Hello Internet - H.I. #54: Star Wars Christmas Special

Episode Date: December 25, 2015

Straight from the theaters and into the podcast, Brady and Grey give their first impression on Star Wars: The Force Awakens (once Brady finishes his gambling). Brought to You By Hover: The best way to buy and manage domain names. Use coupon code 'JackOfDiamonds' for 10% off Audible: get a free 30-day trial by signing up at audible.com/hellointernet Listeners like YOU on Patreon Show Notes Discuss this episode on the reddit Brady's scratchie

You know how I love a little bit of fate and coincidence and stuff. I had a bit of a crazy idea today. So I just want to put it in there because I know you like new and unpredictable things. Yeah, that's what I love. I love the stuff that's off schedule. I did something I do maybe once every few months. And that is I bought like a scratch ticket. Oh, yeah?

I usually do it as a little surprise present for my wife because she's not particularly into scratch tickets, but she finds it funny that Australians call them scratchies. So, ever since then, I sometimes... She thinks it's funny because it is funny. You Australians and your little names for everything. I know. We love putting little E's on the ends of things. So, sometimes I come home and bring her a scratchy.

So, anyway, I brought a scratchy for myself and I thought I would do the scratchy like on the podcast because I could win one million pounds. And I thought if I won one million pounds while we were like live recording, that would be an amazing piece of podcast. Don't you think? It would be pretty cool. It would be astounding. Do you think if I win one million pounds that will change the topic of today's podcast and we will just talk about how I'm going to spend this million pounds? No, because honestly, I would much rather talk about our intended topic than your million pounds. It'd be like, that's great, Brady.

I'm really happy for you, but let's get on with the show. Really? Do you think I could do the show if I just won a million pounds? I mean, you're a professional podcaster. You should be able to soldier on with that one. Or would you just, you would just run into the street screaming you wouldn't have to do this anymore i'm free of gray no but i think i think it would be unprofessional to win one million pounds live on a podcast and then not talk about it and just crack on with other banal subjects there's always follow-up

brady right we can talk about it and follow up on with other banal subjects. There's always follow-up, Brady, right? We can talk about it in follow-up on the next episode. You've got to adapt to circumstances and you've got to go where fate takes you. You've got to be as adaptable as a Swiss army knife, as we've previously discussed. Not today. You can't just have your notes and think, like, if I was looking out the window right now and a comet came and smashed into the sea, do you think I'd be thinking, would I be thinking would i be thinking oh that that's a good topic for next week i must put that in the show notes or do you think

i'd say gray you're not going to believe what just happened of course if you wildly change the scenario then yes i'm going to agree with you that we're going to talk about a comet smashing into the earth if that happens outside i'm not i'm not having that i'm not wildly changing the subject i know there is no no no no no wildly changing the subject. I know there is- You are. No, no, no, no, no. You are wildly changing the scenario. I admit a comet crashing into the earth is pretty significant and more significant than me winning a million pounds. But me winning a million pounds is still like a big deal.

It's like more interesting than talking about Star Wars. It is not. It is not more interesting. Grey, if you won a million, if someone walked into your office right now and gave you a suitcase with a million pounds in it, I would say, let's talk about that. Star Wars can wait. That is quite an unusual scenario. Why did someone give me a suitcase full of a million pounds?

Now the suitcase is a thing to worry about, like sitting here at my feet as I'm trying to record the show. All right. Very different scenario. All right. Let me make this really easy for you. If you had a scratchy card in front of you and you scratched it off and you won a million pounds, I think that's more interesting than talking about Star Wars. Okay. You know what? I can prove to you it isn't because

here's what we can do if you really want. That can be my scratchy ticket and you can scratch it off. And if I win a million pounds, then we keep going on with the show and I'm right. And it's great. No, no, no, no, no, no. We're not doing that. No, no. I think that's definitely what we're going to do. We're not doing that. I can prove to you, I can prove to you how correct I am on this one. No, I would rather be wrong and have a million pounds. Are you, are you ready to scratch off? Are you ready to scratch off the ticket? Well, I'm going to give you a final choice here in this scenario, because my wife believes that it's lucky to use a golden coin to do it with, a coin of high value.

But just for you, I also have a penny. I'm going to let you decide if you want me to use a lucky golden coin or a penny to do my scratchy scratchy. I mean, which one is more satisfying to hold? Because obviously they're not going to change the numbers in the ticket. I've actually always slightly disagreed with my wife on this because I think the gold pound coin is a little bit thick for doing a scratchy. Oh yeah, a pound coin's no good.

That's no good to hold at all. You need like a two pence coin. That's good. It's nice and thin. It's probably the only thing that a two pence coin is good at. It's big enough to hold, thin enough to scratch. Well, now you've said that, I've got to go and get a two pence because now I feel like it's bad luck if I don't use a two pence coin is good at. It's big enough to hold, thin enough to scratch. Well, now you've said that I've got to go and get a two pence because now I feel like it's bad luck if I don't use a two pence. Okay. But it doesn't, there is no, there is no luck in this scenario. I'm going to

go and get a two pence coin. Hang on. Okay. Bye Brady. How you doing listeners? Brady's getting his two pence coin. He probably has it right at hand. He's going to be sitting back down in like two seconds. I'm back. Oh, he is right back. Okay right back okay hello do you know i keep my copper coins in a in a uh old world war ii like mortar shell thing a huge big gold mortar shell uh-huh is it within arms reeds essentially it pretty much is that's i figured it's on those bookshelves next to my desk all right right of course yeah okay oh it sounds good yeah it does sound very nice the way they uh metal it there we go two pence okay see if you can guess what year my two pence coin is from go on 1990 oh nowhere near 95 what do you mean nowhere near it we have what like 50 years of two pence coins? I think that's pretty close.

Five years? Yeah, five years. How long have two pence coins currently in circulation been made? Here, let me say something again, Gray, so you can do an edit. Oh my goodness, Gray, that's amazing. You were within five years. No, I'm not editing that back in. You can insert that in now. No, I'm not going to. Exactly, because it would be ridiculous because being five years is nowhere near.

I think it depends entirely on how many years worth of 50 pence coins are in circulation. And I bet there's like 50 years worth of 50 pence coins in circulations. Oh, no, wait, maybe not, because there's decimalization in the 1970s. Didn't the UK change all their currency in the 1970s? I think they did. 66, I believe, was the year they did it. Oh, okay. Yeah. So it's still like 50, it's basically 50 years ago. I don't know that it was 66. It's just in my head because that's also the year they won the

World Cup. I could be wrong about that. Yeah. But anyway, there's many, many years. I'm within five. I'm impressed by this random coincidence. Oh, you're impressed by a coincidence. Yeah. Yeah, I totally am. You like that? There you go. That's for you, Brady. I'll tell you what you will be impressed by. My million pound win that's about to happen. Merry millions. I'll put a picture of the card in the show notes so people can have a look. What's the maximum on that scratchy ticket? Well, the maximum is a million pounds. So, it's not really merry millions. It's merry a million. Well, for four people, it's a merry million. Therefore, it's a merry millions.

Whereas at merry's million, there's a million pounds. The for four people it's a merry million therefore it's a merry millions or is it mary's million there's a million pounds the next price is 25 000 then five one then 200 100 and then there's the little ones if i win 25 000 i don't really know what we're gonna do i think i mean that's that's a lot of money but this is what i'm wondering right where is that boundary of when it becomes uninteresting? Yeah. We've got to milk this gray because that's the whole thing with like scratch cards and lotteries is before you inevitably lose, it's all the dreaming of what will happen if you win.

So I'm trying to milk. Of course. That is what this thing is. So I'm not even dreaming of what I will do with the million. I'm dreaming of what we'll podcast about if I win the million. So I've got like, it's like there are levels of abstraction going on here. I already know what we're going to podcast about. We're going to podcast about Star Wars. All right, here we go. There are four gingerbread men in a little cluster. And apparently,

if when I scratch away these gingerbread men, if I find a little Santa Claus face, I win a prize. I'm sure the listeners are holding their breath. The first gingerbread man had a bauble, so I don't win. The second one, a globe, no win. A sweet, no win. And Holly, no win. I won nothing. a sweet no-win, and Holly no-win. I won nothing. How unlikely.

So it looks like today's podcast is going to be about the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens. So, Greg, what's the... I mean, the most important thing before we say anything about the force awakens the new star wars movie out in cinemas is what is our spoiler situation here because spoilers are very important when it comes to this there can't not be spoilers this episode is going to have many spoilers starting essentially immediately so so if you don't want spoilers, stop now. We are recording this, what is it? It's two days after it came out in the UK, I think, if that's about right.

And I know many people who have taken the last couple of days to basically hide from the internet because they are terrified of receiving spoilers. So I know a lot of people who are like, I can't go on Reddit, I can't go on Twitter because if i go on i know i'm going to see a spoiler and so many many people are are hiding but as always with this podcast people could be listening in the far far future gray i have a story yes relating exactly to that um obviously we'll come to it soon but obviously uh we can now start with spoilers. Obviously, a very major character dies in this film.

And I was spoiled. No. Yeah, I was. It doesn't really bother me. But do you know what does bother me? What bothers you? It was the method in which it was done. Okay, so tell me, how did this tragedy happen?

I was in the comment section of one of my videos, just like I do for work. And it was one of those people who just wants to be a bad person and just wrote, so-and-so dies and is killed by so-and-so. No prelim. Basically, the whole purpose was for people to stumble over it and have it ruined, incidentally. And can I say, and I've been thinking about this, and I don't want to sound too extreme, but I think people who do that, I don't want to judge them because I don't know what's going on in their life. They could have had a difficult childhood. They could have stuff going on.

And I've lived long enough to know when people do bad things, sometimes there are other things going on. So I don't want to judge the person. But can I say that act, the act of spoiling, say, a film or a TV show in that, I don't know if there's a word for doing that. I'm going to call it flash spoiling. It's like a drive-by spoiling is what it is. Yeah. All right. I'm going to call it a flash spoil because I think that's a little bit catchier. But I think the act of doing that is one of the most pure, despicable things you can possibly do because there's nothing but evil about it. Like there's nothing but taking pleasure from evil.

There are many worse things that people can do, right? For example, crimes and terrorism, they are worse things, right? But somehow, many of them can be justified. Like you can say, well, okay, this person maybe had warped beliefs or they thought they were doing the right thing or they were motivated by a need and then they did a really bad thing but people who are doing these flash spoils it's just there's none of that going on there's no there's no construct you can make where there's like a justification other than them taking pleasure from ruining something for other people and i think that's a really despicable act and you can

sit there and laugh and think haha i've i've ruined the film for X number of people. And you have. But can I just say, that's a despicable thing you've done. And like, that's as low as you can get. I've got no time for you. I know it makes you happy, and that just makes me feel a bit sad for you. I can't imagine that sort of person takes a lot of pleasure. Like, there's something about this, which is like asymmetric warfare in that I imagine the person who does the spoiling gets maybe five seconds worth of very minor enjoyment. They go like, huh, I ruined that movie for some people. But like the damage done is enormous, right? You ruin the movie for a large group of people. Like you take away such a huge amount of joy for what is a very probable,

very small increase of pleasure to yourself. So that's one of the things that's even worse about it. It's like the asymmetry of it. Well, I mean, that's the case for most crimes and things, isn't it? But what you say is true, Gray. I just think, I guess they've just had a sad they've had a sad crap life and then maybe they feel like the world's been bad to them so they want to do something bad to the world i'm just thinking of like the damage done in terms of

of like human hours of enjoyment you know when someone sees a spoiler like that on one of your videos like it's possible you know many hundreds maybe thousands of people see that let's multiply a thousand human hours of spoiled movingness against the person's fleeting seconds of enjoyment. That is the tremendous asymmetry of it. I mean, they're like people who kick puppies, aren't they? As far as bad things go that are not illegal, it's up there. By the way, I am only talking about these flash spoils. Like, I mean, people may be pointing out that in our recent vote counting video the face of gray appeared a few times i'll point out why this is different one it was accidental right one it was you editing the video yeah one it was me but also i mean that video was

very long and as and we went you know i didn't go through it frame by frame and it had to be done in a bit of a hurry also if you're watching that, you probably know you're in a risky zone. But if you're like somewhere unrelated and someone does that, does that flash spoil, I think that's a bit worse. I didn't quite realize that there actually are a tremendous number of comments on our flag video about spoilers for my face. But one of the things is I didn't see very much of that because as soon as we put the video up i was precisely afraid of the thing that happened to you happening

to me of someone leaving just a random comment on that video to be a jerk about star wars spoilers so this is why i was looking at so little in the last couple days leading up to this movie and then uh when after i saw for the first time i went back to look at that video and i said like oh boy there are lots of comments about CGP Greyface spoilers here. Like, I need to add an annotation or something to warn people about it because of how many comments there have been. Anyway, enough about that. It didn't, I don't, I think it affected my enjoyment of the film. I didn't, you know, I didn't take enough from it to know exactly what and when and how and who.

So, there was still some doubts, but it did, you know, that was less of a surprise as a result. But anyway, let's talk about this film. Let's talk about Star Wars now, actually. The Force Awakens, directed by J.J. Abrams. Now, you've already seen it twice. The way this worked is that I saw it on the 17th as a date with my wife i'd originally reserved some tickets ahead of time and we're going to go out and see it but because because we are professional movie reviewers in some way i like this notion that everything we discuss on

the podcast we can somehow be professional in in any way it's like oh we get we get money for the podcast like now we're professional x so we're professional movie reviewers now i mean after that scratchy thing i'm now a professional gambler i believe you are yes our wikipedia pages are going to get very long very long my my plan was unlike say some of the other movies that we have intentionally watched for the podcast, like The Hobbit movies, where my expectations were low going in. When I go into The Hobbit movie, I have my phone out ready to take notes right away because I feel like, movie, there's no way you're going to convince me to put down this phone because you're interesting. So I might as well start taking notes now. But I felt that that would have been deeply unfair to do to the Star Wars movie and it was also just not something I wanted to do and also just not something I would want to do when I'm going to see a movie with somebody

else so I booked two tickets one which was just to see it with my wife and just to watch it and then the second one which just happened today which is the day after I booked it with the intention of going into the movie theater and having my phone and taking notes by the way people don't after I booked it with the intention of going into the movie theater and having my phone and taking notes, by the way, people don't worry. I booked in the back so that nobody was getting distracted by my phone. Uh, so then the second viewing is like, okay, now I am meta watching this. Like I'm watching me watching this and I'm taking notes on it and writing some stuff down. So that's, that's my experience of it. Okay. And you have watched it once. I've watched it once, yes.

I watched it the day after you. Basically, my wife, you know, wants to see it, and she's booked tickets for us to see it on Sunday, which happens to be the day after you and I are recording now. Because we're recording the podcast and we wanted to talk about it, and also I wanted to avoid any more spoilers, I went to see it a day earlier, two days earlier than planned. But also, funnily enough, we've now learned this Sound of Music live event is on TV on the Sunday night,

and my wife really wants to watch that. So we've actually booked tickets for Monday night now, and we're not going to use our Sunday tickets. So there will be two empty seats in the cinema for one of the screenings. So I will have bought three tickets to see it in the course of four days, but only gone to two of them. But as we talk now, I've only seen it once. I didn't take notes during. I've scribbled some notes the day after from my memories of it.

All right. Well, I know, Brady, you have no patience for talking about it without saying in advance what you actually thought of the movie. So do you want to give your overall feeling, your reaction to Star Wars? Do you disagree with me? Because I know this is a point of difference between us. You like sort of constructing this complicated web where no one knows exactly what you're thinking. I think with a movie review, it's

more important for people to know what you think overall. Just so they know where you're coming from. And then everything you say good or bad about it has a context. Do you disagree with that? I think talking about it is the review. Yeah. And that's what we'll do. But it is all coloured by whether or not you liked the film, like it colours. I think it's important to do it. And that's why I will concede your point. Okay. I will concede your point. Okay. Well, my overall feeling about it that can be taken with everything I say subsequently is, I thought it was really, really good. It was excellent.

Two thumbs up. Superb job. Wow. High rankings from probably the biggest Star Wars fan that I know in real life. I don't think I know anybody in real life who likes Star Wars more than you. Not flawless. And I have a whole page of criticisms. But I think I had, I think when he was announced as director, my expectations went high, then they went down. And after a few of the trailers, I began to lose a bit of faith and I began to wonder. So, my expectations went down a bit. So, it exceeded my expectations, but my expectations weren't ridiculously high,

but they also weren't rock bottom. But I think the film's very good, you know, four to four and a half stars out of five, I'd say. What about you? What's your overall thoughts before we get down to nitty gritty? Yeah, so I had only watched that first trailer that you made me watch for the record that I wouldn't have watched otherwise. Like you, I was happy that J.J. Abrams was selected as the director and I was intentionally keeping my expectations low. And my mental bar here was if we can get something as good as the new Star Trek movies that J.J. Abrams

did, that's a win. Those Star Trek movies, same thing. Like they're, they're like a fun adventure ride, but I've never felt really compelled to watch them again, but I would still feel like that would be, that would be a win. That's really what I'm hoping for that was kind of the mental bar in my life is is okay maybe it's going to be like star wars as seen through modern action movie genres but like i will be fine with that if it's if it's like star trek but i watched it and i would say that it passed that bar it was a better movie than the star trek movie was i really liked it uh i too have a quite quite a long list of like things that i didn't like but overall it almost it felt to me like this huge relief of like oh wow it's a it's a star wars movie that I can enjoy again. Like I watched it and it was a fun adventure and I liked it and it was,

it was good in all the ways that I wanted it to. And the thing that, that I really kept feeling throughout it was like that Star Trek movie doesn't really feel like Star Trek, but watching this Star Wars movie, it felt like the line that Han solo gives in the movie of like we're home again like this feels like star wars it's hard to pin down what that is exactly but it feels like it's in the same family as those original three movies i agree i think i i

yeah i think there are some reasons for that too, but I agree with you. And also it's like, it's made Star Wars okay again. It's like after those three abominations, it was a bit like people are like, you like Star Wars really? But those films are rubbish. It's a bit like, yeah, but see, Star Wars is okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a healing moment, right? That's really what it feels like. It just, it feels like, oh, there's been this great healing. You know, J.J. Abrams has laid his hands upon the series and it's all okay now. Maybe it's a bit like there's a sporting team that won a bunch of Super Bowls, like in the 80s, and then they became a really rubbish team and everyone gives you a hard time for liking that

team. And this year they've had a really good season and made the playoffs and people are like, oh no, it's all right. They are a cool team. They're all right after all. Yeah. Yeah. It was great. And I really just feel like I hope Disney gives J.J. Abrams all the creative leeway that he wants for whatever he's going to do with the next movies. And I hope he is physically safe for the near future. It's like someone get that guy a bodyguard 24-7 because

I want to make sure JJ Abrams is a-okay to keep this train rolling. So I've got a piece of paper here that says the light side and a piece of paper that says the dark side for the things I liked and the things I didn't like. My dark side one probably is a bit longer. How are we going to do this? Are we going goods and bads? Are we chronologically do you want to how do you want to talk about the film let's just start kind of rolling through what happens in the movie and then and and take it from there i think if we go off on any we don't have to stick to chronological or anything but let's just let's kind of like start at the beginning a very good place to start my very first note on this was text scroll no taxes exclamation mark right away it felt great to see a text scroll in the opening part of the movie that was people focused like it was clear of here is the setup like Luke is

missing Princess Leia General Leia now has sent off this guy to go look for something that's important it was just it was a very good start of like okay great there's a text scroll that I understand that's talking about people. It's not talking about trade embargoes and federations and all the rest of this. Right away, very happy, very good sign. I just love it. And of course, I don't think you can sit in a movie theater and not have that initial Star Wars sound come on and blast you with that logo and not feel a moment of just tremendous excitement. Like no matter how low my expectations were going into that theater as I'm trying to like

turn down my expectations intentionally, as soon as that big Star Wars sound comes on, you just is like, oh boy, here we go. I hope it's amazing. I'll go further than to say that the scroll wasn't bad. I'll go so far as to say it was good. I think the first words luke skywalker has vanished that's really compelling like that's like that's a really good first few words like because the first thing everyone wonders going to see that film is what's gonna

what happened to luke skywalker like what does he do now you know he was the big hero what's and to start with that straight away it's like okay like that sets the whole tone doesn't it you know he's straight away as mystery man it's a really it was a really good start this is sounding all right and they do a little bit of misdirection because they mention about uh princess leia sending her daring pilot off to go find uh you know whatever it is find the missing map yeah and of course in your mind you're thinking oh that must be han solo right but like no of course not this is a new movie there's a new cast there's going to be somebody else who is the daring pilot. But I thought that was written, obviously,

intentionally to make you think Han Solo. And then they're like, nope, not Han Solo. This is a new set of movies. So I thought that was a nice little thing to do as well. Yeah, I agree. And then from the scroll, obviously, the camera pans down in the great Star Wars tradition to see what our big, amazing money shot's going to be.

Is it going to be a rolling ship? Or what's going to be uh you know scrolling down to a planet i think he did i think he did well he did something new and different but in keeping with the great star wars tradition like right away i thought that was a really good sign of he's doing the traditional move we have panned to a planet but he's doing it as the silhouette of the ship so you don't actually see the ship that is this first one here. You just see that there's some silhouette crossing the planet. Down go these little pods with stormtroopers in them. And it's like, okay, great. This feels like we're doing the right things here.

We're going through all the right motions. But also it's different and it's new. So I thought that that was really good. It's doing everything you need to do. It's conveying so much information with so little effort like okay because the planet like eclipse because the planet is eclipsed by the ship it's okay this is menace this is right right this is this is big and menacing and straight or and like all of these things are being being given to you straight away no confusion no no clutter, just, but everything

has got meaning. It's not only beautiful and clever, it's giving you information all the time, which is so important at the start of a film, isn't it? Especially these sort of films. Oh yeah. And even if you imagine someone's walking into this movie theater and they've never seen Star Wars before, and they're reading this text crawl and they have no idea who any of these people are, you still know that that ship is bad news. It's so clear. This is bad news. These are not people that you want

coming to this planet. Just visually they don't have to tell you anything about it. There are a lot of little moments like this in the movie where I just found myself thinking like wow competent filmmaking. You are using visual language to convey something like this. This is just absolutely, this is absolutely a pleasure to watch when, when someone is doing, doing this kind of thing.

Yeah. So I think the first, the first major departure in the movie is the scene when the stormtroopers land. They are, they're on what I kept thinking of as, as new Tatooine, which really Jakku, I think is the name when the stormtroopers land. They're on what I kept thinking of as New Tatooine, which really Jakku, I think, is the name for it. Yeah. It's another desert planet. Yeah, it's another desert planet. It's New Tatooine.

And they're landing and they're doing a raid. And there's a stormtrooper who is freaking out because this is his first fight, as you find out later, and he's seeing all the death occurring around him. And he's almost like a PTSD stormtrooper in this moment. He sees presumably one of his friends dies. This, again, was just a great thing. Let's do something a little bit different.

And the old Star Wars movies had these couple little moments where stormtroopers were humanized, like chatting on the side of the movie scene or whatever. But here's the moment where we are going to focus on a stormtrooper, like one guy who is a real person who is going to be an actual character. And I mean, because I had seen the trailer that Brady made me watch, I presumed that that was going to be the case that like a stormtrooper was one of the main characters. But I thought it was a good move. I thought it's an interesting and different place to focus in the movie. And we have this sort of this little battle and skirmish kickoff on the desert planet. The scene where someone fires a blaster at our big bad dude and he froze the

blaster bolt in the in the in midair i mean if you told me beforehand that was going to happen i would have said oh i'm not too sure about that but that was awesome and it was such a cool new use of the force and it was such a cool new effect to see a laser bolt frozen in midair but still sort of sizzling on the spot. I thought that was so cool, wasn't it? That blaster bolt was designed in the same way that Kylo Ren's lightsaber is done, where it's like angry, right? It has sparks coming off the edge of it.

It feels alive because this is the plus side of making a movie many years later it's like we have better graphics technology we can make things look better than just lines on the screen and so yes when when that blaster bolt is fired and it's stopped in mid-air it you couldn't have done that effect before because it would just feel like oh there's a glowing line in the center of the screen but But with this, it feels like that blaster bolt is just dying to move forward. Like it's giving off sparks and it's kind of moving around a little bit, but, but it's just casually held there by the dark side of the forest. And yes, it is, it is just so cool. Like that is exactly the kind of thing I can imagine. If I was, if I was a little kid seeing this, like you imagine

yourself like stopping blaster bolts with your hands when you're playing with other kids like that's just such a great a great thing to do in in the opening scene to establish I guess this guy can do amazing things right away and also very early on we have a bit of a marker for the film as well is when when this this pilot hero guy whose name i've already forgotten um is sort of brought before kylo ren to get a telling off and and that um he's really jokey he's funny like in a really modern a modern jokey way like who's gonna talk first you're gonna talk first am i gonna talk first like it was very like oh okay they're gonna they're gonna be sassy they're not like that was a real modern sass wasn't it it wasn't old-fashioned humor it was very like, oh, okay, they're going to be sassy. They're not like, that was a real modern sass, wasn't it?

It wasn't old fashioned humor. It was like very modern speak. And it was actually quite disorienting for a second. That moment right there when the pilot says, are you going to talk first? Am I going to talk first? And then Kylie Ren says something. And then he does another joke, which is that he says, it's very hard to understand you with all the apparatus right like he's he's making fun of the of the mask

that this guy is wearing that was one moment where i was thinking like oh i was a little worried at that point because it because that to me just doesn't feel star wars because it is very modern like i'm not saying it's bad but it was a moment where everything was going great on this train. And in my mind anyway, like we hit a tiny bump and now I'm suddenly cautious again, right? It's like shields up. I'm a little bit worried.

Just again, just because like once you're watching the movie, you just, you want it to go so well. And the experiences in the past have been so bad that I feel like you're, or at least I was anyway, like hypersensitive to everything

that felt like slightly, slightly off right at the beginning. So I was not a fan of that. And I wasn't a fan of it on the second viewing again. But this is where we'll start to get into some of the things that I think are a little bit off or a little bit weird. It did remove a lot of the gravitas of characters that I think are supposed to have some gravitas. It did later on, I mean, I really liked the humor in the film and i'm sure we'll talk about that but there were a couple of times where the humor felt like it was too much from the streets of new york and not enough from a long time ago in a galaxy far far away there's a few things that felt i feel like i can say this it felt like too american in a way at a few at a few

moments in the movie there was like, Oh, okay. That feels very American and it does. It doesn't feel like this, this other place, but yeah, but yeah, relative,

relatively minor thing, relatively minor thing at the, at the moment, since I just talked about a moment where I was a little bit worried about stuff, I kind of want to talk about the, the moment when I felt just sold on this movie and just really stopped thinking about, oh, I'm watching a Star Wars movie. And I started just watching a Star Wars movie.

Yeah. And this was when they have the introduction for the main character of the movie, the girl Rey. Yeah. And so there's these establishing shots of her, and she is a scavenger on New Tatooine, and she's pulling apart all of these ships. And she has this, like, I don't know how long it is, maybe five-minute introductory scene, seven minutes or so, that is totally free of dialogue.

She's not saying anything. The movie is just showing her going about her life as a scavenger. And it's great because in the background, there are these scenes of these big ships that have crashed on Jakku. And they don't bother explaining how the ships got there. It's like, who cares? It just looks Star Wars. Here's this person going through the rubbish.

And there's just this little moment when she's collected up all of her stuff and she puts it on this little sled. She's on the top of a sand dune and she slides down the sand dune. And there's this just, to my mind, this pitch perfect musical cue that is her theme that they use throughout the movie. But it's the first time you hear it. I've been thinking about that shot. I don't know why, but for some reason that was just the moment where I felt like this is really great.

You haven't just done the bombastic, here's some fight scene. Oh, there's spaceships here and there. It's like, no, you're establishing a new character. You're also, you're also taking your time in doing this. You don't feel rushed very much like the earlier star Wars movies, which are kind of surprisingly slow in some scenes when you watch them. Now,

this felt like the same thing. Like you're taking plenty of time to do it. And then on top of it, you have new music, but it still feels like Star Wars and it still feels like this belongs right in the movie. I love the non-spoken establishment of her as a brand new character.

And that was the point where I really felt like I'm just sitting back and just watching this movie and I'm not really nervous about it anymore or thinking about I'm watching a brand new Star Wars. I'm just engaged with a new character who is doing things in this world. Like that's where I really felt sold on this. And yet I'm establishing so much about her. You know, she's technical. She's resourceful.

She's like muscular. Like she's action. She's she's like she's uh like muscular like she's action she's a she's a woman of action um you all the time even through that even through that sort of gentle uh breather after the action start you established so much about her in in a short space of time still and watching that silent introduction the second time I was even just more aware of all of the things that are being established about her and also I don't know who that actress is I've never seen her before in anything but man I think she nails that role every line in every scene I just think she just hits it right out of the park. There's something about her that she is just so natural. Like she really feels a part of the Star Wars

world, unlike some other people I might mention later. But I just thought she was just amazing. She just fits so perfectly. And it's one of these things that I can never quite put my finger on it, but some actors and actresses are just so natural on screen. You just feel like they are what they are. And other people, you feel like, oh, you're a good actor, but I'm aware of you as being an actor. And she was just a total natural. So I felt like, man, whoever found her from the casting department, it was just an amazing choice. She was so good. Even just little things about in this silent introduction when they show her eating the bread that she's earned from the items that she has scavenged.

She's eating that bread convincingly like a person who is really hungry and not doing it in an overly obvious way. It's just so natural. Like, yes, this is a person who got less food than they were expecting from their scavenging. And she's hungry and she's eating this. And just it sounds dumb to mention that, but it's just a pleasure to watch someone on screen who's just so, so good at their job. She was really, really just amazing. I mean, on my light side list here she is absolute top number one i think she's the best thing about the whole film yeah without a doubt without the actress is great but also the characters she does a great performance but

the character is so interesting and uh the costume is great like. Like every single thing about that character, Ray, is brilliant. And I think she absolutely makes the film. I always wanted to see what she was up to when she was on screen. Could you imagine, I mean, could you just imagine if George Lucas had to write a three-minute silent scene for introducing a new character? How unbearably awful would that be? Would he even try no of course not but it's and that's where like that just felt really great like man i am in the hands of a competent team who is able to show me things without having to explain things like people

who are thinking about this where they show her writing the notches on the wall so you have some sense that oh she's been in this place for a long time. You know, everything about her life, like you said, you learn this from her and she is great. And the directing team, I mean, even things like I just kept thinking, wow, there are interesting camera angles in this movie. Like they're choosing to put the camera in angled locations to show you a bunch of different stuff. Actually, I realized on the second time around, her first line of dialogue is in some made-up language. She's yelling at the guy who finds the droid BB-8.

She's yelling in a different language, and it just comes off as convincing. She sounds like, oh, yeah, she just speaks some other language. And even then, she like a little head gesture and she shushes the droid. Like she just comes off right away as very, very competent character and a great actress. Well done.

Yeah, seriously. Daisy Ridley is the actress's name. However, I feel like this is a moment where maybe I want to take something which is on the dark side as you have divided your list. Oh, let me get my dark side paper as well and see if I've got it as well. Here we go.

Here's my dark side paper. Okay. Because for as much as I love lots of stuff in this movie, showing you things without explaining it to you, I feel like there was some writer on the team or someone who felt that there had to be lots of exposition that was redundant in the movie there are tons of lines in this movie where people say things twice or three times right in a row and it just really irked the heck out of me and this girl has one of those lines where she's she goes into town with bb8 and right

okay so in your in the silent scene we have established that she's obviously been there for a long time right she's ticking off these little marks on the wall but she says to the to the droid i know all about waiting for my family they'll be back i feel like these these lines like we know you're waiting for someone you don't need to explicitly say this out loud i don't know i just felt like there were a bunch of lines where someone would just say things several times over and over again and i just i found that kind of irritating like the exposition dial in dialogue was was turned up way too many times like i have a couple notes here for similar lines where someone else later in the movie says,

the droid is in the hands of your father, Han Solo. It's like, yeah, no, we know, we got it, right? We got it. But you don't, you have to say it twice so that everybody in the movie knows what you're talking about. I don't, I mean, people don't always pay attention. And if things are really important,

you've got to make sure they know them. There are a couple of times I agree. I don't think her putting notches on the wall of her home or wherever she was immediately said to me she was waiting for something. We did need to be told she was waiting for people to come back. But they revisit that later in the movie. There's a conversation later in the movie where they do it. So it's not necessary to do right now.

You have some sense of this already and i think it'd be more powerful later if you don't like hammer it home and you know and then like i have another line like right in the beginning when uh someone is talking to kylo ren you know and and he says oh the first order rose from the dark side you did not right telling us that kylo ren didn't start out evil and it says like then his very next line is you can't deny the origin of your family it's like okay but you could have stopped it you did not right like we understand he didn't start out on the dark side you don't have to like super hammer it in i think my favorite my favorite example of this is is uh

where did i write it down oh yeah at the very they mentioned that someone, the pilot guy has a line about, oh, it's destroying the sun, right? And when the sun is gone, then the weapon is ready. Yeah. It's like, okay, that's a great line. And then he says, so as long as it's light out,

we still have a chance. It's like, okay, you just said that. Like you just said that line with your previous line. That's probably one of the things that just irritated me the most is feeling like there were lots of these lines for people who were like we're really trying to make sure that you're following along and i understand why movies do that but it just i don't

know it feels like you i always want less exposition than there are in movies and this movie felt like there were a few really egregious lines of of exposition i agree with that sun one later in the film. I thought that was laid on a bit thick. But I also think the fact you saw this film twice in three days is contributing to that. And I think... Oh, it's definitely not because that was... I'm looking on my screen.

I'm looking on my screen, the two sets of notes that I have, which was the first reaction notes. And my first reaction notes has a big thing saying there's 20% too much exposition. And I wrote down that line about the light and made a note from like future me to find some of the other lines because the first time I watched it, I felt like there's just too much of this. There's too much of this. I mean, I've heard you complain about this with other films too, though, as well. So I think you, not everyone pays as close. I mean, I've heard you complain about this with other films too, though, as well. So I think you, not everyone pays as close. I mean, I do pay close attention, so I feel a bit the same way,

but not everyone pays quite such close attention. I agree there was a bit too much of it, but I don't think it like crippled the film. And neither do you. Yeah, no, I don't think so either. But it's one of those things where like when you're really enjoying a movie, I just find that stuff like, that sticks in my side as like this would be a better movie without this yeah but that's all so do you have something from your dark side list that you want to mention okay yeah i will i'll bring up something that's semi-related

and almost it's funny that this is all this kind of almost goes against what you said. And that is, I felt like this film, like a big complaint about the terrible, terrible prequels is that they completely abandoned sort of characters and interesting characters, and they concentrated on this boring politics and this big, I'll call it like the macro story of what's going on in the galaxy. I feel like this film went very, very far in the other direction to the point where I kind of didn't understand the big picture very much.

And therefore, I didn't really care about some of the things that were going on. Like, who's in charge of the galaxy now? And that planet they blew up. Because I sort of had the impression that the bad guys, the Empire, had sort of retained control after Return of the Jedi. But then these bad guys with their Starkiller are blowing up. Is that the planet with the Senate on it that they just blew up? So are they, is this a coup?

Is this the military taking over the government? And, like, and hang on. So Princess Leia is, like, still a rebel. So there are still rebels. is this a coup is this the military taking over the government and like and hang on so princess leia is like still a rebel so there are still rebels so the bad guys are still in control so why are they why did they blow that up and i and like so lots of the stuff happening at the high level like the big the big politics i was completely bamboozled by and therefore i was finding it hard to sort of okay those guys those guys with that Starkiller are bad, so obviously we've got to blow that thing up.

But who's in charge? Like, what's going on? There was a lot of the macro was lost on me. I was very engaged with the micro, but the big picture was lost on me. And therefore, for example, at the end of New Hope, you just want that Death Star blown up so bad. You know how bad it is. You know who's good. You know who's good.

You know who's bad. This attack is the culmination. But by the end of Force Awakens, it's a bit like, I didn't really care about the Starkiller thing. And therefore, this big siege at the end where they fly in and blow it up. It's a bit like, yeah, fair enough. That's bad. I can see why you're blowing that up. That's bad.

But it wasn't this oh thank god thank god it's gone thank god it's gone the death star was gonna blow up every planet in the galaxy it was really feared this star killer i'm like yeah yeah good it's gone we win next okay what what massive spherical planet destroying device are they gonna build next for us to blow up i had a similar thing in my first reaction notes that i was i was thinking oh did i did i just miss something here because i had a note about there's first order senate resistance question mark yeah and my feeling was i don't understand the relationship between these three entities yeah and yeah when i'm when i was first watching the movie,

it was okay, I'm just going along with this. We have obviously the bad guys and obviously the good guys. But as soon as the Starkiller came online, it did immediately draw to my attention, like, wait, I don't actually understand what's going on. Because this resistance seems separate from the Senate. It doesn't seem like they are connected.

And when I was watching the movie a second time, I was trying to pay attention, like, did I miss some line, like something explaining something here? And weirdly, no. And there's actually a line that made me even more confused because when the evil general is giving his big speech about how we're going to destroy that Senate, he makes some remark. I wish I had caught the exact remark, but he makes some remark that lead me to believe that there is some formal separation between the Senate and the resistance. He makes a remark about how like, oh, the Senate is, you know, is lying about something about the resistance. And then it's like,

oh, okay, now this is really unclear, the relationship between these entities. Like, I presume that the Senate is running the galaxy now and that the First Order is the remnants of the Empire. With incredible resources. Yeah, with shocking resources. Like, oh, don't mind us with our terraforming projects. But then where the rebellion fits into that is very confusing to me then.

Like if you are not the – where the resistance fits in. Like if you are not the army of the Senate, like I am confused now. Like you're – Princess Leia, like how are you connected to all of this? It felt weird. The film would have made more sense if the resistance, Princess Leia and the people with the X-Wings, was the military branch of the Senate. But then they would no longer be underdogs. They would be part of the establishment and you'd lose that whole dynamic so for some reason they've made them some sort of splinter freedom fighters when when it

that doesn't really logically make make sense i mean because who they're resisting this first order bunch are like you know are the enemy they're the outsiders or are they or i actually had the impression that the first order was the military branch of the uh the senate like the government and they'd gone bad you know because they've got an army they've got stormtroopers they're not yeah it was confusing yeah it remains confusing to me yeah it remains confusing i'm sure you know that there are answers to all of these in the extended universe like all of this like but i don't really care. I'm just watching this movie, and I'm curious about the things in the universe of the movie.

But yeah, I did think it was weird and a weird dynamic because it's like, you want both of these sides to be underdogs? Like, I don't, it's strange. It was a bit strange. It's a minor complaint, but it is definitely, like one of the things I think of as the mark of a good movie is that the more you think about the movie, the more the movie rewards you for thinking about it. And bad movies are the kind of movies where you have to say like, oh, it's a great movie. Just

don't think about it. Because if you think about it, you know, it all just falls to pieces, right? And it doesn't work at all and i definitely have found myself thinking about the star wars movie a lot which is great but this is one of those moments where it's like yeah don't don't think about the connection between these three entities too much i don't don't think about it because it it's like it's it causes a little bit of a problem and it's not really explained so it's i think it's interesting that you picked up on that as as well i thought the character of finn of Finn, this is our stormtrooper turned hero, was also really good. Also super strong.

You know, from that moment where we see in the trailer where his head pops up and he looks like he's overacting a little bit. And I'm thinking, oh, no, what have they done again? I really liked him. I really liked liked him i really cared about him uh and that's that's the that's the most important thing in any film is that you care about care about the guy i thought he was i thought he put in a good performance there were one or two times i think he pushed the credibility of what that character would do under the circumstances when he got all sassy and funny and comedic there are a few times like no you would not be acting that way in these circumstances so that so for that reason you know he wasn't quite as superlative a character as say the ray

character but i thought he was really good he had really good chemistry with the ray character uh i'm really intrigued as to you know, what will happen with their relationship. So, I thought it was another real asset to the film. You know, I think they've done really well. They're two for two with their two most important characters on the hero side of things. Yeah. See, here's where we're going to disagree a little bit because I really like the character as well. I think the idea of having the stormtrooper as his character is very good

I like the role that he plays in the movie but he was one of the actors where I feel like there are a bunch of lines that he gives in the movie that I felt were clunky and he was one of movie that I felt were clunky.

And he, he was one of the, I mentioned before saying some things felt a little bit too American. And he was one of these things that there were moments where I feel like you, you sound very American in a few of these scenes, but a bit off. Like it, it just, it's,

it's so hard. Again, watching a movie just it's it's so hard again watching a movie it's it's so hard to pin down why things are different because harrison ford shows up in this movie and he talks and he's obviously american right like he actually is american and it doesn't it doesn't feel that way but the guy playing finn had a few lines that just felt like this is out of place but i don't think that was his fault i agree i mean that's what i meant of place. I don't think that was his fault. I agree. I mean, that's what I meant when I said you wouldn't act that way.

Like when he confronts his old stormtrooper boss towards the end of the film. Yeah, yeah. How do you like me now? Sort of that kind of thing. Yeah, I'm in charge. I'm in charge. Yeah. I mean, that missed the beat in a very jarring way that sort of punched you out of the film

for a few seconds. Yeah. that missed the beat in a very jarring way that sort of punched you out of the film for a few seconds. So yeah, that's why it wasn't, you know, that's why I said it wasn't as perfect as sort of the Rey character where I don't remember ever being, ever being looked at. No, no, she's pitch perfect the whole way through. But I think it's not even the lines that he has to deliver, which sometimes, you know, they're hard sometimes, but it's the way he delivers them it's it's his accent and his way of speaking feel like clunky lines and I ended up looking him up because I wanted to know like where's this guy from and I think here's my suspicion about this I found out he's actually English he went to school in London and again he's another person I have no idea who he is which for a Star Wars movie by the way is the right way to go.

You don't want to have very obvious known characters or very obvious known actors in your Star Wars movie. You want to find a new crop of people who are talented, but I think that's a really hard job to do of unknowns or relative unknowns who are also really good. But so anyway, he is English. Maybe it was because he is obviously trying to hide his English accent in the movie because maybe they don't want their two main characters to have the same accent, which is quite reasonable. But I wonder if that's why some of his lines of dialogue just feel really, really clunky to me when he delivers them. It's like, oh, you're not using your natural voice. You're trying to put on an accent, and your accent sounds very American.

But maybe because it's not exactly American is why it feels off and weird sometimes. So my feeling is he was fine, but I would not say that he was great. Like I really like the character, but I don't think that the actor did a perfect job with what he was given. Speaking of people sounding American, let's come on to Carrie Fisher for a minute. Because I don't know what's happened with her voice, but she has sort of an odd voice now. And she sounded distractingly American to me. Like really strong. I don't know what her accent is, what part of America it's from. But her, like you say, Harrison Ford, lots of people have American accents and you're just used to that in movies.

You think nothing of it. Yeah, sort of invisible somehow. Carrie Fisher's, I don't know if it's her accent or her voice, has changed in such a way over the years that her voice really distracted me. I had real problems with uh with how she sounded carrie fisher has been through uh quite a rough time since the star wars movies yeah so in this galaxy and that galaxy it's been a bad time for carrie fisher so it is not surprising that her her voice sounds shockingly different uh you know it sounds like no sounds like someone who's been through a rough time. It's weird because when she did first come on camera, I found her distracting as well a bit. It's like, okay,

you look very different and you sound very different and I find you quite distracting. And again, in a way that I just, I was impressed by how not distracting old Harrison Ford was. I was expecting it to be a bit, oh God let's can we move harrison ford off camera as fast as possible but i think he did a great job with it i think he was really believable except when he except as old harrison ford i think they gave him too much action work to do i think he i think like when he's running around on that freighter when those monsters are on the loose he's really lumbering like i'm thinking there's no way you're going to get away from those monsters like you're you are you are first to be munched, my friend.

Let's get back to those monsters in a second. I thought, I mean, it's low hanging fruit, isn't it? To pick on these people for being a bit older now. But I think he was too old for some of the things he was being asked to do. And it was a few times I was thinking, oh, poor fella. Don't make him run there. Someone go and give was a few times i was thinking oh poor fella don't make don't make him run there someone go and give him a hand aside from that that monster sequence when they're on the spaceship and the monsters get loose which for me might be the low point of the film is that monster sequence

totally agree that whole sequence up on that ship was definitely the low ebb. It's the low sequence because, okay, so what's happened in the movie at this point, right, is that our main characters have escaped with the Millennium Falcon, and Harrison Ford finds them and brings the Millennium Falcon on board his big ship. And there is just this convoluted sequence that the end result is like, look, here's what we want, movie. We want Harrison Ford back on the Millennium Falcon. Everybody wants that. Harrison Ford wants to get back on the Millennium Falcon.

Chewie wants to get back on the Millennium Falcon. Everybody wants to get there. And it seems to me like, you know what you could do, movie? You could just have Han Solo be really happy that he's found the Millennium Falcon again and just fly away on it, right? Just abandon his current ship, which he makes reference to as being too big for him to fly anyway because he doesn't have enough of a crew. Like, just have him leave.

But instead, there is this very long sequence where, you know, whatever it is, like these people that Harrison Ford has had past dealings with, they land on the ship and there's like an argument and then there's monsters escape. Like, all of this is just to get him on the Millennium Falcon. And I feel like we could have skipped all of that. I don't 100% agree with you. There were a few things that needed to be achieved

at that point in the film. I do agree that they did it the wrong way and they could have done it much simpler with, you know, they could have done it in a lot of different ways. They did have to establish that he has spent a long time away as a smuggler. He's back on the smuggling track. Right. And he'd been, and he's been doing it for a while because he's double crossed so many people. So, he's not just away from Leia for 10 minutes. He's like, he's out on the loose again on his own. Yeah. He's not out getting

cigarettes or anything. It's been, it's been years. We also had to find a mechanism for word to get back to the first republic that han solo has the droid so there has to be someone to to tell on him so someone has to know this so there are a few little things that have to happen but you're right it could have been done a lot quicker and easier than this very non-star wars moment of this of these monsters roaming around the ship trying to gobble everyone up. It almost felt like Pac-Man. These circular monsters are

rolling around the hallway, eating everybody like they're the pellets, and the monsters are exactly the right size of all of the hallways in the spaceship. It's like, man, if you made your hallways two feet shorter, this wouldn't be a problem because none of these monsters could go anywhere. Oh, that's going to be lucky for the video game, isn't game isn't it you know what man you just nailed it on the head that

feels like a sequence that's put in there for a video game it really does it's also when the kind of thing that happens in movies that just really annoys me happens which is you see these monsters with their tentacles grab and eat all of these peripheral smugglers who were on board. But then when one of the monsters grabs Finn, our main character, like the magic of the script protects him from being eaten immediately. And suddenly the monster decides like, oh, I'm full. I'm just going to run away with this person. Instead of just eating him as you would expect the monster to do. And I always feel like that's just cheap.

Like, oh, you've changed the rules so that your main character is perfectly fine. Like, I have to say, I really quite liked, again, because her character is just perfect in every way. I love the fact that Rey doesn't try to fight the monster or find him. Like, she's smart enough to go look at the surveillance cameras and try to time it with closing a door on the tentacles.

Like, I love that whole thing. And i super love that she doesn't bother to explain that she's saved his ass when they meet up again when when when finn just goes like oh man the door closed and she goes that was lucky and they keep moving i love that little that little moment because again it's you know it shows her humility as well as humor and yeah yeah it's but it's not even it's a humility it's a kind of pragmatism pragmatism of like, we got to keep moving, right? There's no time for me to explain this. Even if I want to take credit, like not now, right?

We'll talk about it later over beer or something, but we got to go. We need to get out of here. Now that I think about it though, and I don't know if I'm reading too much into it, but that does then have a nice echo later in the film, doesn't it? When they come and save her

and he doesn't say it was my idea to come and save you it's chewy that tells her so it's almost like like that comes back doesn't it he could have he could have said yeah i really wanted to save you and taken some credit but he didn't and someone else did it for him yeah yeah it is it is it is a little bit of an echo but i don't know if it's intentional. I'm still going to say that that whole sequence is the part where it feels like, oh, okay. I agree. On my second watch through, as soon as the monsters escape, it's like, okay, great. This is the perfect time to go to the bathroom. I'll be back when this chase sequence is over.

Even the ship didn't feel like a Star Wars ship. It felt like it was from Alien or something. It was an odd part of the film. Yeah, it was a strange part. It's one of those parts where you imagine if people do the recuts, you know, they would cut it down to be much shorter. I did like the Millennium Falcon going into hyperspace

with the monster sucking on the front of it like that. Well, I couldn't wait to see what would happen as they fired up the engines. I couldn't wait to see what they did to the, what was going to happen to it. That is an example of things are better when they just happen, but you don't focus on it. So there's not a dramatic shot of the monster getting just plowed through by the Millennium Falcon. You just kind of see it in the background as this mouth that is over the front of their ship. And then it separates

so you know what's happened you know they've just flown right through it and i just i love that kind of stuff in movies like don't over focus on it it's better if you just have a thing happen but don't give me all of these dramatic camera shots around the thing happening we are once again super pleased to be sponsored by hoverover. Give them a look at hover.com. Now, Hover's a domain registrar that just seemed to get it right. Super easy to use and focused on you as customers. Having the right domain name these days is a really important part of life on the web. If you've got a project in mind, you should grab the right names while you can.

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I will pick something from a light side list, which I have to mention since we've complained about things. BB8. Adorable. Yeah, much better than i expected yeah i was a little worried from the trailer like oh here's a robot that's made for toys but holy crap is bb8 adorable he's absolutely adorable in every scene and i am totally sold on the decision to have his little head rotate atop the ball body. Because when you watch it, you realize, man, there's so much animation that is possible compared to something like R2-D2.

Where you feel a lot of emotion from R2-D2, you have a sense of him as a character. But BB-8 is able to emote through motion in a way that R2-D2 or even C-3PO really isn't. Like they are so much more limited in their movement. But his ability to swirl his little head around and look in different directions, it gives him such a character and he is so cute. So cute. You're such a softie, Grey. That's how you talk when you're playing with Audrey.

When they're in the Millennium Falcon, just shortly before Han Solo arrives, there is a scene that to me, it pushes the edge of things, but comes just short of going over my threshold for it. But I think maybe my favorite little sequence in the movie is when Finn confesses to BB-8 that he's not really part of the resistance. And he's like, listen, droid, you gotta go with me on this one. Can you just tell us where the rebel base is? And I just think it's, there's something that's really cute about that moment. And I absolutely love when Finn gives him

the thumbs up and BB-8 sticks out his little lighter thing and gives like a little, a little, his imitation of a thumbs up. That is like right on the edge of something that I would hate if the movie was done less well but it just came in under and i totally loved that little sequence i i enjoyed the sequence i think the little cigarette lighter thumbs up bit was stretching it and maybe that just just put a toe over the line for half a second yeah everything that came everything that came before it forgives it because it is a funny it is a funny little exchange between the two yeah that is definitely a subjective moment like for you it's slightly over the edge and for me it is just just barely under just barely under but it is saved by the

fact that again it is so fast right it is just a split second that he does the little lighter thing and pulls it right back in you know if they focused on it too long now this is no good but i absolutely love that that was that was really great, let's talk about some of the big things. What did you think about new Vader, Kylo Ren? I liked him. I thought, I liked him when he was menacing with his mask. I thought he was cool looking, not over the top. He looked like, he looked real. Like he looked like they weren't trying to make something that looked amazing. They were just making a quite cool, understated villain.

When he was out of the mask and being like, you know, just the dude, I thought he was close to being a little bit young Anakin Skywalker whingy, but he just acted well enough to get away get away with it and so i liked it i liked him as a human as well i loved his temper i love that he kept thrashing kept like getting his lightsaber out and having his temper tantrums i uh i liked that about him and i liked that became his like like that moment where the stormtroopers walk around the corner and they realize he's having another one of his tantrums and they just kind of back away was like one of the really funniest bits of the film wasn't it

the thing that makes that for me is how the the one stormtrooper puts out his hand to stop the other one in the way that like if a couple's walking along the street like and one notices something that the other one doesn't because they're talking you put out your hand to stop the other person it's such a little humanizing moment because you can imagine they're having some conversation in their head communicators or whatever and it's like whoa wait a minute buddy like let's just back up i've seen this before i've seen this before we gotta patrol somewhere else right now so uh i i did like him i'll say something about the the final battle about at the end though but um but i liked him did you like him i thought he was really well done and the thing that i kept thinking which i was amazed by and again it's just the difference

that competence makes is that this new vader is an angsty vader which is exactly the thing that everybody complains about in the prequels that the actual Darth Vader is an angsty kind of teenage character and the Kylo Ren character feels like he's he is in that same genre like his temper tantrums uh later in the movie I think it's interesting that when he is in a battle and he's really upset his I don't know if it's on purpose but his voice is suddenly very different it's like he's lost control over projecting menace right and he's he's much more closer to like a screechy edge of things almost like you would expect a teenager to be and i feel like but it works like it works and i think the reason it works is because the actor and the costume are still able to project menace

and i think the first time he flips out is a really key scene when when there's you know there's always in star wars like you don't want to be the officer who has to report to the dark side guy like that's not that nobody wants that job right no it's a terrible job much throat choking in that situation but the first time you you go through this very star wars scene where the officer has to say oh we've lost the droid and i think it's great because it establishes him as being really menacing that he he trashes the console in front of him and then when the officer gives this additional piece of information it's such a great shot of him using the force to to not just force choke the guy but to pull him across the room to like inches in

front of his face and it's that kind of thing that gives it it gives it menace and so it feels like okay he's not just throwing a tantrum because things haven't gone his way. It's like he is furious and upset, but he is also dangerous. And I think the actor does it really well. And I kept looking at the costume, which I thought was a really great comparison to Vader because it's so slender in many ways. He is a slender guy. He doesn't have the same kind of huge physical presence that darth vader does and i think that's a really good choice for doing something that is similar like you have the same kind of darth vader feel but it is it's not the same and i just thought

like he looked great in a lot of those scenes as this much more slender character he's even just wearing like this relatively light robe that doesn't even go all the way around him it just it was just a great visual look and i also thought the voice was done very well it was you know his his his voice over the way he spoke you know reminiscent of vader but not a mimicry and i think it was it was also done really well that it sounded like, oh, this is almost like a side effect of the kinds of helmets that all of these people wear. Because I was aware that when he spoke for the first time,

very shortly after they have the female general stormtrooper talk, and her voice is also distorted in kind of a similar way as his. And I feel like it almost establishes like, oh, he's not doing a Darth Vader impression. They're all just talking through helmets that distort their voice. And maybe- It's just the avid audio plugin they're using.

Yeah, that's exactly it. Like, listen, all of these people sound like this. And I think that's a good choice to very soon hear another character who sounds somewhat similar to him it's like yeah we're not doing a darth vader voice this is just what stormtrooper stormtrooper helmets are like and he has a custom one i love that his mask like was a bit dinged up well as well like it was just the mask looked lived in and they did it just right

yeah it was it was perfect i was really aware of too, that there were a few dings on the front faceplate. This is perfect. This feels like a real universe. This is a guy who has used this mask over the course of time. And it's a real thing that has been around for a long time. It is not straight from the prop department, even though it obviously is. See, the new characters are doing well.

What about the old characters? I mentioned, I thought, you know, I thought I was a bit embarrassed for Han Solo at times. You know, of course I love him, you know, but... Aside from the weird action sequence on that spaceship, I thought mostly the script was actually pretty good at having him not do too much. If you put that one action sequence aside, there's not many shots of him running around.

There were a few. There were a few where he's like shooting his blaster and being a hero. And I'm thinking. Yeah, but shooting your blaster and being a hero is very different from running. They don't show an old man running for the most part. I think that that's a good decision. Like he is there, he is doing things. The one that to me is over the line

is when he doesn't even look and shoots a stormtrooper. That to me was like, nope, sorry, I'm hitting the no buzzer on that one. You know, you should cut that half second because how is that even possible, right? Is he just lucky going back again to think to think about something like uh the the scene earlier in the movie when ray and finn are escaping on new tatooine in the millennium falcon which is a great great flight sequence and she's

flying on the inside of one of the crash star Destroyers and the gun gets stuck. And she pulls off this amazing maneuver where she flies through and cuts off the engine at just the right moment and turns the whole ship to line up the gun with the TIE fighter so that Finn in the back can shoot the gun and hit it. That scene in a Star Wars movie is believable because it's conveying to you immediately that she is force sensitive, right? That no one could pull off that maneuver. Like Han Solo couldn't have pulled off that maneuver. She's only able to do it because she is special. And I feel like, okay, that, that is again, like the movie is telling you something about this character and it's done really well. whereas Han Solo just shooting a stormtrooper without looking behind his back feels like dumb it just feels dumb there's no reason for it to happen it doesn't make any sense in the context of the movie and yeah for

me it's it's over the line and I would if I was the editor like no JJ Abrams we're just going to cut this it's it's two seconds it adds nothing it's not actually that funny. And it's a bit out of place. You bring up the Millennium Falcon. I wasn't entirely pleased with the use of the Millennium Falcon in the film. Why am I not surprised, Brady? I thought they got a little bit comic book cartoonish with it at times. One of the things I like about Star Wars is it sort of- It feels a bit like it obeys the laws of physics. And, you know, if your plane crashes into a forest, that's, like, bad. Right.

But I feel like the Millennium Falcon survived scrapes and landings and incidents that an old banged up old ship shouldn't survive. And it was performing manoeuvres that it shouldn't be performing. I thought the time when Rey flew it on Jakku was such an amazing scene and so much fun that I kind of forgave the amazing nimbleness it was showing flying inside a Star Destroyer. I forgave that. Yeah. And you point out it showed that she had something a bit special about her, that she could do that very implausible move of turning it off and turning it on again before it fell to the ground. The implausibility is a plot point as opposed to just something dumb that is happening. Whereas seconds earlier when she tries to take off and it smashes against the ground and then smashes into a building.

I agree with you. It feels like, is there physics here? Because I'm pretty sure that thing should have been torn to pieces in that takeoff. I mean, the landing on the snow planet and coming out of hyperspace so close to a planet and then landing on the planet the way they did, like, that just- that was like, okay, this is like- this is not believable. I didn't- I didn't like that. And also, it didn't feel necessary.

I kind of see why they did it with the snow planet, because otherwise, if they just went and landed on the snow planet, it would be like, what? Was there no trickiness required to get there? I agree with you. The movie wants some reason why they and only they can land, and this maneuver is the reason. But yes, it doesn't make sense when you think about it too long.

Yeah, so I don't think, like like there was all this talk about how you know thank goodness lucas didn't destroy the millennium falcon in his prequels and and jj abrams will treat it with care and respect it deserves i don't think it was treated with the care and respect it it deserves and i thought it became a bit of a it was was used too much and it was used in two silly ways. And I think it didn't do justice to the great lady of the skies. I can definitely agree with you there. Like the crash landing in the forest, it feels like,

I remember in a previous movie when ever so slightly bumping against the inside of a Death Star ripped off a vital component like are we not yeah are we not in that same universe now we can just smash straight through trees and it's fine it does seem it does seem a little bit it does seem a little bit too much yeah um but speaking speaking of force sensitivity there is one thing in the movie that that i really feel very strongly about is just a terrible, terrible mistake. And it is near the end and it is Finn's lightsaber battle with our new

Vader character, Kylo Ren. Yeah. And when I first watched the movie, I really didn't like this scene. And I thought, okay, maybe I'm being too hard on it.

Let me watch it closer in the second rewatching. And I hated even more on the second rewatching. I think nothing about that scene makes any sense. It shouldn't happen. It's bad for both characters. I just, I loathe that lightsaber scene so much. Is this the two of them in the forest before? So this is, yes, this is Finn versus Ky of them in the forest before so this is yes this is

finn versus kylo ren in the forest it's snowing which by the way all the lightsaber fights in in the snowing forest beautiful scene i just i love that like it just it looks gorgeous let me say that it's it's yeah it was cool it's phenomenal but yeah okay why why on earth can Finn use a lightsaber competently? Against someone who's already shown us he's pretty handy with the force. Yeah. I know he's injured by getting shot by Chewie, but he was still, you know. So here's what I think the movie was trying to do, because there was one dumb scene, which actually made me think of Indiana Jones, jones which is uh the first time finn uses the

lightsaber is after they visited the the maz character they're on that forest planet and the stormtroopers have landed and he's out there and he's unarmed he has only the lightsaber and i think okay that's reasonable like he's going to have to use a lightsaber in a situation because he doesn't have a gun fair enough yeah so he goes out into the field he kills a stormtrooper but then another stormtrooper in this moment, which made me laugh a little, but it wasn't supposed to, this other stormtrooper sees him, recognizes him, goes, traitor, and does this weird, like,

throw-down gesture where he just drops whatever the heck it is he's carrying. I can't even tell what it's supposed to be on screen. And then he pulls out some kind of big electric baton to fight. And like, wait a minute. Why isn't this like Indiana Jones? Why don't you, Stormtrooper, just shoot him?

Like, you have a gun. Why on earth? He's not going to be able to deflect bolts like Luke Skywalker can. Yeah, he's not a Jedi. You know he's not a Jedi. That fight scene was so dumb. It's also really confusing because... It was about selling toys, man.

Yeah, but what is this weapon this stormtrooper has that is a melee weapon that lightsabers can't cut through? Like, you have this weapon that can go up against a lightsaber? Okay, that's very interesting and quite notable for a thing that you're just going to casually have happen but what i think the movie was trying to establish there in a in the dumbest way possible was that for some bizarre reason stormtroopers have long sword combat training okay right that this is a thing that they have i like i think that's what the movie is trying to establish as setting it up for the lightsaber scene at the end.

Well, call me dumb. Maybe I did need some exposition there where he says, boy, that sword training I've had all those years paid off because I completely missed that. I mean, because I don't know if it's intentional, but that's my guess about what the movie is trying to tell you. But it's just implausible. Members of the U.S. Armed Forces, I'd love to know. I'm pretty sure that they train you with guns. And I'm pretty sure that they would train you in hand-to-hand combat. I don't imagine there's a lot of fencing training going on in the U.S. Army.

And it would make no sense for stormtroopers to have that kind of training but okay even giving this ridiculous premise that they're doing long sword fights at stormtrooper academy uh why on earth can he hold his own against kylo ren in a lightsaber fight for even a fraction of a second well i think kylo ren's injured isn't he that's what we're supposed to take from it and they keep emphasizing that because he keeps like touching his wounds and things. So I think they're trying to somehow justify it by saying this guy's right. He's, you know, he's right down on power mode at the moment. I know that that's what they're trying to do.

And they're overly emphasizing that he is injured because Chewie shot him. But listen, he is still clearly force capable. Why is this fight even occurring? Why doesn't he just choke Finn to death? Here's the way this scene in my mind has to go. It has to be a bit like the Emperor at the end of the original trilogy, who is electrocuting Luke. And he's electrocuting Luke because they're showing you like the emperor is really cruel and he gets enjoyment out of being cruel.

Like, you know, he's not he's not actually trying to kill Luke and it's taking a long time because the emperor is really bad with his lightning hands. Like he's he's doing it intentionally, cruelly. And so to me, this this scene in the end, the only way this this scene can play out is if Kylo Ren is just intentionally being cruel to Finn. But I was watching it really closely. Like they play it as though it is a real fight, like as though Finn has some chance of winning. And Finn even lands a blow, right? He lands a blow on Kylo Ren. And I'm like, no, this is bulls**t. Like this Stormtrooper, he would just get his ass handed to him no matter how wounded Kylo Ren is.

Like this should not be a fight. And it irritates me because I feel like it diminishes other lightsaber fights and it diminishes Rey's competence at using the lightsaber moments later. It's like, oh, any stormtrooper can just pick up a lightsaber and hold their own for a little while against a very force-sensitive individual? No, no way. Yeah, you shouldn't even have muggles using lightsabers, should you? Exactly. That's precisely what it is. The only person who gets to use a lightsaber is Han Solo

when he's trying to save Luke's life right i thought they smelled bad on the outside like that was so amazing to see han solo even turn on a lightsaber it's like oh he knows where the on button is like yeah exactly exactly so that's if there's any if there's any genuine real like i have a problem with this movie scene it is it is that lightsaber fight i just it irritates me it irritates me a lot again because ray and the actress and like that scene with the two of them fighting is a great scene and the thing that's extra irritating about it is that when you watch that fight kylo ren when he goes up against ray she is on the defensive for most of that fight right he is really pushing her back she is running and like she is barely holding her own for most of that you see that's not my memory of it my

my i mean you've seen it twice so you're right but my memory of of that whole last sequence was actually i was disappointed by how strong she was from the start i actually found that implausible that someone who's only just discovered her force sensitivity and has never even switched on a lightsaber before i know she's got a stick but yeah um it was was so good like i thought like i thought that was implausible the whole finn thing kind of passed me by i didn't really pay attention like but i thought i thought the spanking she gave kylo Ren was implausible. I thought she should just scrape by in that fight.

But I thought she was dominant. The way the fight plays out is that for the first half of it, he is pushing her back and she is running. She is running away from him. He corners her and he has this little moment where he offers her training. Like, I can train you in the force. And then pushes the lightsaber up against her. Right, he's pushing the moment where he offers her training, right? Like, I can train you. Oh, that's right. I can train you in the force. And then pushes the lightsaber up against her. Right.

He's pushing the lightsaber up against her. And then presumably she does a little like force meditation thing for a moment and gathers up her strength. And that's when she then pushes back against him, which I agree. Like, it's not my favorite thing in a movie where a character is suddenly much more competent. But OK, I will let this go. But that's why when she first picks up that lightsaber, she's being much more like a normal person who would be using it as a shield to deflect from incoming blows

and trying to put distance between themselves. And like this force-wielding maniac with his lightsaber. But Finn is all, he's perfectly capable in a fight. So that's why I just didn't like that at all. I'll tell you what, though. I don't mean to get all mushy on you here, but that scene when the lightsaber comes out of the snow towards Kylo Ren, but then bypasses him and goes into her hand,

and then the little bit of Star Wars music plays. That choked me up, man. That got me. Oh, yeah, that was great. That was absolutely greatoked that that got me oh yeah that was great that was absolutely great i was like i was like oh you're beautiful man you're beautiful i was thinking that was like that was like that was the emotional part of the film wasn't i was like oh man i love star wars so much yeah it was a very it was a very star wars shot you know it very much a very much a star wars feeling but so what's

what's one of your big bullet points that you want to mention oh i mean we've got to deal with some of the really big things here about whether it's okay or not let's deal with one of the biggest things of all and that is the really obvious obvious way in which the force awakens mirrors and has incredible coincidences with the first yeah films i mean you've got you've got the the the desert the desert orphany lonely person finding the droid that has the secret map and plans and then you've got that person meeting up with han solo and chew backer and having some adventures and then you've got that person meeting up with Han Solo and Chewbacca and having some adventures. And then you've got the big siege on the big spherical planet destroyer at the end. I mean, it was... The movie should be called Star Wars A New Hope 2.

Yeah, it was... Well, not even 2. It was almost like a reboot. Like, in some ways, I know there are differences. And I know it took some stuff from Return of the Jedi and New Hope and kind of mushed them together. But it was almost, it was like, and I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Maybe this is a good thing. But it's almost like there's only one story to be told, like Robin Hood.

And it's how many ways can you tell the Robin Hood story? Is that what we liked about it? Is this a remake rather than a sequel? It's an interesting question because the movie is remarkably close to a reboot or a remake. I was going to say almost embarrassingly so, but I don't mean it in a way because, you know, I really like the film. It's not embarrassing, but almost like it's like a big elephant in the room. It's like you want to turn to the person next to you and say, are you seeing this? Are you noticing this too?

Because this is exactly what happens in the other films. And it's just different people acting it. Yeah, it's- And it's not always different people acting it either. That's true. You definitely have some of the same people there. Like, oh, hi, Admiral Ackbar. How are you doing?

I guess your fish species lives a remarkably long time okay uh yeah there's there's a there's a bunch of that which is is a yeah it's so it's so similar it's it's quite remarkable it's quite remarkable the force moves in mysterious ways maybe so what do you think do you think that's okay well obviously i do because i liked the film it's kind of unoriginal but maybe I just don't mind that. I mean, I could watch 10 different Robin Hood movies. You know, old classic tales are old classic tales and Star Wars, you know, the original trilogy has become an old classic tale. It's become a myth. And we love watching our myths get reversioned time and time again. And maybe that's what's happening before our eyes here. It's sort of a reversioning of the myth with a few. The thing that's weird is it so obviously connects with the original as well.

You know, they talk, they reference the original films, obviously, you know, this is what happened back in the day. So that's where that line becomes very blurred. But it's kind of like, did you not have a new story? Like, did you just, could you not think of a new story? Did you deliberately use the old story? Are you doing it because you think that will tap into our nostalgia? Are you doing it because you think this is maybe the way the force works

and there's this kind of poetry, it rhymes, thing going on i mean i don't i don't know i don't know yeah so your little reference there is precisely what i was thinking through watching the whole movie the first time is in the red letter media reviews of the prequel movies they have a couple of shots of george lucas behind the scenes saying this line about how he wants the prequels to be like poetry and to rhyme with the original trilogy that he thinks it's okay for similar things to happen because this is his idea of storytelling and red letter media really just slams him on this just again and again because it's just terrible those movies they. They're absolutely terrible. And so I was watching this movie and thinking, I kept hearing Lucas in my head going,

it's like poetry, it rhymes. This time I am okay with this. It bothered, it's interesting, it bothered me a little bit on the first watching, but today when I watch it a second time, which now means, I mean, how many times have I seen a story where a gigantic planet destroying machine

blows up in my life? Many, many times. And on the second watch through, it bothered me much, much less. Like I didn't even really think about how this is exactly like A New Hope again. And it's just, I think it again goes to the lesson, like competence makes all the difference. Like it doesn't really matter what the story is. Any story can be interesting if competently executed, and a great story can be terrible if poorly executed. Now, what I wonder, though, is, I mean, I think this has to have been a deliberate decision that they were going to essentially redo A New Hope. Yeah, I mean, they can't not have noticed, obviously. Yeah, they can't not have noticed.

But what I think is this is probably a good decision if you know you have competent people on board because, I mean, we now have Disney owns the intellectual property to Star Wars. And so we know that there will be no shortage of Star Wars films in the future. Disney has made remarks about this, that they have plans to do big movies and small movies, very much like the way the Marvel universe is unfolding in movies and TV shows now. So there's going to be a lot more Star Wars. And I think it's fine for this one to be a kind of remake of the older movies.

Establishing that Star Wars feeling like, yes, people are more inclined to like this movie because it's matching up with things from here on they feel that they can do more different things so if the next movie starts out on an ice planet and someone gets frozen in carbonite halfway through then i'll be concerned right then i'll be feeling like oh okay i see where this is going and i like it a lot less but but my feeling on this is you've established this Star Wars-y feeling with a new character, with new characters, a new cast, a new world, and it's going on and we're going to continue from here. Hello, Internet. Today's episode is brought to you by Audible.com. With over 180,000 audiobooks and spoken audio products, you can get a 30-day

free trial today at audible.com slash hello internet. If you've gotten this far in the podcast, you're probably a science fiction fan, and so I actually have a science fiction audiobook recommendation today. I've mentioned before, I don't read a lot of fiction, but I recently just finished a series of books called the Virga series by Karl Schroeder. The first book is called Son of Sons. It's perhaps one of the most imaginative settings I've come across yet for a science fiction book. This is going to sound a bit weird to describe, but it totally works. The book takes place inside of a closed sphere floating in outer space that is filled with air and there are no planets on the inside. So humans, in order to live inside this gigantic solar system sized sphere, they have to build

what they call town wheels, basically big cylinders that rotate to give them artificial gravity. And for reasons that the book gets into later on, it seems like technological progress is limited inside this gigantic sphere. It's just such a weird setting, and I like it as a science fiction book because it constantly deals with the setting. And I like it as a science fiction book because it constantly deals with the setting. Like the very fact that people are living in this big open air solar system has a lot of interesting consequences. I don't want to say too much that is a spoiler, but so if you want to just quickly jump ahead 10 seconds, I will say one thing to try to sell the book, which is that it is a very interesting take on post-singularity fiction. I'm not going to say much more than that. The book doesn't really dwell on the singularity,

but it does sort of incidentally make reference to the fact that this is post-singularity fiction, and it's a very interesting take on it. So again, there are five books. The first one is called Son of Sons. The series is called Virga, and the author is Carl Schroeder. And you can give it a free listen with Audible's 30-day free trial when you sign up at audible.com slash hello internet. If you want to listen to it, they have it. Thanks to Audible for supporting the show. Let me put another big picture thing to you here.

Uh-huh, uh-huh. Because, you know, a lot of people who don't like the prequels, myself included, always say, oh, I feel like these have, you know, robbed me of the glory of these films that I loved when I was a child. Yeah. I think in some ways this film has robbed me of even more. Interesting. Because the final scene of Return of the Jedi is burned into the memory of any young person, isn't it?

They're around the fire. They're happy. The Empire is vanquished. You're full of hope and your imagination can run wild of Luke Skywalker becoming this great Jedi and living happily ever after. And Han and Leia are finally together forever like we always wanted them to be. Your imagination can run wild of Luke Skywalker becoming this great Jedi and living happily ever after. And Han and Leia are finally together forever like we always wanted them to be. And everything's going to be good. And now we know that that's not what happened.

Han and Leia became estranged. Han was due to die this terrible death at some point in the future in these terrible terrible circumstances we know that luke went off the rails and became this crazy unhappy hermit so it's like all of that niceness i have at the end of the turn of the jedi where i can just dream of dream about what happened next and come away with a swarm feeling it's gone now like now whenever i watch that final scene of return of the jedi i'll just look at them around the fire and go, if only you guys knew what's coming next, you wouldn't look so happy. That is such a Brady way to look at the end of a movie. Just sitting there and thinking, oh, everything's going to be great from now on. When I watch the end of Jedi, I can feel happy for them

having won this battle. But I always had the feeling as a kid of, oh, what happens next? And what I don't expect to happen next is just a party on Endor for all of time. No, but that's not what, yeah, of course, of course. But that's not what Return of the Jedi is. Return of the Jedi isn't supposed to be yet another battle won. It's the end of the war. The first two films are a series of battles you know they win a battle they lose a battle they win a battle they lose a battle and then

at the very end they win the war and that is what is so beautiful everything everything has you know that's what's so warm about the end of this the end of the series but now we learn no they didn't it was just another battle another bloody star planet blowing up thing gets built. Yet again, they've got to jump in their X-wings and shoot it in its magic belly button where you can blow it up. It's like, for goodness sake, is this just going to happen for all of eternity? Blow up a Death Star, we'll build another one. Blow up a Death Star, we'll build another one.

To borrow a phrase from another franchise, all of this has happened before and all of this will happen again. That is a little bit of the feeling. But that's also why, as we mentioned before, I actually do find the absence of the macro, it's a bit of a problem for this movie because it does feel like what happened after that,

that ending in Jedi. And now like what, what government is going on? I really do think that that is a bit of a missing connecting piece. And I am, I am fine and expect the notion that there is continued adversity in the future, but there is,

there is a disconnect between what happened then and and what happened now like why again why is leia in this resistance as opposed to the other government like that that for me is is the problem like i can understand what you're saying that you feel like you have been robbed of the happy ending from the from the end of that movie but i i don't i don't necessarily have have that same feeling you know i can live with that don't get me wrong i can live with that and i would rather have the force awakens than nothing because right well you know i don't know this is where are we straying into Godfather 3 territory here? You know, I've never seen any of the Godfather movies.

Okay. Well, there we go. Sorry, Brady. Let's do that another time. Because I'd love, because I didn't watch the Godfather movies for a very long time. And then when I finally did, I was like, oh my God, why didn't I do this years ago? So maybe that's an assignment for another day. But that's a future show. We'll do that the night after we do our chick flick slumber party.

Yeah, maybe. But anyway, so, I mean, you know, The Godfather 3 famously is this third movie that a lot of people wish wasn't made because the first two are so perfect. Yeah, even not having ever seen The Godfather movies, I know that this is the reputation of Godfather 3. But, you know, I think Godfather 3 is still a really good film. And kind of, would I rather have a third film, just so there's another one I can watch, or would I prefer they never touched this sacred cow of the first two films? And maybe, and that's a bit the case here.

But I think after the prequels were made, The Force Awakens was almost needed to sort of, to save face. To cleanse the wound. Yeah. That's what it was. But would it be better? Would it be better if we could go back in time that we just had those first three Star Wars films made and nothing else? No prequels, not even all the other ancillary stuff.

Would it be nice if it was this untouched little nostalgic perfect thing? It's a more interesting question if you ask yes would you rather have the original three and nothing else i mean because obviously if you could erase the prequels from existing you would but is are the prequels like paying the price of the prequels is that worth it to get what is coming in the future well that that depends on on what the rest of the movies look like yeah i mean i guess i guess we can only sit and watch those first three films so many times, but- Many, many times over the course of a life, though. Yeah. Can I say, what do you think of the name Starkiller for that thing?

Is that what they actually called it? It's called Starkiller, isn't it? Yeah, it's the Starkiller. They only use it once, and I think they deliberately use it once because they really, I mean, Luke Skywalker was originally going to be called Luke Starkiller, wasn't he? In the first script. So I think it's also supposed to be a little nod to that maybe, but I think that's a bit of a lame name. And I do have problems with that weapon. I do have problems with the big, bad weapon. That name is literally a description of what the weapon does, since it sucks up a sun and shoots it out at other planets. I know times change, and I know this is 30 years later, but there have been some incredible advances in the technology that we were made

privy to in the original Star Wars films. If they can now, if they can first convert a planet into a weapon, and then a weapon that's capable of sucking up a star and shooting it i mean this is sounding a lot more star trek than star wars yeah that's a good that's a good point there's something about that weapon that is very star trek feeling yeah and it it almost when you mention all the resources and the technology it does feel like in the next movie is is this scrappy scrappy first order going to be building Dyson spheres? Like, what are they going to be up to? Yeah, Kylo Ren will use his perpetual motion lightsaber. It's just an implausible weapon.

It's just this upping of the ante. And they do have that one shot, which is the literal upping of the ante when they're doing the debriefing. I mean, there's this move that movies do, which is always remarkably effective, but I'm still always aware of when they do it, where you have the characters call out something that's happening in a movie to make it less implausible. And somehow when the characters acknowledge it, you're just much more willing to let it go.

Someone says like, oh, is it another Death Star? And they go, oh no, look, the Death Star was this big. This thing is really big. You'd have to put this many London double-decker buses on top of each other to... Yeah, it's like we're having this little infographic moment there. And the most calling out of, look, we know exactly what we're doing,

is when Han Solo has to say, is there a way to blow it up? There's always a way to blow it up. And it does, like I said, it does kind of work in movies when they do that, but it is also an acknowledgement of like, we know exactly what we're doing. Like, we have to tell you that it's not a Death Star. It's a bazillion times bigger. And like, I wonder if there's a way to blow it up.

There always is. The other great line that Han Solo has that kind of steps out of the movie for a second and winks at the movie but was so good was when Finn says he was going to do something and he'd use the Force and Han Solo just says, that's not how the Force works. Yeah, I do like that. Yeah, I do really like that. That was a good line. Yeah. Yeah, that worked really well. It worked really well.

I'm just going to use the force to rescue her. You're an idiot. You just don't know what the... He's like, I don't know what... No one knows what the force is, but it definitely doesn't work like that. Yeah. So you didn't know Han Solo was going to die. I did not.

At what point did you realize it was about to happen? And how did you feel when it happened? Because I missed out on this gasp moment, you know. Okay, well, here's the problem. Even though though i wasn't spoiled there are things that happen in movies that telegraph so clearly what is going to happen yeah i mean that clearly had that and when they're there this is again is one of these cases of exposition irritating the crap out of me and exposition kind of ruining something that's coming up which is when chewy and han are talking about planting all the detonators in you know the place they have to blow up so the whole thing blows up the place of no guardrails yeah yeah

they're like oh we're going to plant these detonators and there's two things that immediately happens which is one han suggests a plan chewy makes and Han says, oh, that's much better. I'll go down there. You go up there. It's like that's a little warning sign number one in your brain that they're drawing attention to things might have gone a different way, but they're not going to. There's no reason for that to happen in a script. But the real thing, which is just, oh, okay, is that Han then has to say to chewy here you take the detonator and it just bothers me because we've already established earlier in the movie han solo literally

says my friend has a bag full of explosives why don't we use that it's like i would presume that chewy has the detonator but as soon as you're drawing attention to someone having the detonator yeah at that moment it was like oh okay han solo is going to die within the next three minutes like you just you just know it's going to happen you just know what's going to happen and then when finn and ray just arrive at the convenient point at the viewing window to watch everything unfold and we have that new hope mirror you know where everyone arrives at the one place just in time to watch our hero get lightsabered exactly yeah so i don't i don't mind finn and ray arriving at the balcony for a good viewing and yeah i don't mind the

dramatic no guard rails ladder across a gigantic empty space it's like man they have the worst health and safety standards at all these empire bases i I don't mind that because it's setting things up. It's fine. But the little line about the detonator just irritates me more. Because is there anybody in the world who would have been super confused when Chewie ran out and took out a little thing and pressed a button and it exploded? No, exactly. Is there anybody who would have gone, how did he make that explode? Where did the detonator come from?

Like, he has the bags full of explosives. I presume the detonator is in there. Why, movie, do you have to draw attention to this in such a way that so clearly telegraphs what's coming up? Other things could have been on a timer as well, for goodness sake. No one cares. As long as the thing blows up, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't matter. That's another way to do it. Yeah, just have it be on a timer as well, for goodness sake. No one cares. As long as the thing blows up, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't matter.

That's another way to do it. Yeah, just have it be on a timer. Side note here, I absolutely love that they use the same little sound effect for the bombs that was in the original movies. There was a lot of little details with the sound work on this movie that I just loved. And there were some bombs in the original trilogies, and they clearly went back and got the exact same sound effect

to use for these bombs of the little charging up when they you know, when they press the button to get it ready. So, you know, someone cared making this movie. I like that. Then for goodness sake, Grey, can I just take issue with one word you keep using then? What? And I know you're using it correctly and I'm probably not. You keep talking about competent and competence. I think if you say someone did a competent job, you're saying they did enough.

I think the people that made this film were beyond competent i think they were very good at making films yeah yeah the reason i keep using competence is because i'm really comparing it with someone who was quite incompetent to do this right that's that's that's why i'm phrasing i'm not saying that they hit only competence i'm you know that they they were like like competence is if you have to fill up a glass to get to excellent right like they did a great job and then by definition the glass has to be filled up to at least competence when somebody else didn't didn't hit that mark you mean the guy that invented it all and made it all possible basically yeah exactly so even knowing it's clearly telegraphed han solo is going to die and also I mean you kind of if

you know anything about the background of Star Wars you know that Harrison Ford is kind of a grumpy guy who's kind of weirdly accidentally a famous actor and seems really grumpy about the whole thing and who also had some arguments with George Lucas about whether or not Han Solo should die in Return of the Jedi. He was very strong on the opinion that Han Solo should die at the end of that movie. So it feels like Harrison Ford definitely wants to step out in a dramatic way if he possibly can. This was his previous goal.

So it's not surprising that he dies in this movie i thought that scene was really well done and i another emotional point i thought there was a real little a real little gut punch is when he calls out ben to get his son's attention that is exactly the kind of thing that might seem like an inconsequential spoiler if you knew it ahead of time but in the context of that scene to me that is actually the important reveal of this it's like okay i know han solo is going to die here but that that extra kick in the gut of they named their son ben that that adds like this emotional emotional piece to to that scene so i thought that was that was a a really nice way of adding something to that that scene that you know is going to play out in a certain way i mean how did you how did you feel

about that scene yeah hans oler had a much bigger part in the film than i ever expected yeah me too i was very surprised at that. Yeah, they certainly got their pound of flesh out of him before they did away with him. You know, obviously the opposite of Luke, who hasn't earned his wages yet, I don't think. I was actually wondering, because

in the unions, in the Hollywood unions, they treat you very differently if you're someone who has a spoken line of dialogue, if you're not. Or if you're not. And I was kind of wondering about that, about Mark Hamill're not and i was kind of wondering about that about mark hamill i was like oh he doesn't say a single word i wonder if he got paid less because of it i'm hoping he'll have something to do in the next film but um but yeah i was i was all right with him dying i kind of i'm not i see why we've got the old actors back and I hope they do something awesome with Luke Skywalker, but I have to say the return of all these old characters has left me a bit colder than I thought it would.

And, um, you know, C-3PO, I think they could have done without him. Uh, all he did was annoy me and get him out of there. Like,

you know, I know they've got this red arm now is that to sell more toys i can only assume that's to sell new toys but but um it's it's funny you mentioned that because the c-3po appearance with uh when han and leia meet again for the first time presumably after years of estrangement and then then C-3PO pops into camera. I have to admit, that got a hell of a laugh out of me because it was so unexpected. And I did not know that C-3PO was in the movie. Like, I had no idea.

Which is, as a slight note here, I went into the theater without ever having even seen the poster for the movie, which I was really glad because the poster actually gives away a huge amount of stuff. And so for me, watching it, it knowing nothing like c-3po showing up was quite a surprise and could not have been done in a better way like it just i thought it fit just perfectly with his character no of course yeah he's famous for stopping them kissing isn't he and things like that so yeah like i i like that it just worked out i i of like the red arm, but there's this notion that he is both really vain and also doesn't understand the way humans perceive him. He thinks he looks completely different with this red arm.

But I also agree that there was a little bit of a feeling for me with C-3PO and R2-D2 of, do we need them? Do we need these characters back uh like i'm not i'm not 100 sure that we really that we really do i'm sort of thinking on the fly here but it i might be way off the mark or i might be right maybe the problem i had with c-3po being in this film is he is now tarred by the prequels. So he's part of those. So bringing him into this is a bit like,

and like he does so many stupid things in those prequels, like so many scenes that we won't even talk about, that it's a bit like Jar Jar Binks appearing. It's a bit like, oh, no, no. And, you know, and I'm having memories of, you know, wrong heads on robots and bad puns and I'm thinking, no, no, go away. You're giving me flashbacks and not to the good films.

You're giving me flashbacks to the bad films. So maybe it's that, but I feel like it added little and he's not like important. He's not important like, oh, High End Solo and Luke Skywalker, your mythical legends. Is Luke Skywalker real? It's not like people 30 years later are going, oh, my goodness, it's the amazing C-3PO who helped with some translation.

Yeah, yeah. I see what you mean. I do see what you mean. I get why he's there and you know it's all right it's not a big deal but it's not a big deal because he's he's not a big character but i have i did have this little bit of a feeling when i don't know in some ways i actually find like r2d2 is a weirdly problematic character in this movie but i did feel when r2d2 wakes up and he has the rest of the map for some reason uh it's, it's a bit weird.

The dialogue that happens there. It's like, okay, R2D2 has the rest of the map. Okay. We're just going to go along with this, but it is, there is this feeling of like,

okay, we have three droids now. Like, do we need all these droids? I'm not a hundred percent sure. And, and this feeling of, I like you was surprised how much of a role Han and Leia had in this movie,

because my presumption was they were going to have a relatively minimal role and be handing over Star Wars to this next generation of characters. And I never really thought about C-3PO and R2-D2 as being in the subsequent movies. And it looks like Leia is going to play some role in the future movie, and obviously Luke is going to play some role in the future movie.

And obviously Luke is going to play some role in the future movie. And it begins to feel a bit like an ensemble cast of, okay, if we have Leia and we have Luke and we have R2D2 and we have C-3PO, it feels a little bit crowded. Like there's, I want more space for new characters. Like let's, let's do new things and i understand like bb8 is very much an r2d2 new generation thing but it's maybe that's why there's this feeling of like do we need r2d2 and bb8 i don't know yeah i agree i mean i i'm not too worried about the i mean obviously luke is going to be this sage ben kenobi so I'm happy with him continuing through the ages.

And Han Solo basically does his hand over in this film, doesn't he? And I can imagine Leia's going to probably be maybe just be some non-action bureaucratic, you know, Mon Motha type character who's just, you know, sits at base and gives lectures. So I don't think she's going to be out blowing stuff up and things like that. So I'm not think she's going to be out blowing stuff up and things like that. So I'm not too worried with the integration of the humans, but I just feel like C-3PO just gets on my nerves now.

I've had enough of him. The thing is, though, Brady, it's totally okay, because perhaps my favourite line of the movie, not because of its delivery, not because of how entertaining it is, not because of anything that the line actually conveys except what the director is explicitly telling you is when the new general and Kylo Ren are having this little argument over the stormtroopers and Ren says, maybe we should be using clone troopers instead of these regular army guys.

And the general is irritated and he says, oh, no, my soldiers are supremely well trained and we don't need a clone army. To me, that line is like J.J. Abrams looking directly at the audience and saying, you know, all that stuff with the prequels. Forget it. Like this doesn't exist in this universe. We don't have clone troopers. Like none of that really, really connects. And so I would just be shocked if anything that J.J. Abrams does

has a real connection to anything that happens in the prequels. So I feel like that line really just closes a door and on one side of that door, there's the original trilogies and there's J.J. Abrams' movie. And on the other side of the door, out in the cold, are the prequels. And this movie is making that really official. So I just love that they took their time to add in this line,

which makes no sense to almost anybody who isn't a pretty big Star Wars fan. But they took the time to have this little disagreement and be like, yeah, there's no clone troopers. You know, the whole thing that the prequels were about that they focused around? Yeah, we're just undoing all of that. I mean, I read that line differently in a few different ways,

but now that you put it like that, I see that meaning as well. How did you read it originally though? Well, I obviously thought it was being used to show there's an antagonism between the two characters because it's one of the first times we see that they aren't on the same page you know kylo ren in this general is it general hucks i think his name is they're not on the same page i can also see it serving the purpose because obviously those prequels created

so much confusion as to the status of stormtroopers are Are they clones or are they humans? So, I think the point was to say, whatever you thought about the middle trilogy, about the status of stormtroopers, are they still clones or have they been humanised? Whatever you thought, this is what they are now. They're humans. So, don't be confused about why Finn is a stormtrooper and doesn't look just like the Boba Fett. You know, this is, everything's all right. Relax. He doesn't have a New Zealand

accent you know he's fine it's fine I thought it was more kind of just dealing with a few possible points of confusion and also I thought are they setting up something for the future are they setting up uh something about clones coming later but in hindsight I don't think they are I would be shocked if they ever bring the clones back. That's what I think that line is delivering. So anyway. But I also agree that, again, as a minor point, I think it's really well done to show that the General and Kylo Ren are, they're on the same sort of level.

Again, it's very new Hopi in that darth darth vader in that is part of this whole establishment but he's not like in charge of it he's just another guy who is working with the emperor and i like that this this movie does the same kind of thing where it's like kylo ren you get this feeling that he is working alongside the military, but is partially outside of it. But neither of the two of them have direct command over the other. It's like they are each in charge of a different thing, each working for, oh, I forgot his name, but the new major Sith Lord hologram guy.

The Wizard of Oz, yeah. Yeah, the Wizard of Oz. Snoke's, something like that, I forget. Yeah, Snoke. I'll tell you what, speaking of this General Hux, I thought that was, unless something's going to change, which it probably will, I thought that was a bad piece of casting. I like that actor.

I like him. I've liked him in other stuff. I thought he was the wrong man for the role. And maybe the role's going to change and he'll become, he's going to grow into it and he'll be suited to it later but at the moment i felt like he looks more like the work experience kid than the person who would be in charge of all of that so you think he looks too young i think he looks too young and he just doesn't have an authority about him that like you know grand moff tarkin people like that had he has yeah i mean grand moff tarkin, that's hard to beat. That guy was awesome.

Yeah, yeah. P.S. Peter Cushing. But I think this guy doesn't have a, I thought, and Domhnall Gleeson, I think it might be, I'm not sure, is the actor. And I think, I didn't get it. Like, I like him as an actor. And when I heard he was in the film, I thought, great, he's a cool actor. I'm sure he'll'll be really good but the role just seemed incongruous to me that he had that and i thought that was uh i thought that was a miss but maybe he's gonna something's gonna happen to him later and his character will go on a different journey that will be more suited to the actor's skill set but at the moment i think they should have had someone with a bit more authority and experience about them.

Yeah, see, for me, I think he worked. I was worried when he showed up because I have seen him mostly in, he's in an episode of Black Mirror, of course. And I have seen him as the male lead in a couple of chick flicks. And he's a striking looking person. You know it's him right away. But in all of his roles, I have found him to be a striking looking person. You know it's him right away. But in all of his roles, I have found him to be a very good actor. But when he did show up in this movie,

my feeling was, oh, it's him. Like I was eventually sold on him in this role as this character. And the feeling that I have is like, okay, yes, he's a little young, but maybe he is just extremely competent at what he is doing. I was never sold by him. And like when he does his big, you know, Hitler Nazi speech to the soldiers,

which was a bit of a weird scene, if you ask me. But when he does that and he's supposed to be giving that stirring speech, that's this sort of big moment to kick off this finale. It just didn't, it didn't do anything for me. I'm like, oh, I'm not, I'm not feeling it. You don't have, you wouldn't, you wouldn't, you wouldn't command me. You don't have the charisma for that. You know, didn't, didn't work, but maybe I, maybe I was having a sip of my Coke at the time and not paying enough attention. This is the thing with acting, right? Everybody reacts differently to different characters.

I think, I think he was fine in the role. I was worried when he showed up, but I think he did. Okay. Uh, whereas again, like as we said many times in the beginning,

girl who plays Ray phenomenal job. Uh, and I, and I don't think Finn was the, you know, he had some clunky lines and the, the other character who like the guy, wasn't super sold on him. And this is, I got into a bit of an argument with someone about this,

but I was disappointed when the pilot showed back up later in the movie. I think that he should have died in the TIE fighter crash at the beginning. I think that is a much stronger start to the movie that you have this character they've built him up to be a kind of smart ass kind of guy they've given him a little bit of characterization and then he dies passing on this mission to finn and to bring him back later, it just feels cheap. And I don't think he was, he didn't strike me as some amazing actor. I wasn't thinking, oh, great, this guy is back. I wasn't really in love with his character. And so I was disappointed at the scene where you're

supposed to feel like, oh boy, that amazing pilot is back. And I was like, oh, okay. I'm not entirely convinced that his parentage won't be of some interest in the subsequent films. The pilot's parentage? Mm-hmm. Well, everybody's parentage is in question in a Star Wars movie. Yeah. That's why I think he, you know, because he's this, they keep emphasizing that he's this abnormally good pilot. And there are only two people I know who are really good pilots in the star wars universe yeah and they're and they're both pretty important

characters so um i don't know i think i think you know you're right it would have been it would have been cool if you know a cool character dies really quickly but um but i don't know i think i think maybe vader might have had a little little on the side there. Is that what you're thinking? Well, I don't know. It could be. There's a few things that could be. And so, yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure where he's going because he's like,

he seems to be a marquee actor for the film. And yet he didn't really do much in this film. Yeah, but he's obviously one of the three, right? They have three characters that are going to be going on through the rest of the movies. And he is one of those three. And my feeling was, uh. And he hasn't earned his place in that three yet so that makes me think there's something more to him yeah he hasn't earned his place and and also just like the guy who plays finn i felt a few of his line deliveries were just not not super great he doesn't this sounds really stupid but is he quite a short guy he doesn't seem to have much of he

doesn't seem to have much of he doesn't seem to have much of a presence like when he first appeared and came walking down the ramp like when he got out of his ship and he appeared and like when he can i was a bit like oh you're a bit you're a bit i don't know he sort of lacks lacks he lacks the physical presence of his kind of cocksureness yeah the thing the thing that this kind of reminded me of uh is in star trek voyager in the first couple of episodes they try very hard to establish that their pilot it's a similar kind of thing that their pilot is an amazing pilot and he's this rebel guy and they pulled him out of a prison to to have him do this special mission for Star Trek Voyager.

And all of the characters are constantly talking about how he is just like this badass pilot. And the actor just does not have that characteristic. He looks like he should be wearing a white sweater tied around his neck and a pink collared shirt. He just looks like a really preppy, upper middle class kind of guy. Yeah. And it's like no matter how much you have characters trying to tell me that Tom Paris is like some badass in prison who's an amazing pilot, like he just isn't. And I totally agree with you that this pilot character, whose name I don't even know,

he just, this is kind of why I wanted him to die in the beginning, is like he does not, he doesn't have that kind of on-screen presence. He talks the talk and I think he's, I like his face and his hair and I like his swagger, but he just seems like a, he just seems like there's not much of him. He seemed like a short guy. I could be wrong. I mean, I agree about Tom Paris. He's just, you know, always supposed to be this action hero. And he always looked like a, he looked a bit poncy, didn't he? But yeah, exactly.

But I don't think this new character, whatever he's called, I forget, suffers from that kind of Paris ponciness. It's more a kind of a... I'm not saying it's Paris ponciness, which is great. I like that phrase. But it's a similar kind of just a lack of this feeling of like, oh, yeah, you feel like a guy who could be an amazing pilot. But you're right. I mean, they do keep emphasizing it.

And another one of these lines of dialogue that I didn't like is when Kylo Ren is torturing him. He says, I had no idea we had the best pilot in the Resistance on board. It's like, oh, why do you have to say that? Would anybody in real life say that? I don't think they would. Yeah. And it was written in text for us, which is also, but the fact they emphasized it so much is what also made me think, like I was straight away thinking, oh, is he like the son of Han Solo or is he the son of Luke Skywalker? But who knows? Yeah. So I'm sure we'll be seeing much more of him but i i always i always wish i always wish that movies would either like make a decision either you kill

characters or you don't but the thing that i hate the most is the death fake out of characters and yeah you know because it just it always feels to me like you just rob your earlier scenes of of any importance and it's become such a trope now too that i mean did anyone actually think he was dead surely not like it was a bit silly like it would have been a it would have been a bigger twist if he was dead because it was jj abrams and jj abrams does some interesting things in movies sometimes i was actually running under the assumption that he was dead. And I thought, oh, what a relief. But it might have also just been some wishful thinking on my part.

You got double faked. Yeah, like, oh boy, that guy's gone. When he appeared back on screen, Grey was the only person in the cinema who went, oh! Yeah. I mean, the thing is, there is something really unremarkable about him. Because even when they showed him in the X-Wing, when he flies back on, I didn't twig that it was him until Finn delivers again that line. It's like, boy, that guy sure is an amazing pilot. It's like, yeah, I can see it. I can see it on the screen. You don't need to tell me this. Speaking of breaking the laws of physics, by the way, when they show human beings doing, like, manoeuvres that would require reflexes and things beyond what a human can do,

like some of those little barrel rolls and turns, I do have problems with that too. Like, that seems like no human, like, that would tear a human's body to pieces, some of those turns and manoeuvres that were being done, yet alone whether they have the actual cognitive ability to be thinking that fast yeah but anyway yeah this is this is always the thing it's it's how far can they push things before you feel like it's too far yeah with i don't know but some of the some of the x-wing stuff i didn't really think

about that too much uh you know i just there is something great about X-Wing TIE fighter fights it's just you know it's it's a it's a pleasure to watch again I love all the sound work on the TIE fighters like they just have such a particular sound that I love man they're great yeah so one other thing that I wanted to mention was just thinking about this movie versus thinking about the dreaded prequels. One of the things I was really aware of watching this is in some of the opening establishing sequence of this movie with Rey and her life and Finn on the desert planet, there were CGI animals in the background that I couldn't help but notice because that of course is one of the great sins of the remade versions and of the prequels

of just like crap in the background, just everywhere. And I'm looking at the CGI animals in the background of this movie and again, just appreciating what a well done movie can do because can do because i was looking at them and thinking oh why don't these animals bother me and the answer is they're all there for a reason and so the very first background animal that we see is in that silent establishing sequence for Rey. When she gets, she's done with her scavenging, she gets back to town, and she's pulling behind her on this sled, this load of stuff that she has scavenged.

And coming in the opposite direction is a CGI animal pulling a way bigger load of scavenged stuff. And this to me is just a great example of that animal adds to the scene. It's like a comment on her life, that she is there as a kind of beast of burden doing this very manual labor. And this animal that is going in the opposite direction is at that moment doing her job better than her because she's she's only able to carry so much and it is carrying this enormous amount of stuff and i feel like that that just that one

little shot is just the the perfect example of how to add stuff that is atmospheric without being distracting that animal has a reason to be in that scene. It's not just, oh, I want to make this place look really busy and alien. And I'm just going to throw aliens everywhere. It's going to be animals everywhere, adding nothing, doing distracting stuff, sneezing when main characters are walking into buildings. It was just great. And then the other big CGI animal, which is like very close to being George Lucas-y, but not quite, was the gigantic elephant thing that's drinking from the water. But even that animal, it's okay. You can argue that it doesn't need to be there, but it's still, it adds something to the scene because it provides a good reason why Finn is so desperately thirsty that he's drinking the water.

And it's obviously disgusting because this big giant disgusting creature is also drinking from it. And then it's the motion of that creature that distracts him for a moment and so he sees this fight taking place between Rey and some other scavengers. And so that to me is just a great example of

you want to have stuff in your movie to show that it's an alien place, that's great, but it works when they are doing things. you want to have stuff in your movie to show that it's an alien place. That's great. But it works when they are doing things, when they have a reason to be in the scenes. And it just, to me, draws a tremendous example of the difference between like what George Lucas does and what a competent filmmaker would do.

It was competence at its very best. Yes, it was. It really was. And even just, its very best. Yes, it was. It really was. And even just, I mean, just other very minor thing, but just, I love that in those desert scenes, the actor playing Finn is sweaty. You want to know why? Because they're really in a desert.

Like he's really hot. They are actually somewhere, you know, they're not on a green screen. They are filming out in the deserts in Abu Dhabi or someplace, right? It's just, it's a little thing like that that just makes it so real to see like this guy actually has sweat on his face because he is really hot wherever he is standing. I was like, thank you, J.J. Abrams, for building sets and taking people places and making it feel very real. I mean, the desert scenes are by far and away the highlight of the film for me, the start of the film, along with the lightsaber and the snow in terms of visuals.

But the desert not only is visually the most appealing part, but it's also just the most engaging part of the film. Like it's the highlight of the film. A film that I like all the bits of, but that was by far and away the best part of the film for me. Let me ask you about the end of the film. A film that I like all the bits of, but that was by far and away the best part of the film for me. Let me ask you about the end of the film. So, first of all, there's a question. Would they just send Rey to go and meet Luke Skywalker, the person that everyone has been looking for for the last 30 years, and they finally find out where he is

and they send this girl they've just met? Well, you know, Chewie's with her. I mean, I understand maybe they want to keep it low profile, but would you not send where he is and they send this girl they've just met well you know chewy's with her i mean i understand maybe they want to keep it low profile but would you not send like your best pilot or i don't know anyway it doesn't seem it doesn't seem low profile when you have everybody in the base cheering her on as she leaves i mean presumably they're all cheering her on because they know where she's going yeah so that but let's leave that to one side um i mean i'm glad they sent her but but it seems an odd decision what do you think of the the end the final scene you know we finally see luke skywalker and she holds out the lightsaber and i think the movie

should have ended three minutes earlier with her taking off and flying in into space to go find luke like the end of um. Like the end of Empire. Yeah. The pacing of the movie, aside from the monster scene, it never really felt slow to me. It never felt like, oh, they've slowed down for a moment. Even when the scenes themselves were slow, the movie, the pace always felt appropriate. But that was the only time where I felt a little antsy

all of a sudden in my seat. It's like, isn't this movie over? We're done she's gonna go off and find yeah luke skywalker right okay that's great it felt like such a natural end to me that i was thinking oh like i was thinking oh we're not gonna see luke skywalker because this is such a good time to end and we haven't seen him so obviously we're not gonna see him at all and then they like tagged on like okay yeah we've got to show you yeah and this is this is another example of where knowing anything is a bit of a spoiler because even having watched the first trailer my brain is always doing the thing that i do when watch these movies where it's just ticking off all of the scenes like we haven't seen x-wings flying across the water yet oh they're standing at a place where there's a big lake. I guess this is where the X-Wings are coming in, like just tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

And simply knowing that Mark Hamill was in this movie is a bit of, okay, the movie should obviously end here, but I know that it isn't going to. And it didn't really feel to me like, why do they have this scene? I think they have this scene so that mark hamill is involved in this movie i think this this scene is here for reasons other than the pure movie making of it it would have been a great bait and switch and they could have argued he was in it because of his arm in the flashback scene or something exactly exactly i think they easily they easily could have done that i just i don know. I really feel like that scene was there because they wanted to have Mark Hamill involved in this production and it was not there because fan of the final shot this sort of big aerial shot of the helicopter going around the pinnacle showing the two of them it was the perhaps the one camera shot in the whole

film that didn't feel like a star wars movie yeah i agree i agree like it felt like a bbc tv documentary where someone's doing a documentary about you know ireland and and they should and they have this big shot where the presenter goes and here you can see all the coast that has been here for 5 000 years and like it felt and and it was obviously in a helicopter and it just it didn't it didn't belong and i think the one of the reasons this film feels so much like a star wars film is that j J.J. Abrams restrained himself. And, like, although he's so much more creative with the cameras than Lucas was, he didn't go overboard. Like, it's not quite as frantic as even the new Star Trek movies

and other things. Like, it did retain an old-fashioned feel. And even though the camera moved a lot more than, like, in, you know, old films, there was kind of a deliberate sort of space opera decision to say let's be a little bit old school and traditional here. Exactly. There was no

shot that was the equivalent in Star Trek of where Kirk realises they are warping into a trap and he runs through an enormous set doing a whole bunch of stuff and the cameraman is running behind him yeah like that that is a very jj abrams feeling shot and is a like an iconic moment from that movie and they don't do that kind of camera motion

anywhere in this and you might be right that might be one of the reasons why it does feel more star warsy but yes that that swirling camera shot at the end it did seem a little bit out of place and i'll tell you having watched it twice the first time i saw that scene it did feel a little bit like i mean that that whole scene where she she's climbing up the stairs in ireland and going to find mark hamill yeah the first time i'm watching it it felt a little long. I was like, obviously, you should have ended the movie two minutes ago, buddy.

But I'll tell you, on the second watch through, that is going to be the part of the movie that just ages the worst because it feels forever on a second watch through. And they do more cuts back and forth between Mark Hamill and her

looking at each other silently as she holds out that lightsaber than you realize the first time you watch that movie, it is way too long. Like if you're going to do that scene, it even has to be half as long as it already is. It also felt a bit cheap, which is amazing because I'm sure it cost a bomb to make, but it just felt like it felt like it was shot on a video camera after they'd finished making the main film. And they sent some guy with a video camera and a helicopter and they didn't fork out for the steadicam. And yeah, it's incongruous.

And it's a bit weird at the end. It leaves a weird taste in your mouth. It was still a great film and everything. We still definitely enjoyed it. But that feels totally like the kind of thing that the next movie could take care of imagine they cut it when she flies off into outer space the next movie it picks up it does a scene an opening shot right of a planet and a spaceship and they and they kick off with some exciting thing if after that point they cut to Rey being trained by Luke Skywalker somewhere

in beautiful Ireland, is there anyone who's going to be confused? Is there anyone who's going to think, oh, how did that happen? It's obvious. She found him and she's being trained now. And who the hell cares about the exact moment they met? You could cut that whole thing. You don't even need to do it in the second movie. Or what a dramatic start to the next film that the camera pans down to Luke planet. And the first ship we see is the Millennium Falcon arriving at the planet. Yeah, there are many ways that you could do it. And I just I don't think you even need to show this meeting happening so explicitly. And that's why it just it really feels like there's some kind of Hollywood political reason that this scene is there.

I can't imagine anybody actually thinks that's the best way to end the movie. Like you said, because it's so obvious that it should end with her going off into space. It's such a natural ending. The other thing I wanted to talk about, I don't know if you would care to do this. I don't think it counts as spoilers. Do you have any kind of what will happen next thoughts now? Like, what's going to happen? I mean, I know it's impossible to know.

Maybe they don't even know for sure. But what you think will happen next, what you'd like to see happen next? Is Rey going to be Luke's daughter? Is she Han and Leia's daughter and the brother of the sister of Kylo Ren? Do you know? Do you care? Do you? I will be avoiding spoilers for the next movie, obviously.

But I'm also totally happy to speculate i think this this is speculating without knowledge is perfectly fine and so i am vaguely operating under the assumption that the most likely thing is that yes she she is the daughter of of han and leia like that seems she's somebody's daughter right of importance there's there's not a reason that they wouldn't mention it yeah and it just that just seems like the likely case you know she's force sensitive so it's again it's like either you know luke luke had a bit of an adventure or she is this other daughter and i believe in the extended universe it's that it is that uh that luke and leia have a set of twins don't they yeah harn and leia yes harn and leia yeah sorry luke and Leia have a set of twins, don't they? Yeah, Han and Leia, yes. Han and Leia. Yeah, sorry.

Not Luke and Leia. That extended universe got a bit freaky for a while there if Luke and Leia had twins. Yeah, no, Han and Leia had twins in the extended universe, didn't they? They did. They did, yes. And I'm pretty sure that the Knights of Ren, that little reference they make in the movie, is from the extended universe. Okay.

The movie seems to lean in that way to make you think this, that probably the better decision is to make her luke's child in i think i think i think that's what the movie's leaning towards i think if you're a dumbo you'd be thinking that she's luke's daughter and has been waiting for luke to come back i think the hannah leia is the less obvious option which ironically then makes it the more obvious option. Well, it depends on what you think is the more obvious or less one. But Kylo Ren has that line where he explicitly says to her, oh, you feel that Han Solo is the father that you've never had.

Yeah, true. Maybe that's the reason why he gives that line, is because it's actually that she's loose. The thing is, she's somebody's daughter. It's Star Wars. The people are going to be related. This is a family affair. Everybody's somebody's daughter. It's Star Wars. The people are going to be related. This is a family affair. Everybody's somebody's daughter or son.

I have a minor guess, which I'll just put on the record now. What's his name again? The boss of Kylo Ren? Seth something? The Wizard of Oz. Yeah, the Wizard of Oz. Snoke. Snoke.

I really liked in his first appearance the holograph fake out thing where they're talking to him and he's huge. And then you realize, oh, it's a hologram. Yeah. My prediction here is that in person he's actually quite small. That he's basically an evil Yoda. That's almost a certainty, isn't it? That's almost too obvious. It has to be.

It has to be. He's not going to be a normal size dude. He's going to have to be a teeny tiny dude. That's not the boldest prediction, Greg. That's like me saying I predict there's going to be lightsabers in the next film. I'm not saying it's a bold prediction. I'm just saying I'm getting it on record here. This is my speculation. Is Kylo Ren going to go through the obvious redemption? Like, is it going to be Darth Vader all over again, where he like comes to the good ride at the end? It seems like. Could they, would they have the audacity to do that to be so obvious and i hope not i think that the story indicates that he

won't because i think having him kill his father is quite a thing to do on camera yeah the flip side of this the thing that slightly annoys me is the whole uh finn leaves the battle and it's his first battle ever and he's never killed anybody. It makes him too much like this shiny new minted penny that landed on the battlefield and decided, oh, I want out of this. Later on in the movie, he's all like, oh, I hate what I was. It's like, but what were you, dude? As far as I can tell, you were a guy who went through training and then bugged out on the first opportunity. You didn't actually do anything.

No, deserted, I bet, yeah. Yeah. But deserted from the evil empire, right? It's a little opportunity. Like, you didn't actually do anything. No, desert her, by the way. Yeah, but desert her from the evil empire, right? It's a little different. But I think it makes his character a little bit too squeaky clean, but then this makes him like, oh, he is a good guy in this universe because he's never killed anybody. Whereas I think a much more interesting character would be someone who has woken up from his programming over time and left

and, like, genuinely did bad things. So if that is the backstory that they've established for a good guy, like we want him to be universally good and to be entirely unblemished, my feeling is that the reverse of that, that having Kylo Ren actually kill his father, it makes him unredeemable. I think it's unlikely that they're going to do the redemption. I mean, we'll see in a couple of years, it makes him unredeemable. I think it's unlikely that they're going to do the redemption. I'd be,

I mean, we'll, we'll see in a couple of years, but I'd be pretty shocked if they, if they have a moment where Kylo Ren turns around, I think they're going to keep with him as an actual villain. I don't know. I just don't know.

I think, I think he will be turned around. I don't think he'll be bad forever. I do like, I do like the little twist to the Force thing where he's like trying to push the light out. Like, I know that's kind of what happened to Darth Vader, but it wasn't quite framed in that way. It's a bit like, it's like he's saying, I want to be dark.

Like, normally the dark just takes over you and you like give up and say, oh, I just gave up. That was Darth Vader's attitude, you know. It's too late for me son you know i've become dark i'm stained i've got ink on my shirt that's it you can't you can't clean my shirt whereas he's like the opposite he's like he wants to be dark and like he keeps having these light impulses that he's like saying oh i've got to stop these light impulses you know i want to be a bad guy i kind of i've got to stop this hankering to be good. I find that a real interesting twist on the force.

Yeah, I like that as well. I thought that was really nice, this idea that there is light temptation. Yeah. I want to help that old granny cross the street, but I mustn't. I mustn't do it. I like that. And I also, I just think it provides a tiny bit of,

there was a couple lines I don't quite like in the movie but one of which is when when Han Solo explicitly says that the force is is tying together good and evil like the light and the dark I think you need to at least have a little bit of an excuse for dark side characters to imagine that they are performing the correct actions and if you're just explicitly saying like oh it's evil i think it is better when villains are somewhat sympathetic and i try to imagine the dark side as like the this is much easier to get started down path though in the long run is less powerful but you can get like very you can go from zero to 90 very fast and so i imagine that like dark side characters are ambitious and attracted to immediate power and then that's why he finds himself like rejecting the light side is because

he's he's trying to grow immediate power fast and so i do like this temptation of like oh no if i'm gonna level in my light side points it's gonna take forever to get really powerful like he's on a crash diet and he but the thing that's always been a slight problem for me with the force and star wars is that the dark side know that they're the bad guys like it's all it's like they know they know they're bad but yeah it's it's always been a bit weird to me you know come come to the they call themselves the dark side they may as well be calling themselves the bad guys um like we put skulls on our caps right yeah yeah like come come on come and be a bad guy because it's yeah because it gives you

power and it's fun like like you say like bad surely bad guys are supposed to think they're good guys but in the star wars universe the bad guys have always kind of known they're bad guys yeah like the emperor in the original trilogy it seems it seems like he really likes being the villain that seems to be his main characteristic yeah it's like it's like a fat person saying come on be really really fat because you get to eat lots of yummy donuts you have to be really fat and disgusting but at least you get to eat donuts like surely the ideal person is someone who wants to be thin and eat donuts but but like the but the dark side are like are willing to be fat because because they want to eat lots of donuts. Whereas in real life, a person who eats lots of donuts

somehow convinces themselves they can still be thin eventually. Whereas the dark side don't do that. Yeah. I don't know what I'm doing here with this force in donuts but... No, it works great. Just roll with it. All right. You wouldn't think we liked the film so much the way we were talking about it but... Well, it's always all right you wouldn't think we liked the film so much the way we were talking

about it but well it's all you know it's always easy it's always easy to complain about and i have many more things that we will we will come up against at some point i was i was complaining to my wife for probably a good 30 minutes and testing her patience about how much i dislike the line where ray references the millennium falcon having completed the Kessel Run in 14 parsecs. Yeah. There are many, many more very nerdy, very specific things to pick apart. And I have a long list of reasons why I don't like that line. But I'm sure these things will come up again.

That was doubling down on a mistake, wasn't it? When they probably shouldn't have. Okay, listen. No, I have to do listen no i have to do this i have to do this now right okay i'll give you i'll give you the like the short version of this okay the reason i hated that line is because it does okay so for the i'm sure anyone who's listening now already knows right but in the in the first movie when when Han Solo says to Luke and Ben that they made that he made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, nerds kind of freak out because a parsec is a unit of distance. It's not a measurement of time. And so it seems like it's the wrong thing for the race. And yes, super nerds don't send me the links about how the Kessel Run is measured. I know all of this.

Yeah, you can't twist it. Yeah, you can't twist it. My interpretation of that scene, which I'm convinced every time I watch it is intentional, is that Han Solo is bullshitting Ben and Luke on purpose. He is saying something intentionally wrong to see if they pick up on it. Like, how much do these guys know about space travel? How much do they know about ships and their speeds? What, you mean he got the, he used a wrong SI unit to test them?

Or he's just bragging about something he didn't really accomplish? Is he testing their scientific knowledge or testing their knowledge of his fame and ability? What he is testing is their knowledge of fast ships. And the reason he's doing that is because he's trying to sense how much of a sucker they are. Yeah, how much he can rip them off. Exactly, right?

How much do they know about what's going on? How much can he rip them off? And if you watch that scene really closely, he gives that line, and then they flash to Ben Kenobi and Luke. And Ben Kenobi gives this weird little smile, almost like he knows what Han is doing. Like, I don't think I'm reading too much into this scene, but I just very, very shortly after that, Ben and Luke get up and leave. And that is such a great little moment in Star Wars when Han then turns to Chewie. He was like, boy, these guys are really desperate.

And he's like, can't wait to extract all the money from, from these desperate suckers who have come along. Can I say, I don't read it that way. Can I tell you how I read that scene? How do you read it? Well, first of all, let me acknowledge from the start that quite often when you talk about films you watched as a child, you are blinded to some of the adult nuance. And even when you, and even when you grow up, you somehow don't have the ability to see that nuance and you might watch the same.

Exactly. But that's said as my little butt cover. The way I read that scene is, Han Solo is a bit of a legend in his own lunchtime and he thinks he's the great I am. And it's kind of like his one claim to fame, his one thing that he thinks he's famous for, is this Kessel run and like

and these guys haven't heard of it and it's a bit like oh it's like me walking into a room and going oh hi i'm brady haran i uh i make number five videos and no one there's heard of number five and it's like oh so the one the one the one thing like you know my claim to fame and like no one no one's ever heard of number five because it's some busy little youtube channel and i think that's what's happening to him it's like he's he's there you know hey i've got the millennium falcon and they're like what's that and he's going oh well it made the castle you haven't heard of the muff ship it made the castle at this time it's like famous man and they're like no and it's kind of like so he's kind of this like legend in his own mind and and he's like being brought down to earth and realize and it's

like oh okay i don't think he's testing them i think he's bragging to them and then his brag falls flat because these guys are kind of just newbies or at least he thinks they are obviously ben kenobi's not but that's a perfectly legitimate interpretation of the scene i think i wouldn't argue against that i think you know because there's there's only subtext in that scene so you can't interpret it either way and so i just have my own pet interpretation of that but it is just destroyed when ray says out loud oh it made the kessel run in 14 parsecs and he gets irritated and he says 12 because then it legitimizes like oh this was a thing this is a race like yes the

dumb extended universe backwards compatibility reason for why it's measured in parsecs is now canon like i just i really hate that line it completely vindicates my interpretation because what's happening now is he finally meets someone who has heard of his great claim to fame and even they get it wrong because they use the wrong number this does go exactly into making your interpretation the canon interpretation of this moment okay but i also I also don't like that line because I just, why does she know this? That seems a bizarrely specific thing for this character to know. I think there's a purpose to it.

I don't like that line either, by the way, that scene. It grates with me as well just because it feels, it just jars. It's a little too fan service as well just because it feels it just jars but i think it's a little too fan service as well yeah but what i think what i think it was trying to do in service of the plot is to show that she's a complete spaceship geek like she's into it she knows everything she knows the millennium falcon she knows like she's a real she's a real spaceship engineering and mechanical nerd and like because only a mechanical engineering spaceship nerd would have heard of the Millennium Falcon and know about the Kessel Run. So I think they're trying to further establish

her credentials as someone who really knows spaceships. And then we see that later on, you know, she fixes the Millennium Falcon on the Hawthorne. So I think they're trying to just establish her as a real geek in the area. She's the one who has heard of the Kessel Run and the Millennium Falcon, unlike Luke and Ben and Ben yeah I understand the mechanics of what it's doing in the movie and I totally agree and it also acts as a first little bonding moment between her and Han Solo like even though it's antagonistic it's a bit of oh okay well at least you know about this thing but it's just great something and it just feels like a weird thing for her to know because like what's the timeline when did when did this Kessel Run occur like how how how many years ago was this? How many years was this before she was born?

I don't know. I mean, maybe this is because I'm not a, not a sports nerd, but it seems, it seems like the equivalent of someone knowing obscure baseball statistics that happened 20 years before they were born when they're 19. It just seems like it's asking a lot. I get, no. I get that. No, I get that. And I like that. I think the problem, the reason it jars with me, is the timing of it.

Like, she's like on a broken down ship hovering in space. It seems to be her first time in space, perhaps. Like, a second ago, she was figuring out how she's going to live. There's a lot of stuff going on. It seems like she's just met someone who, live there's a lot of stuff going on it seems like that she's just met someone who like i don't know it just doesn't seem like a conversation she'd be having at that time it seems like something you discuss maybe later over a cup of coffee right yeah it's it's it's a line that yeah it just it just bothers me it feels like a bit of fan service i understand the mechanics

that it's that it's doing in the plot but i think there are better ways to do that where she she could recognize something about you know whatever they say something later on like the cargo class kind of thing that this ship is like you can have her recognize things about the ship yeah that that then han solo talks to her about you don't have to have this particular line especially when it's such an infamous line in the Star Wars universe. It's poking the bear, isn't it? Yeah, it's a bit too much. It's a bit too much. I'm like, this is for you, Star Wars fans. But I know, I don't need you to remind me.

Just like I don't need the chess table to turn on when Finn sits at it. It's like I recognize that chess table immediately. There's nobody who sees the chess pieces come on who then puts it together in their head. Everybody who's going to recognize those chess pieces recognizes the table that he's sitting at. That would have been classier if it didn't switch on. Yeah, it would be a thousand times classier if it didn't switch on. I think those two things right in a row were a bit like, you don't need to do this. I recognize the table.

It's better if the table doesn't turn on. That just goes further to that little part of the film where they get off the desert planet, but before they leave, being the worst part of the film. From basically the moment that ship breaks down in orbit of Jakku until they finally blast out of there, fix something if I can blast out of there. That whole sequence is the part of the film where i'm like no yeah that is that is that is the low part of the film i will agree with that and also i mean even at least a tiny bit of of classy fan service but it's still

like this scene is unnecessary is when finn is looking for the bandages for chewy in that scene he pulls out the training ball that Luke uses. Yeah. And he like holds it right in front of the camera and looks at it and throws it to the side. It's like, ah, you don't need to do that. Like you can just, you can have it on set in the background and trust me, I will notice. Or have him throw it away, but don't linger.

Don't have him look at it. Just have him throw it away. And then the people who go through it frame by frame go, oh, you're awesome. I love you. But don't, yeah, don't hold it up in front of my face. Yeah, it's a bit like I notice every single one of the droids on those First Order ships

that were the droids from the original movies. Like I recognize that little floor droid. I know him right away. I see the trash can guy with the two feet in the background. Like I recognize all of them. You don't need to linger on them. And this is the kind of thing which is nice for super fans. But yeah, holding the thing up

in front of the camera is a bit too much. Switching on the chess set is a bit too much. That's probably the last of the last of our pickiness about the movie for today. Anyway, today, just consider

this sort of bit of an introductory taster and we'll really get into some fine detail at a later date. Yeah, yeah, this is just this was our first impressions podcast. We're going to go back and watch a few more times now

to pick up some of the minutia. Yeah, we'll really get into it then. Almost certainly I'm going to see it again with my wife relatively soon. So I like it. For all the complaining, if there's anybody who's on the edge and likes spoilers and listen to the end,

I recommend the new Star Wars movie.