Doughboys - Rogueboys: Rogue One with Drew McWeeny

Episode Date: December 23, 2016

Drew McWeeny from '80s All Over, HitFix, and Ain't it Cool News joins Mitch & Wiger to discuss Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.Want more Doughboys? Check out our Patreon!: https://patreon.com/doughboysSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The following episode of Doughboys includes major spoilers for Rogue One, a Star Wars story. If you haven't seen the movie yet, maybe don't listen. Welcome to Rogue Boys, a special Rogue One edition of Doughboys. I'm Nick Weigar alongside the Spoonman Mike Mitchell and we're here with our guest from HitFix and In It Cool News, Drew McQueenie, to discuss Rogue One, a Star Wars story. That's the correct subtitle, am I right? Yep.

Rogue One, a Star Wars story, not tale, story. Yep. And that is the first one branded that way. The first one branded that way. Guys, let's jump right into it. Is Bayes Malbus the new Unkar Plut? Why is this like a weird, like it seems like you're really coming at us or something? This is my opportunity to do Face the Nation.

It's interesting. I think the thing that this movie gets right about aliens that the Force Awakens did not yet is I want to know more about several of the things I saw in this film. Right. There's little aliens, there's an angry baby alien that looks like a 50-year-old angry baby. I love it. Is this a sniper guy?

That dude, there's a sniper guy later who's like a big, crazy brown alien guy. I love those. It's the first time in a long time I've seen a Star Wars alien where I didn't know the whole story ahead of time and I haven't seen an action figure yet, but I kind of like that alien. I did check. Yes. That was one of the moments where I was like, I just had a sigh of relief and was like,

oh, it's so nice to see an actual interesting alien that lives in this world and had just enough screen time that I was like, oh, perfect. He was great. Anyways, I walked out of the film, Nick. I told you this. I walked out and I said that in my head I was like, I loved it. Yeah. I loved it.

Listen, it has its issues for sure, but I had a lot of fun with the movie and that was very important to me. I enjoy it, especially that last hour I really liked. And you're a very outspoken Force Awakens critic. I'm a Force Awakens critic for sure. Going into the movie, you were kind of like, it's going to be bad, isn't it? Like that was kind of your mentality. I know.

You went in with an open mind, but you had low expectations. I went in with an open mind, but I was scared for sure. How do you stand on Force Awakens, because we got to find that out about you. I think to our listeners, to people who have ever, I think every episode we've mentioned that I don't like it and Weigar does like it, even though at one point you did say you were going to kill JJ. I want to bring that up again. I didn't like the first viewing of the Force Awakens.

I had a negative reaction, but I saw it again. They had a great time. So negative that you wanted to kill JJ. All right. That was hyperbole, obviously. This is Mitch's only judge of character for an individual, whether or not they like Force Awakens. That is not true.

I know plenty of people who like it. I'll say this. I think they each had different jobs. I think there was a lot more weight placed on Force Awakens having to work, having to just work, not be good, not be great, not be amazing, just work. It just couldn't stink. That was the bar that was set for Force Awakens in order to get Star Wars going again. Rogue One was the weird experiment, and I think because they left them a little bit more

to do their own thing, that's why it doesn't feel like they were crushed by expectation. They just got to make their weird little Star Wars movie, and I think it works better that way. Yeah. Yes. I agree. It works much better to me. I mean, we've already discussed this a lot.

You and I, Weiger, the movie, I'm saying, like Rogue One. I feel like Force Awakens just did so much stuff that wasn't Star Wars that kind of spit in the face of Star Wars. That's a little much. Come on. But like, spit in the face of Star Wars? But I mean, Han Solo's death, of course it was going to happen, there's no doubt about it.

But it just felt like it was insulting to the universe, to me at least. There was just a lot of things that I was like, why is this happening? And also, we watched the commentary, and I found out in the commentary that it is all reshoots. It's a crazy mash-up of a movie, and it makes sense that it doesn't work. They reshot a lot of it just like at Bad Robot, at the production of the David Abrams production. They talked about it so much, how they went up onto the roof and reshot it, and I'm like,

oh, no wonder why this movie feels so, it feels like everything clunked together or something. Well, Rogue One was a movie that was heavily reshot. Yes. Right. And what's interesting is, if you go now and you look at the trailers for Rogue One, all three of the theatrical trailers are basically built a footage that's not in the theatrical film.

The TIE Fighter rising up on the end of the catwalk is one of the great images. Her line in the first trailer about, this is a rebellion, right? I rebel. That's not in there now. That's not in the movie, which I was very surprised by. That's the line. One of the best details is one of the trailers, there's a scene where clearly they got out of the building with the Death Star tapes, because you can see a whole bunch of footage

of her with the Death Star tapes in her hands running down the beach with everybody else, including the robot who didn't die inside. Wow. There's a couple of shots in that first trailer where if you stop it and you look, Alan Tujik is in the background in a motion control capture, the dotted pajama thing. Yeah. He's back there doing that. So you see him, so clearly he was supposed to be in that beach sequence too.

Oh, crazy. Interesting. I wonder how it all went down. I mean, so obviously if you're listening to this, we're spoiling the movie. Everyone dies. Well, there will have been at this time at the top of this. Yeah. They probably all, everyone who listens to it has probably seen it.

And if not, then they just found out some stuff. Every person, every single person dies, which is a choice that I liked. But quickly, I want to just take a little side, a little detour here while you're said, that's the line. And I like that saying, and I was just trying to think of other moments where that's the line. And in my head, I'm like, how do you like them apples? I'm like, that's the line.

Yeah. And when you're watching a movie, what are some others? That's the line. We're going to need a bigger boat, I think. We're going to need a bigger boat. Yeah. That's a great one. You know, make them an offering, can't refuse.

These are ones also too, we're like misremembering slightly, because that's always the case with these quotable lines, is that the one that's quoted is not what's actually literally word for word in the movie. We're going to need a bigger boat, is a... I don't know if that's exact, that's like word for word what the line is. It's like the whole thing of like, to bring it back to Star Wars, Luke, I am your father is not the line. It's no, I am your father.

That's the line. But it's been turned into Luke, I am your father, because there's a context. Because I remember the context. Right, right. Luke, I am your father. Yeah. I think you can never predict what the lines are going to be. They just have to be with time.

People do like carry them around and use them a lot. You can't make a... You can see directors try to make that catchphrase happen. It's really hard to do it. I feel like it never works if you're really trying, you're sweatily trying to make it... If you're trying to make that's the line, you're not going to make that's the line. For me, the line in Rogue One is the robot's line. After she shoots the Imperial robot and he goes down and it rack focuses them in the

back and he says, did you know that wasn't me? That's the best joke in the film, I think. Right. It's a character joke. He is very funny. Actually, no, I will have one argument with you. I thought his best joke was after... But these two are right, neck and neck, but the one where it's like, I'm going to come

with you, and I can't even remember the line, so you obviously win. But it's like, whatever that character's name told me I had to. You know that signature line, whatever that character's name, when he's like, all right, I guess we got to take care of some shit or whatever. This is where we can get into the criticisms of this movie, because I actually liked K2SO despite my... I mean, he's very similar to C-3PO in a lot of ways, and he's just a little bit... With the sassiness meter turned up like a few notches.

I think he's pretty different from C-3PO. He's not... The odd thing... The odd thing... I wish they left that as C-3PO's gimmick. You're right. The odd thing was to C-3PO, to akin to what C-3PO does, but I think he's kind of fearless. C-3PO is such a coward.

And... Sorry, help me out with the call sign against R2. And he's very bad at improv. K2SO. Can you throw it to C-3PO? Hey, C-3PO, you're a god. These things worship you. Tell them the story of Star Wars.

C-3PO can run with the improv. Right. Yeah, K2SO is really bad at it. Yeah, exactly. He's very literal. I'm taking them to prison. The prisoners that... He stops like four times in the movie and has no idea what to do.

I was going to say, a little too... I was going to say, inacronistic, but I guess that's not even the right thing to say. It just... It didn't feel like of the Star Wars world to me when he was like, I'm going to take them to the prison. I was like, that seems like... This seems like a joke from the office or something. It seems a little too modern world to me.

That's kind of a kind of a po-dammer in confronting Kylo Ren early on in Force Awakens when he's like, so what happens now? You talk, I talk. It's kind of like, oh, that feels a little out of style. By the way, one of the worst... You're setting up that this is like a dangerous character, this Kylo Ren, and then the first moment is like, this jokey, weird, like you're like, lost. It's tonally a little off.

It's so tonally. It's completely off. That's awful. It's a bad movie. Anyways... But you know, there's another moment like that in Rogue One, which is Darth Vader, I think the only quip or pun he ever really made. It feels a little out of character.

His first Darth Vader scene, I liked seeing him in the tank, limbless, and hooked up to a, you know, like... And that was... That was fire design. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Castle was supposed to be the Empire Strikes Back, the lava castle that we see. So it's kind of neat as a longtime Star Wars nerd to suddenly they cut to that. I had no idea that was in the film, and it's like, holy shit, that's that painting.

That's the design, finally. Is that supposed to be Mustafar? I think that's where it is. It's his volcano prison. Yeah, you're seeing a lot of lava flows, so I assumed it was Mustafar, although it didn't have a little lower... That was another thing. I don't want to go on two enemy tanges before I get back to my original point, but the

lower thirds, I was like so thrown off by, like, there's a Chiron that says what the planet is, just on text on screen. That's such a break in the conventions of Star Wars, the fact that we would see that. Yeah, many. But anyway, what I was going to say is that Darth Vader has that pun there where he's... Choke on your ambitions. Choke on your ambitions. I was like, what is...

I don't want you to choke on your ambitions. So, this is what I argue about that line. I agree, it is one of the awful moments in Rogue One, but I'm like, in my mind, if he delivered that line, like, flatly, and he wasn't holding his glove the way he was, if he kind of just said it as a pun, just kind of flat, I feel like it would have worked, but there's so much of like, I wouldn't want you to choke on your ambitions. It's like, you don't have to hit it home. We get it.

Like, we get the pun. And I just felt like that reading was maybe a little off. I mean, that is one of many things that are contrary. That's the temptation with the line like that, especially when you're bringing Darth Vader back, because it's Darth Vader. It's like one of the biggest screen icons of all time. And the temptation is to make the Fonzie entrance, where Henry Winkler would stand for like five minutes while the audience went, berserk.

Just because it was Fonzie, like, he didn't do anything, or like, seasons three and four of Seinfeld, where they threw that in for some reason, where they'd clap when Kramer would enter. I love that. I just feel like he takes his pause here, and he's like, he's really making an entrance in this movie, as Shadow first, and then the door. And he's got that, that place is art-designed to make the most impressive entrance possible for your guests.

Yes. Yeah. I don't know if there was like moments there where I'm like, maybe I didn't like the actor who was actually portraying him in the suit, or I don't know if it was anyone different or what. I mean, it must be something. Yeah. It's a totally new guy.

Dave Prowse is sold at this point. Yeah. I mean, that's the sad thing with like, Chewbacca, Peter, is it Peter Mayhew? Yeah. And like, he can barely stand, and that's the sad thing of these movies getting older, and these guys coming back for it. And you have to give him a lot of credit for why we like Chewy at all. Oh, yeah.

Definitely. Like, his, the physical work in that is so above reproach. For sure. And for sure. Make he love him. Also, a big difference between Force Awakens and his, I mean, like, you can tell. You can tell. Yeah.

I could tell. And I'm sure that a lot of other people sadly can tell, too. But I felt like with maybe, maybe, maybe the actor who was portraying him in the suit was a little often, the suit kind of looked like a little wonky. There's stuff about the movie that I don't like. But Ben Mendelssohn in that scene is great. Yes. Playing the choke.

Yes. Playing the force choke. His moment where he catches and realizes he can't breathe and he can't move. He's great. Like, Mendelssohn kills it. And he's, I thought in the whole movie, he is very, very good because he has a lot of stuff he's playing off of that, whether it's Tarkin or whether it's Vader, he's doing 95% of the work in that scene.

Yes. Mendelssohn is great in that movie. He's superb. I like that my thing with this movie over Force Awakens, even though we shouldn't be comparing them, but whatever, I'm going to because that's what I'm going to do. I think they both are indicative of what Disney has planned. I think it's very fair to take those two movies as their own Star Wars. Yeah.

So this is it. This is what it is now. This is where we're going to get in the future. Yeah. They're the two Star Wars films that have come out in the past two years after a decade-long absence. I think it's fair to compare them. And I guess when you put it in that way, it's like it is depressing to me that Star Wars

is kind of like a marvel. Like it is this thing now. And the magic of it does seem to be a little bit gone. And I feel like this movie does feel so much more like Star Wars to me. It just had that Star Wars feeling, which is a weird way to criticize the movie. The Force Awakens didn't have that feeling for me, but Rogue One did. And I think that some of it is, I thought the acting was more engaging. I don't know if it was necessarily great acting, but there were some people like Mendelssohn

is amazing. I think Mendelssohn's great. I like Felicity Jones. Felicity Jones is good too, yeah. And speaking of the acting, and this was something Drew touched on a second, I want to step back to what he brought up in terms of one of the actors Mendelssohn was acting against was Grand Moff Tarkin, a computer-generated Grand Moff Tarkin. So this is the big one.

When Drew and I were messaging about it. I was careful. And he was like, you're going to either love it or you're going to hate it. And then I came back and I said, I loved it. And then you said to me, Tarkin, Tarkin, because Tarkin's the dividing line for a lot of people now. And I'm fascinated by it. I think as a choice to be able to tie this directly to New Hope, to have it feel like

New Hope is taking place five feet over there, it's kind of mind-boggling. It's a little crazy. And a second scene is great. The second Tarkin scene, he's almost perfect. The first one, I think your brain is so busy trying to get out of your head because you know you're not, that what you're seeing is impossible, but it's either dark sorcery or an effect that you just won't accept. Light and skin is always going to be the hardest thing.

Yeah, that's the thing. He's in these fully lit scenes. And we talked about this a little beforehand, but they made the strong choice of we're going to take this guy and we're going to see all of his body and we're going to see him from the front and we're going to see him moving in fully lit scenes because we want to demonstrate that we have this technology. It's kind of, in a way, I made a point akin to this on Twitter, but it's kind of like in a movie about the Death Star, which their big thing is they're demonstrating the awesome

power of this battle station. There's kind of the meta-narrative of like we're demonstrating the awesome power of our CG wizardry where we can bring an actor back from the grave or in the case of Princess Lay at the end, bring her, you know, like show someone who is now age and short in a much younger state. And wait, that wasn't, that was not Carrie Fisher? No, that was not the, Mitch, the little scamp. She worked on that for six months with the trainer.

She really, she really pulled it together. It was amazing. But the thing is like, like for me, it was... Well, we should point out that, that, it's a very, it is kind of also, it is fucked up in a way. It's fucked, I do think it's fucked up because it's like, okay, I don't know what Peter Cushing's estate got from this. I assume they were compensated in some ways.

They were, they were, they were thanked and there was a definite effort to talk to them. Yeah. And then on the Carrie Fisher, it's very, like I'm like, that is, it is kind of, it is... It's weird to be... Well, because also there's... ...DH digitally. And then like, there was like some of that in... Man, man.

...In Forza Awakens and stuff, as apparently they were like, they digitally made her and Harrison Ford look a little bit younger and like, and I heard that she, like, she didn't love that and stuff like, there was like, there was a lot of things that I've heard. But that's a little different, like tweaking and tweaking and someone's image on screen when they're being compensated as an actor for their performance and tweaking their image on screen, you know, like it's kind of along the same lines of using takes that someone, the actor may prefer less than the ones that a director prefers, you know what I mean? It's kind of like, it's on the same, it's in the same area.

It's pretty different when you're generating an image from scratch based on someone's likeness and kind of you're using... There's levels of ghoulish. Yeah, yeah. There's, we shot his whole performance and we're going to release the film anyway. Mm-hmm. Okay, that's a little ghoulish. There's, we're going to do a one scene with him with his twin brother and some CGI and

that's a little more ghoulish and then there's, he's been dead for 24 years and he has a co-starring role. Yes. Yeah, it's really weird. It's strange. Hall Walker stuff was handled, I feel like that, also you can tell, but like, it just, it felt a little bit better. I feel like you shouldn't have, like, I agreed with you or you should have seen less of them,

we maybe should have seen them in the dark. I think put them in a hologram and then just sort of hide it, you know, like, like we see, they see hologram imagery as such a big part of Star Wars, it's a big convention of the universe, like see him through that computer generated, a lot of people would have been completely tricked and it wouldn't have taken me out of the movie as much. As such, seeing it, like, I, for me, I found it, I found that plus Leia to be the worst parts of the movie, like those are two hurdles I almost couldn't get over. As much as I enjoyed the film, I was just like, this is so weird that they're doing

it and also it just sits in, like, it's an impressive technical effect, it'd be great on a demo reel, but within the context of a feature film with that level of production value and that level of budget, it just, it stands out so much for the human actors that we're seeing. It looks a little video game world. And we talked about this a little bit of, they should have gotten an actor to play Cushing and they just should have just put his face on the actor's face, because... Or just recast the role.

Or recast the role. Or recast the role. That's what they should have done first. Yeah, I think there was a guy, they cast in Sif and they did make up to him and then they decided it was too weird. Interesting. Yeah, because it's, the video game body is the thing that, like, his movements below his head are the thing that really kind of threw me off.

Well, and the Mon Mothmo from this was in Revenge of the Sif and then they cut her. Like, they found her for that movie and they went, well, she's perfect, she looks exactly like her, so we'll just cast her. I think that's really, that's the magic trick, is she looks so good that you can, without doing any technical anything, just cast her in the movie and know that you'll buy it when you see her in Jedi. And don't you think, like, an effective last shot would have been just, like, we didn't have to have a close-up of Princess Leia, but she could have been down the hallway or

it could have been her back or something like that. That shot is so balls out in terms of them going for it that I have to applaud the audacity of, we're going to try this, because whether or not they nailed it, it's a crazy, crazy big choice to make your last shot the single most recognizable thing you'll see in the movie. Yes. And they, yeah, as far as how well they pull that off, I think people will have their reactions to it.

Some people think she looks good. I give them credit for reliving balls with this film and trying some things that I don't think Lucas ever would have tried, because it's not, this is somebody who played Star Wars figures growing up getting to play with Star Wars figures, but on this level. And I think you feel that in this movie. There's a real genuine sort of tension that they love Star Wars and they want to get it right. Yeah.

Right. And I felt that way more about this movie than I felt with Force Awakens. But some people are saying that Carrie Fisher looks like Cross-Eye, like what the digital effect at the end looks like strange. And so people do have issues with it. I think I have issues with it. I think it just goes down to what Drew was saying earlier, just like the lighting and the skin.

It just doesn't, she doesn't quite sit in there. It's the Uncanny Valley effect. I know that that's digital and also too, in the meta sense, like I know that that's not actually Carrie Fisher. That's a digital rendering of what she looked like 30 years ago. And it's very, it's disorienting. And it kind of really, for something that puts so much effort into this amazing visual wizardry and has so much imagination into the design, it really does pull me out of

it. Especially like at the very end, I'm just like, like a few minutes before we saw an awesome Darth Vader scene that was maybe probably one of the highlights of the film for me. Him just like fucking up all those rebel troopers on that ship. And then, you know, leading from that into, I was like, oh, okay, that's some fun sort of fan service tying into this existing character. And then we see this kind of like the very bad version of it at the very opposite end.

And that's at the very end of the movie. It was just a very, very strange to me. But a choice. Audacity is what Drew said, and I think that's a good way to put it. Quick question, Drew. Which level, you said level of ghoulishness. What level would you put this podcast? What level of ghoulishness is that?

Very high. Very, very high. We're both dead inside, so I think it's a big part of it. My favorite thing about what the film does is, for years, looking at Star Wars and looking at how easy it is to destroy the Death Star, it's almost a joke that they would leave something in the center that you could just knock out with your elbow and the whole thing would blow up. And to have them take this story flaw and re-engineer it into an act of conscience by

somebody who realized he built a planet-sized gun, I think makes it very interesting suddenly. And it's a lovely piece of story engineering that it's, okay, well, this is where we're going to end. How can we make it interesting on this side? And I thought that was one where they really pulled that off. Yes. Like, that's one of the few times I've ever seen a prequel actually add something to the story that made me like the story in a different way or more.

Yeah, that's fair. I would agree with that. And now, like, you can always be like, oh, that's why that existed when you're watching the original. Here's the weird thing, though, is that I was watching episode two last night, and I'm sorry. And you know what? We talk about it on here.

I'm not a prequel defender, but I don't think they're as bad as people make them out to be. And I think they're fine pulp sci-fi that if you don't go into it with any weight of expectation, they're full of amazing things. They're full of amazing things. If you go in as a Star Wars fan and you carry all this shit in with you, they just all have so much baggage. And it's almost unavoidable.

I think people are coming back around on them a lot, though, because I do think a lot of people were not pleased with Force Awakens. I feel like there's been kind of like, hey, maybe we did love this guy, Lucas. And I appreciate Lucas, like you were saying. It's that sort of thing of like... It was his. It's his. He's trying this thing.

And I respect that, no matter what. Same as you will, but the prequels were all him, like that. And as much as I love the original trilogy, I really like the fact that he went and made all three himself and directed them himself, and they were his films because they've been in him for so long. Yeah. Yes. I don't think anybody else should have made them.

No, no way. And they actually are not bad. They're not bad. They're flawed. I would say that they are a victim of him pushing the boundaries and it being a very early kind of CG, and the effects don't hold up, and they do look, and in moments they don't look great because he pushed everything. Because he was pushing it.

Yes. Everything, as far as it can be done. Also, he was like, I feel like a little rusty as a filmmaker. I mean, he had made a film in 16 years. Yes. Yeah. He hadn't made a film in a very, very long time when he made episode one, then he made three in a row, and he had basically full creative control and was in a position where

no one was going to say anything but, yes, Mr. Lucas, just surrounded by enablers. And that's kind of like a tough position to be in. I think part of why people are coming back around on the prequels and there's a little less skepticism than there was at one point, part of it is we're a little bit removed from that initial disappointment of seeing episode one and it just not living up to your unreasonable expectations for it. But also, I think now we've got... Which I did like when I saw episode one, the first time I saw it.

I liked it. I was 15 or something. Yeah. I saw it a couple more times and then sort of came around to my very negative opinion now I've sort of rebounded back some more towards the middle. But now where there are eight Star Wars films out, in two years there are going to be ten. And I feel like just like the volume of Star Wars content that is out there now has kind of like, you know, just shrunk their presence within your mind and you've just sort of can

sort of accept it like a lesser Marvel movie. I'll say this. I don't think there's any more. Sure. And watching how, because my kids grew up, I was very careful how I showed them Star Wars. I waited until we were both old enough to see it together because I have two kids and they're three years apart.

And then when I showed them, I showed it episode four, episode five. Episode five ends with Luke, I'm your father. And then we went back to one, two, and three as a flashback. And then it ends with, oh shit, he is his father. Yeah. And then we did episode six as the end of everything. That's fun. And I think it's really well when you do it like that to introduce somebody to the story.

Like Lucas, he tried, he really tried to fill in that backstory and explain everything. How well he does that is, you know, I think it's hit and miss, but it's, I like that as a piece. And I think that story's over. I think what Star Wars is now, I watched them and I watched the way they digest Clone Wars and Rebels on TV and the movies are all part of it and the books and the comics, it's, they love it and they get to live in it all the time right now. So, for little kids, if I had been seven when all of this was going on, I think I would

have lost my mind. Yeah. We got one every three years and I lost my mind. Yeah. And I will also defend the Clone Wars and stuff. Like I've watched some of those and I'm like, yeah, they're solid stuff. I agree with that. Go ahead, Weger.

Sorry. I was just going to say, Drew, and when your kids are our age, I think Star Wars is going to be viewed kind of how we think of something like James Bond, where there's like so many of them that it's kind of like, oh, yeah, that one was good. Oh, yeah. And then they had this batch. That one was kind of rough. Like, oh, but that one's awesome.

You know, that's seven years where you didn't go see one in the theater. Right. Right. It's really weird. And like you were not again after that. Yeah. There's going to be a George Lazenby Han Solo period that everyone wants to forget. Tim Dalton period too.

Right. And tell you what, it'll be underrated. Yeah. You know, somebody today said, so would you now show your kids the movies starting with Rogue One? And I'm like, no, because that's not the first. It's not. Yeah.

It's like the way it plays into New Hope. That's not where it was made. That's not its place. Like it is a standalone thing. Yeah. And I think it works really well as that. And I'm now really curious to see where they go with the rest of these things, because the only other one that announced is the Han Solo.

Which is big. That's tough. Which is Miller Lord. And Miller Lord have a reputation for taking ideas that shouldn't work, movies that should be terrible, and making really good films that you end up really enjoying. Yeah. The Lego movie should never have worked. It shouldn't have been good.

Yeah. And it's a fun movie. Yeah. It's really smart. So I think that's exciting. And the fact that it's Lawrence Kasdan writing with his son, and they're writing a buddy caper movie with Lando and Han. Okay.

I'll give that a try. That sounds cool. It's fun. It's fun. I think it's going to be fun. And I think this is kind of like, this is kind of the line in the sand of, it's going to be fun, but is it going to be a great film? Who knows?

Yeah. That's the real question. I don't know yet. Is it going to be good or not? And I don't know how I feel. I mean, I don't think Force Awakens is fun or a great film. That's my opinion on it. I think the Han Solo movie is going to be fun, which is exciting.

I hope that it's very good. And fun is what I would hope for from it. Yes. And I don't demand much more than that, because I don't really care about backstory. I don't need to know where Han Solo got everything. Yes. I don't need to know why he wears a red stripe or any of that. I don't care.

I hope we don't get too much of that. Yeah. That's some of the stuff in The Hobbit where they had just so many origin moments where I was just like, I just don't care about this. I don't care how the Frodo sword got its name or whatever. But we should be clear that we are both fans of The Hobbit films. I do like The Hobbit films. They just had a little too much of that prequel-ly stuff within it.

But I was going to quickly say before, because we're getting close to the end of this fun little bonus episode. Thanks for having me here for this, too. Of course. Movie bonus. That's great. You're the best guy to have here for it. And this is a little Christmas tree, right?

We should put this out on Christmas morning. Right? Right, Enjuni? Everyone in the booth is giving a thumbs down. I don't know how close to Christmas. Yeah. It's a little Christmas tree. But I just want to hear from you guys.

Let's just go through pros and cons, because I feel like that will be a great way to do it. But before we do that, I just want to say that in episode two, they're on Geonosis. And one of the Geonosis bugs, I don't know their name, is like, he holds up a hologram of the Death Star. And they're like, they can't find out about this. And I'm like, wait a minute. How nerdy an answer do you want to that question?

I would love the nerdiest answer to that question. Okay, the nerdiest answer to that question is that in Catalyst, a Rogue One novel by James Lucano that's out right now, Orson Krennic, the Ben Mendelsohn character, actually goes to the prison where Poggle the Lesser, the Geonosian president, is there and puts him to work with his race saying, you guys need to build stuff. That's what your race does. So here's what you're going to build. And they're building pieces of what will be the Death Star.

And in exchange, he gets from him the file for the weapon. Man, it's so much work. It's in that book, if you give a shit. And if you don't, it never ever matters. To me, that I'm a nerd and I just doubted myself. Now Poggle the Lesser's people, I'm like, oh no, I feel bad for all those bugs that they were just kind of fucking up. They're out there still.

They're working. Yeah, that's crazy. See, I like hearing that shit. I like hearing that the, what is it called, the Gammerian Guard, that he... Well, the story group, now, the Lucasfilm guys, that's what they're going to do. That's the whole point of the Disney deal, is that everything eventually will all connect. And then if you really give a shit, you can go find out. They got to figure out a way to justify all these things, which was just like a little

fan service throw-in that Lucas sort of had of like, oh, we'll just have a little hologram of the Death Star, but then it affects so much story-wise that they've got to put all this work into retroactively justifying it. We've talked about it on the podcast before, that the, I don't know if I'm saying it right, the Gammerian Guard, right? Gammerian. Gammerian, thank you. I see I'm showing how.

The Green Pig Men. I'm really outing myself as an honor. But I am. The Green Pig Man Guard, the one that gets eaten by the Rancor lives, and I've talked about this on this podcast, and I love the fact that that Pig Guard lives and goes and has more adventures somehow. It's an inspiration for you. You motherfucker.

I'll kill you. Let's do some breakdowns of pros and cons. Let's do some pros and cons and end with a little bit of a review. Let's do it. Let's give it a review on the score in the order of one to four quarter portions. Oh, my God. All right, Drew, so we'll start with you, pros and cons, and quarter portion score. Pros and cons, I think, pro, it's an actual war movie.

It's structured like men on the mission war movies from like the 60s and the 50s, and I like that, and I think it takes that seriously, and it also takes war seriously in that these characters pay a price, which I find really heroic in an age where every other movie is the chosen one who will always live at the end. So I think that's a really strong thing. I also think a pro from the film is that it expands the universe in a way that suggests that other people will get to play even more. Khan, I do think it leans a little heavily on other stuff.

There's about three too many elbow to the ribs jokes in the movie where it's like, remember him? Yes, we do. Yeah. Right. As far as the big pros and cons, overall, really, really strong, fun Star Wars movie. Three quarter portions. Three quarter portions.

Great score. I'll go now. I'll let you close it out, Mitch. Four possible four. Out of a four quarter portion. You go from one full portion down to one quarter portion. Okay, cool. Here's what I'll say, pros, I think it's just got great action and just expands the universe

in a cool way. Earlier of the just cool aliens to see, K2SO, the cool droid, like an interesting take on a droid that we haven't seen yet, an imperial droid that's reprogrammed. That's interesting. He's got some great dialogue. I love the choice to just fucking kill everybody at the end. It's so grim. I was just, until it finally happened, until the leads are just finally killed in a giant

nuclear blast while they're hugging on the beach, I couldn't believe that it was actually going to happen. It's like if Toy Story 3 really went for it. It's really fucking crazy and a big budget film for that. They're so often so safe and so focus tested for that to actually happen. I was blown away by Khan. For me, the CG actors, just Tarkin and Leia, they pulled me out of it so much and it was just so distracting.

I think it's going to age so horribly. I compared it to The Rock as the Scorpion King and the Mummy 2. That looks so bad by modern standards. I remember that scene. It looks like a doll. It looks like shit. I just feel like in like 2026, 2027, like 10 years from now, we'll both be long dead. We're more three, I would have ended, I guess, at that point.

But our surviving relatives will re-watch the one. The mutant Weigart Mitchell family. And they'll see that they're just like, oh, this hasn't aged well at all. That said, I think it's a great rip-roaring adventure. I love the new planets and worlds that we see. I had a great time watching it. I want to watch it again, three and a half quarter portion. Wow.

That's a good school. Go ahead, Mitch. All right. Pros for me, I did love that everyone died as well. I did not think that going... I thought that a couple of people, because people were like, it's dark, and I was like, okay, a couple of people are going to die. Then K2SO died and it actually worked on me.

I was mad at myself that I was in the movie theater and I was like getting a little choked up that K2SO had sacrificed himself. My screening was good because I've seen it twice already. People at the second screening did not like K2SO, I could tell. He is kind of... He can be annoying. I did think he was funny, but in moments, I thought he was funny. He worked for me for whatever reason.

When he goes down, I was like, oh, that's sad. I was like, that's how it's sad. Bode, the actor from the night of who's a good actor. Riz Ahmed. Yeah, he's great. When he goes down, when his character gets killed, I was like, oh, wow, they're really going for it here. I like that his death is even pointless, that he's not in a big heroic moment, which if

everybody got their big heroic payoff, that's kind of fake too. I like that it's really random what happens to him and it's an oh shit moment, not a big death. Yes, I love that. That's great. I liked Darth Vader at the end when he was messing stuff up, I thought that was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it.

The final hour, that final battle of everything is a lot of fun. Mendelssohn is great. I think that I'm just hitting things that you guys have already said. The things I didn't like, the score I thought was just kind of unmemorable. Which is almost by default, because he had three and a half, four weeks to do it, because they replaced somebody. Oh, god. Oh, really?

Gino came in a month and a half before it opened. Oh, that's insane. I mean, he was writing it like he was being chased. Yes, that's, and I guess that's kind of another thing too. I always want to see what the original vision was for the movie, whether it's good or bad. I do want to see it. And that's the thing with The Force Awakens is we didn't see what the original vision of that movie was either.

Luckily, I feel like this movie just kind of was, it lucked out and it made more sense to me that the way it all came together, the reshoots and everything kind of, it just felt like a better, full movie that connected even, like there may have been even more reshoots than Force Awakens, I'm not sure, but it just felt like it came together better. It was more cohesive, I guess. All these guys died. It is kind of like the casualty of a war thing where you see her father, Jin Erso's father, and he gets killed, and Mads Mikkelsen, and he's like, I have so much to tell you

and that he dies or whatever, and I was like, and I don't know if that's what they intentionally were doing of being like, you don't get to hear much of these people's story. Yeah, all I think it is. Yeah, and if it is, I tip my cat to him. I also like the fact that it's the good guys who kill him. Yes. It's just collateral, it's not even revenge. She goes after, what she does, she does for the right reason in this movie because she

has to stop it. Yeah, yeah, and you know, there is, because I heard with some, and that's why I would love to see the original version. I've heard that she was maybe a little bit more of an extremist or whatever, and it would have been interesting to see that version of the movie and see the TIE Fighter come up on the catwalk. There were shots and I was like, that looks cool and we never get to see it, but I got to see new characters, new worlds, it just felt more like Star Wars.

I'm going to give this one also three quarter portions. We're in the Handholding Club on this one. Let us know what you think out there. If you like to Rogue One, hashtag RogueWN1 and if you didn't like Rogue One, hashtag Rogue Number Two. Oh God. I'll do it for this special one last. Did you like the shout outs to like C-3PO, R2-D2 and what's his name from the two guys

from the... The Wallace Man and the, yes, the Ponda, what's his name, Ponda Bobo or whatever. I didn't like that, I didn't like that, but the C-3PO, R2-D2, I didn't mind. Like, I just noticed like C-3PO and R2-D2 are going to mean every one of these in the same way that Stan Lee's and every Marvel, it's just sort of like, it didn't bother me. Either one felt good to a diss. Although I'm okay with that. Right.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I guess that'll do it for this special Rogue Boys edition of Doe Boys. Maybe we'll do more episodes like this in the coming year. Maybe not. Do fucking knows. Here's what I thought. Definitely no. But come back in 2017 for more regular episodes of Doe Boys.

Until next time for The Spoon Man, I'm Nick Weigar. Happy watching. See ya. Ferrell Audio. See ya. Ferrell Audio. See ya. Ferrell Audio.