Blank Check with Griffin & David - The Rise of Skywalker

Episode Date: December 22, 2019

On the week of its release in December of 2019, Griffin, David, and special guest Ang Ferraguto discussed Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.

This will be the final podcast in the story of Skywalker. That's what he says. Felt apropos. Absolutely. And can I say something else? Yeah. Oh, they podcast now. They podcast now?

They podcast now. That is just a form of jokey writing in Hollywood that I never have much patience for. The sort of like, da-da, da-da, da-da. The repetition. What's funny is I love repetition. Repetition, funny. Repetition, real funny. They fly now?

They have spaceships. What, they have a jet pack? You're impressed? They have spaceships. Yeah. They've harnessed the power of space flight. All right, going back to the Palpatine quote. Remember when the guy crashes into the cliff, though,

and blows up, like, really big? I didn't mind it, but I was like, ooh. It was pretty brutal. Before we get to Palpatine, because I got a lot to say about Palpatine, can I just say quickly, a thing I do like is the bikes that also worked as like ejector seats that launched them into the flying. I want that toy.

As a toy, fun. I agree. I think it worked in the movie. They weren't really great at using them. No. They were kind of like, let's launch the guys and the guy, and then they just kind of, I mean, those guys were easily dispatched. That's all I'm saying. I would think it was cooler if they didn't have jet packs.

Jesus Christ. I would find it cooler if they didn't have jet packs and the bikes just launched them and then they just landed wherever they landed. Like it was just a move to try to get closer. As Ben pushes me closer to the line. Yeah, yeah. Can I just say something really important? Yeah.

Really important? Yeah. The dead speak. The dead speak. Do you guys think that Palpatine has a podcast? Oh, boy. I mean, he basically does. He has a podcast.

That was the first thing I said when that popped up. I gotta find the crawl. I think Palpatine's on the gas network, isn't he? Joke for four people. And what was the thing you wanted to say about Palpatine? Was that it? It was that. Yeah, I like it. I'm just imagining him in a room being like

Ben, we got shit ready to go. On the ones and zeros. Introduce the podcast. Oh, hi everybody. My name is Griffin. Claude Bearsford, Doe Van Newman. I'm David Lawrence Sims. Kind of a weak showing.

This is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. That's what it's called now. But for our first year, we were not a podcast about filmographies. Directors of massive success early on in their career and are given a series of blank checks to make their crazy passion products they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby. We are a podcast about the wars.

Yep. The Star Wars Will there ever be Star Peace? Never Probably not Under Kathleen Kennedy's watch With her agenda She wants us to be fighting Star Wars

Until the day we die That's fair Very tired We've already been recording For multiple hours Yes we have And it's time To talk

About Star Wars Episode 9 The Rise. And it's time to talk about Star Wars Episode 9, The Rise of Skywalker. It's time to rise. It's time to... Wake up, baby! Rise and shine! Is that a rooster I hear? Ka-ka-da-da-da! Oh, boy. It's a space

rooster. Or should I say ka-ka-doodle-doo-coo? No. He's back. He was the one who's back. I would. I'm your great-grandfather. I don't know. I guess Christopher Lee's dead.

Yeah. That's an issue. But she could be. I mean, the actor's also dead. But yes, Count Dooku did have his head chopped off. Do you know who's also dead? First billed actor in this movie, Carrie Fisher. That's true.

Fully died before they started production of this film. No, but not just before they started production of this film. Before they released the last one. Yep. Before they picture locked the last one. Before they edited the last one. Before they hired the director of this one, the screenwriters named this one. Yeah.

First billed. Crazy. Now, that's a built-in contractual thing. Yes. It was set up from the outset that Harrison Ford would be first build on the first movie. Hamill would be first build on the second movie. Harry Fisher would be

first build on the third film. Correct. Hamill's third build on Force Awakens even though he is in it for four shots and zero lines. I think he's second build isn't he? I think it's Ford, Fisher, Hamill. Am I wrong about that? I think you're wrong about that. Is it Ford, Hamill, Fisher?

Pretty sure. And then the second one is Hamill, Fisher, and then the third one is Fisher, Hamill? Because Hamill is second build on this. Hamill is second build on Force Awakens. Pretty. He doesn't speak a line. He just goes like this. He's like.

Oh, in the Force Awakens. Yeah. I thought we were talking about in this one. I was like, he has a whole unnecessary scene. So he's second build in that film. In Force Awakens yeah I thought we were talking about in this one I was like he has a whole unnecessary scene so he's second build in that film in Force Awakens

yeah and I remember as the credits came up it's a good face and he was second build you turned to me and you said totally earned it

I did I did yeah and I can't disagree you're gonna rank the Hamill performances in the sequel trilogy Last Jedi number one

with a bull Force Awakens number two yeah I need to chill out for a second I'm gonna take some time I need to think about rank the Hamill performances in the sequel trilogy. Last Jedi, number one. Force Awakens, number two. I need to chill out for a second. I'm going to take some time. If you didn't do anything else, there's nothing else I can put a three. Fine, I guess The Rise of Skywalker.

He was pretty good in Kingsman, right? Yeah, he was in Kingsman. Did he do any ads, maybe? Like a Mars bar ad or something? I'm sorry, I have an answer for you. I'm sure his promo interviews would go above this. They would. Oh, totally. Number one,

Last Jedi. Number two, Force Awakens. Number three, when he did mocap for the goblin who puts the coins inside BB-8

in Last Jedi. Oh, that's right. He was good as that. He's really good as that. I love that guy. Love that goblin. Where was he? I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. Why did they go back to Canto Bight? No one had any problem with that sequence last time. Yeah, he should have been. Oh, what if a Canto Bight casino cruiser had been there blowing up Star Destroyers? Look, we're avoiding talking about this movie because, oh boy, is anything less appetizing than talking about Star Wars? Can I suggest we talk about

who we're voting for in the Democratic primaries? That seems like a more fun conversation. Yeah, let's weigh in. Let's put our cards on the table. Rather talk about religion. Yeah, let's talk about Epstein. Let's do it.

All of my tax documents. Hey, let's all talk about how we lost our virginity. Let's talk about all of it. All right, fine, I'll do it. All right, I'm ready. No, no, no, that's Patreon content, baby. We how we lost our virginity. Let's talk about all of it. All right, fine. I'll do it. All right, I'm ready. No, no, no. That's Patreon content, baby.

We'll do just a virginity episode. I promise. You've talked about, yes, you have to do Gore Verbinski to hear Griffin's virginity story. It has to be Gore because I lost my virginity after walking out of At World's End. You'd have to do Tarantino for me. This is all I'm going to say. This is all I'm going to say. And I mean this as no backhanded compliment.

It was a tough decision because I don't like walking out of movies I Very much wanted to lose my virginity, but I on principle do not like walking out on films And I was really torn I get it. I was like do you think this can wait two hours? Griffin you gotta wait until we do verb in ski give us the tale. I'm not gonna tell the story! Alright, fine. But I mean, I paid full ticket price. And only got the first like 30, 40 minutes of the movie. Yeah, I'm so sorry.

Thank you. Just mark that to cut it all out. Sure. Thank you for your consideration. It was a very difficult time in my life. Yeah, what's up? Angela Faragudo The great Angela Faragudo

Hello And in the studio with us as sometimes Ben Hosley Yeah, you might notice in some future episodes that Ben's not with us in the studio But he's mostly around I'm mostly gonna be here Sometimes I won't, but that's okay We had a little bit of a transitional phase.

And that's all we have to say on mic. That's all we're going to say. The tonic plates were moving. Transitional to 2020. Coming up. For producer Rachel, who has done an incredible job and served to the plate and helped us keep the ship afloat. Yep.

But because there are more episodes coming I don't want people to be just don't be afraid that Ben is being phased out though because that is the furthest thing from the truth No, I'm not gonna disappear. No like a certain Ben and that's film. That's true boiler alert We're not gonna just by the way this episode Points from episode 9. Okay, so let's get the first massive spoiler out of the way. It's a sequel to Unbreakable. Okay, let's get... Hold for applause.

Thank you. Let's get the second massive spoiler out of the way. In The Last Jedi, it is revealed that Rey's parents are nobody. Now, we forgot to talk about this in our Last Jedi episode. We did notoriously in our very manic, jittery Last Jedi episode forget to address the very, what I thought at the time

was powerful scene of, you know, her showdown with Ben, with Kylo, you know. My single favorite story decision in that entire film somehow was not discussed at all. He's like, they were nobody. They were filthy junk traders.

She's crying. That whole sequence, obviously, is fantastic. Do you agree? The sort of big red room. Her voice breaks when she finally admits they were nobody. She is phenomenal in that movie. She's so good in that scene. She's okay in this one.

No, as a noted Daisy and Ray stan. I stan her. Yeah, there was something just not there. Character is horribly written. She's so hollow. And I don't. It's that classic J.J. Abrams, like, I'll talk to you later. I got to go.

Like, three times she does that. Yeah. Yeah, I can't tell you. I have to leave. And the closest she got was when she talks to Finn. And she was like, nobody fucking understands me. And I was like, Finn is really trying.

He is. You guys are bonded. He's the only one that's really trying to understand her, besides Carrie Fisher, which is not a real conversation. We'll get into that. Unfortunately, Carrie Fisher can only be like, Ray, what are you talking about? Judge, my name is Judge. It's like a video game.

Do you remember? It's so funny in Arrested Development? Judge, my name is Judge. Do you remember? It's so funny in Arrested Development. Yes. My name is Judge. Judge, my name is... Remember that? It's so fucking funny. I was going to say this performance feels like a jerky boy soundboard.

I mean, what could they do? They could... I mean, I want to get this out... They could have... Yeah. I want to get this out of the way. Okay? Right off the top, I think this movie is so deeply intrinsically fucked by the fact that she tragically passed away.

I do think that's one of the big problems this movie had to face. And this movie makes a lot of active, consciously bad decisions. bad decisions, but as you're watching this film, even though they didn't handle most anything well, I kept on coming up against, oh, naturally this feels like the last two movies have been building up to

her being the catalyst for all of the main catharsis in this third entry. J.J. has said he wanted this to be Carrie's movie. The Leia movie. He was like, this was going to be the Leia movie, and that's why it was so devastating. Captain Kennedy wanted it to be the Leia movie. Carrie Fisher was ready for it to be the Leia movie and that's why it was so devastating. Captain Kennedy wanted it to be the Leia movie. Carrie Fisher was ready

for it to be the Leia movie. That's what happens when you don't make her the first one. And it feels like everything was teed up for the crux

of this entire trilogy to be Kylo Ren and Princess Leia, now General Leia Organa, coming face to face. It just feels like narratively, that's where the whole thing is

driving and it is an unbearably sad thing. It's very sad. And you watch this movie and all of the scenes with her in it I think are really kind of unsettling. They're just off. Yeah, they're off.

I don't find them unsettling, I just, they're off. It feels like a far more technically accomplished version of that. My name is Judge. I was gonna say the fucking soprano scene. Well, the soprano scene is right. She doesn't say anything. They're trying to retrofit a scene

from lines of dialogue they have saying her. And her performance never works in conjunction with anyone else because she's not there. It's also from The Force Awakens. Even the hug with her in Rey was a resh. As someone who has

watched The Force Awakens a million times, I could see all the same physical beats. But they changed her hair and clothes digitally. They did all this stuff. I would love to know how they approached it. Just from a pure technical side, I'd love to hear about all the weird shit they had to do with whatever little pieces of footage they had.

I mean, I went back last night. But it doesn't work. No. I went back last night and I was watching because I wanted to confirm the suspicion. A lot of the pieces that they use in this movie are on the deleted scenes for Force Awakens. That's what I was just saying. Right, right. And you can see the same dialogue excerpts, and it's the same positions, and it's the same movements,

and it's just sort of redressed. Yes. But it does feel like, yeah, it feels like a very successful prank phone call where it's like, oh my god, they almost made it sound like that was in direct response to the last thing that was said. Never underestimate a droid. It's a bummer.

Never underestimate a droid. When she says that, I half wanted Poe to be like, what the fuck are you talking about? I'm trying to have a conversation with you right now. It's Ray. It's like the Arnold Total Recall mask malfunctioning. Right.

Two weeks! Why are you stuck in that dialogue? Let's read the opening crawl. Yeah. The dead speak! The dead speak! I mean, I laughed pretty hard when that came up. That was wild. An exclamation point.

The galaxy has heard a mysterious broadcast, a threat of revenge, in the sinister voice of the late Emperor Palpatine. I'm yelling the capital letters. So I immediately turn to you and go, uh, so all of that happened off screen? The crawl wasn't even done and you were turning to me. Because dead speak they had me and I was like...

But here's something you didn't know, Griffin. If you had just played Fortnite, the new Star Wars event on Fortnite, you would have heard Emperor Palpatine's broadcast because it's in it. I'm not kidding. This is not a joke. Griffin's looking at me with dead eyes.

At the end of the Fortnite game with Star Wars, I don't fucking know how Fortnite works. I feel like Conor Adler. It's like spoken from the heavens, too. It is. It's not like a cut to Palpatine. No, but it is Ian McDermott. It's Ian McDermott.

So they clearly recorded McDermott doing a broadcast. Couldn't work it into it. So they were like, I don't know, Fortnite? Maybe we could debut it on Fortnite. It just feels like from the get-go, such a poor narrative decision. To debut it on Fortnite? No, I think that's a great narrative decision. To not

show the characters dramatically discovering this. Dead speak. That's one thing. Dead speak! No, I totally agree with you. It's very strange. But the fact that the movie starts and everyone's like, yeah, we all know Palpatine's back, right? Well, they're all like, bad news, guys.

That Palpatine broadcast, it's definitely him. It's like the fucking room some of these scenes. There has been no air of Palpatine, no whisper of Palpatine in the two previous films. You hear his voice once in that Rey dream. You hear all the oldies. You hear a lot of voices. You hear a lot of voices in there. Which Rey dream? In the Force Awakens sequence, you hear his voice for a second.

You know, when she touches the lightsaber. Yeah, she touches the lightsaber. And then you hear Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray, Ray. And then you hear McGregor. All right, back to the crawl. General Leia Organa. You got it, you got it. General Leia Organa dispatches secret agents to gather intelligence,

while Rey, the last hope of the Jedi, trains for battle against the diabolical First Order. Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren rages in search of the Phantom Emperor, determined to destroy any threat to his power. Four dots. And I read that and I go, that feels like what should be act one of this movie rather than the stuff

that we're all supposed to take for granted as we just hit the ground running. That's all fair. It's also three paragraphs that don't make any sense together. So you've got, all right, Palpatine's back and he sent out a podcast.

Right. And you're like, okay, why would he do that? But okay. For Brooklyn. Right. Two, they're like,

Organa is sending out agents to gather intelligence. He's very convincing. Because the only footage we have is Leia briefing people in a war room. So it all has to have that kind of energy. While Rey trains for battle. Trains for battle? Like, because the movie starts with them all being like,

why is it you're here? And it's like, rather than her giving the correct answer, which is like, well, all the footage with Leia is on like a jungle planet. So I just kind of got to be here for the first act. She's's like, rather than her giving the correct answer, which is like, well, all the footage with Leia is on like a jungle planet, so I just kind of got to be here for the first act. She's just like, well, I'm training to hear the Jedi. She's training so that like man babies can see how powerful she is because she's actually working on it.

What if it actually, the first shot is like her time card at like Jedi school and she's like, God, I've been here so long. Click. I passed Jedi school. It she's like, God, I've been here so long. Click. I passed Jedi school. It is one of those things for me. I, I have sort of made this a challenge to myself. I'm not challenged, but just,

I want to remind myself to use I statements as much as I can in this episode, because I want to try to just personally avoid the discourse of this is not what Star Wars is. This is not what they should be doing. No, no, but I'm just trying to like No, I'm saying to the world. Oh, totally. And also I just feel like it's become such a toxic run of like

listen, I have finally formulated the exact argument for why this empirically breaks this or is perfectly this. Because no one owns Star Wars and Star Wars belongs to all of us. The Walt Disney Company. Oh, I forgot. I mean, as someone who really, really wanted to like this movie, read David's review, read other reviews, and was like, I'm going to wipe my mind.

Shout out to Patrick Willems. I was literally like, this is a movie About space wizards For children For children Did you get Babu Frick To wipe your mind for you? I wish I want to hang out

With Babu Frick all the time Me too I know But I No I wanted to I was like Just go in Like people are tearing it apart

You disagree with Some of those people And then like obviously We can get into Like the The fandom has been Like so toxic The week leading up to it

It was so depressing I you know it's been a depressing time blocked Star Wars and stuff on my phone and I still got spoiled and I

no I really did I went in I love The Force Awakens I love The Last Jedi I really really really wanted to like this it's okay if you like this movie

but I it just it was so I was whelmed was my quite whelmed reaction I wasn't overwhelmed I wasn't was so, I was whelmed was my reaction. Quite whelmed.

I wasn't overwhelmed. I wasn't underwhelmed. I was just like that. It kind of happens at you. What was the last thing I said to you as the lights went down in our theater? I don't know. My garbage bale pizza is arriving or whatever it's called.

It was called a trash compactor pizza and I had four big swampamp Energies to drink. What's in this Big Swamp Energy? I don't know, but it got me there. You had some Big Swamp Energy by the end of the day. It was like apple soda and like Everclear. And some green stuff. It was great.

It was so fucking good. I was a trashy swamp boy. No, but I said to you, I said, you know what? In a weird way, I am perversely thrilled that my expectations are so low now. Because I was like, I'm now putting nothing on this movie, and I'm hoping I can just find as much to latch on to. And what I kept on thinking was, this movie feels like trying to have a conversation at a nightclub. I do not go to nightclubs often.

It is usually after I've been having a night and the rest of the group is like, we should do this. It's usually after you've got some big swamp energy. Right, and I'm like, I want to go to sleep. Everyone's talking to me, and then I go there and I realize, all I want to do is continue talking to people,

and this environment is not conducive to that happening. Oh, what's up? And this movie feels like it's yelling at me all the time. What? Don't speak! Even when this movie is saying something that I do want to hear, it is saying it in a way that is so aggro, like by like just sort of out of necessity,

the pressure it is under, that I cannot enjoy absorbing that information. It feels like some kid who is manic or has ADD or took too much Adderall is explaining to me what happened in a Star Wars movie. Here is the other big thought that came to me. As someone who has ADD. Me too. So we both know. And the guy goes over here. but then the thing goes like.

Yes. Fifteen minutes into the movie, I thought to myself, this feels like Cliff Notes for itself. Oh, interesting. That's also when you leaned over to me and said, I'm already exhausted. Yeah. Yes.

Big Swamp Energy. Pineapple vodka. Oh. Green tea. Yeah. Ginger. Matcha. Lime and soda.

Oh, yeah. The matcha threw me off. I was going to get it. Sounds kind of fun. It was. Sounds kind of fun. I think proof is in the pudding. How much fun was I last night?

I don't know. You're all right. I think I was okay. All right. I finished the crawl. Okay. You finished the crawl. There's the adage

There's the adage that I'm just gonna keep yelling you write a movie three times right sure you write it at the scripting stage You write it when you're filming you write it when you're editing and whether those are three people Doing three different jobs or one person carrying over multiple jobs or whatever it is, you know, at each different stage, the film presents its own sort of narrative demands to you and you find the mesh of all three. Yeah, I get you. J.J. is notoriously someone who I think often figures things out in retrospect. Even his best films, I think he's been pretty open about the fact that there are a lot of reshoots that he's a guy who watches an edit and goes like, oh, I thought this was going to be this and this and this and that.

And I go through multiple drafts. He's a bit of a postman. He's a bit of a postman, but he's also... Oh, he does post, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's the other thing about him, though. He already made a Star Wars movie under a restrictive time limit

after throwing out a script and rewriting it on the fly and then having to reshoot it and shoot weird things and breaking Harrison Ford's leg practically in half. And it turned out great. So why wouldn't he go into this thinking, like, we'll figure it out? But look, I think no one really knows, and it turned out great. So why wouldn't he go into this thinking like, we'll figure it out. But look, I think no one really knows,

and it doesn't matter, because ultimately I think everyone in this room contends that that movie works. We all like that movie. Oh, I like that movie. A tremendous amount, right? I don't like it. I think it has more problems. You know, you can poke at it better than... But I like it. I have a great time with it. I've seen it

so many times. It doesn't. But it with it. I've seen it so many times. It doesn't, but it's still, I've watched it so many times. Yeah. And I really enjoy watching it. His characters are delightful. Do you know who's in it?

Do you know who's in it? Harrison Ford. Yeah. This actor who really, really is popping. And he's playing this character that's sort of beloved. Anyway. The thing that's great about him

is that he's cool. He's a cool fucking guy. But in this one, he's also your cool dad. But your point about writing. We'll finish. I have a point about. Well, yeah. And I feel like even.

And he said this like, look, it was a terrible thing that happened. None of us want it to happen. But Harrison breaking his leg ended up being like a real benefit to us. And that we had time to like shut down, look at the footage we had, reassess it, see what shape the movie was taking. Even then, after they'd finished production, he edited it, he looked at it, then they went back and did a substantial amount of reshoots. There are threads of things that clearly have been removed from Force Awakens,

tiny little vestiges of abandoned things, things like Constable Zuvio and whatever, that ultimately do not appear to be too glaring. And I think he found his movie ultimately. And you're saying that he had similar conditions in Force Awakens, but this felt like it was twice as intense with half the time. One also, and this is a criticism many have made of J.J. Abrams. I'm not

giving you a fresh take here. He's great at setting shit up and he's really bad at ending it. He's had that criticism his whole life. He could never figure out what to do with Alias. Yeah. Felicity's fourth season has time travel in it because he doesn't know how to fucking just relax. And that is the only time he has ever stayed on something from beginning to end. Yeah.

Lost, he's not responsible for the ending of that, so don't tag him with that one. And then, like, Star Wars, I mean, Star Trek. Yeah. Like Star Wars, I mean Star Trek. Yeah. He, when I'm watching this, I'm like, I forgot how much J.J. works when you're vibing with his energy and doesn't if you're not. Because Star Trek is a movie I adore. I've seen it so many times. But a lot of Trek fans hate it because it's very manic, very fast, very like fast talky, jokey.

And, you know, a lot of Trek fans are like, that's not what Star Trek is. It's too insane. I love it. But you kind of do have to be on its level. And then with Into Darkness, obviously, the tone is off and he just doesn't have a grasp on it. But there's also something so tied to the mystery box thing. And I don't want to attack him

with the same thing that everyone uses, but it is such a telling thing that he volunteered that monologue to the people that he's like here's my TED talk yeah but he's even he's sick of talking about the mystery box

that's why I'm saying I don't want to peg it on too much forget the mystery box also this is not this is him trying to end everything no that's what I'm saying I do think the thing that excites him the most

and the thing that he is best at is selling a sense of potential myth making baby but the potential of oh my god where could this go is like J.J. Abrams' incredible juice. On the island! Yes. And, you know, much will be made and will continue to be made over the sort of disrespect this movie shows to The Last Jedi, you know, if you want to view it as such.

But I also think this movie is not particularly good as a sequel to The Force Awakens. Which it is striving to be. Totally. It feels like a movie that's trying to be like, we're going to deal with all the shit from The Force Awakens. It simultaneously feels weirdly disrespectful to a lot of the things that Force Awakens sets up. That's interesting. Yeah. I want to hear your take on that.

But first I want to say the thing that I just said to you in the diner. Okay. Which is like, if this movie wanted to be rude to The Last Jedi, I would respect it. Because you can be rude as a film maker. You can be like, fuck that movie. I don't like it. But you've got to do that well.

You can't do it badly. You can't have someone be like, what about the Holdo thing? And another guy's like, that's crazy. You can never do that. And I'm just like, what's this dialogue like why are we talking like this yeah I mean I I mean there's obviously

a lot of talk about everyone's now pitting these two guys against each other especially yeah but I I don't know if it was I think the instinct is

to be like he's trying to erase the last Jedi and I honestly felt like he was trying to copy a few things from The Last Jedi that didn't work as well. And the first one to me is when Kylo and Rey are trying to get that ship.

I'm not sure why Kylo's trying to get the ship besides just being in a fight with Rey, but the effective version of that is when the Star Destroyer is about to split, and there's a lightsaber between them, and it represents everything that they represent and it splits and it's this huge fucking explosion. You know, Johnson is so good at that stuff.

The symbolic sort of, yeah. He's trying to do, they're doing the same pose. He's trying to recreate the same moment and it's not nearly as powerful. And then they're like, oh, Rey just fucking killed Chewie. And then you're like, no shit. Which is, again, a thing that happens. He was on a different transport.

But that happens to Leia. It's a fake out death of one of your faves. And it's like, why? This was totally just, and really, that whole moment is just so Rey can see it falling. And then later we see Palpatine, you know, doing the same thing to all of those ships. But that, to me, is a few other moments where I was like, it feels like JJ's trying to do a few things. Yeah, I know, I get you, but here's my question. Last shot I did right

and it's not as good. I ask her for this. Who fixed the lightsaber? It breaks in half. I don't know. No fucking idea. It breaks in half in last shot. I don't want to get as nitpicky. I don't either. How does that lightsaber even get to you know, Kanata in the first place? I'm not picking nits.

Who fixed the fucking lightsaber? This isn't a nitpick. I'm sorry. You can't do it. You can't break something in one movie and then be like, it's fixed. No. It's broken in half and it explodes. And it's very obvious.

She's holding the two pieces at the end of the last Jedi. She is. Yes. And she's got the books. She does. She's got a lot of trinkets. Yeah, there's no, you're right, there is no Jedi repairment is. Yes. And she's got the books. She does. She's got a lot of trinkets. She just shared it at a really hard time. You're right.

There is no Jedi repairment anymore. It'd be nice if the first scene was like this. I'm sure in their heyday, they had some repair boys and girls. That would be fun, going to like the bowels of the Jedi temple. And it's like, they're still Jedis, but they're like, you know, blue collar Jedis. Can I just throw out like a little bit of a context here that I find kind of fascinating to think about now that we're on like the other side of this? All right. When Kathy Kennedy takes over Star Wars, it seemed very clear that the idea was because of the timetable we're on, because of this alternating schedule with like the episodes and like the spinoff movies or whatever.

because of this alternating schedule with the episodes and the spinoff movies or whatever, no one is going to be the dominant, ethereal voice of these films. Which they had always had George Lucas. He was always in charge. Right. Bring in new filmmakers. It was always seeming to be like, and when J.J. came on to do Force Awakens,

there was no notion of him doing two or three. Such that it was feasibly impossible, you know? No. Feasibly impossible. Well, right, right. Because, I mean, one argument. Possibly unfeasible. Whatever.

I don't know. I can't speak anymore. I'm so tired. Relax. One argument you could make, and I've pointed this out to people, is like, probably the thing to do is have them every three years rather than every two. Space map. Have one director do them.

Yeah. Which is, you know, how they did it with the other trilogies. Sit down, map them out. Exactly. Lucas famously, you know, as much as he kind of bullshitted and claimed that the prequels were always meant to be there, the thing that is really proven is he wrote a colossal script that was largely incoherent and realized this is too much. I'm going to focus on the first act of this story I want to tell, and that is Star Wars. the first act of this story I want to tell,

and that is Star Wars. And so he essentially had, like, the scrappy, sort of smushed-together versions of Empire and Jedi in his back pocket. He had them bones. They were smushed, but he had them bones. But it's so telling that, like, J.J. comes on understanding, I'm brought in for this one movie.

My job is to kickstart this franchise. And perhaps I'm having larger conversations about what is the intention you're setting up. But everyone seemed to be on the same page that like his job is to build a baton to pass to someone else. When the story first broke that Rian Johnson was going to do episode eight, it was he's writing eight and nine. Yeah. And then that was disputed. it was he's writing 8 and 9. And then that was disputed. But by all accounts and by reliable

sources, he was originally hired to write 8 and 9. And then when he realized that there was no way he was going to be able to direct 9 as well, he did not want to pass off a script to someone else. And he either, you know. Everyone's taking their shirts off. We just saw a lot

of Ben's chest. I know, sorry. And by a lot, I mean like 95% of Ben's chest. But by all accounts, he then switched to, okay, you know what? If I'm only ever going to make one Star Wars movie, I don't want to leave it

with a lot of lingering potential. I want to say everything I want to say in this one film. The other thing that I have reliably heard is that when he was working on 8, he really had been told, he knew what was happening in 7, he knew the characters, but they were like

do whatever you want. Totally. There was just no restriction placed on him whatsoever. There was this real sense of It's not like Marvel where they were like, make sure everything ends up here. They were just like yeah, I don't know, what do you want to do? Do we know if like where the were just like, yeah, I don't know. What do you want to do? Do we know if, like,

where the, like, was he told about Palpatine and then, like, rejected it, do we think? Or do we think they're like,

he could have done anything and he was like, I'm going to go with nothing at all. I have many reasons to believe that Palpatine was never part of their plan. They have claimed

they talked about it back in the Force Awakens. And I'm sure they talked about it. I mean, they talked about it back in the Force Awakens. And I'm sure they talked about it literally ever since. It's been a theory since the Force Awakens. Palpatine, he's out there. Right. They don't speak.

I guarantee you, in blue sky story meetings, there is not a single possible thing. Yes. When they were pitching spies into skies. No, I think when JJ comes on and they're already working against the clock, I guarantee you every single thing in the universe

was pitched and discussed at some point. Palpy's out there. Palping it up. I don't think in any way that that was the intention of what they were setting up in Force Awakens. I think if Snoke had not died in Last Jedi, Snoke would be the ultimate bad guy of this film. Well, Snoke was made in a lab.

Well, now. There's at least... I want to in a lab. Well, now. There's at least, all right, so here. He's a little 2B2. All right, I want to say a lot of stuff right now, so I'm going to go right ahead. It's like, how do we even like.

I'm going to go right ahead and do it. He's going right ahead. So, indeed, this film begins after the, we learned that the dead speak, that we're in Palpatine's secret, underground, subterranean, hidden away planet Sith.

Podcast studio. Slash podcast studio. But like opening of the film. Opening of the film is Kylo chopping up some Zubios. Look, I have already come to terms with the fact that Palpatine is back. And I'm just trying to figure out which doorbell to ring now. And we see, here's what Palpatine's got. Sith statues.

Big, tall ones. He's on an arm that Forky, how are we referring to my partner these days? Forky? Yeah, what do you mean? Jesus. What? Who saw the movie with us. Correctly identified as looking a lot like the Animus from Assassin's Creed.

Hell yeah. You know the whole movie? He's like dangling on that thing. And she was like, that's like that thing from Assassin's Creed. Hell yeah. You know the whole movie? He's like dangling on that thing. And she was like, that's like that thing from Assassin's Creed. Yeah. Great pull by Forky. Yeah, great. You were excited at the time.

I loved it. Okay, geez. I love Forky, of course. And also, yes, a tube with, count them, at least two Snokes in it. Two Snokes. And now here's what I really. The two Snokes. Hey.

Coming to Netflix 2020. Two Snokes. The two Snokes in it. Two Snokes. And now here's what I really. The two Snokes. Hey. Coming to Netflix 2020. The two Snokes. The two Snokes. Coming to Disney Plus. And he's saying in Kylo's head, like, I have been the voice. Every voice you've heard in your head was me. I created Snoke. How is your grandpa?

Which sounds almost exactly like, as I said to you, the Blofeld speech at the end of Spectre. Author of all your pain, yes. Where he's like, actually, those bad guys you fought in previous movies were false flags. And I'm like, I've seen Skyfall. There's no way that guy was working for Blofeld. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't matter. I'm like, I'm sorry, that's your third line of dialogue is telling me suddenly that all those other villains were like actors?

So here's what- Were crisis actors? Here's my thing. If he created Snoke, okay? Yeah. Which, all right.

And he's got multiple Snoke clones. Yeah. All right. Then why isn't the whole place filled with Snokes walking around

and doing menial tasks? That's all I want. You know, because there are like robed figures who are like, what? Make them all Snokes. And then he has a whole fleet, like 10,000 Star Destroyers,

that have been built by who? I don't know. Show me some Snoke engineers. Who's piloting the ships? Show me Snokes. No, they showed some little kind of like monkey-like looking creatures. Yeah, but why aren't they Snokes? You're right.

They should all be Snokes. I do love the chimpanzee welder. He was cool. I think he's a really great actor. But you do make a good point, which is why isn't this film Despicable Me 4, except with the Emperor as Gru and a bunch of Snokes as the minions? If you're going to go in on I Created Snoke. Why don't we have Snokes saying banana?

Banana. He's very, you know, like if you're going to go go in and I created Snoke, then go in on it. If you're going to go in on goofy emperor shit, go in on it. But doesn't that also feel weirdly disrespectful to Snoke, the character that J.J. Abrams himself created? It does. And it feels like he's doing that just to spite the fact that Last Jedi was like, well, Snoke's not that important to be like, no, actually, I'm the one who decided that Snoke's not that important, not you. And I decided he was unimportant before you did. So actually, he was actually double less important than you ever thought.

Well, because he could have, what I didn't get was he could have easily been a puppet that he was controlling, like, metaphorically. And he's like, no, it literally made him. It's a little, it's a little much. But of course, Snoke, as this is the problem, and I sympathize with this problem from Amos' perspective, Johnson was kind of like, I don't really want to deal with all these dangling threads. No one's telling me to deal with them.

So I'm not going to get into Snoke. You don't want to worry about a big dad. I'm not going to get into Finn's backstory. I'm not going to get into, like, I want to tell a story about the future. Last Jedi, right? It's very much about, like, let the past die. We're going to grow beyond that old stuff.

Past ain't dead. I think so much. Past ain't done with us. I think so much of the value of Star Wars, and this is what I don't understand about how sort of the discourse around these movies has changed. So much of the value of Star Wars was that everything felt so fully realized that you felt like, I can look down any corridor.

I could pull out any character. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's an entire history there that you can tell has been conceived of in some way. I mean, that's part of the Lucas thing. Right. That weird attention to detail that sometimes gets ridiculous, but still.

But that there was the mystery, that everything wasn't explained to us, that you felt like, I don't know who the fuck Boba Fett is, but there's something going on there, and there was like a coolness in the confidence of he's not a dangling plot thread. Like Boba Fett isn't a mystery that these movies need to solve. Right. And so for me, when people were like, what's this like fucking Snoke thing?

What's the mystery of Snoke? Why does Last Jedi just throw a Snoke at? I'm like, Snoke is what he appears to be. Snoke is these movies are about how cyclical culture is, how these things keep on repeating themselves, and the argument that these movies make is like, there's always

gonna be some weird sickly guy at a throne who's like commanding people. I have things to say about this. Yeah. I have one more Snoke thing I want to say. But I want to say something really important. Go ahead. Snoke. One more thing I wanted to say. Before this movie came out,

I was really killing myself over Snoke because I'm like, are they going to figure that out? Are we never going to know what happened with Snoke? Before this? Before this movie comes out, right? And just give me a very skeptical look. I don't give two shits about Snoke.

I am nerdy enough that I eventually just start to be like, come on, come on. Are they going to explain it in like a novel or a comic book or something? Oh, yeah.

In like a novel. Yeah, I just didn't. So I dive into the Wookieepedia. Right. And I find what, until now, had been the accepted canon excuse

for all of this. Okay. I know what this is. Do you? Yes, go ahead. It's like that Emperor Palpatine, before he died in Return of the Jedi, had sort of like dreamed up sort of a secondary plan of like, if I die, the Empire goes with me, but I'm seeding a new Empire out in the unknown regions, which is supposedly where all this has taken

place, right? Exegol? Exegol. I mean, they don't mention that, but yes. Right? And so, and that's where Hux's dad is part of that whole plan, whatever, right? Okay. The adventures of Hux's dad.

Exactly. And so when the emperor dies, okay, there are these sort of like, there's this remnant out in the unknown regions. And I can deal with that. Poison Brazil. Exactly. It's like Nazis in Argentina. Exactly. It's just like that. And I'm like, that. Boys in Brazil. Exactly. It's like Nazis in Argentina. Exactly. It's just like that.

And I'm like, that makes sense. There would be this sort of little rogue element. And then Snoke, in this telling, is just like a dark force creature all the way out there who finds these people and kind of like, is like, great. Here's like an army for me to sort of corrupt.

And like these are, this is a group that needs another creepy withered bald dude. They gravitate towards him for that very reason. And I was like, that makes sense. That's a perfect excuse for like what the First Order is, what Snoke is. And you don't need Snoke to have been anyone's puppet. He can have just been sort of like a side villain.

He doesn't need to be anything other than what he appears to be. Now, can I ask something? And then this movie's like, no, they don't speak. It was Palpatine. Can I just ask something really important? Yeah. Should I have done figgy pudding instead? Because I'm now trying to remember why I thought

Partridge in a Fig Tree was funny. That's why. I'm like, because that's what was, why did I end up on that? That's going to be one of those things where listeners the whole time are going to be like, it's fucking fair. I'll say this. I'll say this. I knew you were going to say a partridge in a fig tree. I did too.

I decided on this. I don't know why, but I know that's what he's going to do. I decided on this like 10 days ago. It's because you're Palpatine and he's Snoke. Now I can't remember why I thought. That's right. It's such a long walk. It doesn't really make sense.

Figgy pudding is the thing. Are we done with Snoke? Yeah, that's all I have to say about Snoke. He's in a little tuby tube. He's in a tuby tube, and the important thing in The Rise of Skywalker is not Snoke. It's that the Emperor's been behind it all. But wait, hold on. Isn't the Sith, though, like, isn't it some ancient thing?

Yeah, it's like an ancient order. Wouldn't that be their ancient, like... Well, the idea is the Sith was Palpatine. There's only ever two Sith. Yeah. So he was chilling over there in Karasun, whole planets of Sydney.

Right. And he dies. It's supposed to be the end of the Sith. Right. You know, Vader was the other one. He dies too. Dunzo.

But I was... Go ahead, Ange. Well, alright, so... We're in Palpatine's lair which another point I want to make like no visually

I feel like none of these settings really stick with me at all the only thing that they've got going is the sort of flashing lights yeah yeah

that are gonna give people seizures when you think about even Force Awakens and especially Last Jedi right like a lot of design attention to these lairs

being really cool I mean Return of the Jedi obviously I think the Emperor really cool. I mean, Return of the Jedi, obviously. Yeah. I think the Emperor's Tower is very cool in Return of the Jedi. Yeah. Yeah. This is just kind of like this lame amorphous sort of endless. Endless hall void thing.

It does have an animus. There's kind of like stadium seating for all the hooded people. Right. Yeah. So the kickoff premise. So my question. this is the. Who do you think warms up? Well, we've already said.

I mean, that guy, any room. Palpatine's on the gas network. That's probably like Big J. Yeah, right. Oh, boy. It's crazy. I mean, you can't be. I've worked Sith rooms before.

I know what I'm doing. You can't be an evil emperor anymore. They're silencing evil emperors. I mean, Palpatine is a guy who likes to push boundaries. Sometimes he misses. Sometimes he misses. Right, such as when he pushed Kylo Ren down a hole. Didn't seem to work.

I appreciate that he's like, you go down a hole just like I went down a hole. And I'm like, dude, you survived that. Try something else. Rip him in half or something? No. I guess that doesn't work either. My question is, so this movie kicks off, like, you know, video guy. You've got a little triangle.

Little fetch quest. Finds it. Real quick, he sends Kylo off to kill Rey. And at this point, Palpatine knows that Rey is his granddaughter? Spoiler alert. Emperor Palpatine is the grandfather of Rey. No, I'm just saying now. Oh, you're saying it again.

No, I'm just like, yeah, let's get that on. And yes, he is like, but he's not telling Kylo that. He's just saying, go kill the scavenger girl. But Kylo knows because Kylo reveals it to her. Yes. How does he know? I don't know. Okay, all right, fine.

No, because he says, he basically was like, remember when I said you were nobody? I actually meant, or your parents were nobody. I wasn't lying. I was going to tell you after that Palpatine's your grandpa,

but I got cut off. I withheld some additional information, but I wasn't lying. He's not saying that he knew back in the last movie. There is a scene where Palpatine's like, there's more to the girl than you think. And Ben's like,

you know, Kylo's like, what? And then we cut. That's when he's telling her. That's when he's telling Kylo. And that's when Kylo, but the point is he's like, go kill Ray.

But then he does. He, he's like, Ray, I'm not going to kill you, but I'm going to tell everyone else. I'm taking my boys to hunting. And then they go,

I just, I can't track. track you trying to sort through oh no I can't track his motives because he's like go kill right and then she shows up and he's like no actually I want you To kill me which when is that ever been a thing and then it becomes oh actually I have both of you guys here I'm gonna use you as a battery classic force diet Guys it's one of those classic Force Dias. Griffin looks distraught. But then Rey kills him and then there's no...

She doesn't kill him. He kills himself. She reflects his lightning back at him. I believe that is the symbolism there. Do we talk about Palpatine's death now?

Because like... Yeah, he'd die. She okay boomer'd him. She did. He was like, be a Sith and she was like, okay boomer

and then roasted his face off with his own lightning powers. And for the record, I did give you some comedy points for that last night. Thank you. And we should also point out the candy dish that Palpatine had just next to his lap. It was the big spiky chair. Ben was apparently doing a bunch of Werther's jokes. I was two seats away.

Oh, it was great. It was so fun. You never visit your grandpa anymore, Ray. Palpatine's plan is one of those classic Palpatine plans, to be fair, where he's like, whatever happens, and this is kind of his superpower, when you walk into the room and like, I've got you.

He's like, I have foreseen this. I was always planning for this to happen. He's so confident that you're kind of like, I guess this was your grandmaster plan, buddy. So I feel like if Ben comes in,

if they both come in, or if just Ray comes in, he's like, yep, that's what I thought and I knew it would be you. What do you guys think Palpatine's doing the whole time?

He's waiting for everybody. Well, there's this thing. It's like a dangling puppet. Just like, do you think they're gonna come? He's like a Starcraft character who has been trapped in some part of the map that he can't leave.

So he's just like, I guess I'll build another ship. And then just like, boink. And he's like, build another one. Are there any people on those Star Destroyers? Snokes! That's what I wanted to see.

A bunch of Snokes just walking around. Come on! Yeah, and they'd be wearing all the Imperial Guard wear and stuff. and they'd be wearing all the Imperial Guard wear and stuff, but they'd be spilling out because it's too small. It's never fully explained who's running those ships. They do say

we're going to have to get more kids. But I'm like, you're going to need a lot of kids. You're going to need to grow them up real fast. This is the problem. I hate being nitpickyicky I hate Pokelogicals I also hate that But this movie Is giving you so much information

You do kind of start To just think on it Can I tell you What's going through my head right now? Yeah go ahead It looks like you're having A crisis of confidence You commented on the fact

That I suddenly look very sad And I'm staring off Into the distance Right? And I truly am having this Like minor existential crisis Right now Okay?

Wait you are? Griffin Newman? Over Star Wars? I'm sorry, what? Uh-huh. Okay, well, everybody strap in. This has never happened in any of our other episodes about Star Wars, specifically where Griffin said he couldn't sleep for days.

What's up? What's troubling you, my friend? Thank you, Ang. My brand is strong. I'm just thinking, right, time is flattening right now, okay? Oh, yeah. And I sit here at this table, I look at four of my favorite people in the world. This family we've chosen. Who's the fourth? Oh, fuck.

It's the little, what's the little guy? Oh, Boba Frick? Yeah, he's with us. I was counting myself by accent, which is also very much untrue. I'm looking at three people I love, and also I'm in this room. We love you, Griff. Okay? Yep. This is the family I've chosen. Okay. This thing that we've made that I'm very proud of, Okay? This is the family I've chosen. This thing that we've made that I'm very proud of, okay?

This thing that came out of our friendship and I having a separate relationship. Us meeting you through Ben. Like all this thing, right? That all stems out of initially this genuine love we had for sitting down

and talking about all this weird fucking Star Wars. Digging into the prequel lore and just having fun, like riffing on it and being silly. Talking about gorgmongers. I could do this all day. We could do this for six years. We're like Captain America fighting George Lucas. I could do this all day. And I'm just sitting here as we're having this conversation.

And I just had this thought of, I find no joy in this. Oh, boy. And it's not, to some degree. It's a beautiful, touching moment, and the fans are like, wow, that's really nice. But truly, it is this thing where I don't know if it is that the particular ways in which this movie is frustrating. Or if it's just been sort of Star Wars overload. Or if it is sort of the way that the discourse around Star Wars is built. Sure.

And the way that society, not society, but I feel like the discourse around film in general has become so much more the, I want to come up with the definitive explainer on why this thing is bad. Yeah, which is uninteresting. Debate me, coward. I can prove the point. This is why, inarguably, this thing is not good.

Which is not interesting. It's fine for people to feel differently about different things. And we have somewhat made our backs on the show. And I will meet you at dawn. Off of doing that. Field of glory. Sure. I guess so.

I think as time has gone on and the show's evolved, we've tried to find, it's become something else. What I try to be, and I agree, I'm sure you agree with me, the opposite of,

is the CinemaSins type thing where it's like, see, don't you see, here are the problems and here is why it's bad. With every passing day I try to move further and further away from that.

Right. Which the red letter thing felt so radical when it came out where it's like, here's someone sitting down explaining everything. But now it's just like the most exhausting thing you can think of. And that and CinemaSins and all of this shit and like all of the copycats have just become the like, you know, like someone like fucking tweeted at Rian Johnson last night. I made the mistake of for four seconds logging on Twitter after I'd seen the movie. And someone had like fucking screen capped this essay. He replied to it. Did you see your reply?

Right, where it was just like, Ryan, I have finally come up with a definitive argument for why your film is disrespectful to Luke Skywalker. And he was just like, I mean. I disagree. I disagree, and also, what am I supposed to say? You're not gonna pass a law here. Dentact?

Maybe add some new appendixes no disrespecting of luke skywalker a crime illegal b luke skywalker untouchable do you remember like a year and a half ago when we were meeting with someone who works at vulture and the film had been out for last year i'd been out for almost a year at that point sure and he was like can you believe like 10 months later i still am fielding pitches for, hey, just want to reach out. I come up with the definitive explanation of why Last Jedi was bad. And we were like, this is so crazy that this argument is continuing nine months later. And now multiple years later, it's like that has become so exhausting that I find no joy in explaining why the Star Wars movie that I don't like is bad.

I get that. I get that a lot. Because I don't want to explain it, but it's also just like... Yeah, okay, but like... I think it's a combination of the internet just being... I don't know. It's getting bad. The election's happening. What? It's just... I don't know.

We're in a different place now. I'll tell you who I'm voting for. No, I just, no, I just. No, I'm going to tell you. Babu Frick. Yes. Straight ticket. Whoever he's with. Top to down.

I, yeah. Honestly, same. All right. Can we go on the record that blank check is Babu Frick 2020? Babu Frick, innocent, MVP. Babu Frick, whatever he wants, I'll do it. I donated, I should just admit right now, I donated $90,000 to Babu Frick's campaign, but it was a year ago.

I didn't even, Babu Frick hadn't even announced. If you sign up for our Patreon, guys, all of our money is going to go towards the Babu Frick campaign. It's going right to Frick. It's going right to Babu Frick. Yeah, that's right. I just think he's a cool guy. I think he's got a lot of great ideas.

I know, but I think the culture, it is funny because we liked The Last Jedi. It wasn't exhausting talking about The Last Jedi. It was fun. Well, the thing that's crazy about The Last Jedi to, I think, me and a lot of film critics is we were all there at that press screening. Yeah. We all saw it. All four.

All us critics walked out being like, damn, that thing is good. Wow. He really, we were like, wow. Like, he surprised us with that. I can't wait for people to freak out about this movie. The two days in between when you and all of our critic friends saw the movie, when I got to see it, there was this hushed tone of, like, everyone who had seen it being, like, kind of holding a hot hand here.

It's kind of great. Like, I'm amped to see everyone lose their hot hand. It was a bullshit conspiracy where we were all just like, yes, let's all decide to like this one. Like, we were all just like, yes, let's all decide to like this. Yeah. Like we were all just like, holy shit. Well, Kathleen called you up and was like, I'm going to kill your whole family unless you say it's good. Babu came by with the check.

And like admittedly, when we did. He was so much bigger than his body. He was pretty good. When we did our Last Jedi episode right afterwards, I was like, there's certain things that are bumping for me. Like I overall like this movie a lot. There are things I haven't totally reckoned with. I've seen it many more times since then, and I only grow to appreciate it more and more and more. I don't think it's a perfect film.

I understand, but I think it, like, fucking rules, and it's great. It's pretty good. But we don't have to talk about Last Jedi. We already talked about that. We'll do a commentary on it in our Patreon soon enough. I guess the one thought I did have, though, is just thinking about the whole like upsetness towards killing Luke

off. I mean you killed Han Solo. Are people upset? They're upset that Luke is not a badass in The Last Jedi. Which I think he is. He is. I agree with that. But like that he's this sort of like angry grump that he sort of turned against you know his Jedi ways. But JJ set

that up. He fucked up the violence. I agree with that, but this is the debate that has raged on the internet with absolutely no one ever calling each other mean names. And here's the even bigger thing that has come out recently, had always been a whisper, but has now pretty much been confirmed. Uh-oh, what did Babu Frick do? Oh, no. No!

Don't cancel Babu Frick! No! He's canceled already. Is he Charlie Rosen, people? Does he wear a robe and then it comes undone at the worst moment? Babu Frick! Is he Charlie Rose-ing people? Does he wear a robe and then it comes undone at the worst moment? Babu Frick is a terp. Oh god, no! Come on, what have you heard?

In the completely discarded George Lucas outlines for what the next three films should be that like the fandom menace, as they call themselves, are now hiding behind like these movies aren't legitimate. Only the George version is real. This George version we haven't read.

George's take on Luke was he becomes Colonel Kurtz. Yes. Yeah. Yes, yeah, in his sort of vague idea of episode 7, 8, 9. Overwhelmed with a great failure and becomes a hermit and lives on his own and does not, has disavowed the Jedi. It's also what Yoda does. The idea that. It is also what Yoda does. But you know what?

Yoda fucking should do it because he blew it. Yeah. Yoda blows it so damn hard. Three movies of people being like, I think the Sith are conspiring. And he's like yeah well let's think on that you know like never does anything but the idea that Rian Johnson perverted something

that Abrams set up that perverted something that Lucas intended when all three of those guys gun to their head were like well no obviously the story thing is that something fucked up happened to Luke and that's why he's living in guilt and shame on an island by himself and has become a crazy man.

All three of those filmmakers had the exact same instinct. It's a logical instinct. It's the logical instinct for what to do for that character. Especially if the whole cornerstone of Star Wars is this idea that these things rhyme. That these things cycle.

You know? And the interesting way for them to cycle is to have these subversions on the things we know, which I think Force Awakens does a very good job of setting up new characters who are interesting subversions of our original heroes. And Last Jedi does a really interesting job of

subverting the expectations of how we think those characters' story arcs are going to go. And there's no subversions in this movie. Right. I mean, it just feels like it's this thing I was talking about with you folks after the movie where it's like this feeling of, to some degree, it's not like this was the first time it happened, but I feel like I saw this big shift after the Lord of the Rings trilogy where people were like, oh, man, God, that's like so jealous of how neat that thing is. They had three books that were all written at the same time by one guy, and they shot three movies at the same time with the same exact creative team.

And so you have three movies that are really of a piece, and it's a cohesive trilogy. then when people sequelize things, the emphasis is rather than going what's the most interesting kind of story for these characters next, is to act like, how do we write a sequel that makes it seem like we were intending this to happen all along? The sequel can't just be, let's sit down, blank page,

what's the most interesting thing to happen next? It's, how do we look at the things in the first movie and make it seem like they were all teasing something for a second movie that was never a given? And I feel like this film is trying to do that with Force Awakens, with The Last Jedi, with the prequels, and with the original

trilogy, and take all these elements and go well obviously this is what it was all building towards. Right. And it does have that burden of being episode 9, the end of the Skywalker saga. But that is a totally self-imposed burden. There's no reason for you to feel that way. Here's what I'm saying.

Babu Frick, it's like, he's like blue collar, okay? And you need someone who understands the working man. But he's not afraid to break the rules, which we also need in this country right now. But he's good at his job! Who's gonna defy the establishment? I feel like I could have a beer with Babu Frick.

I could have a beer with Babu Frick. I could hack a droid with Babu Frick. You could hack a droid and then have it mean absolutely nothing right afterwards. Not right afterwards, Ange. I'm sorry. 20 minutes later. 20 minutes at least. I will say this.

All right. So here's some things I liked about The Force Awakens. I just want to say this very quickly. The Force Awakens? I mean, the Rise of Skywalker. When Babu Frick came on screen, you pointed very passionately at the screen and went MVP. And what did I say to you? I said, David, I have had the action figure in my target.com cart.

I've just been waiting for confirmation. I've been so close to pulling the trigger. I've been so confident that Babu Frick is my dude. He is your dude. He didn't disappoint. He didn't disappoint. I'm picking my action figures as soon as we leave here

here are some things I liked about this film A Bobby Frick great guy great number one should have been part of the team

like Bobby Frick should come with them well so should Rose that's another conversation well no she had to stay on the island she had to look at Star Destroyer

of course hold on where are you going okay she ran off you don't remember that scene where Finn goes Rose you're sure you don't want to she ran off. You don't remember that scene where Finn goes, Rose, you sure you don't want to come? Because I'm making it very clear that I'm inviting you, and if you're not coming on our fun movie together,

that is your choice. Because we're being very generous. I want to do things I liked about this. I, Finn, am being so generous. One, Babu Frick. Two. We want you to be in the movie. Two, Babu Frick.

Babu Frick, yeah. Double shout out. Double shout out. Double shout out. There was a point where Rose goes, nah. And he goes, are you sure? And I went, yeah, it's just, you know, there's a lot of bad faith arguments online. It's probably better if I sit in the sidelines. She essentially becomes Pauly Perrette in NCIS where she's just reading shit off a computer screen.

And you know what? It hurts Billy Lord, who I adore. And that's her role. She's supposed to be the little friend. That's true, yeah. Connex? Can I just say, Kelly Marie Tran looked fucking amazing

at the premiere. She looked incredible. Quick aside. Anyway. Super hot. Anyway, go ahead, David. Other things you liked? Hux.

Love the big reveal that Hux is spying on the First Order for the Resistance, mostly out of personal jealousy for Kylo Ren. Felt like a great resolution of Hux's for his character narrative

you know he spent three movies getting shoved onto consoles and stuff like that right here's what I don't love yelled at him being shot

a scene later I would like more of a movie where it's this weird allegiance of like but it's the problem with the movie where it's just like they just have no time

for anything you don't even I at least wanted like a close up of his face like a sad like we have a moment but it's just like they just have no time for anything. I at least wanted a close up of his face. Like a sad, like we have a moment. But it's treated like a laugh. It is treated like a laugh. After he just like, you know,

he was a fucking spy. Yeah, but he's still a dickhead. He's still a dick. But also not to make blanket statements. But saying, oh it doesn't have time, it doesn't have time, it doesn't have time. Yeah, all the time in the world. As I was re-sort of running the movie in my head, I genuinely think that almost nothing that happens in the first half of the movie needs to happen.

That's fair, because it's fetch quest-y, which is, you know, very... Why do they need the dagger in the holocaust? They gotta get the dagger to find the Sith Wayfinder. I can't believe you're not paying attention. You need the Sith Wayfinder to find your way to the Sith. It's in the name. Way find the Sith Wayfinder. I can't believe you're not paying attention. You need the Sith Wayfinder to find your way to the Sith. It's in the name. Wayfinder. Sith Wayfinder.

But, like, the movie is, like... You wanna find your way to the Sith? Finder. I hardly know it. But you need the knife to get to the Wayfinder. Yeah, only this knife tells. Obviously. With the defense of...

Look, the movie's overloaded because we had to complete a nine-film arc. There's so much we had to tie up. It's like, then why are you creating conflicts that you have to resolve of like? Oh, see 3po has read the dagger, but he can't translate. I kind of like okay So I'm back to my my things I like I like that if that was something that ran across the entire movie it feels like there's 15 minutes spent on the four Moves of he knows it we have to reset it now. He's evil now. He's back It's kind of a back, but he doesn't remember anything now RGD to a

No, no, I guess you go like sort of a problem ran around in a cul-de-sac for like a fucking it's a little 20 minutes We had to get there so Poe could get inspiration from another cool lady use her line for his like big motivational I look I'm gonna get thirsty on the main But I thought this worry bliss was really hot and her question my sexuality that was so turned on by someone who didn't have a face. Her... So you think you're faceless sexual? I don't know what my thing is, but she came on screen and I immediately was like, oh fuck,

I'm into it. Her ass is working overtime. She's got a great butt. Hey, go to a Daft Punk show with the helmet on and see if you can meet someone. Maybe I'm attracted to Daft Punk. Yeah, maybe you are. Go into the Tron world. Hook up with a computer program.

Look, I mean, I wanted more hair. Her ass is making it work in a gig economy, okay? I really, I think she also has an incredible voice. Oscar Isaac's got a great butt, too. Yes, he does.

A cute little tushy. And it is also working overtime. Yes. Yes, it is. A cute little tushy. And it is also working overtime. Yes. Yes, it is. It has a tone sag card. And I did like that this film was kind of horny. It feels a little hornier than other Star Wars films. I want to dispute this.

It's not horny enough. It's not horny enough. It could be horny. It could certainly afford to be hornier. Correct. But I like that it was a little horny. Yeah, but then there's not much kissing. No.

Just one kiss. How about the moment at the end? An exclusively gay moment. He does that little kind of wink. That was great. That was really good. They didn't say a word, and I was like. That was good.

Yeah. I mean, Oscar Isaac a hint. Some good face acting of like. If I can be fully honest, obviously I like the implication that there is a romantic or sexual history between Zori Bliss and Poe Dameron. Do I wish there was a scene where Poe Dameron and Zori Bliss and Poe Dameron. Do I wish there was a scene where Poe Dameron and Zori Bliss for 10 minutes just stopped and said,

hey, can we just recount in detail every sexual act we performed upon each other? Yes, of course. The movie demands that. Turn his mic off. Turn his mic off. It demands it. The film's asking for it.

Go to jail. I'm going to jail. Straight to jail. Straight to jail. Bob and Chris are going to come cancel you. Hand stuff? Shut up. Be quiet.

Too horny. Too horny. All right. Things I liked. I. Be quiet. Too horny. Too horny. All right. Things I liked. I liked Hux. I liked Hux. I felt like that was a fun culmination. As I was saying this to you on the subway and you told me to save it for the mic.

Yeah. Fun culmination of the Admiral Piet type. These poor, put-upon bureaucrats. Sure. Who are evil, but they're just regular evil. It's the first time they've really stepped outside the empire. Exactly. He's like, well, I'm going to do something about it.

And yes, of course. But I just like that idea, even if it, yes, is slightly underbaked. In the same way, I did like giving C-3PO something to do. He has lots to do in the original trilogy. Can I just quickly say the other thing I really liked about the Hux twist? Yeah. And what I think is in the spirit of what these new films have been doing well? The idea that Hux ultimately reveals himself to like, look, I don't have any fucking larger philosophy here.

I'm just attracted to power. Yeah, exactly. I don't care about any of this. He's like, I'm a regular villain. I'm not a fucking Sith, whatever that even is. I just wanted to be in a big spaceship and blow things up. But this thing of like, look, this is means to an end. I love being in front of a crowd of people.

I love to be on a big stage with banners behind me. Right. I don't care what the fucking thing is. I've got red hair. If I had made it as a standup, I would have done that and not become a conservative YouTuber. Um, uh,

3PO. I like, yeah, just giving him a little something to do. I do too. I think he's a lot of fun. Yeah. I think all of his lines really are funny.

Like all, all of his sort of stuff. And I like everything they do with him as a character. It just feels like it is 20 minutes where they rush six big moves on and then he's sort of just around for the rest of the film. And it's just also again, it's this script written by J.J. Abrams

and Chris Terrio. Story credits to Derek Connolly and the Captain. Let's be fair. We saluted him when his name came up. I did salute him. And what did we say? Aye-aye. Aye-aye, Captain C.

We said aye-aye. Aye-aye, Captain C. I will say this. I'd read his script. I would too. I'd take a gander. I'm just interested. Can I say the hottest take that I've been sitting on?

Maybe he'd have done a better job. I kind of think so. Probably not, but you never know. I kind of, I kept on thinking it and I honestly, Ange is mad.

I'm not mad. He's disappointed. No, I'm just, I'm just thinking of like the arc of this podcast. I know. And he literally dropped an episode.

Which is part of why I'm saying this. I know, but I was like, am I just thinking this because it's like a beautiful narrative conclusion to whatever we've been doing? Possibly.

But also, I think it would have just been easier to hate if he made the same movie. Yes, that's true. It would have been easier to explain. That was his fault. The damn captain. Well, JJ's problem wasn't that it was bad. It's that it's so safe it became bad. I don't know.

I don't know. Sure. It's sure. It was a very eloquent phrasing by me. I think JJ was much too safe. But as I do think this is maybe more of an Abrams thing but yes the

fetch quest within fetch quest. So even the 3PO thing where as you say where it's like oh he can't translate it. I'm like oh that's kind of a fun idea.

I do too. That's a funny sort of programming programmatically barred. Yeah. I was going to oh, that's kind of a fun idea that he'd be like, sort of programmatically barred from reading SIS. Yeah, I was gonna say, would SIS descend like a horror movie, like when anyone reads Latin? I think it's more just like, it's like, you know, it's like hate speech

in the gallery. Like, you just can't say it. Like, whatever, right? You would write it into computer. But then, like, right, it's like, how do we deal with it? The guy's got to go to the place, you've got to see the guy, the guy's got to do a thing. You know, it's just, it's another little quest. I also with it? The guy's got to go to the place, you've got to see the guy, the guy's got to do a thing. You know, it's another little quest. I also just feel like the thing I kept on thinking about was I think how smartly the Toy Story franchise uses the Buzz Lightyear character.

And we'll come up with these resets for him where it's like, oh, in the second one, he has to meet a new Buzz Lightyear. In the third one, he goes back to Spanish mode. In the fourth one, it's like him trying to listen to his own voice box. But it actually lets you live in these new conditional identities of Buzz Lightyear. Rather than this, which is just the move is the thing. It's the decision where it's going to happen. And then you don't actually have to deal with the consequence that much at all.

I also just feel like in Star Wars, usually when you go to a planet. I want to relate this franchise to you. Yeah, Jesus Christ. When you go to a planet, you hang out there. Yeah. This movie doesn't really hang out in any of the planets. No, no, no.

We skip. We skip to the planets. The classic kind of format is right. It's like, there's like three planets and an act is almost devoted to each of them.

Which again, this felt like a response to Canto by everyone saying they were there for too long. So then we go instead, go to like four different planets

and spend five, 10 minutes. One of the planets, if we're going to sort of different planets and spend five, ten minutes. One of the planets, if we're going to sort of go back to the main. So the main plot of the story, you see Palpatine, the dead speak, yada, yada, yada. Tells Kylo to go kill Rey. Cut to Rey. Yeah. There's the light speed.

There's a very busy action sequence where the Falcons like. They get spy information. They get spy. Right. Which is like when you said you were exhausted. Yes. After that. Yep. But then they go to what my co-worker Spencer Kornhaver described as Piglet Coachella.

An alien planet where they're having a festival for the first time in 42 years. Guys, what's 42 years ago? The original Star Wars. That's right, 1977. No, but I mean, what did you think of Piglet Coachella? I liked it.

I mean, here was the thing I was getting into in the beginning of this movie. Because that's kind of fun. You're like, oh, look, this is a new thing. It was fun until she was like, what's your name? Right, and then the rude piglet is like, what's your last name? I asked you a fucking question, you complete stranger. I don't have a last name, but I will in 30

minutes. Yeah, I will in like, yeah, give me like an hour 45. And then at the end of the movie, we won't get into that. In the rhyming ring theory view of Star Wars. It's like poetry rhymes. Right. The way that Force Awakens feels so much like an analog of, you know,

A New Hope, or as I like to call it, Star Wars. And Last Jedi has a similar approach to, like, break everything, question everything, test the heroes, subvert expectations, yada, yada, yada. At the beginning, I was like, okay, this is feeling like it's mirroring Return of the Jedi in that it's in a bit of a hurry to reach all the ultimate catharsis that needs to be reached. And also, I like how much silly Muppety stuff there is in this. Right. I feel like in the first 30 minutes, there's a lot of really good puppet shit. Yeah, there is. And characters with really silly voices.

Yeah. And I was kind of vibing in that static. And the fact of the matter is, at the end of the day, there is a baseline level of enjoyment I will have in any Star Wars film. That's how I feel. Because I love the fucking universe of Star Wars. And I probably would rather have only seen it once in any Star Wars film. That's how I feel. Because I love the fucking universe of Star Wars. And I probably would rather have only seen it once in three days, but I did not claw my skin off.

Star Wars, I like Star Wars. I like TIE Fighters and lightsabers. I like these characters. I like these performers. I like the aesthetics. The craft is so high. The fucking, like, you know. All the costumes. I like all the questions. Costumes look great. I will say as Ange pointed out, I just like all the questions. Costumes look great. I will say,

as Ange pointed out, I did find some of the sets and locations a little lacking, like some of the places where they're at. How did you even have time to take it in? I know. You barely like,

like you would see the, like the planet for like a second and then you'd have to follow the plot. But I don't mind that sequence on Pasana,

it's called, where they're at Piglet Coachella and then they get suckered into like a little, you know, machine,

you know, vehicle by Lando and he's like, hey, I've been hanging out here and I'm like, been hanging out here? Whatever.

Okay, Lando's hanging out there. I was like, wait, they just dropped Lando into the movie that quickly? Oh wait, now he's gone again?

Yeah. He's gotta go. He'll be back later. I'll just come back later? Yeah, he'll come back later. I thought he was gonna take the Millennium Falcon from there. Yes, I did too. I thought he was gonna have it for the rest of the movie.

I thought they were setting up. Because they were like, we left it behind. We have to take this new ship. Right, that might be cleaner. I don't remember how they get back to the Falcon. You know, it gets captured by the First Order, and they run into it when they're risking Chewie from the First Order. But not that he's the copy of the same piece, but much like Jedi where you're just like...

It's like in the garage. And they're like, oh, here it is. Oh, right, right, right. Lando gets his own little subplot and they're like, here's what he's going to handle. Leave him with a character. Did none of these spaceships have keys? Did he just walk on and press the starter? Well, they all come in gold dice.

We know that. Here's the other, Emma, The Falcon got like, it had changed hands about a few times. No, I know, but it's just funny.

Like, they can't lock it. There's no like fingerprint. I don't know. But I was talking with Emma as well, Emma Stefanski, about like how in Star Wars,

people are always getting in ships with like this hunk of junk. Anyway, let's take it into space. The airless void of space. Don't you think it's also weird that it's like, oh my God, Lando Calrissian back. Here he is meeting for the first time

the current owners of the Millennium Falcon. And he's not like, hey, do you mind if I just take like 30 minutes to fuck the spaceship? It's a long backstory, but we used to date. Yeah, yeah, I am quietly in love with the Fleabag in this space ship. My girlfriend's brain is in the Millennium Falcon, and they're like,

there's a human brain in the Millennium Falcon? He's like, no, no, no, no, please, please, that would be weird. No, I used to fuck a robot. You know what, David brought up something I've never thought of about in the Star Wars universe. How rickety the ships are? Yeah, well, rickety, no keys. Are there, like, speeding tickets going on?

Are we talking about cops in space? Space cops. What's going on? Because I've seen a lot of speeders. There are a lot of speeders. It's in the name. And they're driving out of control. That's true.

Going through red lights. I mean, come on. What a good comedian. And I mean it sincerely. I mean it sincerely. I feel like for each of these episodes, Last Jedi, Force, you've always just been exhausted. I know. Because he doesn't sleep. No.

We see it. He doesn't sleep. December's bad for me. I don't know if I've ever had a good December. It's a bad month. It's my least favorite month. I hate it too. Yeah.

And then January is like trying to rebuild. And February starts to get hot again because that's when the birthday comes around. And I'm like, oh right. Yeah, I made it another year. Well, I see. This is the thing. I probably would hate February if it wasn't my birthday. Probably my least favorite month.

Yeah. Why do you hate February? And I get this little kick. I don't know. I mean, well, because my birthday is in January. Hells yeah. Yeah. When are birthdays?

I think February is just always really cold. It's cold. And. It's Valentine's Day. I've had like bad. I moved to New York in February and it was like an absolute shit show. So like. It is cold. It's Valentine's Day. I've had like bad I moved to New York in February and it was like an absolute shit show.

It is a tough time to move in New York. It's not that bad. February's fine. Black History Month short. Those are some things going for February.

Okay. Not to just play the comparison game but can I can I bring up the things so there can be a line of positivity

in this episode? Yeah. We are now all but one episode away from the complete season of The Mandalorian. That's right. The ultimate episode dropped. Is there no Baby Yoda's in that one? I have heard that. Did you know he has a little ball that he likes to play with?

But this is what's weird. I've watched every episode so far, and I can't figure out. Answer the question, Congressman. No, no, but this is what's important, okay? I've watched every episode so far. I I can't figure out- Answer the question, Congressman. No, no, but this is what's important, okay? I've watched every episode so far. I love the show. Where is the baby? And maybe I'm just stupid.

Who would like to see the baby? Who is Baby Yoda playing? Because I keep on watching, trying to figure out which character Baby Yoda is playing. I don't know what this joke is. Like, what his name? I know. I was trying to do the bit of, like, you're saying Baby Yoda's on the show, and I'm acting like Baby Yoda is, like like Steven Root in makeup.

I don't know. I don't fucking know. My brain is melting. Wow. Relax. It's a good show and you like it. Anyway, Mandalorian. Here are things I love about Mandalorian.

I bet that won't quit. Okay. And I'm sure we'll talk about it behind Patreon paywall. I'm pointing at Ange. We're pointing. A great amount of months to come. Yep, exactly. Oh, and I was getting too horny. No, no, no. I'm allowed. I'm always. Yeahge. We're pointing. A great amount of months to come. Yep, exactly. Oh, and I was getting too horny.

No, no, no. I'm allowed. I'm always, yeah, we're allowed. Well, Ange is very allowed. But I am categorically, right? I'm like on the record. It's less creepy when I do it, so I'm going to. I don't think I'm allowed at all.

No. Is Ben number four on the allowed horniness? On the bottom. Cow bod from getting horny on the bottom. Out of the bottom. Mandalorian. You've seen all seven episodes. There's one more to come. It's seven or eight now.

There have been seven. Okay. There's one more. Love it, love it, love it. Believe it. Do you remember last year when we were recording our last Jedi episode and we were like, well, this is unquestionably the worst episode. Two years ago.

Two years ago. Jeez. The worst episode we ever recorded and we were like well, this is unquestionably the worst episode The worst episode we ever Recorded and we're like embarrassed ashamed Delete it and then people were like great episode. We were like do we not know anything? This is objectively our worst episode Anyway Mandalorian There were so many moments in this film in terms of it being overstuffed Yeah And maybe I'm just spoiled now because Mandalorian

is giving me so much what I kind of want the future of Star Wars storytelling to be which is more like we're in the world it doesn't have to be about fucking skywalkers

like it's a little more earthy this episode can slow down and for 30 minutes it's just about this one thing it's about this one place or this one dynamic or this one character did you know

Bobby Cannavale has a grown son I do because he was a PA on vinyl. Well, I know because he was in The Mandalorian. Yeah, there's a Boston in space. Jay Cannavale, he's very hunky. Bill Burr also in The Mandalorian. A lot of comedians in The Mandalorian. He's pretty great. Bill Burr was actually wonderful

in The Mandalorian. He was. He was actually a fantastic and the Gungan joke slayed me. Emerson alum. Hell yeah. Alright. It is this thing though where I love how behavioral the Mandalorian is. I like that there's this weird

like 70s hangout vibe. Like it does feel like a 70s western show where they like ride into town and like something happens. Right. Like it's like the incredible

it's like an old the old Hulk show. Yeah. What's your deal this week? And that there's not this hyper serialized massive story they're telling, even though now the plans are starting to come together. But what's coming together is like, remember all the pals

we met? They're all gonna be involved. We'll bring them back for one final curtain call. And like, when something like Zori Bliss comes into the film or Jana comes into the film, or the idea of C-3PO's memory getting reset, or any of these things in the movie, I just kept on going like, this feels like a Mandalorian episode that is now being smushed into five

minutes of a two hour and 20 minute film. Well, Jana will get her own spinoff, so. But when Jana enters. That's the idea, I guess. I'm, well, I mean, Lando was literally like, oh, that's interesting. You don't know where you're from. What if you had a spinoff movie? But no, no.

What Lando, I think Billy Dee Williams can't deliver a line without saying, without it seeming like he wants to have sex with you. But he's like, well, let's find out where you're from. I'm like, Lando, Jesus, you could be her grandfather. Relax. I was too distracted by the fact that it was clearly a sequel. Yes, it did seem like a. Which I liked and I liked Naomi Ackie.

Go for it. I had no opinion on Janet. I liked Naomi Ackie. Go for it. I had no opinion on Janet. I liked Naomi Ackie. Right. She didn't have a lot to do. When she does her scene where she's like, let me explain everything about who I am and what my deal is. I turned to you and I went, I like that. That's a cool idea.

It's a cool idea. It is now just being yelled at me for five minutes because the film doesn't have time to actually characterize her through behavior and through dramatic action. Like everyone needs to announce everything they're doing and who they are and where they stand and how they fit into everything. I mean, even to the degree of, like, Richard E. Grant, who is so perfectly cast here, where you're like, of course, what an obvious choice to play

a fucking creepy British stuff shirt in a Star Wars movie. Is the idea that he's, like, a Palpatine, like, original fan that's just always been around? Yeah, he's, like, I served you in the... Well, and I'm like, I mean, that's... Was he, like He's been in so many wars together. Was he like 15? Well, if you do the math,

I guess it's like, what's Richard E. Grant now, like 60? It means he was like 30 in Return of the Jedi or whatever. Okay. But this is one of those things. But that's the thing where he's like, when he says it, it's said with such importance, and I'm like, so what, he was like a lieutenant? And it's like, this is exactly. And I'm like, so what? He was like a lieutenant? Like, okay. And it's like, this is

exactly the wrong amount of information for me. I either want you to just be creepy stuff shirt and just give me that fucking attitude. Or I want you to actually have a thing that has relevance to the rest of the movie. To just be like, hey, don't forget about me. People are gonna write comics about me someday. Let me just tell you my deal.

Thank you very much. That's my time. It felt like it was supposed to be a big drop, but it wasn't. Right. Yeah. Because I don't care about... And I just felt that way almost every time a new character was introduced or a new concept was introduced of like, oh, this looks cool. I understand the kernel of the idea,

but it also feels like a movie that was on such a speeding train in terms of like... And I think truly by the time that Solo on like such a speeding train in terms of like, and I think truly, by the time that Solo came out, this film was too close to production and they probably realized, oh fuck, maybe we should pull the brakes on everything and not have to hit specific,

like sort of mandated dates. Maybe we should let these films become what they need to be, right? But this just feels like, sorry Bliss, Jana, Richard E. Grant what they need to be, right? But this just feels like Sorry Bliss, Jana, Richard E. Grant, all these fucking things,

Dio, are all just like vestiges of like a blue sky, spies in disguise, brainstorming session with like a bunch of fun ideas they're putting on a whiteboard and then they're like,

yeah, I think we have room for that. We can fit that in. We can fit that in. And then the movie is just moving forward and forward and forward and at a certain point they understand, oh, there's not actually room to do service to any of this, but let's just keep it in.

And it's just like a thing in there. Which feels to me like Frozen 2, where there are a bunch of things where you're like, that clearly must be some other thing that at some earlier point meant something. Here's the difference. Right, right, right, right, right. The other thing, of course, this movie has the problem that you're describing. The other problem it has that it's also like, but then let's not forget the emperor, you know, like it's looking backwards at the same time. Like, you know, Wedge is here, Lando,

like, you know, like they're trying to do that. But ultimately all I care about is these four central characters. I love those characters. You did such a good job investing me in them. And they all mostly just seem like they're sort of running from place to place. Poe's the one who actually has a little to do.

Mostly I think because he didn't get as much in the first two. And especially because he hasn't had time with them as like a trio. And I appreciate that and I love to look upon Oscar Isaac. Yes, it's fine. It's good. The problem is that Rey is already burdened

with her hero quest so she's kind of like just like looking off in the any time they're hanging out. Literally, yeah. She walks off in the middle of the fucking desert. And Finn has this sort of half storyline. Yeah, what do you guys think about the... So Finn is Force-sensitive. That's fine.

And this has been a theory since Force Awakens. I have felt like that way since Force Awakens. I figured that was what caused... I've always figured that the Force was awakening in that movie, and that's what pauses him. And of course, it was part of J.J.'s trick in that movie, which is he was trying to, you know, the marketing and everything was making you think, like, well, Finn's the hero, he's the Jedi,

he's gonna have the lightsaber. And then the movie's big trick, which people, I guess, sort of forget about these days because they just remember Rey is the hero, Rey is the Jedi. But I've always been fine with that, and just like in Return of the Jedi when Leia's getting

a little forcey you know like sure get Finn but good hint at it but that's where the film feels disrespectful to Force Awakens in a weird way to me

is that he is not trusting that we want to see the culmination of these characters that he created these actors that he cast who he encouraged to own these roles

and the movie instead needs to go like no no don't worry about that. They're all part of a bigger thing, and the bigger thing's been going on forever. Right, which is, there you go. That's it. That's exactly what it is, and that's sort of a good articulation of what I found to be the fundamental problem. He wasn't concerned with concluding their individual stories. I don't know what each of these characters' arcs is in this movie.

Which even down to the- But if you look at it from the grand scale of from the prequels to the end of this movie, how is the Skywalker, the story about the Skywalker name beginning, middle, and end, then that's what he was aiming for. But like, I hate the ending so much. We'll get to the ending.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But just that it's not about Rey anymore. It's not about... No, go ahead. No, I just... It's not about Rey. It's about the franchise. I think Finn got some more... And Poe, I just... The problem with Frozen 2... I love Rey and it just felt shallow. I actually haven't seen Frozen 2. Which you don't need to see.

I don't care. Frozen 2 is like, we're gonna explain it. Aaron Dell, everything. And I'm like, you're gonna explain... I never... I don't know what the fuck you're talking about and they're like Frozen 2 is acting like it's Frozen 8 you know where they're like finally we're gonna dig into some of the lore and I'm like I didn't need any of this I don't need to know about their

grandparents really that's what they get into oh yeah haven't you ever wanted to know about their grandparents well I've always wanted to learn how like mermaids exist in the sea, and that's why the sequel to The Little Mermaid should be an expansion of that.

No, yeah, that's like a weird, like, what you're telling me sounds bad. Look, I'm not going to open the whole Frozen box right now. I'm waiting for someone. You want to go into the unknown? It's Frozen Jet. I'm also just waiting. This is 10 comedy points.

But I'm also waiting for, like, there's going to be some messy tell-all article about what happened with that movie because clearly something weird happened. It did seem like something weird happened and there's a lot of songs in the cutting room before we talked about it. That are on the soundtrack that cut late. Grant me a tangent here quickly, okay?

And this is a focused tangent. This is a focused Star Wars tangent, but I want to lead us down an alleyway. Are you okay with the tangent? Go ahead. It's totally on movie. Here you are. Here's your tangent reward.

As we've talked about many times before, Lucas always contends, no, the films are about this. They're about hero's journeys. They're about this. It's a soap opera. It's da-da-da-da-da. Kids movies, right. But the thing that Kathleen Kennedy very smartly identified that I think has been the key to trying to reclaim Star Wars is when he offered her the company. She said, look, I'm not going to do it unless I can figure out what Star Wars weird power is.

And I've never been able to identify it. And George went, don't worry, I know what it is. I figured it out. And gave her the same spiel he's giving all the time when he's explaining why people don't understand the prequels and why they're wrong. And she was like, that's not it, that's not it, that's not it. And he's like, it is, it's about this,

it's about storytelling, symmetry, and this and that. She's like, it's not, it's not, it's not. And like hours of them it's about storytelling symmetry and this and she's like it's not it's not it's not and like hours of them meeting like this and she was like george what was going on in your life when you wrote star wars we've talked about something yeah i just i'm resetting this very quickly and he says of course well my father owned a hardware store and i was expected to take over the hardwood store and it didn't excite me at all and it felt like a very boring life and i imagined that there's something greater out there for me and I discovered film and that got to be my escape

and I wrote my own destiny. And she went, great, that's what it's about. Star Wars is about not wanting to become your father at a basic elemental level. That's what it's about. And he said, no, it's about storytelling.

Of course, it's about the hero's journey. Right. Right. And in a way that is like the Terminator 2 trick, I think the brilliant piece of setup in Force Awakens is, oh, the thing to do here to tap into the core elemental feeling of Star Wars

is to invert the previous thing. That rather than it being, what if your father was the greatest villain in the history of the galaxy? How hard would you fight to make sure you didn't become him? That it's the opposite of, what if your dad was the coolest hero of all time? And what would you do to try to get out from the shadow of the expectation?

So we're going to talk about Kylo now because he is, I agree with you, the one with the most compelling arc in a way. And it's the Terminator trick of like second movie, flip it. And then you get to Terminator 3 and it's like, what is it now? Sometimes he's good. Sometimes he's bad. What is it now? He's a different bad guy, but he was an old man. All this stuff where it's like, you can only mirror it.

There's an on and an off switch. There's not a third position. And they throw in the third position on this one, which is Ray, which is what if your grandparent was a bad guy, but you didn't know it. So simultaneously, you're trying not to become your bad forebear,

but you're trying to convince him. This is so uninteresting. Which is just Luke in Empire. Right, which we don't need to see it again. It's the same thing we've gone through. And here's the arc that they had set up in the last two movies. Yeah. Rey is this abundantly powerful new creature of the force.

Yeah. Jedi, right. Kylo, on the other hand, is burdened by all his legacy stuff, right? Yeah. And their bond, their bond. Yeah. Is the thing that's pulling and pushing both of them. Right. It's

very clean. Totally. It works in 7 and in 8. It works well. And here's another thing, okay? I think a problem with the prequels is that Anakin has no father and there's no sense of what he's trying to avoid or trying to become in that sort of sense. Sure. It's just everyone telling him, you're supposed to

be the thing and the kid's like, I guess? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the other problem with the prequels is that it hinges on a love story, and that's George Lucas' ultimate Achilles heel. But the beautiful idea, whether or not JJ ever intended for her to be related to Palpatine or related to anyone else. David, she died of a broken heart. It's true, and we should

pay respect to that. She was so heavily pregnant with those two babies, you could tell. Yeah, she only had time to deliver both of them before she could die of a broken heart. And name them. Yes. Exactly. But it feels like whether or not JJ ever had some master plan, the thing that Force Awakens is setting up and that Last Jedi takes to the finish line is the beauty of Rey is here

is a character at the center of the film now, the center of a new trilogy who does not have any destiny. Yeah. Who is not fated for something. Yeah. Who is not part of a lineage. Who has not been told that she is the ultimate. Yes.

She's never been met with fear or awe. Right. And I'm fine with, like, her inner struggle to just be the classic Jedi thing of, like, yeah, you know, it's easy. You have all this power to be swayed by petty emotion and, you know. It's scary. I think her story could have been just as powerful if she was nobody in this. And then still had to fight this big, bad, scary dude. I really think so.

Even if you're going to pull the sort of slightly lame move of bringing back the Emperor. Right. Where he's, like, it's the problem that we're talking about. Where he's like, I'm your grandpa. And instead of me being like. I'm your grandpa. I'm your grandpa. Yeah.

Instead of me being like, oh my God, that's crazy. I'm like, while they're fighting, I'm just like. So he's like out in the town like. Sure. Trolling for ladies. Now we have to think about Palpatine fucking. Like he had a child. And he.

Well, so some people remember Slymore no who's Slymore oh oh oh oh the shaved head blue lady with the fringe she's all over the prequels that's her grandma

well it's just the only woman that ever seems to have hung out with Palpatine yeah so this feels very Voldemort,

if anyone's read The Cursed Child, which is another story that I fucking hate. I'm saying this on the record. I just like, why bring back Voldemort? I was talking, well, and then also implied that he fucks, but I was talking with Leia Thomas, friend of the show about this,

the Voldemort thing. That's exactly what she brought up as well, which in The Cursed Child, it's like, oh yeah, Voldemort had a kid. And you're like, Voldemort made time to like have regular sexual intercourse palpatine just oh p and v not to seem to have any social life i'm sorry we have to confront it because this is the thing look and let's be clear when you say p and v you mean palpatine and voldemort because from here on out, I'm calling penises Palpatines and vaginas Voldemorts.

The idea that Palpatine had regular old sexual intercourse with a person and that they reproduced. We don't know if it was regular. It might have been a little weird. It might have been like, eh, I didn't love the vibe. It might have been food involved. Or it might have just been forgettable. I don't know.

But then beyond that, the idea that he had a kid. He had a kid. I think he's into BDSM based on that movie. He had a kid who basically looked like Jack Rayner. I don't know who's playing that guy you see for five seconds. Oh, he's a guy from a thing. I looked it up. He's the guy from On Chesil Beach. Oh,

good actor. Yeah. I mean, as is Jodie Comer. And Jodie Comer's playing Ray's mom. Billy Howell, that's his name. You immediately have more questions where you're like, no, no, this is Jodie Comer. And Jodie Comer's playing Ray's mom. But also, it's one of- Billy Howell, that's his name. Yes, that's right. You immediately have more questions where you're like- No, no. This is what I want to get into.

Wait, how hands-on was Palpatine as a father? That's exactly it. This is what I'm trying to say. He had a kid. Let's say the kid was called fucking Garrett Palpatine or whatever, right? Yeah, probably. It's just like, oh yeah, a kid. And it's like, he's the emperor, the chosen leader of the Sith who for a thousand years

have conspired. He took over the galaxy. He pulled it off. He's like, I'm going to have one kid and not keep tabs on him. Who is this dude? Scott Evil? Like, what's his life? I'd rather see the movie about this guy.

I was thinking of guarding into like graphic design and Palpatine. He's like, yeah, no, that's a good field. I mean, you can make a steady income. He's a fucking grandchild. And then after a while, he's like, oh, you got a grandchild. Oh, hey, can I meet the grandchild? And they're like, no, no, no. Yeah, you can. And I'm spending all my time thinking about that while Rey and Palpatine

are facing off. He's like, I am all the Sith. And she's like, I am all the Jedi. And I'm like, Palpatine, his penis still works? All that force lightning? But it's also such a weird thing. I'm doing the math. I'm like, this is... He's a little animus

for the dick. Just holds it. When the Phantom Menace starts, the Sith thing has been going on for fucking ever. It has. And in the expanded universe, in Knights of the Old Republic... This should have been the opening crawl. I mean, in all these fucking things, it's like a lineage that has gone on forever. And it's this

beautiful elemental thing in Star Wars of like, there's always gonna be good and there's always gonna be evil. Whatever form it takes, however it dresses itself up, whatever it's tapping into. Powerful light, powerful darkness, as Luke says in The Last Jedi. And this movie seems to position Palpatine as both the last and the first in terms of being the end-all be-all of the greatest isolation

of what a Sith Lord ever was. And also he fucks. And also he fucks hard. Only because he's the one who is the most visible in that position. And I was like, look, if the idea they want to get at is that Rey is somehow the end result of some dark lineage,

I would rather they establish that she's like a deep descendant of some Plagueis-esque figure. This is the first Sith and we can trace it all back to you. That's too much plot for this movie. They don't care. They just want the immediate cash-in of, you remember this guy.

Here's an opinion I have that I don't think everybody shares, which is that I've never liked the Emperor. I find him to be a very one-dimensional character. He's really, I mean, the classic Ian McDermott quote where he's like, I tried to find one good thing to play in this guy, you know, because I'm playing this guy as a person. And the only thing is that he goes to the opera, so I guess he's a patron of the arts.

Like, that's the one thing I can find in this guy. Do you think that's what he was doing the whole time in between? Well, he's like, okay, so what's the guy's deal? And George Lucas is like, evil sadist wants to take over the world, magic wizard. And he's like, yeah, okay, I get that. But like, does he have like hobbies I don't know goes to the opera cool alright I can at least hold on

to that but Palpatine's one of those things where it's like he's interesting in the prequels when he's playing him as a man yeah you know the opera scene in the prequels in Revenge of the Sith is actually very compelling sure when he's playing him is like you know like that's fun but but it's...

You can't really dig too deep into that, which is why Snoke doesn't matter either because how deep is... Right. And then Vice becomes less engaging as a film

once George W. Bush gets elected. You'd rather see how that guy makes himself. Well, I think we should have known all along based on Palpatine in the prequels

when he said, do it, that he was into sex. But she brought it back in this film. That was good. Ten comedy points. Thank you. He does say do it.

He says that some abilities people consider unnatural. It's actually the most prequel-y of these sequels. Like, it's actually referencing the prequels. Totally. Now, this was a theory I had heard and that I would have preferred to what they do in this film. Of course, Palpatine explains to Anakin

at the opera in Revenge of the Sith, I contend, the best scene in that film. Yes, I agree. This idea that Darth Plagueis the Wise had perhaps cracked the code of how to purely make a child out of evil. Out of the force. The implication being Anakin is that.

Right. That Anakin is that. Palpatine crim, the Plague is crim, whatever, whatever, whatever. And I would have rathered the idea that That's what Rey is. Yeah. Then that she's literally just second degree emperor. It's a weird split the difference move to be like,

yeah, yeah, he's your grandpa. You know how everyone has a grandpa? Well, he's yours. But the problem is it just makes it seem like all along these movies have been about that guy. Why couldn't, why, yeah, why, why the, her dad, not the mom? I don't know.

They do specify Palpatine's son is her father. But I think Palpatine, like so much of the value of Palpatine is the same thing I kind of like about Snoke. It's just like there's always some fucking guy like this. Who it is doesn't matter. But that's what's so good about The Last Jedi is that Kylo is like, why would I be number two to some guy when I am a self-aggrandizing narcissist who thinks he should rule the world? Which is an interesting subversion the same way it's interesting for Rey to be someone where the destiny that haunts her is her lack of destiny.

Here's Kylo's arc in this movie. Which we brought up 30 minutes ago. After having this incredibly compelling arc in 7 and 8. Does he have five lines of dialogue in this film? He does, but... Al was pretty funny. Yeah, Al was funny. I mean, he has the long dialogue sequence with Rey when they're fighting.

And Han Solo. Requote, he has the moment, which I will say, the Han thing was a pleasant surprise. They twist it. You think it's Luke. Totally. But like, I thought that scene mirrored, like clearly they're mirroring The Force Awakens

when he kills his dad. I thought that was mirroring that enough. And then the dialogue is the exact same dialogue. That scene is also. And it felt like. I didn't mind that scene. Harrison Ford's in it.

I think Ford's doing a good job. I think he shows up. And then also when Kylo says dad. And he can tell it really. He hasn't called him that in so long. I think he's great. I just think why are we doing the exact same like re-quoting

of the scene. It rhymes. It's poetry. It rhymes. But that one's like a little too... And it's also an example of how the film

is intrinsically fucked because everything in the story is demanding that that scene be between Leia and Kylo. That's probably true. And you've already

had this fucking thing where like oh suddenly we have to reuse a shot of Leia looking off into the distance concerned and now we have a photo double in silhouette acting like she's with her dying breath

making something happen which is so junkly retrofitted. Would she just distract him? Yeah but in a way that dreams him? Okay here's how it goes. So Kylo looks for the Sith Pathfinder. He finds it. He goes to the Emperor. The Emperor's like yeah you'll be the new Emperor. Great. Go kill Rey. He finds Rey. He's like the Emperor. The Emperor's like, yeah, you'll be the new Emperor. Great. Go kill Rey.

He finds Rey. He's like, I'm not gonna kill the Emperor. We're going to rule together. This is all making sense. I think that he already pitched to her in the last movie and she was like, no, I'm good. No, but still, there's some lingering tensions there. And in that film, you actually believe

for a moment that he might sell her on it. There is. Yeah, exactly. In this movie, she's crossed that threshold. If Palpatine made Snoke the puppet and then Snoke puppeted their force connection, wouldn't Palpatine already know that they would betray, that they would team up and like betray the big bad again? Palpatine saying he's in charge of Snoke, that's where the logic completely falls. Okay, go back to Kylo's plot. So eventually he goes to find Rey again after telling her that she's a Palpatine.

Right. And is like... Fixes his helmet because it looks cool now. He turns off Dashboard Confessional. The fucking helmet thing is outrageous. I don't even care that they put it back together. I think it looks kind of cool. Ben, I had a really good pitch last night, did I not?

Wait, what? So there's the scene in the film where he goes back to his little study, and he puts his hand on the helmet, and I turn to you, and you went, yeah. And the idea is that he's, what, feeling nostalgic for wearing the mask? So then he hires the chimpanzee, and they reweld it, right? Right. The idea is that no one's taking him as seriously as Earth Vader. He wants that presence. He realizes he needs it again, right? It feels like such

a petty thing of JJ being like, you broke my fucking helmet? No, I don't even take it that way. I just didn't think it got integrated into plot much because then after a while he just takes it back off and that's kind of that. I just didn't understand Kylo being like, good and bad and good again. It was just so clean when it was already just off. Do you know what I wanted to see?

I wanted to see Kylo put his hand on the helmet and go, oh, my mistake was I was trying to come up with my own version of Darth Vader. I'm just going to fucking own my legacy, and he puts on the weird mashed up Darth Vader helmet. Oh, sure. But he can't. It's all fucked up. In the same way they reweld whatever. Don't you think it would be more interesting if for the last movie

Kylo Ren is wearing the mashed up... I think Kylo should have refashioned his helmet into like a headband and then like kind of like pulled his hair back a little bit. That's a bridge to fight. That's really cute. I wanted to see that happen. I wanted him to just be like, I'm fucking Darth Vader now. That's not his the bridge to you. I wanted to see that happen. I wanted him to just be like I'm fucking Darth Vader now This is also another thing that threw out when he touched the helmet and then Ray connects to it I was Ray I thought throwing her off. I thought they were yeah, she's doing the training and he's sort of messing with her

But how do they connect by touching the Vader helmet? I don't fucking know. Because also Vader was a Palpatine. Well, the thing I was guessing was that like, oh, are they going for Rey is actually Vader's. I thought they were Avatar. They were doing Avatar reincarnation. There's no logic to anything. So whatever. Kylo's plot.

That's my idea of Kylo wearing the. No, it's stupid. It's really stupid. No, it's not because Kylo's plot that's my idea of Kylo wearing the no it's that's really stupid no it's not because Kylo's arc I mean it's just a different movie but like

get to the wave planet I'm trying Jesus Christ get to the wave planet yeah he goes to the wave planet yeah planet of waves

Ben loved it it fucking ruled waves are big as hell weird hairy horses I believe it's Endor is the planet oh is it really well they say it's Endor okay yeah it's just not foresty I believe it's Endor is the planet. Oh, is it really? Well, they say it's Endor.

Okay. Yeah. It's just not forest-y. I believe it's not the forest moon of Endor. I believe it's actual Endor. Oh. But it's Endor. It's the Endor.

Because the idea is the Death Star fell on it. But also, to be fair, at that point, I might have missed that it was Endor because the movie was screaming at me, Should we get another bottle? What do you think? I probably want to stay in for like another hour, right? I feel so good right now on the way planet which I thought did that just speak

I thought the way planet was fine he goes to see Rey again and he's like you gotta hang out with me Kylo Ren I'm the business he like makes the same pitch he's been making for two and a half movies at this point they have their fight.

And then while they're having a cool fight on the back of a Death Star remnant and there's waves crashing around them. And you're looking at your watch and you're going, there's no way this is the final battle. Which it should have been, but whatever. Yeah, exactly. Then Leia distracts Ben by Kylo by being like, you know, Ben. And he's distracted. It's going to take all her energy to reach him now. Rey stabs him with his own lightsaber and then realizes, like, no, and then force heals him.

Right. Like she did to the snake. Like she did to the snake in an earlier, better sequence. And that is that. Yes. At that point in the film, he is good. Right. It's over. And then he just spends like an hour being like. The sickness has been pur in the film, he is good. Right. It's over.

And then he just spends like an hour being like. The sickness has been purged. How should I be good? Exactly. What's like a good sort of game plan for being good? And I hate to say this, but I did not find that to be very satisfying. I did not either. It's a little stupid. What's not satisfying?

Just that it's sort of like, one little nudge from Leia and then Rey just sort of this altruistic thing and it's like you know what Kylo's like I'm feeling good. I think I'm more in a Ben mood now. I'm going to go to Uniqlo get some basics you know

just like shirt and pants. His dead dad comes back. The only connection I mean I do get the understanding of I guess what they were going for is that like she killed Kylo in doing that

and Kylo is dead but like and he just had to That's fine. It just feels like He had to see death in front of him to be like this is where I go.

And then he has the combo with Han which I like. But Han is in Chef Gusteau mode. He is called out as this is a figment of your imagination.

You're projecting your father You're a memory. to say the things you wish he would say to you. Which makes it like, oh, he's just made this decision already. Because Han can't be like a force ghost because he's not force powerful.

But that's where, not to like fucking harp on this, but it feels like everything's built up to the fact that like Luke failed him, Han failed him, Leia is the last person who can possibly

break through to him. And right. I also feel like in the first half of this movie, Kylo Ren feels like Jason Statham in Furious 7, where it's almost like a joke. That's exactly what I was thinking. Every time the heroes show up in a location, Jason Statham shows up 30 seconds later and shoots him.

I'm here to fucking kill you! And then they're like, we can outrun him. And he's like, no, I came to the new place too. David, how did your British accent get so good? Oh, boy. Grew up in Britain. Wasn't very good. I'm sorry.

What? Big Ben Solo would tell you. I don't know. Well, this is no time for jokes. I'm trying to figure out the internal logic here. No time to die. James Bond, 25. Well, and that's very funny.

It wasn't time to die. James Bond, 25. Well, and that's very funny. It wasn't time to die for Kylo. Kylo, Ben, it's not time for him to die. But yes, like, one of the things that Abrams does borrow from The Last Jedi is their, you know, their sort of long distance conversation. And those scenes have so much tension. You're constantly feeling. I mean, The Last Jedi, they really have tension. Is one of them going to convince the other? And every time he shows up to fight her again or fight people around her, you're just like,

okay, on with it. Like, where are we going with this? Yeah. And it's what we're going to is that, yeah. Too many physical confrontations with Kylo Ren in the first half of this movie. That's fair. I gotta say. Too many confrontations.

Do we think Chewie shouldn't have been? I wonder if that's the sequence that wasn't needed. He either shouldn't have been fake killed or shouldn't have come back. Because they had to save Chewie shouldn't have been. I wonder if that's the sequence that wasn't needed. He either shouldn't have been fake killed or shouldn't have come back. Because they had to save Chewie. Yeah, he can't be dead. He can't be dead, but why not? Because Chewie's death can't be, oops. Right.

Which is what that would have been. You're going to fake me out for all of five minutes? You're going to spend five minutes at most misdirecting me? Chewie getting kidnapped and all of that. It's another match question. It was a detour that I think could have been cut. Hey, here's a question. For then most of the movie after that, Chewbacca is like totally naked, right?

He doesn't have his bandolier or anything. I just remember that a lot of promotional material, C-3PO has Chewbacca's bandolier and his bowcaster. That does not happen in the film, does it? There's one moment where C-3PO is carrying the bowcaster. But that's about it. He shows up and she's like, take all this shit. And he's like, oh, what's happening? You know, and he fusses.

He is prone to fussing. I just remember that being the trailer and stuff and making it look like they're action sequences where C-3PO is like fucking shooting people. I'm not saying I wanted to see that, but it feels like a weird message or something. He's basically like a coat rack for like two minutes. Very good. It's just the Chewbacca thing is, and this is the thing about this movie, the reason this movie is not a totally unwatchable film is that each of the individual Fetch Questy sequences we're talking about,

the pig Coachella, the sort of they're on the imperial ship and Huck sitting you know like all the sequences on their own are like perfectly fun got some action They're like they're there's quips the characters. We love her in them if they're not there's no secrets where I was like There's no sequence like 3po in the droid factory and attack of the clones where you're like this is Horrific oh, I mean I'm watchable in the droid factory in Attack of the Clones where you're like, this is unwatchable. Oh, I mean unwatchable. You're right. Yeah, no, no, no, totally. We're on the same page. But you know what I mean? It's all fine. It just hangs together horribly.

And it's also that thing where the movie is always at the exact same pitch. It is in such a hurry with nowhere to go that there is no sort of peaks and waves There's no quiet moment. There are no quiet moments at all. Like literally one of the

only quiet moments is when 3PO is like I'm just taking one last look at my friends and I'm like bitch you met these people like five minutes ago. Or it's Rey just staring off into the distance waiting for Kylo to show up. Those are the slow moments where I'm like ugh. I want to say I don't think this film does well by Rey

as a character. I don't think there is much that Daisy Ridley can do, but I do think watching this film, it kind of underlined for me how effective she is. She's fantastic. Because the movie is only asking her to essentially stare at things

with meaning over and over again for two hours and 20 minutes. And occasionally be like, I gotta go. She's incredibly good at doing that. She's incredibly good at looking at something and holding it for 10 seconds. She's got a great face. And seeming like she's making a really difficult decision. She's got a lot of feeling. Totally.

That's the thing. And all of those close-ups have a lot of feeling, even if what she's supposed to be feeling doesn't really make any sense. So can I pose my question that I had asked earlier at the diner? I'd still like to take her out for pasta dinner. Yeah. I think that would, yeah. Come on, you got the Patreon money. Get her steak. Hey, listen. I think she's a vegetarian. When we originally started doing the show,

I said I would split the check with her, and now that I have Patreon money, I will pick up the bill. And how about you get pasta with steak tips? Well, let's just, you know, factory farming. Okay, sure. So I had said. She revealed that she is a cheating vegan.

So she's mostly a vegan, but sometimes she's a bit naughty. And I'm like a cheeto vegan. She's a cheegan. Sometimes she eats fish. Okay. Well, I'm going to take her out for pasta dinner. I don't like seafood. Or rather, I would love to.

Would she grant me? Well, like one of those things where she's like, oh, maybe I'll get this one with the duck in it. And you see, you look at the menu, it's like 32 bucks. And you're like, oh. No, I want to make this very clear. Anything on the menu. I want to make this very clear.

As long as it's pasta. I want to make it very clear. With the Patreon money, I am willing to pay for anything on the menu. You guys are paying for Daisy Ridley's pasta. Correct. If you donate to our Patreon. Exactly. But, and I know people don't like it when we use Patreon money for political causes,

but I will take Daisy Ridley out to a pasta dinner. I will pay for whatever she wants, but I get to pick the restaurant. Fair enough. That's all I'm saying. Those are the terms, and I leave the ball in her court. No pressure. I don't think she's interested. Okay, so. In three episodes. That's the sense I've been getting for the terms. And I leave the ball on her court. No pressure. I don't think she's interested.

That's the sense I've been getting for the last five years. It's been a pretty resounding series of no's from the universe. Alright, so I said if this movie is going so quickly, if they had instead broke it up into two

parts. And obviously I know they're sort of constricted to doing it in three. But let's just say that they were able to do that. They've decided that there's too much movie here. Right, so it's like episode nine, part one. Part one and part two. But I don't think the story is demanding that it needs to be two parts. I think it feels like you're watching every different option in Bandersnatch all in one go. Like you're seeing everything they ever considered

could maybe fit into this movie. And I think a lot of it is just like, out of here, save that, put that somewhere else. Make that a spinoff, put that in a comic, put it in another script, whatever it is. There's so many things in this movie that have nothing to do with the story that has been set up with these characters in the last two films.

The things we actually want to see paid off. And even if you're saying that it has to fill the obligations of the other fucking previous six films, there are other things on top that have nothing to do with anything. I don't know. I was just thinking. Boba Frick's cool. Boba Frick. I'm just thinking about my pal, Babu. I don't know

you can't help but think about the other big franchises that ended this year and the Avengers is something that had this impossible task of all these movies and obviously I like that they

killed Thanos first and so then I think with this movie the whole time you're waiting for Palpatine to die. And you're like, I don't there's no tension. The stakes don't feel. The world doesn't feel big enough in a weird sort of a way. Yeah. When they kill Palpatine, they go back to like their one jungle hideout. I'm like, who's even in charge now? They go to other planets and all these other planets knew Somehow because Lando just like blips enough to people and he's like this is happening and then

So Lando like Paul revered is like the best guess I'm going with that alright But so the other thing I was thinking about was Game of Thrones and like something a Moment that always sticks with me is like bending off her wife after, after, spoilers, Dany's dragon turns into an ice dragon. She didn't see the Iron Fleet coming. Okay, Ange. Okay, look, she's forgotten about the Iron Fleet. No, but this is before when she loses the first dragon.

Yes, they say she's forgotten about the Iron Fleet. The point is, she, they say at the end of the episode, like we, we knew this whole fucking thing. We knew that the episode would end with that dragon's eye opening oh shit you mean the first first dragon yeah yeah first dragon that dies we knew that it was going to end with that dragon's eye like zombie ice dragon yes yes and then to me that was like such a fundamental flaw of we don't care about all the shit that's gonna get you to that point right we just we just, we have our points.

We are so concerned with that we will eventually get there, that we are gonna do all this fucking zigging and zagging. And I always, it reminds me of, like, when I was in high school, I fucking hated physics. I was very bad at it. High five, yeah. Yeah, it was bad. But if you look in the back of, like,

your physics, like, textbooks, you can, like, find the answers the answers to like all the even or odd questions or at least at my school you could and when i figured that out was like well shit yeah i'll just do that but then you know i would write the answers but then you still had to like show your work and you couldn't do that and i well yeah no i i got all the answers and then i did the work i thought maybe correctly and i remember my physics teacher Mr. Shookian pulled me aside and he was like why this is all wrong why do you still have the right answer and like all this work is wrong

and I was like because I fucking hate math don't make me do this but it was because I wasn't concerned with getting to the point and I think JJ was so concerned with getting to this ending and you know ending Palpatine and making the Skywalker family name, like, became so much more important that he didn't focus on any of these characters. I just want to say, I wish you'd issued a spoiler warning because you've ruined both Game of Thrones and most physics textbooks now.

I had not caught up to either one yet. I was going to start Game of Thrones tomorrow. After all the great buzz this year? Feels like a good time to jump into the pool. And I was going to sign up for a physics class. Game of Thrones season series finale. Everyone's like, ah! Griffin's like, oh, so this show's good?

Like, it's good? I should check it out? I am a messy bitch who lives through the drama. Here's something else I want to talk about. We're almost done. Yeah, we only have like two or three hours left in this episode. Say what you're thinking. I do want to say some good things I liked.

Yeah, I said the things I liked. Babu Frick, Babu Frick, C-3PO, cool. Huck's nice. I like that Kylo ran. I like the Han scene. I like that he ran like Han, though. Did you guys notice that like, I like when he gets into his cowboy mode.

I love when he shows up at the end, and like, ow, when he lands on Han though. Did you guys notice that like, came off, he shot the guy. I love when he shows up at the end and like, ow, when he lands on the chain and the little shrug he gives when he's gonna fight the Knights of Ren.

Yeah. Of course, so crucial. I love those, the looks of them though. I'm glad you love the looks. Come on, an axe.

But they're not red, Ben. But just that thing where they're like, they're not red boys. They're still cool. We're gonna finally explain the Knights of Ren. Who are they?

I don't know. There's like six guys who hang out with them. Ben, here's a real Kobayashi Maru for you, okay? Sure. As we all know, Snoke's guards, the Praetorian guards, were the Red Boys. What would you call the Knights of Ren? I call them... I don't know.

Anyway, let's swerve out of this. A scene... So I like... I can't answer. They're great. No, I'm kidding. Sure. Dark, great gentlemen.

All right. I call them heavy metal boys. All right, that's actually a pretty good answer. The Knights of Ren. Anyway, they're so crazy. They're just so... The Knights of Ren are so cool. I love that.

There's that one knight who's just, get out of that guy's way. They answered these questions that were bugging me for years. Right, exactly. Who are they? Guys who hang out with Kylo Ren. Great. Thank you. Thank you.

I couldn't infer that. The Han Solo scene, I like. I think Harrison Ford did a good job. He's got a lot of integrity. It sounds so backhanded. It does, but I really actually believe it. I think Harrison Ford did a good job. He's got a lot of integrity. It sounds so backhanded. It does, but I really actually believe it. I agree with you. Then there is a scene that is so fucking demented,

even within the manic sort of sensibility of this movie. After her big fight with Kylo, Rey gets in his ship, flies not to see the Emperor, but to Luke's island Akto crashes the ship, sets it on fire with remnants of the Jedi tree or whatever

all off screen, we cut to her in a frenzy like throwing more wood at a ship as it's on fire and then throws her lightsaber and Luke's ghost like catches it and comes out and he's like that's no way to treat a lightsaber and I'm like Mark, what's up?

You seemed locked in two years ago. What changed? Because I have no offense to him. The hair is different. His hair part. He changed his hair part. It's really very distracting to me. Mark Hamill is an actor that I have long enjoyed.

And I enjoy his voice work and I enjoy him when he goes real goofy, which he's prone to do. But when he was in The Last Jedi, I was before I saw the movie like, is he going to be up to this? And he's so fantastic in that movie. It is incredible how good he is in that movie. It's easily

the best performance he's ever given. No question. Has he seen The Last Jedi? Does he know what he was doing in that one? the best performance he's ever given. No question. So I just googled the picture of his last hair. Has he seen The Last Jedi? Does he know what he was doing in that one? Because in this one, he's basically playing

a different character. Yeah. I don't know. He's just, the tone of that scene is weird. Whereas the tone of the Han Solo scene

is like reverential and somber and quite lovely and he says, I know. It feels like they're trying to make him like cutesy Yoda. They play Yoda's theme, which infuriated me.

Yeah, it's weird. And then they do the whole lifting. And the whole point that he didn't leave the island, that he couldn't leave the island, was because that his ship was so badly damaged. He used the door for his little hot door. He used the door for his hot door. This is all true.

And yet he's just like, yeah, let's bring it out. Play that track from Empire. Get in the ship at five. I've got lots of gas for you right here. I don't even look. It's all ludicrous. But also, it should be like that scene in Last Jedi when Luke talks to Yoda is like wonderful. Like it's very good.

The dialogue is great. Exactly. And then in this, he's just like, look, I was wrong. I was scared to be on the island. You gotta go! Leia knew who you were,

by the way. She did? Yeah, anyway, get out of here. And I'm just like, even by the standards of this movie, this is really like frantic. And sweaty.

How would he have known that Leia knew? I don't know. Because he hasn't talked to Leia. And you're like, oh, Leia had a lightsaber. And then they had that little CG sequence of them having a lightsaber fight that feels like Abrams being like, I'm sorry I didn't give Leia a lightsaber while Carrie Fisher was alive. I feel bad about it.

Totally. And it's just all frantic. It feels frantic. I don't know if I hated the Leia lightsaber thing. I love the idea. Yeah. But it's one of those things where I'm like, are we just getting to this now? Yeah. I don't know if I hated the Leia lightsaber thing. I love the idea. Yeah. But it's one of those things where I'm like, are we just getting to this now?

Yeah. I don't know. Well, no, it just should have been introduced in Return of the Jedi if anything. If anything, right. But certainly in The Force Awakens. The biggest mistake The Force Awakens make is not much Leia.

Yes. And of course, yes, as we said, there was that sort of concept of like, well, the last movie will belong to her. Okay. Right, and the only reason they had leftover footage that they could use for this is originally she was supposed to be

in the whole first hour of the movie cutting back to her at the base, and then he decided the first time the audience sees her should be the first time Han sees her. So all the scenes prior to Han seeing her were left to be repurposed. And it's a nice moment when Han sees her. Beautiful.

It's ultimately a disservice to the character. You're making her conform to what's most exciting for Han. Yeah. Yeah. What were you talking about? Just the Luke scene. I mean, after that is the Palpatine showdown. And the big space battle that is like.

You know, the like Sith shadows? All the Sith guys are like. And then like the big space battle that's like the Return of the Jedi space battle where it's like, there's a million spaceships in the air. Which was revealed in the trailer. I also, yeah, I think they showed too much footage. It's kind of the home reveal from Dunkirk. Yeah, where the guy is like, it's not a fleet, it's just people.

Which is a nice line. I like it as an idea. The film has done no work to set that up as any sort of kind of. Literally the only set up is Zori being like, nah, come on. People are into it. And Poe's like, you're right. Yeah. I think I was trying to struggle with like, what is this movie trying to say?

Because for me. It's about Skywalker's rising. So maybe correct yourself correct yourself right there. I think The Force Awakens. Sorry. Sorry. Go ahead, Dan. But like, I don't know.

What would you say The Force Awakens is? It's myth making. That movie is about like, I mean, also that movie is about. But like the message that like all three of them kind of. Because to me, The Last Jedi is very clearly failure. The best teacher is. It's like they all learn from this mistake. Yeah, and the force belongs to everybody. The force belongs to everybody.

This, the only thing that I could really connect to is just this idea of like, one, this idea of like healing. They seem to like really hone in on. And two, just that good is going to outweigh evil in the end because we outnumber the bad. That's it. They try to tell us that we're alone, and we're not alone. And that's the big mess. So that's why all those people show up.

That is a thing that is paid lip service once every 45 minutes. It's not actually carefully woven throughout. Right. No, I had to. Yeah, totally. Another problem, another meta-read that I have,

Force Awakens is about falling back in love with Star Wars. It's the first post-prequel movie. It's about these kids who are like, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo. Yeah. I love those guys. And they, like, get in the Millennium Falcon. They have a great time. And they're hugging.

And, like, you know, it's trying to get the audience invigorated with that feeling. And The Last Jedi is Luke being like, no. Jedis are dumb. I'm not into it anymore. I'm out and by the end of the movie. He's like You want you guys want you cute kids won't be over you guys are great. Okay? Can I guys are great? Can I tell you my pretty parallel take I think last Jedi and force awakens are both about being handed the reins of Star Wars I think they're movies about people who are children of Star Wars, for the first time, people who grew up on Star Wars,

whose lives were- Very much, very much. Fundamentally changed by Star Wars are getting to write Star Wars and craft Star Wars and not just supplemental materials, but the main text. And Force Awakens is the,

I want to go home again. Can someone who was not George Lucas, who was not the chosen one, make Star Wars their own thing and find something to say in it? And it's so much about just fighting for the right to be at the table in that kind of way, right? And to try to make the table what you want it to be. And then Last Jedi, to

some degree, feels like Luke represents the notion of George Lucas that Rian Johnson is wrestling with. He was giving up on this whole fucking thing and is like, you don't understand. I've been in through this whole fucking thing. It's impossible. It's done. Fuck you.

Don't touch my thing. Leave me out of this. Don't make it, you know? And it's someone trying to like convince everyone that there is still value in this thing and the value is in letting it change and grow and to question everything about it so That you know for a reason why you're keeping the things you love

I think episode 9 is a great theme though, which is like the Sith Wayfinder is your best way to find the Sith But you need the knife to get to the Wayfinder everybody knows that's just so to the Wayfinder, David. Everybody knows that. That's just so crystallized and clear. It's very clear. It's very simple. Can I do one little CinemaSan thing for just half a second?

The fact that the dagger has like a fucking compass that pulls out that fits into, from the exact vantage point she's at, the amount of damage that is carved out of the ship. What? What?

What? What? Yeah, it's great. That's a cool puzzle. There's going to be a whole comic about the dagger. It doesn't need to be a dagger. It doesn't need to be a whole comic. I will read Sith Dagger issue one.

I mean, I think this goes back to where was George Lucas at mentally when he made the original Star Wars. I think where J.J. was at was when Poe is at, like mentally, when he made the original Star Wars, I think where J.J. was at was when Poe is at, you know, Leia's deathbed. He's like, how did you guys do it?

And I think that's J.J. talking. He's like, I don't know how the fuck you made Star Wars. Tell me how to make a Star Wars, Lando. And he's like, we just tried our best. We just did our thing. And he's like, cool cool I will copy you. There is one moment in this film that feels

slightly personal to what JJ is going through in this film which is when Rey unexpectedly shoots lightning bolts out of her hands and goes holy fuck how do I not mess this up? You know this feeling of like wait a second I just realized how much god damn power I have and the fact that everyone's looking at me and I'm at the center of the frame now.

What the fuck am I supposed to do? Yeah, I like that. I like that. I thought JJ was in it because he's Dio. He is Dio. Who, look, I find Dio to be a very handsome robot. I like the way he moves. I like his voice.

What is he doing in that movie? There's no... He doesn't have a lot to do. Well, he tells Finn that... He has like one piece of information he dispenses. And the piece of information is that they find out, which again, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, is that this guy was supposed to deliver Rey to Palpatine and then dumped her on Jakku. Yeah, that

Jedi killer character's a real Inspector Zubio, by the way. They're like, of course, it's a blip-de-blarp, and yeah, he killed your parents, I guess, anyway. He killed your parents, but then he felt bad about it afterwards and then made sure you lived on this sad desert. No, no, no. No, he died.

He's in the pit. The snake ate him. But no. Snake ate him. But he killed her parents. Yes. The parents are like, Ray's not here, and he's like, I believe you dead. But no Snake ate him But he killed her parents Yes Yes And then he died Her parents are like

Ray's not here And he's like I believe you dead Yeah He's like I'll go over there Ah he fell in a pit A snake ate me Let's try to say something nice

He seems like an idiot Is what I'm saying Let's try to say something nice One thing we haven't mentioned Everyone's real pretty It's got some pretty good jokes There's some funny moments I laughed a little bit

The flashlight underneath the Yeah Flashlight's a good joke It's got some good jokes. Poe in particular lands some solid kind of behavioral comedy. It went terribly. It went really bad. Pretty bad actually. I also actually enjoyed where they're like

he was a spice runner. He's like, you're a scavenger? You're a stormtrooper? We could do this all day. He's good at under pressure guy. He's good at that. He's good at a hero with a chip on his shoulder. Trying to hold back his anger. I personally would love

to give him a little kiss. I would too. I really would. I last night when I couldn't sleep started re-watching a little bit of Force Awakens. And God, he's that guy. The scene that I adore in Force Awakens is when Finn grabs him and is like,

can you play a TIE fighter? And he says, I can play anything. And I'm like. David just lifted the table. Yes, the table just lifted on its own. Oh, you can play anything. And Finn starts laughing and he's like, we're doing this. I'm like, we are doing this right here.

Take him off. David starts writing Finn spin both and fiction on the spot. Oh, it just rips his shirt. I Mean all right one thing we got to talk about When they have the final battle and you know he said they're a forced diet We didn't even talk about how their forced diet of course of course dad yeah So Palpatine, you know, he's granddaddy. Are we getting to this mooch? That's what I want to talk about.

You know, so she kills Palpatine. She's dead. Ben's alive. I do like this moment when all of the Jedi speak to her and they bring back fucking everyone and this sense of... Including Freddie Prinze Jr.

Ken and Jairus, we stand a legend. We do stand a legend. But also like all the voice actors who played the largely voiceless Jedi in the prequels. Yeah, Alice Secura and Ashoka Tano. But you also have Ewan McGregor, obviously, Frank Oz. You have Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, everyone. Hayden Christensen. And the sense of like this is how you make a movie

that's about the characters at this moment pay respect to the legacy of everything that's built upon that don't mind that at all it it's fine

I mean I like the voices part but then she's like and I have all the Jedi and I'm like yeah alright whatever I mean at this point I'm just looking

for the deus ex machina to kill the emperor because he's a deus ex machina so it's sort of like whatever what are you going to do? Like trip him up? Like you got to do something.

Well, that's what we were like, either anything would kill him or nothing will kill him. Yeah, right. Exactly. Well, I should point out, no one ever tells us how he comes back. My joke after the press screening was like, the answer to everything is the dark power of the Sith.

Like it's just like, that's the answer. Right, right. You know, how do you feed yourself? The dark power of the Sith. It's just the, you know, whatever. How'd you. You know, how do you feed yourself? The dark power of the city. It's just the, you know, whatever. How'd you build the spaceships? Do you think it was like a salting melon? Yes.

Yes, exactly. I just really like imagining that, like, big arm thing carrying him all around. I need to pee to the bathroom. And it's like. But after he's dead. Uh-huh. Daisy, Ray is also dead. Ben crawls out of the hole. She's real dead.

She's real dead. She's icy touch. Yes. Ben revives her with his you know sort of like transfers his life to her. He does the same move as she does. But it's all the way. They look at each other they give each other a big old kiss-a-roonie on the lips.

And they do it with the energy of, hey, we've obviously been holding back. This has been a long time in the making. It's not like an impulsive thing. It's like a finally the seal is broken. It's kind of like, yeah, we've been thinking about doing this. Let's do it. There's been that unspoken tension. And here's what I did at the press screening.

I jumped in my seats. The only reaction I had to this movie, I was like, whoa, I did not expect them to kiss. It's do it. There's been that unspoken tension. And here's what I did at the press screening. I jumped in my seats. The only reaction I had to this movie. I was like, whoa! I did not expect them to kiss. It was horny and you love kisses. I do love kisses. That's true. And then afterwards, I was like, I like the kiss. And people yelled at me. Film critics around this city were gathered

and they were like, what? The kiss is terrible. And I was like, oh, I liked it. I like the kiss. I don't. I was spoiled for the kiss, so I The kiss is terrible. And I was like, oh, I liked it. I like the kiss. I don't. I was spoiled for the kiss, so I knew it was coming. They have so much tension in The Last Jedi. I just don't. I hate Reylo with a burning.

I understand. I just, because it started. It's not a great romantic dynamic to perpetuate. No, I mean, he's taken her prisoner and tortured her and almost killed Finn. I mean, add in a talking candlestick and he cuts you. But they haven't been trapped in a castle together

so it doesn't make sense. I don't like the power dynamic. I don't like that he negs her. And it's like, you're a sad, miserable loser unless you're with me. I think it's gross. It's not a great vibe.

It's not a great vibe. But you're forgetting the time that she stabbed him and healed him and then he turned into a totally different person. I don't mind gross it's not a great vibe it's not a great vibe but you're forgetting the time that she stabbed him and healed him and then he turned into a totally different person so I don't mind that he's redeemed I just like I I'm also like noted I say this in our marriage to the mom episode where we are predicting

Star Wars coming soon guys yeah noted I like Finn and Rey and I yeah I like them too they have such cute energy I think the hug at the end was I thought it was nice but I just also felt like that was something that was set up that I thought would have been more satisfying to me.

Sure. I mean, and in Abrams' defense, you know, Ryan drops that ball in eight. In eight, Ryan goes all in on, there's this sort of tension

between the two of them. Yeah. And obviously, Ryan brings in Rose as more of a foil for Finn. Uh-huh. And then Abrams drops that ball here and, you know like

so that's all weird. Yeah. Yeah. I like They do some flirty flirting in this though. They do and he almost tells her that he loves her

and then they get sucked in the quicksand and then he says we'll talk about it later. I know and then they never talk about it again. I will say like I was like

okay so when does Finn gonna get to say that like he loves Rey and I think the closest thing they get is that big hug at the end. You can see it written all over John Boyega's face. But then Poe shows up and he's like, hey, guys, we hugging? After he went up to Zora and he was like, and she's like, yes.

That's the bisexual in the room. I'll see you later. I get it. Right. That's all good. All cute. But it just also felt like they're like, we're not going to go for any ship. She'll kiss Kylo, but he dies.

Right, exactly. Obviously, she kissed Kylo, and he was like, anyway, so where do you want to live? Like, Corellia? Like, you know, should we get an apartment? Like, you know, she kisses him. He fades into nothingness. Leia fades into nothingness. What an embarrassing kiss.

It's a nice kiss. Well, no, I just mean, like, that's really awkward. You kiss someone, and then they fall back dead. They fucking dissolve into air. But don't you feel like also, if as you said, his character arc essentially ends halfway through the movie and then he's just in stasis until he can show up and have a badass-like entrance. Yeah. Shouldn't he just work with Rey for the second half of the movie so that by the moment when they kiss,

they've actually spent enough time together with him in a reformed state? What this movie needs is for that turn to happen in the first act correct? And then Kylo to be on the Millennium Falcon and all of them to be like what the fuck yeah This guy sucks, and then by the end. He has to heroically die or whatever, but at least When they first escaped the destroyer yeah, and instead It's like you gotta have three Kylo battles where he's like join me and she's like not interested

and he's like come on no I don't want to and the thing is if you break a woman down enough it will work. As long as you

ask her to be your guest you have the talking candlestick make her dinner you know and then you yell at her for 30 to 40 minutes and then you're

nice one time and then you know. You have to get thrown into a ravine first and then crawl out. You have to get thrown into a ravine first. I'm sorry. You left out the most important part of that arc

which is when you step out onto your patio and you sing I am the beast! You love setting that up. I should rewatch

the remake just to remember that song. It's left my brain. It's so bad. I wish the listener could see your arms. I am the beast. I didn't ask to be a beast.

One more time. I am the beast. All right, Ang. So we're done, man. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I was right. I'm going to predict on the Married to the Mob episode. She has a fucking yellow lightsaber.

I knew she would. I knew Abrams would be like, how do I show that things have changed? I know. I'll pick a color no one's done in the main movies. Keepy. She goes to tattooing. Yeah. We're doing this.

The family lightsabers. This, excuse me, but nosy old lady comes by and is like, hey, what's your name? First and last. She's like, Rey. Rey Skywalker. Now, what I was saying. And she sees the ghosts of. What I was saying last night when we went out for drinks after the movie and you didn't come with us because you went home with Forking.

Yes, I did. Humble brag. You went home with Forking. Yes, I did. Humble brag. Is it feels like the journey that Rey has been on is realizing that she is her own person. Yep. And that the destination shouldn't be, oh, I've realized my family is who I choose it to be. So I'm going to now say they were my real parents, The Skywalkers. These two siblings.

Right? Rather than saying. What's your name? Ray. What's your last name? It's just Ray. Would kind of be a nice note for that character to end on. It's time for the rise of Skywalker.

Who cares? I gotta be honest. Terrible title. Terrible title. Doesn't make any fucking sense. It only works for that last scene. Which I don't. Yeah I gotta be honest. Terrible title. Terrible title. Doesn't make any fucking sense. It only works for that last scene, which I don't, yeah, I agree with Griffin. Should not have happened. Also, but like why bury, to me, burying the Sabers is like her way of like honoring and

like burying the Skywalker legacy. And then she's deciding to, well, because Leia even says like, don't be afraid of who you are. Yeah. And which is Palpatine. So Rey could be like, I'm Rey Palpatine. yeah and which is palpatine so ray could be like i'm ray palpatine i'm like reworking i guess it would be like my name is ray hitler what's your name last name please and she's like ray i mean it's a long story but it's it's palpatine is your

father the emperor grandfather look and she's like i'm taking out a gun you are a fascist i'm gonna kill you the idea is like you, you want stories about characters like coming to understanding, you know? Like ultimately. And it feels like if Rey's ultimate arc has been trying to come to terms with who am I? Why am I here? Where do I come from? Who are my people? At the end, it should be, I'm Rey.

That's all that matters. I'm Rey. I made my own life. I wrote my own story. I did things my own way. She got her own lightsaber. Again, the lightsaber mirrors just her being like, I'm my own person. It's a massive accomplishment.

So I understand maybe trying to take back the Palpatine name a little too much too fast. But it would make more sense for the character to be like, I'm Palpatine. I'm redefining what that is. Even if it wouldn't work for her to have that idea. For her to say Skywalker kind of means nothing. But she looked at the sky and they smile and they're like, which, like, to me, the only reason she says Skywalker is because then, because, like, you know,

Skywalker name is kind of, they're like 50-50, right? Like, yeah, Darth Vader and Kylo maybe not representing it well enough. Sure. And then so like maybe she's just like I want to make sure his name lives on. I just. Rise of Skywalker can also just mean. But that happens in return. And Kylo's the last of the bloodline.

Yeah. You know if he turns good in the first act of the movie and then it's about his redemption that is a Rise of Skywalker. That would be my pitch. Totally. I don't know. We're not here to rewrite it. We're not here to rewrite it. How you feeling, Benny?

I think we're done. Yeah. We did it. But box office. My agents have been calling me obsessively, which means I either just got a job, or I have now lost a job by podcasting about Rise of Skywalker for another hour. Either something really exciting has happened or I've missed a window of opportunity.

Oh, get out of here. Go call your agents. You can always go call your agents. No, the episode's about to end. I think everything's fine. Okay. They can't text you? I said, what's going on?

They said, we need to talk great Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker it's going to open to like 200 million I guess it's going to make the last Jedi money it's going to do very well but there is definitely not the sort of like super hype one might have expected

no end of series bounce it does seem like it's time to put it in the stable ben for a few years listen to our patreon mailbag episode to understand why i'm underlining that phrase yes um and yeah cats uh looks like cats is gonna bomb weird yeah maybe it'll have legs guys go see cats it's fun for four legs and a tail And if you're Rebel Wilson, a fursuit that you can zip off? What? Revealing clothes underneath?

No. Yes. Yes. Can I do a merchandise spotlight? There's a new product I'm very perplexed by. It's called the Scream Saber. Here's the idea. We all know the lightsaber.

We know the basic sound it makes when you swish it. We loved it. Right? Yes. They do what the Scream Saber is. And just make it a face. That's not what they sound like. Alright, what does the scream saber do?

The scream saber, which looks like a lightsaber except in like play school colors, okay? I always forget Griffin's background has been Diesel. Of course it is. He's looking something else. My lock screen is Michael Keaton. So it's like bright white with like multi-colored buttons, right? It looks like some

fucking Fisher-Price educational toy. But the idea is you can push the red button and record any saying you want. And then when you swing the lightsaber, rather than making the lightsaber noise, it says whatever you recorded on it. That's weird. Right? Lightsabers don't talk.

Yeah, that's weird. I love swinging around the old lightsaber, but I never think, man, I wish this was saying a sentence. Oi, oi! It just does that every time you swing it? Yeah! I don't know. Or it can say, I am the beast, or I don't know.

I don't understand. I am the beast! The merchandise has been really bad for this movie. I don't know if it's because it was so rushed that they didn't have development time. All right, well, listen. I'd just like to say, and I might have already said this, I predicted it many years ago with my character, my original character called Darth Stupid Idiot.

Pretty much nailed it. He was a brat brat and he was mad about being wet. He was a big guy. He was a grumpy. He was big and he was grumpy and it all came true. And so I just want to again pat myself on the back for that prediction. I mean, congratulations. Thank you so much.

And guys, stay tuned for Congratulations My Fashion Brand. Yes, of course guys stay tuned for congratulations my fashion brand yes of course stay tuned for our 2020 content guys

it's the last episode of the year but our Patreon has content if you want to check that out now here's the thing I want to say

right now on the schedule I'm Griffin Nooms and I want to say my name's Griffin Nooms and I want to say right now on our schedule for next week we're dark and then for the first episode of 2020 it's a sith week keep going it's a sith

week for the first episode of 2020 we have currently on the schedule the spies in disguise now i have heard from people who have seen spies in disguise that it is a lot less weird than we are hoping it will be. Yeah. Yeah. It might not be worth doing an episode on. Okay. Will we see the movie? A hundred percent.

But I kind of want to say right now, I think we should play it by ear and our next episode will be announced on Twitter and it will either be Spies in Disguise or Married to the Mob with Ant Fraguto, a good episode that we already have saved up. Sure, fair enough. I think there's no reason to do the Spies in Disguise episode if, in fact, the movie fails to live up to the promise of the trailer. Okay, fine. Okay? Yeah, but what about Cats?

Oh, damn. Here's my issue. Your issue is that there's a chance There is a chance. about Tom Hooper miniseries. There's my issue. Your issue is that there's a chance. There is a chance. About Tom Hooper miniseries. There's a chance. It's up to you, freaks, to be clear. There's a chance.

Yeah, we're saying there's a chance. There is. He might, look, it seems like it might be hard to avoid putting him in the Marsh Madness bracket. And I wouldn't want to blow our load on cats now. Because if we're doing... You didn't like that?

You weren't into that? I'm leaving. I'm sorry, Ange. I don't think we should ejaculate over cats just yet. I already did, my friend. Don't quit. There's a time for jizzing on cats and it's later. Leave her be.

Why are we talking about the music from Star Wars okay go ahead oh great joke there is at least one jizz whaler in this movie that's what they're called it never stops being funny whaler is the thing that always gets me

it does always get me I mean this is the end of the episode right we're not going to get better than that. Yes, yeah. We got to end this. Hey, folks. Thank you for another great year. It was good.

It was a good year. We had a good time. Good year. It's been a good year, much like the Ridley Scott movie. And yeah, thank you guys for listening. Yeah, thank you, Ash. yeah thank you Ash thank you Ben thank you David

I'm showing my appreciation for the people who mean most to me in this room and thanks to the listeners we're excited to finish up Demi we're excited for our next two miniseries and hey if you're still finish up Demi. We're excited for our next two miniseries.

And hey, if you're still jonesing for us to talk about Star Wars more and who wouldn't be after this episode, why don't you just slip behind that paywall where you've got three months of Star Wars episodes coming for you. Commentary with...

Chris Weitz! That's the next one up, right? Rogue One? No, no. Solo is the first and then Chris Weitz. Yeah, we got Chris Weitz! That's the next one up, right? Rogue One? No, no. Solo is the first and then Chris Weitz. Yeah, we got Chris Weitz for Solo. No, we didn't. But we have Chris Weitz, credited screenwriter on Rogue One, sat down with us and talked about Rogue One, which is pretty nuts. And then there's also Solo

where we're like, this is boring. But David has a really good run of coaxium bits. I do. I do have a lot of coaxium bits. Gotta keep it cold. Gotta keep that shit cold. Gotta keep that shit cold. David also says a phrase that's been banging around my head for the last six weeks since he said it.

I'm a slut for Woody. I am a slut for Woody. I really am. He's money in the bank. Anyway, so if that's not worth $5, what is? I'm gonna go pee. All right. Okay.

Smell you later. David, thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Thanks to Andrew Goodall for our social media. That's me. Joe Bone and Pat Reynolds for artwork. Yay. Lane McGarney for our theme song.

Happy New Year. Yay. Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit. Tune in next week for either Spice or Disguise.

Not next week. Tune in next week for nothing and then tune in the following week for either Spice or Disguise or more likely Married to the Mob

Back to Back Ang. You're welcome. And as always. you're welcome and as always the little dude Babu I just want to sit in this for a second just want to take one last look at your friend

I I want to take one last look at my friends and I just want to reflect on how weird it is that we've come full circle on Star Wars now. Yeah. Bye!