Hello Internet - H.I. Star Wars The Last Jedi Christmas Special

Episode Date: December 25, 2017

Grey and Brady discuss The Last Jedi. (With minor spoilers for The Wizard of Oz) This episode is brought to you entirely by listeners like you on Patreon. Merry Christmas!

You knew it was coming and here it is. It's becoming a little bit too much of a pattern. I don't know if I like this, Brady. No. People are really expecting it this year, right? Once is a fluke, twice is a pattern, and then the third is the one that they expect. So I'm not sure we can keep this up forever for a variety of reasons. But this year is the third annual one.

What's this one called? The Last Jedi? Yep. Very well done, Brady. Yep. That's the name of the movie. Number eight of the core series. Yeah. Of the new trilogy. I think, was it on Twitter or someone? Someone told me that like Disney has rebranded the old trilogy as something like Star Wars Legends. That's the phrase that they want to use to describe the original trilogy, which if that is the case, I'm going to 100% reject that

idea. Nope, nope. It's the original trilogy. I'm not going to call it Star Wars Legends. Not going to happen. I heard someone talking about the original film from 1977 and they just casually said, yeah, it's been 40 years. And I was like, oh my God, that film is 40 years old. A 40 year old film. Wow. There's something strange about how old movies can be. I know that sounds dumb to say out loud, but I guess what I mean is how old can a movie that is still an acceptably modern-ish looking movie be? And the answer is getting pretty close to 50 years at this point. Like, you can watch a movie that's 50 years old and feel like, yeah, it's a modern enough movie. It doesn't stand out as something like from 1930. So, yeah, time passes us all by. The Reaper approaches every day. I'll tell you a film that's really old that has stood the test of time.

The Wizard of Oz. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I mean, you watch it and it is old, but there's something about it that's very timeless. Like, it looks like a really old, but 1939. That's 200 years old at this point. It's remarkable. It is quite remarkable. And I'd still watch that, you know.

I'd look at it and think, oh, yeah, it's a charming old film, but it's still a good film. You have to watch out for those monkeys. Anyway, we're not here to talk about The Wizard of Oz, are we? We got a bit off track. And you just did a spoiler there with your monkey line. I'm sorry. I guess I'll have to put it in the show notes that there's a minor spoiler for The Wizard of Oz. Very, very minor spoiler.

Before we start talking about Return of the Jedi and go like total into total spoiler zone, I have to say, I did think of you a lot today when I went and watched it. Partly because both before and after the film, I went to say I did think of you a lot today when I went and watched it partly because both before and after the film I went to Five Guys and I always think of you when I go to Five Guys because I know you love it so much although I went for my traditional bacon cheese dog right right and I did enjoy them that's not paid for by the way people Five Guys bacon cheese dog oh do it oh again you know I can never fault a man for his eating habits in a movie because it wasn't in the movie it was before and after i also got a big bag of sweeties okay like i think i slightly misinterpreted what you were saying there i guess i can extend

movie calorie forgiveness to an hour either side yeah like an hour before and an hour afterward, I think. Yeah, that's the window of time when calories don't count. And if you have some kind of horrific eating disorder, you may eat three or four gigantic tubs of popcorn while you're sitting there watching a movie. Like just in theory. But this is not a message brought to you by big popcorn. Well, also the other reason I thought of you, and I know you think this is like means nothing, and it does mean nothing. Okay.

I saw it in quite an empty cinema, and I went for the posh seats, so I was comfy. And at the end of my row was sitting another guy watching it alone, who I swear was your doppelganger. Oh, yeah? I almost took a picture of him to show you, but it was too dark. It was crazy how much he looked like you. Huh.

I've never seen someone who I've thought, oh, that guy over there, he looks like Grey. But this time it was like, whoa. I feel like I almost want to check our times because I watched it today in a theatre that was, it was just me alone in the theatre. And like, was there a Brady force ghost or astral projection sitting next to me in the back row watching this movie? It's quite possible. Yeah, maybe. We were having a in the back row watching this movie? It's quite possible. Yeah, maybe.

We were having a little force moment together watching the movie. Maybe that's what happened. I was on a plane like a while ago and there was someone sitting near me who looked like someone I knew. And I texted them and said, someone who looks just like you is on my plane. And they said, okay. And then I took a sneaky picture and sent it to them by message. And they looked at the photo and said, my God, that does look like me. Anyway, there's no picture.

No phones in the movie theater, Brady. Only if you're like me, an iPad on your lap to take notes on. No phones, but like a mini computer is perfectly fine. I was using my phone to make notes. Naughty Brady, very naughty. Well, it's got to be done. Yeah. So anyway, let's crack on. How are we going to do this review? We're so bad at this. Every year it's the same thing.

Why are we talking about The Wizard of Oz or my doppelganger? It's because I never know how to warm up to these things. As per usual, this is my second viewing of the movie. So I saw it once yesterday and then once this morning to take notes. And I think once again, you have seen it for the first time on the day. Is that right? That's correct. I've just seen it a few hours ago.

Just to give people the place in time where we are. I think, again, there's this weird thing that happens where on movies, people's opinions tend to converge very quickly. So we're just like walking out of the movie. I went into it pretty spoiler free and I haven't heard anybody talk about it with the exclusion of my wife, who I saw it with for the first time. And so now I'm going to talk to you about the movie, Brady. I also was spoiler free. I had seen the trailers, but I can still consider myself to be pretty spoiler free.

And I know very little about how it went down, but I have got a vague idea of what reviewers and fans have thought just in a very vague kind of, this is what people think kind of way. But I have not been shaped by that in any way. Interesting. Yeah, no, you're still a man on your own. So, Brady, the thing I guess we have to do is we have to do this the way Brady wants it. Brady. Yeah. Brady. Yeah. What did you think of Star Wars The Last Jedi?

There are two things I want to say from the outset. Okay. There's like an opening statement here. Yeah. There are two overarching things I want to say. One is very big picture overarching, like in the context of the whole series of Star Wars films. And one is my broad sweeping overview of this particular film. My big overall Star Wars thing I want to say is like people listening

have different feelings about Star Wars. Some of our younger listeners don't care at all. Some of our older listeners don't care at all. Some people are like us and like grew up with it and it's a really big part of their life. And I'm that. Like to me, I grew up with it. It's really important to it and it's a really big part of their life. And I'm that. Like, to me, I grew up with it. It's really important to me.

It's, like, a big part of my childhood. And I don't think I'm the Lone Ranger because Star Wars has become very much part of the culture of our planet, hasn't it? Everyone knows who Darth Vader is and knows what the Force, may the Force be with you. So, I don't feel stupid holding Star Wars in a special place in my heart. I don't feel like that makes me too weird, right? Right. So, I love my Star Wars in a special place in my heart. I don't feel like that makes me too weird, right? Right.

So I love my Star Wars. And as I make more and more of these films, and I felt it today watching the new one, and I know how silly this sounds because all Star Wars is fiction, but I'm beginning to feel a bit like, oh, you're just making stuff up now just to keep it going. It's like there's the canon that was the real, like what really happened. And now it's like, oh, come on, you're just making stuff up to make money now.

I am with you 100%. Like, I understand that feeling entirely. And related to that, I saw in the news recently that Amazon announced that they're going to be doing a TV series based on The Lord of the Rings. That was essentially like, I wouldn't have quite put it in those words. You've articulated something in my head that I was thinking, but that is exactly what I was thinking about the TV show. It's like, oh, okay. So, you're just going to make up a bunch of stuff, right? As opposed to the real stuff that happened in Middle Earth.

Right. As opposed to the actual mythology of England. You're just going to make up some nonsense for your TV show. Like, that's ridiculous. So, I love that phrase because that has clicked something in my head that I was thinking about something else. And I can completely see how you feel about that as the modern post-Lucas sale of Star Wars, as that era has come upon us. That is like, oh, they're just making up stuff now. Yeah. Now, on the film itself, I would say my overall feeling is probably more negative than positive.

But my main feeling is one of overall meh. I was a bit bored by it. And the thing that was most telling to me was afterwards when I walked out, I just didn't think about it. Like if you like a film or you hate a film, you're thinking a lot about it and you can't wait to talk to people about it. And there's so many things on your mind and your mind's buzzing. And I walked out of the cinema and it's like it just fell out of my head. It's like it made very little impression on me and that's incredible because ultimate spoiler alert who would have thought that five minutes after seeing luke skywalker die i would just

forget about it and not care but i did i was like and like driving home i said come on brady you've got to think about this film you've got to talk to gray you've got to have interesting insights and opinions and it was a real effort to build up a lot of care about it and one last criticism and this is my criticism of the film besides the fact i thought it was boring which is a pretty big criticism putting that aside but looking down my points and i know most of my points will be negative because that's just how these things work you know there were good things about the film but when i look through my negative points one thing that seems to join a lot of them together and annoyed me on multiple occasions was our galaxy leaking into their galaxy. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah.

There were lots of little references and mannerisms or things that happened that I felt like, hang on a second. This has been written in our galaxy. Yeah. This wasn't written in their galaxy. I'm going to back you up on that. And that on very many levels, from big things down to very minor things. Yeah. That is actually my very first note is related to something that happens in the beginning of

the movie that I feel like is a- I know what this is going to be. Yeah. It's an our universe moment. All right. Anyway, before we get into all the point by point old man whinging, what's big picture from Grey? What context should I be hearing your thoughts in?

Yeah, so to back up, I think it's interesting that I went into this movie totally spoiler free because I didn't spend any real energy this year trying to avoid Star Wars spoilers. I was aware in previous movies feeling like I was trying to avoid stuff and failing maybe because a podcast co-host made me watch a trailer or because people just wanted to talk about a thing and I would see it. I don't know what that is an indication of, but I just think it is interesting that I didn't feel like I needed to try to avoid anything. And I walked into the movie just totally cold. I hadn't even seen the poster of the movie.

I don't know if that is just our world getting much better with spoiler culture, which I would hope. It would give me a spark of hope, Brady, if our culture is getting much better about spoilers. Or if it was just a kind of like weird indifference on my part. I don't know. I just think it's noteworthy. But so, when you say meh, I think that there is something I have that is a parallel feeling, which I had after our last year special, which is this feeling that there is now going to be Star Wars forever. And this has changed something. And also a thing that over the course of our podcasts, I've been mentioning a little bit

more and more is like the changing industry of how these things are produced. And it's like a background radiation in my mind that I kind of can't get rid of the like our universe concerns about cinematic universes and how our movies made and especially how our long mega series made like what is the mechanics of this. I've had conversations with people like in the industry, looking at the horrible sausage behind all of it. And I do feel like that has polluted my mind a little bit. That is the background. As for this movie, this movie to me was Spaceballs the movie.

I feel like I had a little bit of a roller coaster with this movie where I felt like things were tonally off for a while. Like I couldn't quite get into it for a bunch of reasons we'll get into. And then at some point, it just kind of clicked in my head that this feels like the people who made Spaceballs wanted to make a really serious Star Wars movie.

And they mostly did it, but there's like a space ballsiness leaking through. And when that clicked in my head, I actually enjoyed the movie more. Like my expectations went from nothing to really low. And then I felt like, oh, I can kind of enjoy this movie. But then I had the same kind of problems as you. Like I found it sort of boring. This is sort of unintentionally funny

through my eyes. I enjoyed watching it more than Rogue One, which I really didn't like, but I don't think it's a very good movie. And I think that this has now reached the point where it doesn't feel like Star Wars anymore. And a lot of my notes are trying to figure out what has occurred. So, that's my overall feeling of the movie. Okay. I'm going to have a lot of upset people out there at the moment, I bet. Oh, yeah. Okay. So, now you're making me nervous. Do you think that the fan consensus is that people liked it?

This is what I've heard. Oh, no. The headline I've seen is that critics quite liked the film. Okay. But a lot of Star Wars fans haven't. That actually could work with some of what you just said. That could work for us? I feel like I am still getting messages and feedback from people who want to violently disagree with me about Rogue One.

Let's talk about Rogue One at the end, because I'm one of them. And this film has changed me even more about Rogue One. But that's my final point I'd like to discuss at the end. So let's deal with the film at hand. And can I start at the very beginning? Please go right ahead. Because the last few Star Wars films that I've seen, particularly Force Awakens, that moment when you have the silence of Lucasfilm and then there's the bang and the Star Wars comes up in the fanfare. It's great.

Like I got tingles when that happened previous times. Like, I think it probably even happened when the prequels came out. It was like, yeah, Star Wars is back, and it caused a real excitement. This time, and I don't know, maybe it was my mood. I don't know. This time, for the first time, I found it a bit cringey. I was, like, waiting for it to happen, and then when it finally happened, bang! Like, I was sort of waiting for the big loud noise.

I don't know if camp is the word, but it felt like a parody of itself. It's a bit like- Like I bet they had a big loud noise at the start of Spaceballs, right? Yeah. It felt like a bit of a joke of itself this time. This was at a point where I was completely neutral about how good or bad the film was going to be. But I didn't get that feeling this time.

This time I felt a bit embarrassed by it. And I don't know if it's because it's being overused and it's now, it's not special anymore. I can't explain it, but that's the feeling I had. I was like, oh. Wow. Wow. So, you went from the literal first note.

Yeah. I kind of winced. I don't know what it was. I'm sorry. That's just what happened. The first bam still worked on me, right? I was just like, yeah, let's go. like yeah let's go let's see some stuff explode and then we had the traditional pan down and for the first time in a while they didn't try to be overly creative with them

they just went pretty standard which was nice it was nice that was a nice change up so the thing that you might expect is my first note on this is Spaceballs, the phone call where we see our first order ships in the sky. They're chasing the resistance, you know, like the classic Star Wars setup. There's a chase between the ships and then a single fighter appears with Ho, right? That's the guy's name. And he's like stalling for time and he calls the lead ship. He's calling General Hux. And it's like, okay, your movie is opening, dramatic scene.

And they start off with a joke, which is essentially a joke about like FaceTiming with your mom a little bit. Yeah. Or mobile phone reception not quite working. Yeah. It's like, oh, he's calling for General Hux. And like Poe is messing with him, right? He's pretending that he can't hear the guy to wind him up. And it's like, okay, I can kind of go along with that.

A version of this that I think worked was in the first movie, in his first appearance. He makes fun of Kylo's helmet, right? Like the talking. He's like, I can't hear you with that helmet. And he makes a joke of it. It's like the talking yeah he's like i can't hear you with that helmet like and he makes a joke of it it's like okay this is totally in character but the thing that bothered me was not so much the joke it's the script language right he says i'm holding for general hucks and he says okay i'll like i'll hold i'm still on hold and maybe it's just a minor thing but that just really clunks wrong in my brain with the language.

It's the leaking. It's the leaking that's going to come up again and again. It's the leaking of our galaxy into their galaxy. That might sound like a minor thing, but I really do think it matters. It's like, how do you maintain a suspension of disbelief? Suspension of disbelief breaks when you see the reality of the thing too clearly. And this is one of those moments, like using this language to say like, I am on hold. And can you hear me? Can you hear me? And we're like, okay, I know exactly what we're doing. We're doing the thing that I've done a million times, like talking on cell phones or whatever. Then they sort of go back into it, but he makes a joke about like, oh, I have an urgent

message for General Huck's mother. Yeah. Well, got your mama joke. Yeah. Like that's what it is. Like, is that okay? I mean, maybe I could have let that slide, but it's like that combined with the hold, it almost feels like it's temp dialogue that they just left in. And there's another theme, which I think is going to come up for me again and again is, aside from the real world leaking into the Star Wars world, I think somebody had a directive in this movie to not let any serious scene and they like end it with a joke or they have to have a joke that like breaks the tension too soon is like over and over and over again that's a thing that happens and i feel like this was again like right off the bat i felt a little bit off kilter i was a little bit in disbelief at the the opening mood setting joke of the movie and so it continues on from here. It's also seems to me very much like people have said one of the things that worked so well in The Force Awakens was the use of humour.

Right. And it was, there were so many funny moments in The Force Awakens that were just done perfectly. They just got it right. And it feels like they were over encouraged by that. And someone said, oh, okay, this is how this works now i have to be funny and it's a bit like you know how when a little kid does something funny and everyone says oh you're a really funny little kid and then the kid just starts doing it too much and it's not really funny anymore but they get encouraged because the adults think they're good and funny yeah you've given them positive feedback and now they start um like humor babbling in every direction waiting to see what they hit on yeah that's what's happened here it's like they've got too encouraged by all the positive feedback about the humour in

The Force Awakens. And now they're going, oh, cool, let's do it. Let's. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. You've got to dial that back, you know. And it's also a case of explicit jokes as opposed to humour coming from a situation. And it's like, okay, I can see someone like put the joke in here and i'll go okay all right well let's get into this space battle then shall we another comment i've got early on and it's another

thing that happens early in the film and another criticism of the film it sort of goes away eventually but it is it happens too much that is the film is too slapstick, like Finn falling out of his bed and his water suit leaking everywhere. Yeah, very weird. Like there are quite a few moments that felt too slapstick and like the film was not taking itself seriously enough. Like the time that happens, this is a serious battle and thousands of lives seem to be at stake.

And we're having like jokey moments walking around with water leaking out that's supposed to be, this is like, you know, Three Stooges. This is classic. I don't know. I felt like the film was not serious enough a lot of the time. There's a couple of space battles, so I can't quite place which one this happens in. But I think a good example of that, like, okay, so Finn wakes up and he's in a comical water leaking out bag. That makes no sense at all to think about it for two seconds. There's also a scene in the movie where Poe is running to his X-wing, right? Because he wants to go save the day. And the whole hangar filled with several dozens of people explodes, like, and he's knocked out of the hangar and it's a bad

moment. But they immediately follow it up with like a physical gag about BB-8 reattaching his head. Like how does BB-8's head magnetically reattach? And that's, again, the kind of thing where I just feel like you're undercutting these moments and it happens so much. I think it's on purpose. And it's like, don't focus too much on everybody who just lost their lives. We want to immediately plant the question of how does BB-8 reattach his head? And the answer is in a slightly humorous manner. That's how he does. So like, just forget about that entire cargo bay filled with rebels that just got blown up.

Sort of reasonably early in the film, we go to Luke Skywalker Island. And this was another place which I had a few notes about. I don't know how long we're going to talk about this blue milk teat scene. Oh God, it's really gross. Are we just not going to talk about that? Because that was just dumb and unnecessary. It's an example of the movie feeling like it needs to do a thing. This is also now like, so we are, depending on how you want to count it, right? We're either five or eight movies in and the movie feeling like it needs to have the beats every time.

And it starts getting weird or like, you just don't want those beats anymore. It's like, okay, we're going to have to have blue milk. Oh, we're going to have to have poor Porkins dies every time immediately in his X-Wing, like every movie he's there just eternally dying. And this one with the blue milk was just so weird. It's a moment where again, what I was wondering is like, has anybody in the Star Wars universe ever called it milk? Or is that just what the fans referred to it as? And then the studio executives are going,

oh, people love the blue milk. Let's keep going with this. And now let's really show that it's actually milk from this disgusting semi-humanoid creature. It was really unnecessary. You know, Luke Skywalker is a special guy. I shouldn't have to see him milking the teat of some weird monster and then have blue milk all coming down his beard and some disgusting- He gives Rey a look like he's doing it on purpose to be gross, which makes the whole scene even weirder. Yeah, it's really defiling my memories of Luke Skywalker. I mean, just imagine, Brady, when you were a little boy and watching Star Wars,

and they said, don't worry, someday, 40 years in the future, there will be new Star Wars movies, and you'll get to see the further adventures of Luke. What will he be doing? He'll be milking a sort of cow creature and getting milk all down his beard. That's what he'll be doing. There was also a moment early on, on Luke Skywalker Island, where we see another moment of our galaxy leaking into their galaxy in a really meta way that made me even more uncomfortable than the other ways. And that was when Luke Skywalker

dismissively referred to laser swords instead of a lightsaber. That's like a way that Star Wars fans would deride muggles because they don't know what a lightsaber is and they just say laser sword. And Luke Skywalker was using that terminology to deride people for not understanding Jedis. It's just too meta for me. It was like, it just really took me out of everything. Like, oh, hang on, this is weird. Luke Skywalker shouldn't say laser sword. I don't know if I'm right about that, but I feel like there's a Lucasism there that like George Lucas would call them laser swords as a joke. And then this becomes the thing. But there are so many times in the movie where I found myself running this metacognition loop of

like, has anyone in Star Wars ever said the word laser? And it's like, yeah, no. Okay. They have said the word laser. So it's not unreasonable that he would use the word laser sort in a jokey way. But it's like, why am I running this loop in my head at all? Trying to like cast back. And it's because I'm constantly presented with things that feel un-Star Wars-y. And I'm trying to like back fit against the original Holy Trilogy. This is what's occurring. And I think that the movie, even in a meta way, is again, in this distracting way, talking directly to the audience where they have this recurrent theme of like, let old things die, right? Like, let Luke Skywalker die, like let the Empire die. And like, I feel like you're talking directly to me, director, in a way that is also uncomfortable. Just constantly running this meta loop of like, what is this movie

doing? I was very aware of that as a theme in the movie, like, let the old things go. It may be what I have a feeling like there was some kind of director disagreement between this movie and The Force Awakens, but we can get to that at a later point. Around this time, by the way, there is one scene that was almost a nice scene, and then that got ruined by something that just didn't sit right with me and that's when luke goes into the cockpit of the millennium falcon and like switches on the lights yeah but for a moment there's this great moment where you see this classic old cockpit and there's luke now you know ravaged by time and for a few seconds it was really poignant

and i thought now that's working for me yeah and then they went and did this dice on the dashboard thing which becomes this important hand solo memento which i've researched a bit since but really they're trying to manufacture a hand solo object here that is really scraping the bottom of the barrel and it never worked with me through the film it was supposed to be this special item that touched us at multiple points through the film, but it just didn't land with me. Yeah, well, Luke Skywalker Island is a weird place, especially on the second rewatch, because I was aware of being confused of the timeline a little bit in the first one.

I'm like, how long does Rey spend on Luke Skywalker Island? How long is she there getting training? I don't think she was very trained. I think it was more of a TED talk. Yeah. I'll put training in quotes. But I was looking at it and it's like, okay, at a bare minimum, she's there for three days, if the day-night cycle is to be believed on this planet. But the way the movie is cut, like what's happening on Luke Skywalker Island is cut with the main storyline in a way that they can't be happening at the same time. You're seeing Luke Skywalker Island in a compressed format while the main plot is going on.

I imagine she was there for a few weeks for some reason, but- Who knows how long she was there, but I was just trying to think like, what is the minimum? Because the first time I was watching it, I had it a little bit messed up in my head and I was thinking, okay, there's this space chase going on and she's just arrived, but the space chase maybe lasted like 18 hours. So like, what was she there for? Three hours on Luke Skywalker Island? Like, you know, got an inspiring talk and then headed back. She was clearly there for a little while longer. I don't know. How did you feel about seeing Luke again?

I felt similar to how I felt about Leia in The Force Awakens. Like it's almost the toll that age has taken on the actors is so great and shocking that it's very hard to slip back into the film. You're thinking, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill. Well, it's been 40 years. And I'm thinking, how old is Mark Hamill now? He must have been about 18 when he made it. Right, yeah, you start doing that math in your head.

Yeah, and instead of like being lost in the film and the magic of Luke Skywalker, I'm thinking, you know, gosh, you know, he looks like a hobo. I like Mark Hamill. Like he seems like a fun guy online and, you know, he's a bit of a legend, of course. He's a legend of my childhood. But I don't know.

Maybe, you know, some things are best left as golden memories rather than tarnished. I was very distracted by his appearance throughout the film. I found it very distracting. What about you? I think I just had a little bit of a hard time buying Luke the mentor. I think you have to do a lot of like mental back filling in of what has occurred over this period of time. But there is something in my mind which is disjointed where it's like, oh, the last time I saw Luke, he was still kind of like a kid with some tousled hair.

And he was also, like everyone talks about how he's the great master. But even like at the end of Return of the Jedi, when he like saved the galaxy on the Death Star and all that, he still kind of fluked it. And he was a bit young. It's a major plot point in those movies. He is ridiculously underprepared for what he's doing. Right. They pulled it out by the skin of their teeth. And he is not some amazing Jedi master at the end of that movie. No, he's not, right? They pulled it out by the skin of their teeth and he is not some amazing

Jedi master at the end of that movie. No, he's not like Yoda and stuff. He's not top level. He just got lucky in the Superbowl and got a fluky touchdown at the end. Yeah. And the entirety of that great victory was undone in the preceding time. So we can have another sequence of movies, but yeah, there was something about him in the like, oh, you're going to be Obi-Wan Kenobi role that I felt like, I don't know, I just, I had a little bit of a hard time buying him as the mentor. I know he ran this temple and everything went wrong with Kylo Ren, but we've seen so little of that, that it's Kylo.

Yeah, it's just like, oh, you're just telling me stories about what occurred. Although I do have to say that as a small detail, I did like that they flash back to the event, like the pivotal night when Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker have a fight and the whole temple burns down. I did like, you know, because of my obsession with you can't trust your memories. I liked how they showed that scene three different ways, depending on the person who was telling the story. Yeah. Like when Kylo Ren remembers the moment, like Luke's eyes are filled with rage and he's coming down. Like I thought that was quite nice because that just illustrates a thing that happens in real life. Like people remember things differently and like you keep remembering it and it gets built up in different ways.

And it did make me somewhat not trust Luke's retelling of the version of what happened. It's just like there was a thing that happened a long time ago and like who knows now what the real events were so while we're still on luke skywalker island what are your thoughts about the helpers he has that do all that the construction work and also the cute little audrey's that run all around the island okay so the frog nuns who live on that island that to me was laughable that was really i think, when the word space balls was entering my brain is just like, this is weird. And the way they cut to them, they just pop out of nowhere. It seems like, oh, suddenly there's a bunch of helper frog nuns on this island. It's terrible. There should have been no one because the first time I saw those stone huts,

I was just imagining Luke building them over 20 or 30 years and this kind of existence that he'd been having. And I quite liked that. I quite liked the thought that he's just there alone, tending to these huts and fighting the elements. And all of a sudden we've got all these like assistants and helpers. Yeah. He has a bunch of maids like doing the laundry or whatever they're up to. It was very weird because yeah, it's a much better thing if he's there on his own, like losing his mind a little bit or becoming really detached. Yeah, it's gone from having banished himself to a rocky island sort of for the sake of the galaxy

to him going to a resort in Galway. Or he's on a Greek isle somewhere in a convent and is like, oh, it's the most unfindable place in the universe. But there's a bunch of nuns here, you know, and like, they must have some kind of interaction with the outside. Like, it was very weird. And I hated them. I thought they looked comical.

They just look stupid. They looked prequel. Yeah, I don't know if I would say that because I bet that those are physical costumes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they look like space balls to me, right? Like, if space balls had to make up what you're going to have in a convent, this is what you would do. And they are another example of a scene that I thought was like, oh, here's a scene that is actually pulling at me a little bit, which is Luke Skywalker is not training Rey. She decides that she's essentially going to be training herself.

So in the morning while she's practicing her fighting with her staff, she takes out the lightsaber and she starts fake attacking this rock outcropping. And they use the Ray theme, which I really like. I feel like this is the best music out of the new movies. And Luke is coming up behind her and he sees that she's going to train herself with or without his help. And when the music is swelling and it's all great. And then once again, like, what happens here, she accidentally cuts the stone statue in front of her. So, the stone rolls down the hill and knocks over a cart full of laundry from one of these nuns. And then the two nuns look up at her, like, and they're really annoyed. And it's like, why did you put in a physical slapstick joke at what is maybe one of the more dramatic, pivotal scenes?

Like, why is this here? There's another great example of that, Gray, about five minutes before that happens, which again shows this film's inability to have the comic timing that the previous one had. And that is that important moment when Ray hands the lightsaber to Luke, which was the end of the previous film. And we were dying to know what the first thing Luke said or did would be. And he does that, you know, comic throw it over my shoulder, which I think they thought would have people like rolling in the aisles laughing. And maybe it could have worked if the timing was done better. But just the way it was cut and done was dreadful. So I kind of blinked the first time that that happened, on my first viewing.

And the first time I saw it, there were a bunch of people in the theater and everybody was like uproariously laughing, like guffawing at that. And I sort of missed it, but I remember thinking in my head like, oh, what a bunch of cretins like in this theater, like guffawing at this thing. But then when I was able to watch it closely the second time, I'm like, no, that was clearly shot to be a joke. Yeah. Like they said to him, toss it over your shoulder in a funny way. It was clearly supposed to be funny.

Yeah. Like it was supposed to be a visual gag, but it just like, that was not a time for joking. This is such a moment being reunited with this lightsaber, Rey, this character that as viewers, we all completely love meeting Luke Skywalker for the first time. Like this was such a big moment. I've seen Luke Skywalker throw away a lightsword. Great. Now it's infecting my brain, right?

I've seen Luke Skywalker throw away a lightsaber in a pretty dramatic moment previously. It's like Mark Hamill can do that in an emotional way, but this was played as a laugh and i don't know i have to look it up i don't know i'm presuming that jj abrams didn't direct this one it didn't feel no okay ryan johnson or something okay but there were a bunch of things that felt to me in this movie like i think that there are directors or script writers having a disagreement with stuff that was set up in the Force Awakens and what is going to happen in this movie. And that lightsaber over the shoulder is like,

okay, that to me feels like a director is screwing with another director. Like, oh, we're going to take your dramatic moment and the hell with it. There's a whole bunch of stuff with like the evil emperor guy we'll get to. It's like, that feels like they just decided to discard what was happening before.

There's stuff with Rey's parents where it's like, oh, I think we're going to change all of that. There were a whole bunch of things that just felt like, like I can feel the studio disagreement in the background about what's going to occur. And that lightsaber throw was totally one of those things. Now, other thing on Luke Skywalker Island is, okay, all of the little puffin creatures who are around. Yeah, the Audreys. They're Audreys. No, they're not Audreys. They're like little puffin creatures.

Yeah, right. They look nothing like Audrey. Like, Audrey does not look like those little things. Yeah. They were super cute. I sort of didn't mind them. Look, you need to have something that's a CGI creature that you can sell a thousand merchandise copies of. You've got to sell a few fluffy toys, don't you?

Yeah. You need an Ewok. Yeah. And that's fine. Like, I have no problem with that. I understand this is how this works. And I thought they were pretty well done. Like, they're believable, cute little creatures.

That's fine. Yeah. Where it felt like the world is leaking in is the scene where Chewie is going to eat one of them. Like, and he's cooked it up to be a perfect little chicken. And it is a cute scene that the little puffin creatures are all horrified that chewy's about to eat one of their own yeah and they're looking at him with these big sad eyes it's like it sort of works for me except that like later in the movie they make another point with animals and it it just starts

to feel like i don't know it, it feels like something from the outside world is leaking in here. And I'm thinking like, what's Chewie supposed to eat? Like, presumably he didn't hunt down one of those little creatures just for fun. Like, I think he hunted it down because he was hungry. Like, what is he supposed to do? Yeah. It just rubbed me a little the wrong way.

It's like, it's a joke. Also, the thing there, Greg, is like, the horse had bolted. He's killed and skinned and cooked the thing. So him having this sort of crisis of conscience and deciding not to eat it, like, I think it's too late. I can't imagine them all there looking, thinking, oh, go on, like give our friend a break. Like it's too late for your friend.

Yeah, he's already gone. And actually there were two of them because there was another one who was on the fire still. There was something in this moment where it's like, maybe because of other things in the movie, I felt like my sensitivity was turned up a little high. But it felt like one of the script writers was trying to like get it on record. Like, oh, it's canon now that Chewie's a vegetarian. Oh, you can't have Chewie a vegetarian.

His weakness for meat is a great part of Return of the Jedi. Of course you can't. It's ridiculous. And again, I may be reading that too far, but it's just like combined with other things i don't think i am i feel like there was a joke there about like oh chewy's not gonna eat meat anymore on the subject of chewbacca just quickly because that's my next note on my list i thought he was strangely underused and unengaged in this whole film

like he could have just not been in the film for all i care you know when when he shows up and luke goes chewy right that was my exact thought of like hey i totally forgot you were here what are you doing here buddy he never really is needed like later on they give him the millennium falcon to fly a little bit but yeah i think this is a recurring problem with a bunch of characters is like they have a bunch of people who if if you think about it, don't really do anything. And Chewie is definitely one of those characters. He's just there because you need Chewie to be there in the movie, but it doesn't feel like he's participating in any way.

Chewie felt like he did just about as much as C-3PO does. C-3PO is there, but he's not really contributing in any meaningful way. So, other things happen on Luke Skywalker Island throughout the film. So, let's deal with some more of them. We've got these Jedi texts in a tree. Yeah. Which seems unnecessary new items. Although there's some illusion later in the film, maybe that they're going to play a role

later. I don't know. But we also have this kind of unexpected and unnecessary appearance of Yoda. I mean, here's the thing, like the weird tree of life that has the books in it. Okay, fine, whatever. Luke deciding he's going to be the last Jedi. I think his reasoning seems confused about that, but like, okay, whatever. He's been living alone on this island. Oh, wait, no, he hasn't. He's been tended to by the monks, but whatever. Like, keep moving. But Yoda showing up, for the first little bit, I kind of loved it because it was the old Yoda. It was a good looking Yoda. That's one of my positives I said about this

film. They got a good Yoda. Yoda didn't look bad. I kind of love that he burns down the temple, and when they cut back to Yoda, his little feet are pumping up and down. Like, he is just like, this is the funniest thing in the world. Like, he has burned down this thousand generation old Jedi temple, like, totally for the lulz, right? Like, that is a little thing that I genuinely loved is just that segment of the appearance of Yoda. Like, if he did nothing else, that would have been perfect.

I don't agree. Well, I didn't notice the little dance that you're referring to. When the movie comes out on Blu-ray, like someone's got to make a gif of that for me. He's like peeing his pants with joy about burning this down just to get Luke's goat. I don't like that he did that though. I didn't like that part of the film. That's when I ceased enjoying Yoda's appearance. One, I don't believe that force ghosts should be able to intervene in the natural world like that.

Yeah, that is one thing which is a little bit like new mechanisms in the movie. Like, okay, Force ghosts can interact with the real world. That's interesting and new and certainly would be useful at certain circumstances, but okay. And I also just don't like that he did it. I don't like that he burned that tree down. And even though I don't care about the tree or the text, like it doesn't seem like something he should do to teach Luke a lesson. I don't know.

It just seemed out of character. I don't mind a bit of whimsy in my Yoda, don't get me wrong. But the actual thing he did saying, oh, no, I am going to destroy that tree and burn the text just so that Luke can have a learning moment. That ruined the Yoda scene. And then I was like, oh, okay. That was weird. What I was largely worried about is, what are those poor nuns going to think about this? Like, when they were talking about a thousand generations, like, presumably it was those frog nuns who've been maintaining it for a thousand generations. And like, what do they think about

this? Like, well, screw them once And like, what do they think about this? Like, well, screw them once again. Who cares what they think about this? Like, we're just going to burn down their temple. Okay. Poor frog nuns. I did have a nice little objectivity moment, though, when Luke was showing the texts to Ray and he was wearing gloves and stuff.

And I was like, oh, I couldn't help but think of my own little movie making adventures. That was very objectivity. I wouldn't have thought about that. But yes, you're right. It's like, ooh, like oh gotta touch it with the gloves even though that's worse so the yoda scene i liked that what yoda looked like but it also just didn't add anything to the film and like it just seemed like yeah also one thing yoda said i didn't like this is another leak he called them page turners. Yeah, I caught that too.

It's like, I actually kind of like the joke that Luke hasn't read the books. Yeah. It's just in character. Luke wouldn't read those books. No, you're right. That was all right. The fact he hadn't read them was all right. But then when Yoda said page turners, he may as well have said, well, they're not exactly the Da Vinci Code, are they?

Yeah. It's not a New York Times bestseller, is it? The thing that I kept thinking of with that is there's, I don't mean to bring up Lord of the Rings again, but there is a kind of famous example in The Hobbit where, like, so one of the things I love about those books is the language is so, it feels right. But he makes this kind of continuity error by accident. There's a train that got into The Hobbit because he describes the dragon at one point in terms of like a train rushing by. I was like, but nowhere else in the book is there like this modern description of stuff. And Yoda saying page turner is totally one of those things. So now I'm going to say something here and I'm aware that what I'm doing is setting up a little bit of a Kafka trap, like we've discussed before, where I've said like,

oh, people who think a thing will think this thing. I just want to get on record. I know that I'm doing this, but there is a thing in this Yoda scene that fundamentally really bothered me. It's Yoda talking about how failure is the best teacher, right? And like failure is super important. And I think this is there as a kind of pseudo intellectual skirt that the movie is wearing for a certain kind of fan. Because in this movie, which, you know, if you're following the traditional structure of like, oh, the middle movie, everything is the worst. In this movie, almost everything fails. And Luke is talking about how the Jedi have been a failure, like, and he's not wrong. And the plans that we're going to talk about later, like they all fail, like everything

goes wrong in this movie. And I think that Yoda has this little speech because it's again, like nudging a certain kind of fan to say like, oh, but look, that's the theme of the movie is failure, right? Like this stuff doesn't make for unappealing watching just for no reason. The whole point of it is that it's failure. Like it's a theme. Do you see it's a theme for a movie? It was just rubbing me the wrong way because there's a lot of complaints I have about this movie and the way it was structured that I feel like this is acting as a way that a certain kind of fan can go like, oh, you don't get it. That's the point of the movie. The point of the movie is that they failed at these critical junctures. So, it felt like Yoda was putting this there for a certain kind

of person to use as a defense of the movie. I didn't look at it that deeply. I just looked at it as like a corporate cliche, freedom to fail. And that was a big thing at the BBC when we were being trained to make films creatively. You must have the freedom to fail. Right. And by the freedom to fail, we mean we actually want you to do really well.

It also struck me as a little bit of a real worldism leaking out because it's the same thing in schools or it's like, you know, it's a real mind virus in Silicon Valley. Like, oh, you got to fail fast. Failing is just the best. And it's's like a, you know, it's a real mind virus in Silicon Valley. Like, Oh, you got to fail fast. Failing is just the best.

And it's like, okay, you know, it's better than failing is succeeding, right? Succeeding is better than failing, but you know, whatever.

Let's leave Luke Skywalker Island. Please. Thank God. Right. We're going to, we're going to fly away like Ray after getting a 20 minute lesson on what the force is. That's also a joke and it's pointless.

There's like a bunch of pointless stuff that happens, but we're going to skip it. I want to talk about what is now the main plot of this movie from which everything else is orbiting, right? The main structure of this movie is the resistance is in their Corvette and their several smaller ships, and they are being chased by the First Order. And we have our opening battle, which has some cool stuff. I like the bombers. There's a

bunch of interesting stuff in there. Those bombers though, Gray, how slow are they? In a galaxy where everything moves so quick, those things are lumbering like tractors through space. They were really slow, but I didn't mind them. I thought they were leaning really hard into like the naval warfare thing. Even turning up the dial with the language like, oh, we have a dreadnought. Like they were really going for the naval stuff. Is there any ship or object in the Star Wars universe that doesn't have one glaring weakness that is usually a big hole that you have to drop something into to blow it up?

They really need to get working on that. Yeah, but like if i'm gonna guess what fans would be annoyed at is those bombers and they were the slowest things in the world but i didn't mind it i like the visuals of it i like that they were i liked the bombs yeah all the bombs falling down looked cool what was making them fall though if there's no gravity anyway i assume they were being pushed out i assume it was a colloquialism that they're saying, like, drop the bombs. I didn't take that as a literal, the bombs are dropping because of gravity. They did seem to fall, though. There was a sort of fallingness to them as they were falling into a hole.

But anyway, they looked cool. People will let us know. I'm sure there's some Star Wars Wikipedia article on exactly the mechanism that those bombs use. But the Resistance is trying to escape. And they want to use the usual Star Wars trick, which is we're going to light speed out of here and they won't be able to follow us once we jumped to light speed because they don't know where we went. They can't do that. Jump to light speed. And then minutes later, the first order reappears and it is quickly surmised. I'm not exactly sure how, but it's surmised that like, oh, the First Order must have tracked them through lightspeed. And this is where things start going a little wonky for me with the fundamental structure of the movie. Because first of all,

it's like, okay, we are now immediately establishing the idea that you can't track people through lightspeed, which I felt a bit like, okay, I don't remember that. It seems like that would cause some problems in earlier movies if that wasn't possible. But okay, sure. I'm happy to go along with this idea. Didn't they track the Millennium Falcon? Or maybe they just waited until it got to the other end and then found the beacon. Whereas here, the problem was they were following the beacon in real time. Yeah, I was wondering about that.

I was like, didn't Bumpa felt like he jumped to light speed after the money fucking but like i don't remember exactly but whatever it's like okay all right in this universe you're establishing this is a thing right yeah but then minutes later they point out that that leia has a magic ring that ray can use to find her anywhere and it's like oh okay so you can't track people through light speed but you can have homing beacons that work across the entire galaxy? I'm not as anti this as you, Grey. I think I understand what's going on here. Okay, I genuinely want you to explain, because I felt confused about this distinction of what is occurring. And I was also, I want to know, did I miss something?

Was there something on the capital ship that they were using to track them? I feel like I missed something there. I think there was something there we were being set up for that never happened. Like there was going to be a mole or something. Yeah, that's what I kept waiting for. It's like, oh, there's a piece of equipment. I actually thought it was going to have something to do with Finn, but like because he was former Empire, they were using him somehow.

Like I kept waiting for a shoe to drop here that never dropped. Yeah. The thing with the light speed, I think that you can track homing beacons and things like that when someone is at a place across the universe, right? Like, oh, there's a, you know, you can put a bug on someone and you can find out where they are at any given point. But I think that doesn't happen while you're traveling through hyperspace. And the thing that I think was made clearer in this film than all the other films is the traveling through hyperspace is not an instantaneous thing it's like a voyage because you know how we see all those scenes where they're sitting at the window and yeah space is going so i think the new innovation here is the ability to track vehicles while they're going through these

you know whooshy whooshy light tunnels And I think that's what didn't exist before. So when Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon get away at the end of Star Wars and Grand Moff Tarkin says, we're taking a terrible risk here by letting him get away through hyperspace because he's got the homing beacon. So they know when he pops out the other end, you will get the homing beacon back. But this new innovation is a homing beacon that works

while you're going through the whooshy wooshy tunnel. Okay. So this allows them to just appear sooner. Yeah. You don't have to wait for them to pop out the other end and then do your five or six hour journey to get there. Okay. You can be right on their butt straight away.

Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. And that makes me feel better, but it doesn't get to my fundamental problem, which is, okay. So they get out here and now the whole background of the movie is that there is this slow motion chase that is occurring, right? Yeah. The resistance is flying ahead of Snoke's ship and the First Order. And they're able to fly far enough out of range that the guns can't hurt them, but not far enough to actually get

away. And this is the moment where the Star Wars universe introduces the concept of fuel, that the ship only has a certain amount of fuel that it can use, that they can only make one more light speed jump. And even traveling at sub light speed, they only have a certain amount of time that they can go. And I found it kind of crazy making this concept of fuel. And I haven't looked at anything online, but I did just ask some people about like, does the original trilogy ever reference fuel? And the answer is like, it's implied, but nobody ever talks about it. It's one of those things where I realized like, it's never occurred to me the concept of fuel with the ships. Like, it's never crossed my mind, but now this is like a fundamentally important mechanism.

Oh, great. I think you're splitting hairs there. I think it's pretty obvious that these vehicles are going to need fueling, like at one point or another, because like- Yeah, I'm simply saying it never really crossed my mind. But now like here is a mechanism around which the movie revolves and it is a ticking time bomb, right? We have 18 hours before the ship runs out of fuel. It's like, okay, I guess so. But then also this chase is just happening and it's like, how does this chase work?

The ship is always able to just stay out of range, but never actually get very far and they can't catch up. And then, okay, if I even give you that scenario, which is a little bit hard to imagine, like even if you're imagining like cars doing this in the real world, it's a little bit hard to understand, like, how does this work exactly? You're traveling at exactly the same speed, but one of the cars is 100,000 times the size of the other car. Like, that's quite a coincidence. And this is without even getting into all, like, nerdery that nobody cares about, about acceleration in space.

Like, I'll leave all of that to the side. Here's my background problem. How big is the first order in this movie? Because this whole scenario just doesn't hold up. It's implied and it becomes the case that's like the entire resistance is being chased. The ships that are here is everyone that's left. It's like, okay, got it. But the first order, do they not have any other ship

that can warp in ahead of the resistance Corvette? Like they know where it is. Like this weird chase implies that these are all of the first order ships that exist, that they can't have anybody come in at light speed ahead of the resistance. Like it just, the chase is dumb and makes no sense on any level, but it's the structure of the whole movie. It sort of drove me crazy because it kept pushing back to this thing that we mentioned with The Force Awakens of like, I can't believe that I'm here asking for more politics in my Star Wars movies.

But I really think it's like a background rot of these movies. Like, where did the First Order come from? How big are they? How powerful are they? Like, in the last movie, they built a gun the size of a planet. But in this movie, they don't have one ship to spare to warp in ahead of the guys you're chasing. It just drives me crazy. Like this inability to understand the scale of the enemy in the movie. I think it's really, really bad.

Yeah. And that assault at the very end of the film too, that they launch on the bunker also seems quite small scale, doesn't it? Like in the scheme of things for how important it is. Because here's the thing. Okay, chasing down the resistance seems so important that the supreme leader of the first order in his capital ship is there to personally oversee this event. Like it seems incredibly important. But you can't fly a couple more ships in to resolve this within an hour. What that makes it feel like is this is it. Like this is the whole battle. All of the First Order ships are here and all of the resistance is here, which then I can't come up with a metaphor for it. But I just I keep coming back to this idea that it feels like this is a fight between two school gangs. It made the whole thing seem really small. The small size of the rebellion, I think, shocked me at times. Is that it? Is that all they've got?

I have to say, I always assume the First Order is bigger, much, much bigger. And there were so many other problems I had with the scenario. I didn't even think about what you're thinking about. I never even thought about. I kind of just accepted the premise. Yeah. I just think that it's like, you can't have it both ways. You can't have it that this is so important that the top guy is here, but it's not so important that we're not going to pull personnel from anywhere else in the entire galaxy to help out. Right. It's like these two things can't be true. And yet I agree that story-wise, the First Order has to be enormous.

There's some line in the beginning of the movie where someone says something like, oh, the First Order is weeks away from capturing all the major star systems, right? Which sounds like a metric ton of ships. But then this whole fight is taking place on such a small scale that it just, it makes things feel small. And I think

it's like, it's a problem for the whole movie, this structure, but it sounds like you had some kind of different problem with it that distracted you from this. The problem that was distracting me from that problem was obviously while this scenario is unfolding, this low speed chase, we have some of the characters decide they think they can solve the problem by enlisting some code breaker and breaking onto the other ship but to get him they've got to go to like some other place in the galaxy right and they just like they leave they get on a ship and leave and go and have another adventure and come back so it's like this low speed chase where everyone's supposed to be trapped but it feels like you can just come and go as you please like so when poe and rose decide to go off and have

this other adventure and they jump in a ship and say all right we'll catch you guys later it's like people can just go can leave what what that's crazy yeah it's one of those things in a movie where i think they're just hoping you don't notice or don't think about it. They do give you a little bit of fluff to make it seem like you could get away with it, but no one's buying that. They do give you some fluff, but here's the thing. They pull that same trick twice because, jumping forward, later on in the movie, the whole plan is we're going to eject 30 transport ships that they're just not going to see.

Right? So- Yeah, and you'd think if there was some other planet nearby where this low- speed chase was happening, the first order would be all over that. They'd be like, look, this chase is going to take us near a big planet zone. So maybe that's going to come into play. It wouldn't be some shock that they try and use the planet somehow.

Yeah. The thing that I was also wondering is like, presumably the Corvette is headed straight for the planet, right? Like if they're running out of fuel and they only just barely get there i'm imagining they were headed pretty straight for it and they have this throwaway line about like oh we're headed towards this uncharted planet but again i'm also feeling like but yeah it's a planet you're towing the first order right behind you like i think surely the first order would be thinking look the only play these guys have got is to get onto that planet because they're about to run out of fuel and get the hell blasted out of them.

So, whatever we do, make sure we keep the radars to make sure they don't send any ships to that planet. Yeah. And yet it's this, like, it's this great spooky move that no one. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the side adventure is trying to set you up for this idea. They're like, oh, we can leave and come back and they won't see. I'm like, really?

Okay. That's a, really? Okay. That's a hell of a claim. The Star Wars Legends films, Gray. Did they have these problems? Like, we were little kids watching them. Were our parents laughing at us because of all these ridiculous plot holes? Well, again, I've rewatched them as an adult. And one of the things that I have to give them real credit for is they have sensible

explanations for a bunch of stuff. So, one of the things here is like, okay, real credit for is they have sensible explanations for a bunch of stuff. So one of the things here is like, okay, so in this movie, at the very end, the Millennium Falcon takes out what seems to be like 20 TIE fighters. And it's like, okay, there's no problem at all. Rey and Chewie are able to take down all these TIE fighters. And Rey's pretty skilled and got the force and stuff. Yeah, I know. It's like, okay, I'm going to give them all that, right? I'm going to give them all those advantages.

And that's fantastic. But like in the original movie, yeah, they took down a bunch of TIE fighters, but it was part of the plot that the Empire was letting them get away. And I feel like somehow that first like, oh, our clunky Millennium Falcon was able to get away in a situation where the Empire was letting them get away has morphed into the Millennium Falcon is the most nimble ship in the universe that can take down everything. This was my Force Awakens criticism all over again. The special powers that have been imbued on the Millennium Falcon are very frustrating.

Yeah, it's crazy. And I think I was less sensitive to that last time, but this time I felt like, oh, come on, because I had lost track of all of the TIE fighters. I was like, wait a minute, what happened to all those TIE fighters? And then my wife, she was like, oh, come on, because I had lost track of all of the TIE fighters. I was like, wait a minute, what happened to all those TIE fighters? And then my wife, she was like, oh, the Millennium Falcon just wiped them all out. Like, oh, okay, right, got it. Great. But I think that like, that's a key thing that there were more reasonable explanations. Stuff that's a dumb plot idea that like, oh, you drop a bomb in a particular hole and the

whole thing blows up. It's like, okay, fine, whatever. But at least it's a mechanism for why can a tiny number of ships defeat a larger number of ships. Right. Whereas in, in this movie repeatedly, we have this idea that like the ridiculously outclassed resistance is able to just win because they're better.

Like in the end fighting scene, it was really the case where it's like they call out by number, like the resistance has 13 ships and we are here on the planet with like all of this material, like, and we're still going to get our asses handed to us. It's frustrating. And I think it's just nonsensical because you, the movie wants certain things to happen. Well, like it or not, Poe and Rose go to Vegas. They go to Monaco. Monaco. that's where they go i swear to god i was looking at that and i was like did they actually film it in monaco i was waiting for a

gigantic sign that said welcome to monaco in the background you know like some cgi artist forgot to erase brady i hate this part of the movie i hate this part of the movie so much on so many levels yeah i'm with you it's really bad except, I really love the scene where they put the coins in BB-8 because they think he's a slot machine. I thought that was really clever. It was really clever. That wasn't clever. It was terrible.

No, no, no. But you know what I liked about that? What? The reason I was going to say it's kind of clever is I didn't notice on the first watching, but on the second watching, I liked that the Foley artist bothered to make coin rolling around sounds whenever bb8 moved i thought like oh i didn't know i didn't i would never have noticed it on the first watching but on the second watching i was like i like this way better because somebody cared to have it like a bag full of money that he was moving around in the foley department all right i think that is where this film strayed too far into prequel territory, that whole thing.

This is also where I got to say, like, the real world coming into the movie is just, it's like, it's too much for me. Yeah. Why would gambling in that galaxy be so similar to our gambling? Before we get there. Okay. Thing I liked, it's like, okay, this I enjoyed as a turn for two seconds before you leaned into it too much movie.

I like the idea. They're going to go to a hive of scum and villainy, right? And Engineer Fangirl is there and she says, oh, we're, you know, these are the worst people in the world. And I liked for two seconds that it's a bunch of rich people in a casino, right? I thought that is a nice turn on the expectation. That's a nice little genre flip here. I like the idea.

It wasn't really explored very far. I also like the idea of there being Star Wars arms dealers who are selling 8080s and X-Wing fighters. And we're going to have to violently disagree on that. But so that thing about like, okay, they're the worst people in the world. It's a bunch of rich people in Monaco. It's like, okay, I can get along with it. I think that's a fun idea, but it's a bunch of rich people in monaco it's like okay i can get along with it i think that's a fun idea but it's a fun idea for two seconds and then as we like we lean into it

with all of these other elements it again it's the real world like bleeding into the star wars world and like i felt like i lost my mind at the arms dealer part it felt like the most un-star wars thing ever. I'm going to side with you. I'm going to retract what I said. Now I think about it more because although I do have always had questions about where X-Wing fighters come from, where do X-Wings come from? Because the Rebellion have got so many of them and the Rebellion is not like an army. It was very our galaxy into that galaxy. And it was also picking something that's very zeitgeist, isn't it?

It felt like we're having a little like Occupy Wall Street moment or something where it was also picking something that's very zeitgeist isn't it it felt like we're having a little like occupy wall street moment or something where it was like i'm having a character tell me that the only way you can get this rich in the star wars universe is by selling arms to the first order and it's like okay well yeah and don't be cruel to animals yeah well we'll get there it's like that's interesting like you're telling me that in, in this entire like galaxy spanning universe, there's no software billionaires, like, like who's writing the user interfaces for these machines, you know? So really this is the only way you can get this wealthy. If it's the only way you can get this wealthy, like how is the first order paying for all of this? Like surely there's wealthier guys in the first order, like buying the guns.

Well, they've got tax, they've got tax. But like, surely there's Facebook, like who invented Facebook in this galaxy? He must be rich. Yeah, I know. But so there's a thing about it, which I just, I really hate this character introducing like, oh, all of these rich people are bad. And all of us terrorists in the resistance are great, right? We have not one, but two suicide bombers in the resistance in this movie. They're fantastic people. But these people in this casino, they're all bad and they're selling guns of the first order. And weren't there people in the casino who were just like there on a stag day?

Yeah, but that's what I was wondering. It's like all of them are arms dealers. Like that's a lot of arms dealers. That little leprechaun, he's an arms dealer. The bizarre opera singer who yells when the horses come running through the casino, was she an arms dealer? Are all the people working in this casino arms dealers? It's crazy. And also, if you have this special casino where only arms dealers can go and everyone is that rich, say I accept the premise that they're all arms dealers. Right.

Wouldn't security be a bit higher than having these people park their shuttle on a beach and walk in? Yeah. But this is it. Like, that doesn't make any sense. Right. But here we are, like, we're with the 1% of the 1% with the arms dealers, but you can just walk in. It doesn't make any sense. And I'm really glad that they touched on it later because I swear to God,

I was sitting in this seat, seat like fuming at this point. Also because this is where I was like, Rose, I hate you and I want you to die so badly. But when she's talking about the arms dealers, like it was all I could do to not scream at the film. Like, where do you get those X-wings from? Like, where do you think you're buying these things from? And I'm like, I'm so glad that the movie

just touched on it briefly for a second. But it's like, why are your guns better than their guns? Like, are your guns made with flowers and light and love? And oh, the First Order, they're just bad. This sort of going back to Rogue One, I feel like this movie had a real problem in the way that one did of like, you need to give me more reasons to like the resistance and to dislike the First Order. Did Rose explain why she was so anti these people too? It's like, she felt it really strongly and it's like she was educating Poe about why this is bad.

Yeah. Like, was Rose like a slave to them at some point? I missed that. Was she more abused in her background than the others? The thing she says briefly is that her planet was strip mined by the first order to then buy the guns from the arms dealers. Like, again, it's like some kind of weird thing. And then the arms dealers were testing out their weapons on her planet. And then like she, quote, lost everything. She may have said it, but I certainly didn't feel it.

Yeah. And I was like, great. I don't care about you at all. But it's just, there was something about it that's just childish in this way of like, oh, all these people in the casino are terrible people. And all of the resistance fighters are great. And just combined with the things like a little moment in a movie, which I think they all add up.

It was like, I should like the Resistance, but I just don't. And one of the reasons I don't like the Resistance is when we first meet Rose, what is she doing? She's stunning and throwing in the brig deserters from the Resistance who are trying to escape what they view as a pointless mission where they're all going to die. And it's like, shouldn't story-wise the resistance be the force that lets you go if you want to leave? Isn't that a way to make them sympathetic instead of like, oh, you're stun gunning all day long people who are trying to desert? You still need some military precision in these crisis situations, Greg. Don't get me wrong. In real life, if I was running a resistance, I'd have stun gunners standing at every escape

pod, right? That's what I would really do. But I'm just talking about story-wise, why do you have to explicitly call this out? Why can't you have her be doing almost anything else? I have no real reason to like the resistance. And then they're filled with dumb characters who do stupid things, which makes them even more unlikable. I've just realized, by the way, for everyone listening, it isn't Poe that goes off with

Rose. It's Finn. Sorry for all those times I've said it and frustrated you. I've got my names a bit mixed up, but anyway. I'm sure you won't get any feedback on that at all. That will have written the comments before I corrected it. So, Greg, just a quick intermission here before you continue with your Monaco tirade, which I'm looking forward to. All of these things you think, like these plot holes and these things that drive you crazy, are you thinking them during the film or later? Because this is pretty complicated stuff you're thinking about, and the film goes at a reasonable pace. I don't think I

have time to think of all these plot holes until afterwards. I certainly think about them afterwards. Do you think about them afterwards or during? A lot of the stuff I was thinking during, but I think that's because this movie felt like a slower movie. Like during Rogue One, I remember a feeling of just being more confused or like not following parts. But this movie, there was a bunch of stuff that was bothering me during it. So like the thing about the fuel and the relative speed of the ships, I was like, this is crazy and it makes no sense. It's the problem again of like breaking a suspension of disbelief that then causes me to be sitting there and thinking about a thing. And that is the whole magic of a good movie is a good movie doesn't do that. It doesn't

break you out and get you thinking about the stuff. But landing in a place which is obviously Monaco and then talking about arms dealers, it's like, oh, okay, I thought I was going to enjoy a movie. But now I'm getting like a political lesson from the writers of this script. And that's what like kicks me out of it and then starts a little loop in my head where I'm thinking about the movie as I'm watching the movie. So, I'm in the Vegas or Monaco, whatever you want to call it thing. I didn't like it all and then this person they go to get the help from like we see that person briefly and then

they obviously don't get to get that person and then there's this other person and then there's the horse racing scene yeah well which is like this was shark jumping territory for me there's two things here and i feel like after this i have a whole bunch of just minor points about the movie. But it's like the casino thing, it's where the movie broke for me. Because I was thinking, this is so Monaco, I can't believe it. And then they introduce a racetrack. And that's like, it's too much, right? It's too much.

It's like they flew to a casino city that was called Las Vegas. And there's a gigantic pyramid in the middle of this. It's like, it's too much. But the real moment that kind of like lost me and was very, very space ballsy was, so they meet in prison, the guy who's going to break codes for them. You know, it's just like a fantastic miracle of luck. They bump into this guy and they stage like an escape off camera, in an unspecified around and BB-8 uses all of those coins so cleverly put in his chest and like shoots the guy down with a bunch of coins.

As if you're not insulted enough by the fact he's tied these people up, they're going to spit in your face and have him use these coins. Yeah. And then he blows on the nozzle of his gun, like he's Clint Eastwood. And it's like, what is he blowing on? That to me was the exact moment where I'm like i'm done movie because it's so absurd and if bb-8 can do this well he seems really useful like why don't you have a whole bunch of these bb-8 droids yeah like a flying r2d2 yeah it's like if this is a thing that exists in this universe

then it breaks the universe and there there's stuff later on, which is also like universe breaking. It's about like how good the droids are. Like you said, like R2-D2 flies or in Rogue One, the robot in Rogue One is like so good. Like, why don't you just have these guys all the time? Why do you mess around with humans? That just really broke it for me. And then they escape and they go see the horses in the stables, like the gigantic horse creatures. And this is where I'm like, I'm losing my mind, right? Because, ugh, Rose, Rose, I hate you so much. Rose wants to free all of the horses, but they leave the slave children behind. It's like, oh, go, like, run free horses, slave children, you stay here. I'm sure

everything will be fine for you. Well, they're using the horses too, to get away on. Like, there's utility to the horses to them. And they're using the big group of horses as like, you know, distraction and they're just robbing the horse. Oh yeah, I understand what is occurring here. But there's like, oh, they show that the horses are abused, of course, because they have to be, right? Just because, you know, it couldn't just be a horse race. And arms dealers don't care about abused animals because they're monsters, right? And it's like, okay, whatever. But these horses all escape.

You just leave the slave children behind. And they do this romp through the city, which I think is hilarious, where it's like the horses are trying to jump on every single car. Like they're jumping from car to car just to smash them all up because it's real fun, I guess. And they sort of escape into the woods on these horses. Their whole plan has like totally failed from their perspective. They lost the keybreaker guy. They're not necessarily going to get off of this island.

Like they don't know what's going to happen. And then Finn and Rose have a little conversation about how, oh, it was really all worth it just to make these dirty arms dealers feel the pain a little bit. And it's like, what do you mean? Like you smashed up a couple of their cars. If they're as rich as you're saying they are, like they could make cars rain down from the sky all day with their money. Like you haven't done anything to harm them in the slightest. It's like, you know, you're like an idiot protester who's going like, oh, I'm going to boycott Walmart. I'm not going to buy any of their goods.

It's like, yeah, great. Congratulations. You've done so much here. Maybe those space horses are like really valuable. So anyway, they're like, oh, it's great. We made the rich guys hurt

and we let these horses get away. You know, and Finn says, oh, it was really worth it to make those guys hurt. And then Rose takes the saddle off one of the horses and is like, go run free horse. Right. And she goes, now it was really worth it.

I was like, okay, hold on a second, Rose. Let's review the situation. The entire resistance is going to die because your mission has failed. But you have let some horses run free for perhaps a couple of hours before they get rounded up again. Yeah. It's like, I hate you so much as a character. And we haven't even gotten to the thing that she does that I hate the most. But this whole casino thing, I was like, I cannot deal with this side quest.

The side quest is just ridiculous. It was a rubbish side quest. Oh, well, Brady. Okay. That's as angry as I'm going to be except for the other thing. But I a rubbish side quest. Oh, well, Brady, I'm okay. That's as angry as I'm going to be except for the other thing, but I'm good. Okay. I feel like I got that out of me. While we're speaking about robots and BB-8, droids, sorry, and BB-8. Yeah, droid, not robots, Brady, no.

There was an earlier scene that I kind of wanted to see what you thought about that we've kind of skipped over. And this was when Luke Skywalker says, I'm not not going to get involved i'm not going to help and then r2 guilts him by showing the old video of princess leia that was very a very human thing that r2 did wasn't it like it was very subtle and strategic and playing on human emotions. And like, what did you think of that play from R2, that it came from R2? Very crucial thing. You know, that was the turning point. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to help. I am going to help now because I remember what it's all about. And it came from the droid. Well, I mean, this brings up the deep problem of droid slavery in the Star

Wars universe. Well, I wasn't trying to go there again, but all right. But it is. Like, it is totally a thing. Like, the droids as presented in Star Wars are just totally conscious creatures with a range of emotions and feelings. Yeah. So to have a droid in the Star Wars universe do a very human thing is totally unsurprising in a way that in other genres, it might feel like,

oh, you're just getting the robot to do what the robot needs to do in this scene. I did like it. But then again, like the little comment from Luke about being, oh, that's a really cheap move. I felt again like, oh, okay, the script is getting meta again. Like we're referencing the movie itself so that you're pulling me out of this. Yeah, you didn't have to dismiss it. He could have just looked and, you know. He could have just looked really sad and it would have been 10 times more powerful.

Yeah, because in some ways it was the most important moment in the film. Yeah. And they dismissed it, like almost like he said, oh, that crap's not going to work on me, you stupid droid. Before he says anything, I also thought that if the directors had just let him keep his mouth shut, I don't know if it was intentional or not, but I feel like it's also a scene that has the potential to really have a little poignant moment about how much older Luke is. It is him seeing his sister, you know, 35, 40 years younger. And last time he looked at it, he was this, you know, testosterone charged, naive boy who just thought, oh, that's a fit girl. Yeah. And now so much has changed about him.

Yeah, you could have just lingered on how old he looked and how podgy his face was. And we as viewers would have also been feeling the same thing. Gosh, last time I saw that, I was a young boy. And now look at all of us. It was very special and it did get trampled on. Like so many other things are like, oh, don't hold on the seriousness too long. We're going to have to have a sort of half joke or a sort of meta comment about it and like oh like i liked it until that line and i was like oh okay great here we go again there was also something that

just didn't quite sit right with me that like r2 thought to do it don't get you know i like r2d2 as much as the next person but it just just sort of, I don't know. But it's also to me the thing of like, I forgot R2-D2 was supposed to be in this movie until this moment. And then he just does the one thing and then disappears again. Yeah. Anyway, it was an interesting scene that could have been better. What about Snoke and the big battle in his lair with all those Red Imperial guards around the place as well. The first time I saw them, I thought they were pretty cool. Like the first time when they tried to come to Snoke's defense,

when he was just one-on-one with Kylo, I thought it was a pretty cool scene. I was like, oh, wow, those guys are badass. I like them. Later on, they became a bit silly because there were just too many of them and they were jumping around the place like ninjas. It was a little choreographed. There was a little bit of like, I'm watching a fight on a stage play. These two people are pushing this guy back and now he's going to bounce off.

I would have loved it if they had just run after Snoke dies. Because I was kind of wondering like, what exactly are those guys? Are they like trainee Sith? I get you too. It would have been funnier if they ran because like they were there for snoke their bosses just died like what's their motivation for trying to kill either of those two yeah like actually it didn't occur to me until just now but like isn't kylo ren like second in command like don't they know he's the apprentice to the master and now that the master is gone, shouldn't they just be serving Kylo Ren? Was Kylo complicit in Snoke's assassination? Did he know it was going on and

allow it? Did he know that she was twisting the lightsaber? I thought maybe that's what was going on, like they were in cahoots there. Okay. This is an interesting moment because I read that scene totally differently. I read that scene that Kylo Ren killed him. Okay. So I had a big complaint about this because on the second viewing, I had to write it down because I thought the scene was so absurd because Snoke moves Rey before Kylo Ren so that he will kill her. Right.

And Kylo Ren looks right at Rey and says, I know what I have to do. Okay. So this is nearly word for word. And I'll read it just the way Snoke did. This is nearly word for word, his speechifying at the end. In Kylo, where there was a conflict, I now sense resolve. I cannot be betrayed. I see his mind. I see him turning the lightsaber to strike true.

He ignites it and kills his true enemy. Who could that be, his true enemy? Is it me? Yeah. Yeah, I read that wrong. And looking at the Wikipedia article, it also says that Kylo kills Snoke. So, well, that would explain why the Red Guards are after both of them. Your version would be way better.

But I thought that was like the hammiest thing I had seen on film in a long time. And the whole villain of Snoke, of Snoke, whatever the hell, in my brain, I keep calling him like Snape. His whole villain was just totally wasted

and totally pointless and was another thing that felt to me like some kind of director or studio disagreement behind the scenes. Because in the last movie, it's a big mystery. Oh, who is this guy? And in this movie, the answer is he's a guy who sits

in a throne room and gives a bunch of speeches and doesn't really do anything and reveals nothing about where the first order came from or where he came from or anything. Is it Darth Maul, the guy who's red and black? Yeah. It's like him. It's like, oh, that's a pretty interesting character. I can't wait to find out where he came from and what his story is and what he's all about. And then they just like Yeah, yeah. And going back to my problem with like the political situation, I think this is an answer that really needs to be resolved. Is after the supposed victory of the original trilogy, where does this guy come from? Who's the one who starts up the First Order? That needs an answer.

Whereas like in the original trilogy, because you're just starting the story, you can say, here's the state of affairs. There's a gigantic empire that controls the universe and there's a bunch of rebels. Go, right? Story starts here. But you can't do that when you've continued the story to just like after the victory, jump forward 40 years and try to reset the clock. Like there needs to be some kind of answer. I think that was like, obviously what his character was supposed to do,

but it really felt like someone decided, I don't like Snoke. Like we're going to get rid of him and we're going to make sure he does absolutely nothing in this movie, except be frankly like an over the top comical speechifying villain, right? Like he just loves to talk that guy. Like I felt so bad for those red guards like they must have to hear him talking all day long like i think he's like he's practicing

speeches in that throne room they just have to listen he does nothing and was potentially an interesting character but like well i guess he's just gone okay it's interesting isn't it because all four good star horse films have like a dual type thing at the end that is really important and like a highlight of the film. And this one, like I've got hardly any notes here. I'm really uninterested in it. Like the confrontation, the moment between Rey and Kylo Ren and, you know, really just like really forgettable.

I kind of already forget what happened like he said join me and yeah she said no and a lightsaber broke in half and she pissed off and I think you really raise an excellent point that just didn't cross my mind which is why are those guards even fighting them I don't understand either they should not care anymore or they should recognize that Kylo Ren is now the next in charge oh it's a free-for-all for the to control the throne in that room? Like, is that what's happening? It doesn't make any sense why that fight occurs.

Just to jump ahead in my notes and to jump ahead in the film, because it touches on this. This is one of my criticisms and questions about the film too. And that is the dedication of people that have no skin in the game. Like when the ships are all blowing up at the end and, you know, it's all going pear-shaped. That silver stormtrooper and all the other stormtroopers are still like amongst the carnage as their ship falls apart and everyone should be evacuating. They're still just concentrating on killing these two rebels.

Like at least at the end of Return of the Jedi when it's all going pear-shaped on the Death Star and Luke's dragging Darth Vader through the hangar, like no one cares because all they care about is just getting the hell out of there themselves. Like normal people. But here, people who with no skin in the game and no reason to care this much are just battling on mindlessly

doing things that make no sense. You've hit on such a detail that I love in those original movies is that scene. And it's like the ship is falling apart and everybody's just trying to get out. And it's so impactful. Like people apart and everybody's just trying to get out and it's so impactful like people are acting in the way people would it's like that stormtrooper's got no skin this game as soon as it looked like darth vader's incapacitated like they're just going to leave

him to die they don't like everyone's just trying to get out of there yeah and it provides a reason like how can luke exit because everybody's just exiting they're all just rats leaving a drowning ship and nobody cares and that's what would really happen. And then this becomes, the answer is all of these stormtroopers really care because they're video game AIs with one goal, which is to kill the protagonists, right? That's the answer to the question.

It's terrible. In my dark heart of hearts, I was hoping for a twist that I knew wasn't going to come, but I thought would make the movie more interesting. Like maybe Rey and Kylo will switch positions because I feel like in the last movie and in this movie, they do harp on this theme that like the dark side really pulls Ray, like maybe more than other characters we've seen.

And I feel like, man, it would be like a really bad-ass bold move to take your heroine and turn her into the villain and maybe have like kylo ends up going right back to leia like have them switch positions but you know it's like i could see it wasn't going to happen but i thought like oh man maybe it like maybe we can salvage this with a really cool turn of the movie it's like oh but nope okay all right it's just like a fight they just fight like join me and we'll rule the galaxy together as BFFs with benefits, I guess.

I don't know. I don't know really what the sale was there. I'll say a quick positive thing that happened around this part of the film. Like, you know how in Rogue One, the scene with Darth Vader tearing the ship apart was the scene that everyone just went, wow, man, that scene made the whole film worthwhile. Right. There was one scene like that in went, wow, man, that scene made the whole film worthwhile. Right. There was one scene like that in this film that I thought, that is cool.

And that was when the corvette went into light speed and went through the whole squadron of enemy ships. Like, I'd never seen what would happen if a ship went into hyperspace, into a whole, like, fleet of other ships. And the way that it tore all those ships apart for a few seconds i thought was a really cool looking scene i thought it looked amazing oh okay yeah so you're talking about captain purple hair which was a terrible casting decision oh my god casting someone as famous as laura dern in that role was a terrible decision and completely

ripped me out of the film every time she was on screen because i've seen her in so many films that she was poorly cast yeah i want to i want to get back to her because I've got some problems with her but that scene was without a doubt the highlight of the film she turned the ship around and she does a suicide maneuver into the capital ship yeah loved it it looked awesome it looked awesome the visuals were great cutting out the sound briefly and then having an explosion when you're not expecting it like the audio work was fantastic. The way they showed you that the ship was going through, like it wasn't just an explosion.

It was like a violent tearing through. Like that scene was perfect on every level, except for the part where it breaks the whole Star Wars universe. Because I saw it. I was like, wow, that's amazing. And then, wait a minute, why don't we just attach hyperdrives to asteroids and use this as a weapon?

Maybe hyperdrives are quite expensive to make, Greg. Well, it seems like I know some pretty rich arms dealers who might be able to make those hyperdrives. And there are a lot of ships in the films that have them that seem to belong to pretty poor people. Yeah, this is the problem. If you want to try to make some economic argument, that's like, oh, the resistance was able to use this capital ship at the last moment because it's such a

costly maneuver. It's like, okay, ships blow up all the time, right? All the time in this universe. And like, hey, here's a great way that you can show that the first order is really terrible. Have them using suicide pilots, driving hyperdrive ships as attacks. They could have done the first Death Star that way. Just done a few of their ships into the first Death Star. It would have been all over. To be honest, I didn't think of it, Gray. I just thought that's awesome.

It is awesome. But within five seconds, I was like, oh, no, stop brain, stop brain. But it's like like it's too late it's too late my brain is and then it goes like okay there's another battle that happens later on and all i'm thinking of is like why don't you just hyperspace a ship right through the core of this planet you know like if you're going to smash something at light speed into a planet that planet is done right it is over and the rebels like oh we have a shield up on our base like will that shield hold up to a dreadnought going at hyperspace through the planet? Like, I don't think it will. I don't think

anything will hold up against this weapon. This weapon just destroys all of the battles because why would you do anything else? You know, get some of your slave droids to drive the ships. It didn't do that much damage to the fleet, Gray. It didn't, like, it was very destructive, but it wasn't planet-destroying destructive. Like, it just put a little cut through the dreadnought. I think you're overstating how powerful it was. I mean, if we're supposed to take that seriously, do you not think that a ship could go at light speed through the Rebel base on the salt planet? Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, You could take out the rebel base.

I'm just saying you could destroy like a whole planet or something. But that's what I mean. Why aren't you bombing the planet surface with ships at light speed? Right? This is what I'm saying. If we're to take that seriously, that in this universe, you can do this. Yeah. Like, why didn't they do that on Hoth?

Yeah, exactly. And why don't they do that on Hoth 2 in this movie minutes later? And again, it's like, I presume that the First Order has a lot of ships to spare. This is really important or it's not, I don't know. I can't figure out the scale of these things. So again, highlight of the movie, totally love it as an individual scene, breaks every naval battle in the entire universe. This feels also like around the time that the film should have been drawing to an end. Yeah. Yeah.

And then we go to Hoth 2. We go to Hoth 2 and we start what I think of as the Return of the King phase of the movie. Yeah. Where I keep thinking it's going to cut to black multiple times. Yeah. And the movie really suffers from starting to drag. Like, when they start spinning up the extra battle, like, you should never be looking at your watch when a battle starts. And you think, like, really?

Are we- we're really going to do a whole other battle right now? I thought, like- I'd already been to the toilet once, and I was thinking, I'm going to have to go again. Yeah, exactly. I had way too much soft drink. This part was- it was too much. It was too much,, it was too much. It was too much and it was too long. So, obviously, like the red salt under the white surface did look pretty cool.

Yeah. But what was the point of those mono ski poles on the ships besides kicking up cool redness? I don't see the science-y reason for them. Did I miss something? You didn't miss anything. There's something in my head. It's been bothering. I cannot remember what it is. Someone will put it in the comments, but I know that there is some kind of like, in my head, I have this image of a thing that like sails on the surface and you do use something like this in water to stabilize a craft that moves along the surface. And I see that's what they are going for. But this whole battle struck me as someone had what admittedly is an awesomely cool idea for the visual. What's a cool visual we can add to a battle to make it different? And the planet that has red crystals underneath and ice on top,

super cool visual. Love it. What I don't love is now we have to engineer a way that everybody is kicking up the salt all the time. Yeah. And the way we're going to do that is we're going to give them spaceships, but the spaceships can't actually fly. They can only hover above the ground. And to hover above the ground, they need to have this stabilizing fin that is scraping the salt. Yeah. And this also adds the problem to me that okay resistance is ridiculously outgunned here and they are also confined to a 2d plane with 13 ships it's like

you guys should get wrecked immediately in this fight but they're able to they're able to hold on and it's just the movie contorting itself to fit the visual idea on somebody's storyboard. That's what's happening there. Yeah, there's a lot of plot holes here. It was too much like the Hoth battle. It was like, I don't mind callbacks, but this was bordering on just being unoriginal. There's a lot of dumb stuff that happens here. There's like crystal creatures.

There's so much. But it's like, I just got to call out what to me is my favorite thing in the whole movie which is finn decides he's going to do a suicide run into this cannon that they're going to use to crack open the base oh no now you're doing it it was poe wasn't it no it was finn i wasn't no it was finn it was finn oh no you're right oh god man i've got serious poe finn problems here i'm sorry man, it's fine. I've got po-fin dyslexia. It's fair enough.

It's hard to keep them straight. It's like, whatever. It's just like, you know, guys doing adventurous things. I don't know. Go on, then. But so Finn is doing this suicide run into the cannon that is going to crack open the resistance base. And it's like, okay, well, at this point in the movie, it is theoretically going to be the third resistance suicide bomber in this film. I was like, okay, whatever.

I actually think it's like, okay, this is not an unreasonable character arc for him. If you're thinking about how is his character in this sequence of movies, but so he's flying, he's flying, he's flying. And then at the last minute, Rose flies in from like unspecified, impossible angle and knocks him off of the beam. And like they crashed to the side and he rightly yells at her, like, what are you doing?

And I swear to God, Brady, I recorded it in the movie theater the second time around, because I was like, I have to make sure I remembered this correctly because the scene is so ridiculous. She goes, I saved you, dummy. Right. Like, oh, you fool.

Like bopping him on the nose in a playful way in this in this moment. And it's like, this is how we're going to win by saving the people that we love, not sacrificing ourselves for the things that we hate. And in what I think might be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever seen in cinematic history, they are about to kiss and you see the laser beam in the background crack open the rebel base, right? Entirely presumably because of her doing this dumb thing to save a boy that in this moment, you find out she likes because she leans over and kisses him like as the base is exploding in the background the first time i saw it brady i swear to god i have never come closer to just totally losing my movie theater

also that the delay makes you think that finn's run would have been successful because because it happened long enough afterwards yeah i think that the movie very strongly implies that the run would have been successful. Yeah. Right? That he would have prevented this from occurring. It's like Forrest Gump saving Lieutenant Dan when Lieutenant Dan wanted to die on the battlefield. This move by this character is maybe the dumbest thing I've ever seen a character do in a movie. And it's also an incredible moment to reveal that like she has a crush on a guy that is, let's be frank, ridiculously out of her league.

And she's going to kiss him now as the rebel base is cracked open like a goddamn egg in the background and everybody is going to die. I was like, I was so close to just losing it in the theater. Like, I was like, do not laugh out loud in an uproarious way at this moment. Like, there are other people in the theater the first time around, but like, don't do this. Don't be that guy.

And I was barely able to like crush that laughter down inside of me. Because it was so absurd. It was so absurd. I hate Rose. I hate her so much. I'm getting that impression. Her character is just so stupid at every turn.

And I think the actress was not a good actress, which certainly didn't help. But it's like, I couldn't stand her. And that was this amazing crowning glory for her as a character. And of course, because it's a movie, things work out, I guess. But she has no reason to think this is going to work out. It's terrible. It's so bad. You just don't understand love, Gray.

Yeah, it's true. I don't understand love. And from the look on Finn's face, he doesn't understand love because he seems pretty surprised about what has just occurred there. So yeah, it's awful. It's maybe one of the worst things I've ever seen in a movie. Wow. So, Luke Skywalker comes to town.

He does. He does. Turns out it's force projection Luke Skywalker. He's doing astral projection is what he's doing, yeah. Which is a new Jedi skill. New skill. Which would have been a real game changer on numerous occasions. Like light speeding through ships, astral projection by Jedis, game changer in many scenarios.

Why do they ever put themselves in risky situations at all if they can just do it from afar? I don't understand. Why don't they send force ghosts who can bring down lightning bolts from the sky to resolve situations? I don't know. That's true. Why doesn't Yoda just turn up and bring down lightning bolts on those AT-ATs? Yeah, sky to resolve situations. I don't know. That's true. Why doesn't Yoda just turn up and bring down lightning bolts on those 8080s? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. The thing that I found doubly confusing about that

is it's so similar to the established force ghost thing anyway. I was kind of assuming that Luke was a force ghost in this moment. And I thought it would be much more poignant if you realize that he is already dead, as opposed to dying after exerting himself, demonstrating a skill that you never even had any idea it was possible before. Yeah. I found it a weird choice because like this skill

is so similar to an existing skill in this universe. I don't know why you need to do this. Like, why don't you just make up that, like he's such a good force ghost he doesn't have to have the blue glowy bit around him yeah has kylo ren even ever met a force ghost like does he know that force ghosts exist if he doesn't then then luke can just be a bluey person and be like i'm so powerful you don't have any idea what's going on kylo ren boo. Boo! Right? Maybe Force ghosts can't hold things, but astral projection- I think it's called force projection can. Yeah, maybe.

I don't know. One way or another, Luke Skywalker dies as a result of this. So, this is a big deal. Killing Luke Skywalker, like, that's as big as it gets. So, the things that I think about that is, did he just die from exhaustion? That's the feeling I get, is it was like such an incredible effort. He had an aneurysm. That's sort of my thought on it.

I wish he wasn't floating like a Buddha when he did it. That was a bit of a leaking of galaxies again. But why did he have to be floating when he did it? Wouldn't that use even more energy? Couldn't he just be sitting in a chair? Yeah. Anyway, I don't know. Maybe there's a reason you have to float with your legs crossed when you're force projecting.

I do think it's a shame that of all the things he could give his life for, it was like to buy a few minutes for a ragtag group of rebels. Yeah. It wasn't like he did something amazing that saved the galaxy. It was just like a momentary distraction. Yeah. So, it seemed a bit trivial. They could have had plenty of time if someone had kamikazed into that cannon.

Yeah. They wouldn't be short on minutes if that was the case, but you know, oh well, opportunity lost. Also, when Luke appeared in the base and said hi to Leia, did Leia know that that was a projection or was her like reunited moment with her brother like a big fraud that she didn't even know was going on? I felt really bad for her when Han's dice disappeared. It's like, Luke gives her astral projection dice that he knows are going to disappear when he dies. I didn't think about that. Is that like a cruel joke? Or is she supposed to know? I read it that C-3PO did know, because Luke gives him like a cheeky wink. I don't know if that was intended or not but that

was kind of my reading is that if anyone should know like the droid should know it's not really luke i thought it was more how you going odd buddy good to see you again but you're right he would have realized that he didn't have like a heartbeat and all those life readings and yeah yeah it's a weird decision and i agree with you that luke's here is, well, once again, for really small stakes. It's for a couple of minutes of time so that a dozen people who are the entire remainder of the resistance can get away. It wasn't big enough to cost Luke Skywalker his life.

It seemed trivial. I didn't even think about it until you mentioned it, but I only realize now that I had zero emotional impact from the death of Luke Skywalker. Yeah. And it was so absent, it didn't even register in my brain that I had no resonance in this moment. It was just like, oh, I guess Luke's dead now. Okay.

I'm going to move right along. Those dice. I realized that there are a few still skills from the original film where there are dice people don't need to like tell me about the dice but whatever you tell me about the dice they have never been part of the star wars film or important or associated with heart solo in any way so to then make them this like really special thing that would like move luke to see them and then would move layer well i wasn't moved and I know all these characters as well. So, the dice was silly and making them dice as well, which is, you know,

fluffy dice on a rear view mirror. Like, so, again, leakage. Yeah, it's total leakage. How do you think about how they ended it? Going for their Return of the King endings, they couldn't bear to end the film. And then they gave us this boy looking up into space. Okay, boy looking up into space. Okay. Boy looking up into space. This connects back to me in a thing that I feel like, oh God, please don't let this happen.

As one of my little underlying problems with the whole movie and a bit of this like leakage. I feel like the movie was really trying to push this idea of like regular people are resisting this first order of Nazis. And it's like all the regular people we just know are on this one side. And like this new Anakin boy who pops up in three scenes. And then at the end of the movie, he felt like the personification of this thing. But I like, there's something about this that just really rubs me the wrong way. And I feel like I am really worried that what they're setting up for is in the end of the next movie, this idea that it's like the resistance is all of us, right? Like we only have 13 actual people left in the real like resistance.

So like, how do they solve this problem? They have to solve this problem with some kind of like massive uprising. There's just something about like, we have secret rings with the rebel logo on it that just don't like, and like, she's showing a secret ring and the little boy knows like, oh yes, of course I'm only eight,

but I know which side I'm supposed to be on in this little slave world. There's also lines that just like talking about allies to the resistance. All these people on the outer rim they keep referring to. Yeah, there's all these people on the outer rim who are like allies to the resistance. Oh yeah. And when Laura Dern shows up, who again, I just like, it is unfortunate that she's like, she's so well known and her outfit made her look like she fell out of the hunger games and into this movie she just always looked

really out of place like i just don't believe you here but then she she starts off again with this idea that like the resistance is now this thing that is here for she says quote like the downtrodden and oppressed across the galaxy and it it's just like, I don't like this. It feels like you're trying to have this weird political thing that you keep referencing. I know. I don't want to draw parallels between Star Wars Galaxy and our world. Yeah, exactly. That is unnecessary. There was even like a throwaway line where when they have like Maz show up on the Skype call to

tell them to go find the code breaker dude. And they're like, Maz, what are you doing? And she's like, I'm involved in a union dispute right now. You don't want to know the details. And I'm like, it's like a f***ing course she is, right? Of course, she's there fighting for union rights, like wherever the hell she is. I'm trying to stop voter suppression here on Tatooine. Honest to God, it might as well be that. Any one of these things doesn't matter.

But when you like keep hitting it, when it's like, oh, who's the real bad guys in this universe? It's like all these rich people are the real bad guys. Who are the great people on our side? The downtrodden and oppressed. Like they're on our side. We need to stop gerrymandering on Endor. It totally wouldn't have felt out of place

if there was a moment about like, oh, these people don't have voting rights. It just pulls you out of it. And I feel like it's setting up this idea that like, oh, the resistance is all of us. Like we're all going to be the resistance. I did notice that they pulled a little trick at the end of the movie, which I thought like was my tiny spark of hope that allowed them to pull a linguistic change? Where they said like, oh, the rebellion is born today. It's like, okay, great. We can get away from this, like, calling it the resistance thing.

You're clearly in the next movie just going to call them rebels again. Good. That's great because it's uncomfortable, but. Oh, because they wanted to get rebel scum in, didn't they? They used rebel scum a few times. They used rebel scum so much that I never want to use it again as a joke. Because it's like, oh, now that you've owned it where he's like, oh, I'm rebel scum. Like, I never want to make that joke again.

Thanks, movie. I just feel like the slave children were like a focal point of this idea that we're now like all the downtrodden and oppressed in the universe are on our side, even though we're only, you know, 13 terrorists. Like, that's what's going to happen here. Like, I don't like it. I don't like it at all. And the fact that it's like a vaguely new Anakin kid doesn't make me feel any better about it. Did you find it distracting or entering your thoughts a lot watching the film, knowing that Carrie Fisher had died and how they were going to deal with this? I thought about it a little bit, only because I think that the movie should have killed Carrie

Fisher in the beginning when she gets blown out of the bridge. Well, that's what I assumed had happened. Yeah. I don't know what they're planning on doing that, but it felt like, boy, you really missed an opportunity to have an amazing, impactful, sudden death for a main character that we've known and loved for many years. She didn't contribute much after that point. She wasn't necessary after that point.

No. Except maybe she'd already filmed all the scenes and you couldn't edit her out. I think that's what it is. They already filmed a bunch of scenes, so they wanted to keep her in. Also, if you killed Leia straight away, that provides a pretty good reason to hate the First Order. And her Mary Poppins-ing her way back onto the bridge was really uncomfortable. But yeah, she doesn't really do anything later in the movie.

I have no idea what they're going to do in the next part. Like, I was aware of it, but I wouldn't say I was distracted by it. Like, were you? Oh, I was always waiting because I thought they'd kill her off. So, I was always waiting for it to happen. And then it happened early and I thought okay yeah okay and then she like comes back to life I was like oh okay she's still in the film yeah but I think the way it works with reboots is you have a one main character death quota per movie yeah so we

got rid of Han this one gets rid of Luke in exchange for two minutes of time so the next one has to be Leia right that's you have to it out. I think that's the way it works. Okay. Any other keynotes or things you want to talk about? No, I feel like I hit my main ones. Casino Land is terrible and I don't like the real world leaking into my Star Wars in language and weird political references. So, Grey, last year when we did Rogue One, which you didn't like, and I kind of did like, but I feel like I didn't do it justice in the podcast. And I sort of got dragged along with you a bit and started kicking it while it was down. I've only seen it twice, but I feel more and more positive about Rogue One as time goes by. And after watching this

film, it made me feel even more positive about Rogue One. Like, I want more films like Rogue One as time goes by. And after watching this film, it made me feel even more positive about Rogue One. Like I want more films like Rogue One and less films like this one that I saw today. Right. Because Rogue One, it doesn't mess with the canon so much, but still feels related and part of the Star Wars universe. It felt grown up, like it still felt like a grown up film like it wasn't so sanitized and this film didn't feel as like as much of a film for grown ups and i know i know star wars films of our families and they're not just made for me but

i like films that are made for me right of course and rogue one felt made for me and like if i was going to go and put a star wars film on right now downstairs i'd put rogue one on let me ask you this because I know you don't like Rogue One, right? And it sounds like you didn't like this one very much. How would you compare this one, The Last Jedi and Rogue One? Which was better of the two? Well, I know I've just been complaining for two hours about this movie. But I think this is important what I'm about to say. Because I feel like this is the last time I've watched a Star Wars movie. In the sense that I feel like something has now broken in my brain.

Where I'm not watching Star Wars movies. Like I'm watching movies that are set in the Star Wars universe. Yeah. And now I'm going to have just as much expectation of enjoyment as i do when i'm watching a marvel movie where it's like i've watched all the marvel movies and like they're fine some of them are better than others but none of them are great movies but all of them are products to print a million dollars or actually i should say quite literally a billion dollars and like when i watch uh like i watch a bad marvel movie like age of ultron is like

i just feel like okay well that was that was a really bad one that wasn't good but there's going to be a million of these and i think this is now the way i feel about the story like my expectations while watching the movie got lowered because I feel like this movie veered into a weird parody of itself, but I now have just like no expectations or anticipation of any of these movies in the future. So I feel like this is the last time I will have walked into a theater feeling like I'm going to watch a Star Wars movie.

And that's just over now. I mean, now that's much easier as well now that Luke and Han are both gone. Yeah, Luke and Han are both gone. But it's also just the world. Like, the world is different. So, I enjoyed this movie more, more than Rogue One. But I enjoyed it in the sense of now it's just like any giant cinematic universe movie. It's just like a movie, oh, do you want to go see the latest Star Wars flick? Like, yeah, I guess, whatever. Like, oh, do you want to see the new Marvel movie? Like,

yeah, sure. Okay. You know, it's a machine that turns out things that are sometimes interesting or sometimes not. And similarly with the Marvel movies, I feel like the plot contrivances and weirdness of the structure of those movies, it's like, this is just what these things are. Like there's beats that a studio wants to hit for particular movies and you need tie-ins to keep franchises going. And it's like,

okay, this is all just part of this machine and I'll watch movies in the future, but I don't think I'm ever going to be like, wow, I'm going to go see a Star Wars movie and it's great. So, I personally disliked Rogue One a lot more, but I enjoyed this one more, but for the wrong reasons. So, that's the way I feel about it. Can you imagine a time coming where you don't go and see a Star Wars movie? I mean, yeah, simply because I imagine there's going to be a lot of them. I don't feel the need to see all of the movies.

We also have the weird problem that we are now getting stuck in some kind of Christmas tradition, which is complain about Star Wars for two hours on Christmas morning. Merry Christmas. Listen to two grumpy nerds like complain about the thing. To end this episode then, can you think of anything positive about this film, The Last Jedi?

Like, is there anything about it? End with something positive. Oh yeah, there were things I liked. I liked the forced conversations between Kylo and Ray. I thought that was a really nice, nicely done thing that felt like this is a believable force addition. The two of them talking.

I thought that was great. Ray is good again. Not as good, not as good, but she got there. She was not as good because she didn't have as much to do. I think Finn became a better actor between the last time I saw him and this time,

because he was a little cringeworthy for me in the first one. But I think he was fine on screen. Yeah. But I got to say, like, the best thing about the movie by far was Kylo Ren. I really like this portrayal of this, like, angsty Sith guy. And I think it's a character that is so easy to do wrong, but that actor they have playing Kylo Ren, I just think he nails it.

Like, I find him really believable as this angsty, upset, uncertain, but like rawly powerful villain. Every scene he was in, I was like, this is great. I could have a whole movie of just this guy. I think kind of like Ray carried the first movie. I think Kylo Ren totally carried this movie. So he was my favourite thing. I think you're right. I think you're right. One note I made partway through the film was that usually when you're saying, when you're watching anything, there are storylines you can't wait to

get back to, or ones that you don't like as much. There was a part in the middle of this film where no matter what story they cut to, I was like, oh, this one. There was nothing I wanted them to cut to. There was no story going on at the moment. I was thinking, I want more of that. I liked all the jokes. I didn't like the joking around. I like that after a mutiny occurs they cut to a space balls joke where an iron comes down and they pretended to ship for a couple of seconds before they reveal that it's an iron i wrote that down that was another classic leak i was thinking

god that looks like an iron and then they played they played on that and then when they did it i was like i wish you hadn't done that yeah i wish you hadn't done that after a mutiny right yeah we should end this podcast by both saying may the force be with you at the same time and then like giggle and say jinx i'm gonna end just looking up at the night sky holding a broom