can agree on as being probably the strongest. Probably the best sequence in the movie. Yeah, and if not the best, I think it's the one sequence everyone can agree is

good. I think it is the one thing that people complain about the least. Yes. That's about as positive as I think people can be about this movie in a consensus, and I think that's how they feel about the pod race. Yes. Weesa gonna talk about pod racing. Poodoo. And Weesa gonna talk about pod racing.

Poodoo. And Weesa be good friends for a long time. Weesa thinking. Weesa thinking. So, of course, in the film Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace, there is a two-headed announcer. Fode and Bede. Fode and Bede, bro.

Fode speaks in Huttese, is that right? Or is it Bede? I think it's Fode. Maybe it's Fode. Well, which one is Greg Proops? You know what? Let's go to Wookiee Pudia right now. Before we even get started, let's do a little Wookiee Pudia sub.

Wookiee Pudia? This episode's going to be real quick because I'm on a grouchy mood. Oh, yeah. It'll be real fast. This is what we're going to do. We're going to watch the pod race in real time. We have it queued up right here. You can watch along

with us. We're going to be our own two-headed announcer, our own Foden Bede. And then that's going to be the episode. I think we're just going to get it done in like 12 minutes. Well, there's a little bit of setup we want to do. But yes, the sequence itself is what, 12 minutes long? Maybe we'll have to stop once or twice to mention something. Greg Proops is Foden. Okay. And the other guy is Bede. So the other guy

is the Huttese one. Great. Glad we solved that. Greg Proops also should have been nominated for an Oscar for this one. You really should guys should listen to

the Wolf Pop podcast. I was there too. Greg Proops talks about his experience making this movie. It's great. What if you and I just did a podcast

where we listed performances we think should have been nominated for an Oscar? That sounds great that's the majority of our conversations it really is yeah but like we would actually have to be very focused about it and be like no there's only five slots in 1998 yeah and so here are the five things yeah that'd be great if we could be oscar rundown yeah yeah you know how many people would listen to that podcast two and a half yes one of them would be just a lower body. It would be the parents from Cow and Chicken. It would just be sending in legs.

But only one of the parents from Cow and Chicken, you're saying. Yeah. Because it would just be one half. Yeah. No. Mom would be into it. Dad would not. Right.

Do you want to, you pulled up a Foden bead? Yeah, yeah, yeah. On Wikipedia? Do you want to go into their backstory at all before we get started? Because it's a quick episode. We don't, you know. Oh, it's a quick episode. We don't, you know. Oh, it's super fast.

But, well, I mean, why don't you talk for a second just about, I don't know, the pod race in general. Like, what's going on here? Sure. Just to catch everyone up. And if you want to watch along with us, we're at 55 minutes and 4 seconds is the magic number. We're about to start the first establishing shot of the, it's not a stadium. It's just a bunch of stands set up near sort of a rock carving. Yeah, well, it's sort of like a NASCAR, a section of a NASCAR track. But yeah, it's not really a track.

But it's huge. This is an interesting thing about the Pogras. So big. Is that most of it is not visible. No. Yeah. You mean for the audience in the stands? Yeah, stands are only set up at the starting line, which is also the finish line.

Right. It's very similar. It's really not NASCAR. It's very similar to Formula One, which is what I think is being spoofed here, which is basically the greatest Formula One race. You're saying it's a spoof and a goof? It's a spoof and a goof. Okay.

And it's classic spoof goof. Oh, right. Sure. And in Formula One, the most famous one's in Monaco where they race through the whole city and you've got audience members waiting at the finish line. But really, the cars go all over them and wind around and it's very, very high speed. Like in Iron Man 2. We all know.

Oh, just the bravura Formula One secrets from Iron Man 2 that we all love. Marvel Universe's high point as cinema. Yeah. I just got an alert on my computer that I should call back my father. You should do it now, says this reminder. I'm not going to. Hit the snooze button. Sorry, Peter.

Oh, Peter. All right. Yeah, well, Fode and Bede are the pod race announcers. Yes, they are. Troig is the name of their species. They're a two-headed species. Fode speaks in a basic drawl, says Wikipedia, and Bede speaks in Huttese. Do we know if all members of their species have two heads or if they are some freak of nature, an abomination?

That's a great question, and I'm loading the Troig entry now. Yes, they are two-headed, twonecked four-armed creatures are all creatures in that species announcers or color commentators that is not made clear yeah uh but they are a yeah they're they're yeah they're pretty interesting i mean you never see uh his full body but here's a picture of his full body. It's pretty freaky. Oh, boy. Anyway. Yeah, so that's the announcer. I mean, this movie, I don't think Lucas talks about it in the commentary, but Ben-Hur feels like an obvious reference point for it,

the chariot race in Ben-Hur, right? Yes. I don't know. What's another racing movie? Le Mans? Sure. Grand Prix? Grand Prix. Yeah. We could do this all day. Driven, racing movie? Le Mans? Sure. Grand Prix. Grand Prix.

Yeah. We could do this all day. Driven, written by Sylvester Stallone. Great movie. Starring Kip Pardue. And Til Schweiger. Yep. George Lucas, when he was at UCLA, made experimental films that were mostly focused on sound and

movement. Which makes sense. Yes. And I would say the sound is the best thing about the pod race. Yes. And everything I think, I want to say on the record I really enjoyed the pod race. It's a great sequence. I think it looks great on the big screen. It looks great on a

Blu-ray. It's just a gorgeous looking Agreed. Beautifully constructed. You know the technology of the film is in general pretty good but here it's I feel like the most seamless. You know you don't detect the green screen at all. Agreed. It has a bit of physicality to it, a bit of weight.

Some of the shots, you can tell there's an actual physical pod racer, even with the CGI creatures. They build some of the engines and stuff, and they're intercut. It's a nice blend of practical and digital effects. And they have a slightly sort of worn, you know, they don't just have, these aren't some Naboo silver racers,

you know, God knows, in Naboo, who knows what a race would look like there. Too much of Phantom Manus looks too clean. I like the idea of a sci-fi universe that is kind of worn. Like, that would be cool. Yeah, a little gritty, that would be cool. That would be cool.

There's scoring along the spaceships, and, you know, everything seems to be built, like built out of spare parts, a little hodgepodge. Some kind of big, weird-shaped spaceship, almost shaped like a saucer or something would be cool, rather than your typical sleek, aerodynamic thing. But it doesn't work perfectly. You've got to hit it a little. It's a little jalopy. Yeah, the lights are always blinking, and who knows?

Yeah, I love the sound of that. That would have been a cool movie. Anyway, back at UCLA, most of his films The lights are always blinking. Yeah. And, you know, who knows? Yeah. I love the sound of that. That would have been a cool movie. Anyway, back at UCLA, most of his films were about cars and racing. He just filmed a lot of cars moving. So this feels like the sequence he's most engaged with. This is like really where his passions lie. And it's probably, it's a sequence that like is not very relevant to the film. Like this is a film about a trade blockade in Naboo.

Yep. And this is a very minor detour just so that Qui-Gon and Amidala can get their hyperdrive fixed. And so this slave can change hands. And this is like a huge chunk of the movie. Yeah. To a different slave owner. And Qui-Gon can acquire this slave from a slave owner in a chance cube bet. Right.

Chance cube, chance cube, chance cube. Yeah. From a Jew to a Goy, the slave will be transferred. Yes. Or a Jew to a stocky Irishman. Right. Chance Cube, Chance Cube, Chance Cube. Yeah, from a Jew to a Goy, the slave will be transferred. Yes, or a Jew to a stocky Irishman. Yeah. But what I'm saying is, like, this is the second act of the movie, and the pod race is the biggest sequence in it. The denouement.

But it's, you know, not that, like, you could have just had him, like, steal the hyperdrive from Watto, and the whole Tatooine adventure would take 10 minutes. Agreed. And the stakes feel weirdly slow. It's a thrilling sequence because it's thrillingly constructed, but you don't really care. You figure Anakin will win because he kind of needs to win for the story to move forward. So that's maybe the one problem.

Yeah, because it begins with these stakes of like, uh-oh, is everything going to work out okay? And you're like, well, probably. If not, who cares? If not, whatever. He'll probably just brandish his laser sword and start chopping people up. They'll get a hyperdrive from someone else and they just won't own a little Sherb Face boy. Yeah, and also they visit one city and Wado's like, I have the only hyperdrive. Go to another city.

You have a ship. You I have the only hyperdrive. Go to another city. You have a ship. Yeah. You can't go into hyperdrive. You don't need to go to hyperdrive to visit other cities on this blasted planet. This isn't Coruscant. The whole planet is in one city. Interesting thing about Tatooine. Yeah.

As I learned on Wikipedia, the settlements are all just right at the top. Because it's such a hot planet that you can only settle near the polar caps. So it's all sort of grouped around at the top. Right, so it's close. Yeah, it's just catch a bus. Okay, 55 minutes, four seconds. Well, wait, wait. Are you sure we want to start right now?

I think a little more backstory about Watto. You want to talk about my guy? I think we should talk about Watto a little bit, just a little bit before we start the pod. I mean, how long have we been running, Ben? 12 minutes. Yeah, you know, come on. I can't give him a 24-minute episode.

No, exactly. Who are we, Kiefer Sutherland? Excuse me, those episodes were 42 minutes long. I don't think so. Was that the premise of the show? Was that each episode was only 24 minutes at a time? That's what made the show unique, was that most other sitcoms are 22 minutes long, and 24 was the one sitcom that was 24 minutes long.

Yeah, maybe you're right. I forgot that it was shot on a soundstage in Beverly Hills. From a live studio audience. In real time. I missed 24. That was a good show. Great show. Funny.

Funny. Funny. That's Griffin's review of 24. Funny. Funny. Maybe they'll put that on the DVDs retroactively. Funny. Griffin Newman, the Phantom Podcast.

Yeah. That's what it'll say. Hey, it's going to be valuable. So let's talk about Tatooine. Okay, let's talk about Tatooine. Come on. It's an outer rim planet, which means it is far from the galactic center of business and it's not in the Senate.

It is controlled... Oh, you seem a little dismayed by all of this information. Go on. You really just want to hit play? My ankles are bleeding so much. No, go on. Go on. It's an outer rim planet. It's controlled by the Hutts. Yeah. Which we see...

Well, let's not get to that. We'll get to that in a second. But I remember when they land, Qui-Gon's like, well, they're not going to find us here because it's controlled by the Hutts. And everyone's like, the Hutts? Are you crazy? The Queen can't go there. Delicate features. They're lawless.

Yeah. So yeah, they're gangsters, the Hutts. And Tatooine is this, it's probably the most agreeable location of the three big locations in the movie, I think, because of the stuff we're talking about. Agreeable to us? Yeah, to the audience. It's more fun. It's a the most agreeable location of the three big locations in the movie, I think, because of the stuff we're talking about. Agreeable to us? Yeah, to the audience. It's more fun. It's a little dangerous.

It's tactile. Yeah. It's this sandy. It was shot in Africa, in Tunisia. Oh, boy. Yeah. Oh, boy. What a good boy to the word sandy.

Oh, I like it sandy. Our heroes land in Tatooine. They go look for a hyperdrive. Our heroes and Jar heroes land in Tatooine. They go look for a hyperdrive. Our heroes and Jar Jar land in Tatooine. We talked about this earlier, but it is insane that of the people they have on the ship, they bring Jar Jar Binks. Yeah. And Padme and Qui-Gon.

That's it, right? And R2? No, R2 stays aboard. No, he's there. Really? I'm pretty sure. Why would they take him? Again, who knows? Their decision making is very, very peculiar. The fact that we've seen this movie

like 20 times and we still can't remember. We still don't know these details. I don't think that's a criticism on us. I think that's a criticism on the film. Yeah, everyone's so interchangeable at all times, basically. basically yeah and also it's just hard to follow what the fuck is happening seen so many times and I still not really sure they have one thing to do which is get a hyperdrive yeah I know that one thing they need to do they go to one store yeah it is owned by a flying Jew a little flying Jewish man Named Watto

With a big old belly He is a Toydarian Means you can't play any mind tricks on him bro Which means he's basically like a big fat tummy And little hands and feet And little wings that are flapping all the time And kind of a shriveled skull head With a big floppy skin nose

Right he's got an uncircumcised nose Yeah with this Yeah it's got like wrinkles in it You know it's a really like And he's got an uncircumcised nose. Yeah, it's got wrinkles in it. It's really like hair. And he's got four teeth. And he has stubble. He has a beard, which is really gross.

Which he's rubbing all the time. And he has bulging, bulbous eyes. Yes. And he talks like, I don't know, you can do water better than me probably. There you go. That's the key to Watto. He owns a store. He has two slaves, a somewhat petite, sort of quiet,

placid woman named Shmi Skywalker and her son, Anakin, who's an eight-year-old slave. I don't know if we've discussed this in the past. Go ahead. I don't know if it's crass I'm talking how it's earned. Do we think Watto's sticking it to Shmi? We have discussed this.

We have discussed this. Because you discussed whether... Watto's the father? Whether Anakin has an uncircumcised Watto rose for a penis. Yes. Well, you know, Shmi says that Anakin was amazingly conceived out of nowhere. And Qui-Gon thinks maybe the Force conceived him. Yeah, the Force in Wado's pants.

Wado's the father. Yeah, so she does not seem to have any relationship with anyone else in the movie. And Wado's whole operation, he's kind of like, I mean, I've been watching a lot of Star Trek. He's kind of like a Ferengi in Star Trek. How so? Well, you know, he's sort of like a wheeler dealer who doesn't mess around and is always looking for the right bargain and the right deal.

And right. He's sort of like much like that race. It's like this sort of merchant race that you can very quickly follow a quick path down to a very uncomfortable stereotype. Doesn't report, can't work on the Sabbath. Yeah. He's like a wheeler deal. It was, as I said before on this podcast, it was David Schwimmer who alerted me to this. He gave some interview

where he said he saw the Phantom Menace, which I love the idea of just thinking about just David Schwimmer one day buying one ticket to see the Phantom Menace, sitting down and seeing it, watching it, having a good time, and then Watto shows up and he's like, this is an offensive stereotype of Jews. Until that point, he was agreeing with me that it was the best of the films. Yeah, he was next to you, wasn't he? The best of all the films ever made.

Yeah, he was the best one yet. Oh, wait, you thought it was the best one yet, the best film? Yeah, very clearly. Because what else would I be referring to? Of course. There were no other films in this franchise. Of course. All I could be referring to is the medium of film.

It's the best one of these yet. Yeah, so it beat Blank Check. It knocked Blank Check down to number two. Yeah, I mean, talk about films with incredible

sci-fi premises. Blank Check, finally. I thought it was unstoppable, and Blank Check finally got knocked down. Mr. Macintosh got kicked to the curb.

Sorry. But yeah, I saw Star Wars Episode I and The Phantom Menace. Next to Dave Schwimmer. In Ziegfeld with my father, Peter Newman, my brother, Jamesy, and Davey Schwimmer. Yeah, Davey Schwimmer. Who was my babysitter.

And Davey Schwimmer leaned over and said, Watto is an uncomfortable Jewish stereotype to you. And I said, get your hands off my milk duds, David. So, Watto, yeah, he owns a couple slaves. And Qui-Gon makes this deal with him. The hyperdrive, what is the deal? It's if Anakin wins the pod race, he gets the hyperdrive and Anakin. Originally, it's the hyperdrive. Right, he bets the ship as collateral, the actual ship.

He puts that money up against the hyperdrive. He says hyperdrive's not worth it. You need to throw in a slave. And Watto's like alright well how about the woman slave? And he's like well let's leave this to the chance. That gets upped later. At first he's just like ship for the hyperdrive. Yeah. And then he changes the deal.

Watto really could be like hey man like what are you doing welching on me here? But, uh, yeah, you like that word. But then Qui-Gon's like, well, we could take it up with the Hutts, and that seems to shut Wada down. No one wants to take it up with these Hutts. They seem pretty

innocuous from what we see on Fox. Okay, let's talk about the Hutts for a second, who are apparently in charge. It seems to be this kind of pleasantly fat Santa Claus-like slugman. And his sister. And his sister. And another hut. It's a family business.

Now, what's interesting is that there's another hut who is female. But I read on Wikipedia that they reproduce asexually. So I don't really get this concept that they are male and female. Interesting. But they are, yes, they are huts. And all we see of them is that they start the race. They look gross. They start the race by decapitating a creature and spitting its head out of a gong.

And then Jabba the Hutt, who's this person, he falls asleep. Not a person. He's a Hutt. Can you imagine if your name was David the Person? He must hate that. What's the most interesting thing you have going about yourself? I don't know, my species?

I'm a human David the human Are all of them called like blank the hut? Or is he the one? And they're like yeah no shit you're a hut We're all a hut Well it's also pretty Like imagine if like someone came to earth

In a spaceship And it was like oh the galactic center won't find him here Why not? It's controlled by the humans. What? The humans? Gross. Oh, no.

I don't want to send a princess there or a queen or whatever she is. Maybe the Hutts, maybe they're talking just about his family. Maybe their last name also is Hutts. Yeah, maybe it's an honorific or something. Like, my last name is New Man. New Man. That sounds like a descriptor. I'm a pretty young man.

Ah, you're a new man. You go, who runs it here? The New Men. So sounds like a descriptor. I'm a pretty young man. Ah, you're a new man. You go, who runs it here? The new men. And it's like, So that's what it is. Like babies? And it's like,

no, the, No, they're new men. The new men family. Exactly. No women in your family, of course. You all reproduce asexually. Publicly, yes.

That is our answer. That there are no men. Anyway, so yeah, and Jabba falls asleep and at the end of the race he has to be woken up, which is kind of cute. Like, anyway,

I don't understand. As we're saying, we don't really get why everyone's so scared of the Hutts. What's time devoted to these side characters who don't pay off at all?

It's like, why are we seeing this guy at all? Yeah, it's true. He's got this guy next to him with like a big, you know, sort of serpentine hairdo. Bib Fortuna.

Who's like a credited cast member. He doesn't even do anything. He's a credited cast member. He's got his own card in the Star Wars card trader app. Which, by the way, has a lot of expanded universe characters. We've talked about the Star Wars card trader. It's crazy. It's like 10% of it is actual filmic characters.

Right. We talked about Han Solo. Yeah. It's ridiculous. They have like seven cards that are devoted to an old version of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Yeah, it's true. They like dressed up some bearded guy in the same robes. Who looks exactly like Sir Alec Guinness.

They found some guy. It's crazy. It's crazy. It almost looks like they just photoshopped Alec Guinness' headshot. Onto Ewan McGregor. Yeah. Well, you know, maybe that's what they did. I don't know.

It seems like such a waste. I mean, look. They were asked to come up with this dark card trader app, and, you know, they had to make it look good. Disney spent $4 billion. They've got to milk something out of this one movie. Yeah, exactly. That's the thing. Stretch for time.

Yep. Stretch for time. Okay. Let's start it up. Quick podcast. We're going to start it? We've already run too long. I want to get in and out.

Here we go. Fifty-five minutes and eight seconds. We went ahead a little bit. Okay, so here we are. Okay, so we're panning across. It's gorgeous. It looks beautiful. At the Boonta Eve Raceway.

Pat's house. Boonta Eve, yeah. Yeah, and we've got Fodenbeet here announcing the race. Just watching. There don't seem to be a lot of monitors. I mean, we know Padme has her little Padre screen, but all these fans. There's R2. I was right. You're right.

Yeah, he has to drag out the Padres. Anakin has two or three children helping him with his pod, which he built himself. And, of course, by the way, it is very unusual, apparently, that a human can Padre. It's considered too fast. Yes. Which I think this is supposed to be an indication that, oh, we haven't even talked about Sebulba. Oh, here's a boy Sebulba. Okay, okay.

So we're going to get through this, but we have to go to Wikipedia quickly. All right, so it's 5548. We paused it. So yeah, so Anakin is a human. He can do this like 1,000 mile an hour pod racing. So that means he's good at the force. can do this like thousand mile an hour pod racing so that means he's good at the force quickly i just typed sebulbs into wikipedia because i forgot that they don't know my nicknames for the characters so it wasn't a typo i call him sebulbs sebulbs yeah yeah well when you're getting a drink

with him yeah the local uh yeah and and when we fuck uh where i'm sorry what were you saying david well are we gonna talk about sebulba? Sebulba is sort of the favorite of the pod racing circuit. As Watto says, he always wins. He flies this ginormous thing. His pod is like two huge engines and nothing else. So he goes really fast, I think is the idea. Sebulba spent his earnings on a decadent lifestyle. They're talking about how much he wins, right?

He's a Doug. So he walks like on his hands and he has more hands. He doesn't have feet. It's weird. Yeah. He has these big goggles. It says, what?

And he has kind of a bad attitude. Yeah, despite their camel-like facial structures, Doug's were arboreal and could use all four of their limbs equally, so he's just choosing. So, Walt preferred supporting his weight with his arms and performing fine tests with his legs. On the seat of a podracer, however, he used all four limbs, his arms to steer and legs to manipulate the finer instruments. So, he's just doing that for effect. He's just peacocking.

Well, I mean, you know, he wants to stand out. Yeah, I guess it's working. Yeah. So, Walt spent his earnings on a decadent lifestyle enjoyed by very few dogs. His most prized possessions included a pair of, what do you think he's going to say, shoes? Gloves? What do you think it's going to say? Bracelets.

Twi'lek sisters. He is also? A slave owner. A slave owner. Their names are Anne and Tangelaela who were skilled masseuses we know like the pokemon tangela yeah all right interesting um we should talk about that too slavery not legal it seems in the actual senate the galactic republic yeah but legal in this kind of a outer rim situation yeah and uh and padme talks to anakin and says like are you some like

you know disgusting little slave? And he says, I'm a person. And you're supposed to be moved by this. But obviously Anakin's very annoying. But look, Zabalba only has two slaves, maybe within the realm of... Well, Wado only has two slaves. Exactly.

So maybe everyone just has two slaves. I don't support slavery, but maybe everyone only has two slaves. That's a natural. Do you want to further undo the damage you did last week? I'm just saying maybe he's not worse than anyone else. Maybe everyone is playing it.

We know two characters well and both of them have two slaves. The only two other characters that are very clearly established on Tatooine are slaves. Right, and then Gragra I don't think Gragra has any slaves. I don't think she has slaves. She's just a gorgmonger. She's a gorgmonger. She's a Gorgmonger.

She's the Norma Rae of Gorgs. I will never not find the word Gorgmonger funny. It's so funny. Okay, but my point is, Sebulba only has two slaves. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hate slavery. I want to go public and say

I don't own any slaves. I'm not friends with any slave owners. Slow clap from Ben Dusser over here, the poet laureate of the Phantom Podcast. But maybe within the reality of Star Wars, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, different standards, two slaves is fine. Let's continue with

his biography. He also owned at least two more female slaves. Were you just setting that whole bit up? Yep. You're such an asshole. A long walk for a quick drink of water. You thought I was backing myself into a hole. I was fucking alley-ooping myself for a marginal laugh.

That's what I was doing. Oh, boy. A Rudian and a Lethan who are in his apartment by 32 BBY. So he lives in an apartment. Great. Congrats. You think you could own a house? We're talking about a desert planet.

Like, there's space. There's space, all these huts. Also, you said like 98% of the planet? Yeah. But he's got to live in a fucking apartment. Why? Because he keeps on buying ladies. Maybe you don't treat women as property, Sebulba.

He's like two feet tall. Maybe he just doesn't need a lot of space. Yeah, and he's got a dumb camel face. He does. His face kind of does look like a camel. He's got a complex probably, but it's like maybe Sebulba will work on your personality and then some ladies will like you, you know? Women aren't a possession.

They're not a thing to own. It's true. Dating is not a game. It's not a sport. You okay? I'm just saying. How's your heel? know, dating is not a game. It's not a sport. You okay? I'm just saying. How's your heel? I have terrible embolism. So Bobo often uses his fame for

cheap dalliances with Doug females. What? Oh, interesting. He owns four women and he's leveraging his fame. The Doug women, you know, I think you don't want to own them. He's like, no, you got to chase the Doug women. Doug, again, his species is called Doug.

Like the Nicktoons character. Like the Nicktoons character. But without the O. So he owns four women. He owns four women. But he sleeps around with women of his own species. Good for you, buddy. Whatever.

He's not the best. He's not the worst. I guess it's fine. Let's see what this next sentence is. So Bobo also had his hands in several slave rings. Okay, so he's a bad guy. He's a terrible guy. He's a not

good guy. Yeah. Who do you think these slave rings were for? The Hutts? Yup. Gardella. The Hut. The Lady Hut. The Lady Hut, yeah. That was a Preston Sturgis movie, right?

The Lady Hut? The Lady Hut. Yeah. Starring Franklin Tangborn and Gardella the Hut. And it's set on a Huttese sail bar. Yeah. Anyway, carry on. Positively the same hut.

Yep. That's a joke for two people. It really is. Yep. But I really hope they enjoy it. Positively the same hut. What a great movie. That's the best one.

I watched it again like four days ago. It's a masterpiece. Talkin' Eve. When decked out for a race, Sebulba always looked his finest on his heavily padded racing suit. So we're talking about Sebulba here? Come on. This is boring. Sebulba always looked his finest on his heavily padded racing suit. So we're talking about Sebulba here? Come on. This is boring.

Yeah, but I think the crucial thing about Sebulba is he's got this giant ship, right? It's cool. It's orange. It has these sort of triangular engines. And he goes really fast, and he plays dirty. He knocks people around. He throws little bombs at them or something. I don't know.

And that's how he wins I think Sebulba just he just he cheats I'm skipping ahead here expanded universe Sebulba after a while

took a rest quit pod racing his son Hecula was allowed to fly Sebulba's new pod racer six years after the Boonta Eve classic

also being beaten by Anakin Hecula however was a rook he smashed the Potter race in his debut race. Sebulba then purchased a plug-F gargantuan,

a remake of his famous Potter. Enough with these remakes. After purchasing... Okay, the point is they keep on... Okay, enough. The expanded universe

is that Anakin keeps on coming back every couple years just to beat Sebulba. Just to kick his ass? Or his ancestors. Wow. Yeah, this petty fuck. All right.

Okay, let's go. We gotta get back on track. All right, so here's Sebulba. He's entering. Wow. Yeah, this petty fuck. All right. Okay, let's go. We got to get back on track. All right, so here's Sebald. He's entering the race. He's entering the ring. We're going to just watch. He's blowing kisses to the crowd. They are cheering.

They're very happy. The extras in this film are terrible. It's really upsetting. Every time they cut to the extras in the stands, we're at 55 minutes and 32 seconds. It's like we're suddenly watching a movie about the Crusades. Yeah. It's like a bunch of sort of like Bedouins. They clearly were not told what was going on in the scene or how to behave.

They're just waving their arms around a lot. Also, the way they're dressed is really unfortunate. Yeah. And there are some people, there are a couple people, extras in the stands who have like alien costumes on, like masks and stuff, but they're immobile. They don't have facial expressions because they're cheaper extra costumes. Right. And so people are just gesticulating way too much to compensate for their dead eyes. You can't even tell if they're happy or sad.

They're just kind of going, There's one guy coming up I'll point out. There's his ship. So we paused it. We're at, what, 55, 52. We're going to go back into it now. And we're going to finish this up. This is going to be a quick episode. So there's Fodenbeater chatting. Of course.

We've got to pause here. We've got to pause here up. This is going to be a quick episode. So there's Fodenbeater chatting. Of course. All right, so who's this guy? Okay, we've got to pause here. We've got to pause here. We've got to pause here quickly because there's a new racer on the scene. He's got three eyes. He's got three eyes, and his head kind of looks like a horse with squid tentacles coming out of the top of it instead of hair. Very, very sleek jumpsuit.

Yeah, very nice jumpsuit with sort of a coral, a black coral pattern on it. And kind of like a Baby Bjorn front with the Baby Bjorn removed, if that makes sense. It looks like a Baby Bjorn was ripped off. Maybe that might be his... That's his tragic backstory.

What's this character's name? Help me out here, Griffin. Stolen off his chest. Why can't I find this? I don't know. This is great. This is great, great, great. Great podcast, Griffin. Stolen off his chest. Why can't I find this? I don't know. This is great. This is great, great, great. Great podcast, man.

So good. How you doing, Ben? Good. How's the day going? You know, editing a little bit of this. A little bit of this. Looking at apartments there. Me and Ben had a long talk about apartments today.

Yeah. Yep. But we're probably just going to cut this. Yeah, we and Ben had a long talk about apartments today. Yeah. Yep. But, uh, we're probably just going to cut this. Yeah, we probably will just cut this. This is a cue for me editing later. You think we should keep it in?

Yeah, I like this. I think this is kind of true. You're really, really, really struggling. I am now calling up the Boonta Eve classic. Yeah, I am too.

Jeez, I thought there was like one list of all the pod racers. Now, okay, yeah, this part, this has definitely gotten to a point where now we're cutting this oh yeah no for sure yeah yeah oh boy i'm looking for oh boontief let me just search for boontief classic so maybe i'll have the list of all the people yeah i already

did that doesn't work really yep i could have sworn i beforehand you know they put out like like vegetables for uh hors d'oeuvres yeah. They put out fennel sometimes, too. Raw fennel. Sure. Hello fennel. I'm not a fan. You don't like it? Just wanted to put that out there.

I'm not a big fan of fennel, either. It's kind of a complicated taste. I mean, it works sometimes. I like fennel-based liqueurs. Yeah, no, I like fennel-based liqueurs, too. I like fennel cooked in a salad, you know, as an ingredient. Sure, that's okay. Do we know if our Hello Fennel t-shirts are up in the shop yet?

Ooh, yeah. Yeah, have you gotten them yet? You know, I got lost in emails, so I will get on it. Hello Fennel. Hello Fennel. Did you know that Captain Panaka's first name is Korsh? Like Hugh Korshi, the actor who played him? No, really?

All right, what are you looking at now? Are we recording? What's happening? I don't know what's happening. I'm trying to find this. Also radishes. Oh, how do you feel? I like a raw radish appetizer once in a while.

I've had one that was good. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I'm not- They're so bland. They're pretty bland. But then I love carrots, and they're close. See, I actually don't like carrots, but carrots are sweeter. Right.

And I'm less into the sweet. I don't have much of a sweet tooth. And they have a better crunch to them. Radishes? No, carrots. Yeah. Radishes are kind of fibrous. Yes, that's true.

And we're back. So, Producer Ben is going to seamlessly edit it, so it sounds like it was continuous, but I want to blow up that facade. We just took a 15-minute break to look up, to try to figure out what the name of that... That random pod racer is. Yeah, it's Mahonic, which is really uninteresting. Yeah, he kind of has a dumpster butt, and he sucks.

He's sort of a piece of shit. We resent the fact that we just had to spend that much time off Mike. What's his species called, this three-eyed species? He's a gran. Okay, great. Is there anything interesting about him? He held two Speedrakers. Mahanik held two Speed Records.

And also displayed his aggressive side. Yeah, whatever. Biography. Let me look up one interesting thing. I hope he dies. Oh, in addition to being a pilot, Mahanik was a Podracer parts dealer. Great. It could often be found in his shop where his R2 series Aspergeck droid

frequently worked on his Podracer. I think that's enough about him. The only interesting thing, I'm going to hit play. Yes, please. The only interesting thing

about him really is that he kind of gesticulates to the crowd. He gives them a little bow. Here's another guy bowing to the crowd. Who's this guy? I'm going to tell you

in one second. Is that, this guy, he's got like deer antlers and like a Minnie Mouse bow right on his head. Uh-huh. Do you see it right there? The little Minnie Mouse bow?

Yes, I did. I'm going to look at it in one second. I did find something interesting about Mahanik here. Oh, go ahead. And then we're moving on. All right. Soon after the race, a Madden Mahanik pronounced his hatred for Sebulba and his family. He put a bounty on at least two of the Cheating Doug's relatives.

Wow. On the relatives. Sebulba and Exulba. Okay. The bounty hunter Jango Fett, must be an expanded universe character. Haven't heard of him. Would eventually snag the bands while on the planet, though it's still unclear whether they were taken alive or dead.

Gross. Mohanek hired someone to fucking- So that guy is reprehensible. Mohanek's a piece of shit. Even in the sort of lawless society that we're looking at here. Where slaves are commonplace. He's not playing by the rules. Yeah.

Okay, this guy with the Minnie Mouse. He also bows to the crowd. He really, this guy is useless. Got a list of everyone here. Okay, this guy's name. Oh, his name is great though. Clegg Holdfast. Oh, that's a good name.

Yeah. Let's see. And then this is the last one we're going to look up because after this we just have to get this over with. I want this to be a really quick episode. All right. Well, it'll be really quick. Yeah. Clegg Holdfett.

Here's a quote from him. When you spend your life racing pods, you learn to be handy with a wrench and a pitch wrench. Yeah, I mean, that's self-evident. Yeah, he's got a very big pod racer, a very big engine. It's called a Wasp. He was a journalist for Pod Racing Quarterly. This is fascinating. Fascinating.

Fascinating. Holdfast was the son of a fish catcher mother and a candle maker. A fish catcher father, geez. And a candle maker mother. Right. In truth, this was Holdfast. I'm losing it. In truth, this was Holdfast's primary career.

Pod racing itself was just a tool for him to get the inside scoop on the races. Okay, so he's almost like Paul Walker in Fast and the Furious, where he's entered the world of racing simply to get the inside track on it, and that pun was intended. Many of his loyal readers protested that it was too risky a sport for him to take an active part in. Yeah, but his hardy hide enabled him to walk away more or less intact from the many crashes. Thank God he's got a sturdy tuchus, I guess is the takeaway there. Yeah, but he mostly wrote for Pod Racing Quarterly.

All right. So he's interesting. So he's really, when he's bowing here, it's because people don't like him as a racer. All these people are like, I can't wait to hear what Holdfast writes about this. Exactly, yeah. He's playing up for the crowd because he's just lower ranked. Right. Okay, we're back in it now, 5607.

He's stroking the sides of his face as if he has a mustache. Yeah, we've got some kind of rhino guy. All right, all right. You want to do the rhino guy? Yeah, this is the last one. No, more of a crocodile, actually. Yeah, he's got a long crocodile beak. I believe his name is Dark Ralter.

I want to look that up. I'm going to double check it. Dud Bolt. Oh, I remember Dud Bolt. I see some of these I remember because I had the video game. Dud Bolt, Star Wars Episode I Racer. Yeah. Dudbolt, of course, is two different words that mean idiot.

But bolt? No, I think you mean dolt. Oh, you're right. Yeah. A dud and a dolt. Bolt kind of indicates, like, fast. Yeah. Yeah.

He's a volpterian. He's a hitman. Yeah. He's a Volpterian. He's a hitman. Wow. Worked as a midair bodyguard for notorious fellow pilot Sebulba Vicious Dutt. Interesting. So he's on Sebulba's side. He's on Sebulba's side. What?

Wow. Very clever, Sebulba. I hate these guys. Yeah. He's a real piece of shit. Here's my question for you. Is anyone in it for the love of the sport? I don't know, man. I think Anakin is.

Yeah, and I always already forget his name. Malwek or whatever his name is. The old three-eyed fucker. He seems to be, but then he takes it too seriously and kills other people. He's ordering hits on family members? That's not cool. Slave owners and hitmen and undercover journalists? I don't want to hear about any of these other people. He's ordering hits on family members. That's not cool. Slave owners and hitmen and undercover journalists.

I don't want to hear about any of these other people's backstories. We're going to watch the rest of the race. 58, 12. We're going like four seconds. He's got pit droids carrying little things for him. The race hasn't started yet. We're almost done with the episode. We're going to just breeze through this.

Here are some fans. This guy's waving in the air like he doesn't care. We've got to look at this guy. Because I have the action figure of this guy and I never knew the backstory. This is Odie Mandrell. I owned Odie Mandrell. Not in a slave owner way. I owned him. I own a small plastic representation. He kind of looks like Dick Dastardly without the mustache

and nose. He's got this sort of back swept helmet and goggles. Interesting point you bring up. I thought that was a helmet. I bought the action figure because I liked the helmet so much. It is not. It is in fact a visor.

He has a bulbous head. Oh, interesting. Okay. He's wearing a visor over a very bulbous, swept back head. He's got a very bulbous head. He's an urquit. The action figure looks so stupid without the visor.

He's from Tatooine. He's one of the youngest. He's barely a teenager. Barely a teenager. He is a daredevil who raced not for money or fame, but simply the adrenaline rush. Okay, that's what I'm talking about. Yes.

Yeah, he would whoop and laugh like a madman as he whipped around corners. And, you know, this is actually, we're getting some really nice color. By the way, none of this is in the film. None of this is in the film. None of this is in the film. Not one iota of information, except that Sebulba is a dirty cheater and Anakin is a sweet little angel boy.

Yeah. Yeah, and apparently he eventually hooks up with this Han Solo expanded universe character that we knew from the trading card. All over the trading card. Let's forget it. Don't care. But I like Cody Mandrell. I feel validated in my 15 years ago purchase of the action figure.

How much was it? At the time, at those prices, $6. I don't know. No, it's pretty good. Okay, so the pit droids, or he's got three pit droids, and they're kind of fooling around. I think my- No, I think some of this was added. There's Anakin.

He's putting his power couplings together. Well, yeah, wasn't, I think a lot, a little more footage was added in the Blu-ray extended thing. Oh, I believe you are correct. I think the cinematic one is slightly shorter. It doesn't have quite as much embellishment. Okay, so now they're bringing out flags. Every pod racer has their own flags. Yeah, C-3PO is carrying Anakin's flag.

There's Jar Jar. Uh-oh. Fucking Jar Jar. He's going to, here's a thing. It's farting. You see his tush. Jar Jar's pinching. Here's a thing. It's farting. You see his tush. Jar Jar's pinching his nose because a thing just farted. We should do a whole director's commentary.

That should be our last episode. That should be the last episode. We'll create a commentary that everyone can listen along to if you want to watch the fandom. Shmi's wishing him luck. And Sebulba is also wishing him luck. George cut that scene down because it was too emotional. It reflected human emotions. Sebulba, he fucks with Anakin's pod racer a little bit there. Threw something off. Now Sebulba is also wishing him luck. George cut that scene down because it was too emotional. Sebulba, he fucks with Anakin's pod racer a little bit there.

Threw something off, not Sebulba. I can't get over the fact that Sebulba could use his legs to walk and he's just showboating. Are your subtitles on here? I feel like they're speaking in a different language here. They are. My subtitles are not on. We should turn your subtitles on.

I can't get them on this. I tried. Subtitles aren't available. I'm a piece of shit. You're speaking a different language. Sebulba speaks in his own language. Anakin speaks in English. And they just seemingly correspond.

Qui-Gon just creepily grabbed Anakin from under the armpits and lifted him into his pod. Tickled his butt crack and grabbed his helmet. And he's giving him a little kiss on the cheek and telling him to be careful and all that nonsense. I will say, Jake Lloyd doesn't give a good performance in this scene, but this helmet is his saving grace because it covers his eyes and you're able to project more emotion onto him than he is giving. That is true, because you can't see his eyes and it really helps, because

usually he's just squinting. Right. Which, to be fair, oh, here's Jabba the Hutt. Okay. Jabba the Hutt, he's sludging out, waving to the crowd, they're all clapping for him. They're over, really overdoing it. There's the other one. What's her name again? Gargela. I can't remember. Gardella the Hutt.

The elder. Gardella the elder. And Jabba the Hutt's like, welcome to the pod race. So one of them's called after his race and the other one's called after the fact that she's old. Dumb species. Now the pod races are all getting going and there's this little purple lightning bolt that indicates that the engines are working.

So a pod racer is basically two giant engines and then one little cockpit that's sort of connected to it by basically like what? Tubes. Yeah. Yeah. Wires, cables. Yeah, cables. Okay. Jar Jar Padme Shmi.

Going up to sort of perch. Yeah, they have this, Jar Jar, Padme, Shmi, Qui-Gon going up to sort of perch. Yeah, they have this little like skybox thing. It's pretty fancy. I bet Qui-Gon paid good money for it. Anakin's turning on his. This is great. We're going to get this episode done so quickly. This is almost over.

The race is starting now. We're going to have nothing else to comment on other than the race. Here we go. Motors are turning. This is really good, by the way. This is so well constructed. It's really, really really really nicely done I think and remember when

George said that he thinks they're silent films yeah we're watching it as a silent film right now it's working beautifully but although we must say

Ben Burtt's okay shit I have to say Ben Burtt's sound design is just absolutely extraordinary in this scene yeah I know we're going to get this over with

but there's a guy here with forearms and I gotta look that up now he looks a little like the queer man that we were talking about in a previous episode. He's not a Queer Mian.

No, he's not. This guy's name is Gaskino. Okay. Good name. He has a long neck, but he's not a Queer Mian. He's a bisexual. That's a joke I came up with before the podcast. I'm reusing it.

David didn't find it funny, but I think you might find it funny as a first timer. Gaskino. He is a Troikan. No, he's from Troikan. He's a Zexto Zexto X-E-X-T-O

by Zexto I mean I was kind of close yeah yeah yeah 24 fingers total which allowed him to do multiple tasks during pod racing

like read a book um deadliest fiends on the track they said one of the deadliest if one was able to anger him

so I guess he's got a long fuse but you don't want it to go off. Gardella the Elder liked him a lot, championed him. She was not the only one who bet on him, but he was

you know what? Many predicted you know what? Many predicted Gaskino would overtake Sebald in the Boon Tee of Classic. We'll get to that. But he did get drunk, even though he had a reputation as an intellectual. Well, that's his personal life. I don't want to get to that. But he did get drunk even though he had a reputation as an intellectual. Well, that's his personal life. I don't want to get into that.

He is clearly an intellectual. Yeah, he is. All right. That's Gasconow. All right. So the engines are firing up and Ben Birch sound design. My pompa and grandma took me to FAO Schwartz because I was a nice boy and they said you can pick one pod racer and I chose Odie Mandrell over Gasconow.

And for years I've wondered whether or not I made the right choice because Gasconow had four arms, which means more playability. True I chose Odie Mandrell over Gascono. And for years I've wondered whether or not I made the right choice because Gascono had four arms, which means more playability. True. But Odie Mandrell's not a drunk, and he's not an elitist intellectual. And that's what you care about? Oh, there's a – Doug Bolt. Doug Bolt.

Okay, sorry, we've got to look up this guy. So this guy's got an interesting pod racer in that it's sort of donut-shaped around him. Yes. Just the cockpit. Just the cockpit. Yes. Just the cockpit. Just the cockpit. Yes. And he's got big teeth. He's got kind of a dinosaur

like flat head thing coming out of his head. I don't know. He also has a great name. What's his name? It's Tinto Poglis. I don't even know where to begin. Yeah.

You know, some people might say, Griffin, you misspeak a lot on this podcast. How the hell do you spell that? Sometimes you flip up your words. T-E-M-T-O. Gotcha. P-A-G-A-L-I-E-S. I'm surprised I'm able to speak English by the end of these episodes for the amount of nonsense words we have to say.

George Lucas really does a, he's a vecnoid. Considered handsome by vecnoid standards. Damn. That's a little harsh Wikipedia.. Considered handsome by Vecnoid standards. Damn. That's a little harsh Wikipedia. Oh shit. His story's fascinating. He was exiled from his home planet after unwittingly attracting the attention of a beautiful Vecnoid princess and resisting her attempts at matrimony.

Why didn't you marry the princess, dude? Sounds good. He got kicked out because he didn't want to marry her. I thought it was going to be all he slept with, forbidden fruit. Then he was infatuated with one of Sebulba's masseuses. Oh boy. Oh, and he couldn't getated with one of Sebulba's masseuses. Oh, boy. Oh, and he couldn't get her to notice him, so he bought a slave.

Look. Okay. God. It's just, it always takes a dark turn. Okay, but here's a quote from him. I can drink five times as much as any being three times my height. So they're all drunk slave on it. This is a terrible, Jesus. I hope they all

perish. I hope they all die. Pagli's considered Anakin a good kid and wished him well in the race despite his drunkenness. Um, yeah. He, yeah, well, alright. He had the longest engines,

but his lofty theories that that would help him didn't bear out I'm done with this guy this guy's a piece of shit yeah back to Cibola we know him

the race hasn't started but it's about to and we're almost done with this episode this episode's almost done it's a quick what are we up to Ben eight minutes

Jar Jar is covering his eyes he's so scared you're like 45-ish well but a lot of that we're gonna cut out don't forget 35 minutes were us looking up the name of Wenchel or whatever his name is. It went well because we already forgot his name.

Here's Watto looking on. Okay, Jabba, the ceremonial decapitation of the creature, spitting at the gong, and we're off. There they go. Anakin's engines have failed him, and he is not moving. He's stuck at the starting line. Before zero, really. He's flipping everything. He's futzing. line. Before zero, really. He's flipping everything.

He's futzing. Fode is making fun of him like little Skywalker. Wald is incredulous. Wado is laughing so much. That's really funny without the sound on his facial expression. He's pointing and laughing. And here we're seeing the rest of the race. Oh, no, there's one other.

Okay, all right. Oh, boy. Two engines are stalled out, Anakin and Ben Quadranero. One hour, 26 seconds, 28 seconds? Yeah, one hour and 28 seconds. 26 seconds. 26 seconds. Okay, this is Ben Quadranero.

We know his name. Yeah, well, George Lucas talks about him because apparently you wouldn't know about Ben Quadranero's four engines unless you were a citizen of Tatooine. If you were a citizen of Tatooine, I don't know how many engines he has. I can't tell. Four engines in front of him, I might be miscounting. But if you were on Tatooine,

you go, oh, that's a classic four-engine pod racer. So I guess he got the name from his engines, or did the engines get the name from him? We don't really know. Can I talk about his physical appearance real quickly?

Well, he's a toon. Yeah, he looks like, well, you go ahead. He looks like a vagina with toothpicks sticking out of it for arms and legs. His head is shaped like a vagina. He has these deep, deep creases

in the sides of his face that look like vaginal lips and his nose protrudes much like a clitoris would from under the hood of those creases. He looks like a vagina and then he's got very, very skinny arms and legs. His whole body is a head. Here you go, Ben wants to see this. Yeah, there's the front.

Fucking pervert producer Ben trying to look at a vagina alien. He was a coward, but he buckled under... I'm sorry, did you say he was a coward or is he a pussy? He's known as something of a coward. He would buckle under... I had to, folks. Buckle under the stress of social interaction.

Very timid. Yeah. But he wasn't spineless. Yeah. He was actually quite a good, safe racer. So, a bit wimpy, but- These sound like all the definitions of a way someone would call a pussy. Right.

He wouldn't be in the race at all, but a friend of his at a gimmick concert, whatever that is, had bet five million whoopies that he wouldn't have the guts to enter. Our favorite currency. So he rented this pod racing. This pod racing. It wasn't even his. And he might have died, but well, let's get into it. Okay.

There's nothing else? Let's get into it. Come on. Let's hit play. He looks like a vagina and he's a pussy. Yeah. So his thing's not working. He's bashing at his else. Let's get into it. Come on, let's hit play. He looks like a vagina and he's a pussy. Yeah, so his thing's not working. He's bashing at his screen. That's embarrassing.

You have four motors. Oh, boy. He's got it working. There he goes. And we're off. And he's in the race. So Quadraneros, though, Jar Jar's really happy about that. And Shmi's watching on a little iPad.

Yeah, so does everyone have a little iPad? Unclear. Because already all of the pod racers are out of view now. Alright, so Sebulba is smashing, what's that guy's, oh he's already gone! Which guy was that? The three-eyed guy. Yeah, Malak Pachali.

Yeah, he takes him out really quickly, knocks him against the rocky dune mountain walls, I don't know. God, I love this sequence. It's so good. The camera moves with actual movement to it. Okay, we've got to look this up.

There's a lady. And there's this lady. There's a lady. She has white skin, orange pants, big ponytail. When it said Sebulba was living in an apartment, I think these are the apartments we're looking at. These are little carvings in the rocks with little windows.

She's got a little patio. It really is like the Monaco Grand Prix. They're going through the settlements of Mas Aspa or Bunte. Whatever the fuck it is. I don't know. Now, I didn't pause this to look her up because I don't know anything about her. I know a lot about this character. I don't know if you know this.

I have her Star Wars card trader. This character appears on screen for maybe a second and a half. You don't even see her face. We see her from the back. She's one of the most popular characters in Phantom Menace fandom. Why? She's had countless toys produced, both high end and low end. She looks cool.

Books written about her. Who the fuck is, what's her name? Aura Singh. Great. It rolls right off the tongue. A-U-R-A. It's great when names are written in ways that are almost impossible to pronounce. How do you pronounce it?

Aura. Aura. Aura. Okay, anyway. She's got like a needle sticking out of her head. She's got, pale as a bag of flour, red jumpsuit, nice tuchus, which I'm only saying because she's standing behind us. The tuchus is facing us.

She's got a spear. People love her. Oh, the opening of her Wikipedia entry is, sorry about the mess. This article or section needs to be cleaned up. Someone's going to get their Wikipedia. So she is a near human, a human hybrid. Human in what?

We don't know. Unknown. She was once a female Jedi Padawan. And then around the age of nine she was kidnapped by pirates. And then she became a bounty hunter, specializing in Jedi assassinations She never progressed past the point Of Padawan Interesting character literally

Seen for one second Watching the race go by Her wikipedia entry is 15 pages long This is the longest one we have ever come across This is insane People love her I think they just like her because she's facing the camera and she's got a nice tushy. I think that's what it is.

I think men are the worst. It's 101, 1, 2. Okay, and we're almost done. So here's Anakin zooming through this sort of, there's this long, there's this like, what do you call this? Cliff facing. Cavern, cave. Yeah, it's like very narrow.

Okay, no, wait, hold on one second here. Right? We go back one second here. Right? We go back a second here. There are these guys just standing here, right? Yeah, the little robed guys, you mean? Yeah, but there's like a little, like a fence, and it looks like... It's being foreshadowed. There's like a sort of like an exit ramp.

Right. Yeah. Right, and these lunatics, there's like an exit ramp with like a police barricade. And they're standing right by it. Right, there's like a police barricade. And they're standing right by it. Right. There's like a police barricade that's like do not cross under construction. Right? These guys are just standing behind it.

That's the thing. Anywhere you watch the pod race, like why would you spend money to go buy a ticket to sit in a stadium? You could just stand behind a barricade. Either way, you're only going to get to see someone for two seconds. Shoo! Shoo! And they're done.

Status. It's a status thing. It's a status thing. It's like how people watch the marathon, you know? And you only see the marathon runners for a minute. Yeah, I don't because I'm not a dummy. I mean, is that, yeah. I stay home and watch the Phantom Menace

when the marathon's happening. So Anakin's sort of making his way through the racers, we're seeing. Like he's kind of overtaking people. Dark cave, last of the lag lights. He's got this very small, very fast, oh no! Oh no. Did we look up that guy?

That guy goes, before he dies. I want to look up that guy because his reaction was really funny. He's got sort of a frog face. Yeah, they go into this cavern

and he smashes right into a stalagmite or stalactite or something and he is, got very short arms, his name is Rats Tyrell and this is the last one we're going to look up

because then we really have to finish this podcast. Yeah, and there's, I don't think there's anyone else. No. Rats. Rats. Rats Tyrell. And this is the last one we're going to look up because then we really have to finish this podcast. Yeah, and I don't think there's anyone else. No. Rats. Rats.

Rats. That's what he was saying when he died. He really makes the most incredible noise. It's. It says he has incredible reflexes, except he doesn't because he just hit a stalagmite and crashed. That's the opening lines. It is incredible. This whole thing is about how good his reflexes are. Well,

I'm sorry, they failed him at this moment. Yeah. Quick reflexes, he grew up in a harsh environment, causing him to push his reflexes to the limit. A game called Rat's Race. Ugh. Alright, okay, enough for this. There's a game called Rat's Race. Ugh. All right.

Okay, enough of this guy. He's dead. Rat's Race. He's the first confirmed death, because I don't know if the three-eyed guy dies. Yeah. Anyway, so Anakin dodges the flames of that. Ooh, who are these guys? Ooh, these people are kind of interesting. All right, okay.

Okay, how would you even describe these guys? Okay, so they're standing up on the cliffside. They have weird little guns. They're called Tusken Raiders. Yeah. They're robed, entirely robed in cloth. Like everything about them is covered. Bandaged faces and hands.

Yeah. Their heads are these like bandaged things with these two metal eye sockets. It's really, really cool. Yes. So you got a text message. I'm getting text messages. I'm like, I don't think I'm trying to talk about the Phantom Menace. Yeah.

And so they're taking pot shots, it seems. Yes. At the, oh, Anakin just got hit at the pod racers. Hey, hey, I don't like them. Hey, you just think they're bad news? Yeah. Well, Quadraneros, we're cutting back to Quadraneros. Oh, God, this is bomb.

The Tusken Raiders are going, and they're lifting their guns in the air. Yeah, they're not happy. Quadraneros is banging. Oh. Oh. The Sparrow. Kaboom. So each engine went off in its own direction.

That's got to hurt. And they all exploded. By Ben. Did you say that's got to hurt in the theater when it happened? Of course. Did everyone laugh? That's what I say every time that anyone gets hit in any movie that I ever see. Bad extra acting.

Lap one done. Sebulba's in the lead. We're on to lap two. And someone pulls up. I think it's Odi Mandrell. He's commanding his pit droids who are these cute little things to fixes and one of them's about to get sucked through his engine. And the engine explodes.

And it's like, woo! Yay, I'm happy. It's weird that it survives that. Yeah, but now he's screwed. Now he's messed up. And Jabba the Hutt just callously knocked a little creature off of. That's a little mean. So, Oni Mandrell is out of the race. So far, one pod racer has died.

One is stuck. Two are stuck at the starting line. Yeah, and a couple have messed up. Yeah, and Matawan is missing in action. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, there Matawan is missing in action. Alright, so there goes Anakin. Second lap complete.

He's cruising through. This is a thing that looks like Odi Mandrell got four arms. Selling thing. C-3PO is talking to R2 saying he has to do two more laps. Jesus, that's crazy. See, that mask does him so much Oh yeah, it's true.

Here's Odi Mandrell's throwing thing. He's got a little video screen. He's looking at the rear view. No, that's not him so much. Oh, yeah, it's true. Here's Eddie Mandrell's throwing thing. He's got a little video screen. He's looking at the rear view. No, that's not Eddie Mandrell. It's the other guy. It's the four-armed guy. Oh, what's... We just talked about him like five seconds ago.

God damn it. I can't deal with this. Yeah, but he's messing with Anakin. He's tossing stuff at him. Anakin overtakes him. Oh, he's the one who's a drunk, right? Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a drunk, right? Yeah.

It's a big list, but yeah. But you're right. Oh, and the donut guy is bashing Anakin. Anakin loops around him. Team Topogles. Team Topogles. But you're right. Anakin is wearing these giant goggles,

and so he just has this grim determination on his face, and yeah, it really improves Jake Lloyd's work. But see, I would argue he doesn't even have a grim determination on his face. I'd argue he just has a face. And because his eyes are covered, we are now able to project other things. All right, Sebulba is throwing something and it lands in this engine. Amazing aim. He just throws it over his shoulder at high speeds. That's the duck face guy.

Oh, well, he's dead now. Yeah, he's dead. Or his engines have exploded. He looks pretty dead. He looks pretty dead. Whoa! He slashes Bionican, knocks his coupling off, and he's got to fix that. You know how when they're talking about betting on Anakin, and they're like, so have you won before?

And he's like, well... He's never finished a race, he says. Right, and they're like, Jesus Christ, you haven't even finished a race, kid? Finishing a race is near impossible. Yeah, a lot of people don't finish races. It's amazing he's alive. Most people die. One guy never even got started, right?

How is his mother letting him do this, by the way? Okay, so he's got this magnet stick. And also, he's a slave. Slaves are allowed to race in this? I don't know. Anyway, he's doing this very impressive thing where he links his coupling back to his ship. Slaves are allowed to race.

Drunks are allowed to race. Reporters are allowed to race. I was like, this is lawless. So now, and he's back on track, and he's just... So his ship must be really fast, because he's going around everyone really quickly, but I think the reason for that is it's very small. So he can...

He's more vulnerable, but he has like a... He's kind of like Toad, I think, in the Mario Kart. Yes, he's good at robotics, too. I mean, robotics. He's a good engineer. Oh, no, of course. It's just the fact. Oh, okay. Donut guy just got hit by a Tusken Raider.

I don't care what universe you're from, that's got to hurt. Yeah. Great line, great joke. Says Fode. Yeah, that was a Greg Proops original. Greg Proops, 10 points. Okay, so now Anakin and Sebulba are closing, and it's the final lap. Everyone cheers.

Jar Jar's going nuts. They're the only two left at this point. Right? They're the only two that we see, at least. Yeah. Almost everyone else has died. It's really, really costly. There must be so much money riding on that. All right.

So this is great aerial camera shot of them snaking through. Hey, here's a thought. If you don't die, but you just crash in the middle of the desert in this really, really long track, how do you get back home? You're just stuck there. You don't have a vehicle. I have no idea. As you said, 98% is unpopulated. Okay, so here we go. Sebulba's knocking Anakin onto the exit ramp, onto the

safety ramp, whatever the hell it is. Look how much smaller Anakin's potter is. Oh, okay, here we go. So now they just almost killed all those people standing there. Anakin almost did it. He was almost responsible for their deaths. He's cruising through the air. Anakin's like, whoa, what the fuck? And he's crashing down and he goes, bam.

He loops back up. And he hits his engines and lands ahead of Sebulba. It's an impressive move. And what's Sebulba supposed to do now? I don't know. So I think if Anakin is the toad. Oh, now this guy, okay, this guy here is giving thumbs down in the crowd. Well, his hands are flippers,

so I don't know if you can call that. He's got stupid alien hands and he's got like, like, like, Dan DeVito penguin hands and he, the guy,

the actor is making the choice of, I don't like Anakin. I'm against what's happening in this race right now. he doesn't want Anakin to be in the lead. I think that's what the actor's doing, but he doesn't realize

that his, the hands he's wearing don't enable him to properly give thumbs down. Well, you know what? I mean, it's tattooing. Maybe thumbs down means thumbs up. What do you know? Yeah. Okay.

So Anakin's in the lead. Okay. It's crazy. Everyone is watching. By the way, just the landscape of it, it looks like they're racing on the Utah salt flats or whatever. Oh, a couple little road guys. Classic sort of John Ford Vista Vision. These big eroded stone giant monument.

Monument Valley. Yes, Monument Valley. That's what I was thinking. That's the term we were looking for. Okay, this thing's almost falling off. That's the thing that Sebald... Yeah, Sebald messed with Anakin's pod, and now it's about to fail. Which, can you imagine how thoroughly he would be winning if he hadn't knocked off this thing?

Yeah, Anakin really does a great job considering the amount of shit he has to go through. He's the best. He's got better instincts because of his blood disease. And he's a better engineer than the rest of them because he's a slave and he has no choice but to figure out how to make things well. So, yeah, his pod is belching smoke into Sebulba's face, but then Sebulba overtakes him. And a lot of these pods, too, the guys— They're worried Padme and Shmi are looking at the iPad, very worried. I don't know.

The guys racing these pods didn't make them. They don't really know. But Anakin made his pod. He made his. He closes the exhaust flap. He extinguishes the flame. That's a smart problem solving. This is all, by the way, the language of this, I feel like, is pretty good, considering there's

no explanation for what's going on, which is very rare for Star Wars. Mostly everything's being explained to us in this movie. This is entirely visual. Here, he's just like, yeah, he messes with the engines a little bit. We see the levels. One engine had too much power. It was knocking him out of balance, so he leveled them out. He lowered the power on one. And he flicks the switch

and then there it goes. We hear the engine go and then, bam, he's back in business. Both are back up. And he goes like this. Okay, that was a little bit of acting because he has like an ooh, really little face. He grits his teeth, yeah. He's got a real grimace on his face like he's a kid in a McDonald's commercial. I i like this we're blasting through this now oh this looks so good i'm rock hard right now this is unbelievable yeah the table's rising up yeah um uh and so now they're they're back in the like cavern thing david what if this is the best movie ever made if we're only watching

this one scene it really feels like it uh, I think Sebulba could be cooler. As a character? Yeah. He's a little annoying. He's like a dick. Is that what you're saying? Like, chill out, be cooler? I think there could be a little more depth to his villainy. Oh, sure. Anyway, now they're bashing, and they lock... Oh, man, I don't quite understand what happens here. They lock... Some wires got tied.

Ooh, this kid is not happy. Yeah. And Qui-Gon's pointing at this very deliberately. No, bad, bad, bad. They have locked their cockpits together. I like that we're not even explaining what's happening on screen anymore. We're just saying this kid's not happy. So if you're not at one hour, eight minutes, and 57 seconds, then you don't know what's going on.

But just trust me, there's a kid who's not happy. Yeah, and Shamia can't even look at the iPad. Qui-Gon is wondering, like, Jesus, did I bet on the wrong kid? Have I been grooming the wrong kid? And then he does something. He starts his engine, and Sebulba's fucked. I don't really get why. Yeah, I don't either.

What does he do here? But it smashes Sebulba's engine. It looks great. Sebulba was choosing not to start his engine? Yeah, I don't know. What was the solution? I think he just, anyway, Sebulba's done. He crashes out.

We know he's not dead because he has grandsons. He's there. He's just pissed off. At least he's within walking distance of the finish line. Well, Anakin, there he goes. He wins. Kaboom. Everyone's really happy.

First human to ever win a pod race. It's a great sequence. My dick is becoming flaccid again. It's over. We're back to- We know what's coming next. It's a bunch of Qui-Gon chatting about midichlorians. A bunch of blood disorder.

Nonsense. Okay. Foden Beater is singing and dancing. They're dancing. They're waving their heads together. They're waving their heads like Stevie Wonder. And then Anakin's being celebrated by a bunch of oh that guy's back they're overacting with his hands

clapping too much Anakin's being lifted on Qui-Gon's shoulders of course Watto is screaming at his compatriots Jabba is asleep, Boob Fortuna wakes him up and he's like oh good good he notices Anakin and he goes that's the end of the greatest sequence ever constructed in any film.

Well, I don't know about that. It's number one. But I would agree with you that it is the best part of the movie. We always try to, every week, figure out what the movie is about. I think the answer we have this week is what should this movie be about? It should be about pod racing. It should be about pod racing. It should be called Pod Racing Episode 1, The Pod Race That Anakin Is In.

That's what you like, George. You like vehicles. That's all you care about. I would really like a nice 90-minute movie about this world. Yes. And these aliens, we've explored a bunch of them. They all have great backstories, rejecting princesses and buying many slaves. And, well, they're okay backstories.

Just to add to that point, I'd like to hear maybe some original desert music. Yeah, absolutely. Because those are some interesting people. Yeah, no, and exactly. Much more reason to go from interesting location to interesting location. Race after race. Ooh, where are we now? What's this place like?

Coruscant. Whole city's a planet? Whole planet's a city? Get out of here. There is a game. The Nintendo 64 game, you mean? Right. The episode on Racer. It starts with episode on one racer but then there was a follow-up

game that came out like a year or two later called super bombad racer okay didn't own that one that was essentially the same super bombad racing that was essentially the same you had some non-pod racers you could race as like darth maul or or jar jar or yoda i bet jar jar was real good yoda's vehicle was his little flying toilet chair. Are you kidding me? It wasn't really. You know, it's 100%. I'm going to show you right here. The hook to this game was that they were stylized.

See, look. Here's the little, he's got his little poop thrown. Oh, I see. They've got like big heads. Yeah, they got big heads. They're like caricature. They look like. Whereas the Episode I Racer was like, it was basically like a Formula One game.

Right. This was a PlayStation 2 game. Like you could fix your engines and stuff and get better upgrades. This came out a year or two later. It's actually mostly not pod racers. The only pod racer in the game is Sebulba. What, everyone else? Everyone's on it?

Yeah, but he's fighting his Naboo Starfighter. Oh, cool. Amidala is in the Royal Starship. Boss Nass is on a Stingray Yoda's in a poop chair Jar Jar's flying the embarrassment of an entire race

the shame of a nation that's what he's flying but it's a very stylized game and I always wondered what was Bombad what did Bombad mean? I was like, is that a word I don't know that describes the caricature style? Because to me it just looks like all the Phantom Mass characters went to a bar mitzvah, and those were their parting guests.

They got caricatures made of themselves. So where do you look to poop? Your throne? Okay, so I'll draw you. That's what I thought. So I looked up the word Bombad. Yeah, what happened? I don't like the sound of this at all. I I looked up the word Bombad. Yeah, what happened? I don't like the sound of this at all.

I think it's going to be terrible. It's going to mean like slave owner. Well, no, I don't want to tell you. No, come on, tell me. It just means superb. So super superb racer, is that what the- And Gungan. I thought Bombad was a term in the real world that I didn't know.

No, it's a Gungan term. It means superb. So it just means super superb reason. Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace. Or if you are a Gungan, it means nonsense, superb nonsense. Right. There's Bombad General is a rank. Superb General.

Yeah, he's the Superb General. I don't know. Okay. Oh, that's the term they give to to jar jar god he's named you said done grand jar jar bringing using and denaboo together so we used to make you bombad general i vaguely remember that yes uh yeah that's a bomb and a bomb advance yeah it's a real pile of shit yeah um david i don't so i think that what is the movie about with pod racing we kind of like

we just there's really nothing like you know that's just George Lucas having fun right the most you can say is that it's there to underline

Anakin's inherent skill like which is apparently the force or whatever you know like that even at this young age he has this preternatural talent

he has instincts reactions he can almost see things before they happen right like fine Like, that even at this young age, he has this preternatural talent. He has instincts, reactions. He can almost see things before they happen. Right. Like, fine. I don't know. It's an excuse for a good race. I feel like that's our takeaway at the end of every episode is fine.

Okay, George. No, I would argue that the problem is that this sequence doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of the movie. Yeah, and it does kind of seem like it's queuing up a huge line of toys and video games. Like, it's the one part of the movie where you're like, oh, I see, like, this is just, this is a huge merchandising opportunity. Right, which it did successfully. Yeah. I mean, whatever, can't fault them.

Right, but- It's really crazy no one made a sequel to this movie, because it made money on every single front. I know, they should just make more pod racing stuff. Yeah. It should just be a pod racing specific sequel. Here's Merchandise Spotlight. Here's a pod race domino track.

It's like when you set up dominoes to knock over and trigger other things. I hate it. It looks... I don't like it. Spans to the finish line. Jar Jar... Not Jar Jar. Jabba's there sleeping.

You have to knock over dominoes to wake him up. You know that thrilling race sequence? What if instead of vehicles moving at high speeds, it was just dominoes knocking each other over? It was a racetrack domino. What a nightmare. That's a merchandise spotlight. I'm done. I give up.

This is the movie. I want to like this movie so much, David. Every week. Well, I mean, I think we've basically covered almost everything about this movie. We've covered most everything. We're going to do a couple outside the box episodes coming up. But as we said, we are winding down here. So definitely send us griffinanddavidpresents at gmail.com. Yes, sir.

That is our email address. Yes, so send in what you think this movie is about. Write in with your thoughts. If you want to hear your thoughts read out on Griffin and David present the Phantom Podcast. Audio clip, like two minutes or less. Just give us your quick little. Whatever. We want a quick, easy capsule answer for what this movie is about.

Biology versus physics. That email address again is griffinanddavidpresent at gmail.com. Yeah. All one word, all written out. Yeah, I'm still looking at Padres merchandise. They made some Angry Birds bullshit. Alright, Ben. Time to close up shop. I think that's time. That's that. That is that.

See you guys next week. As always, we still love you long time.