My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 26 - ALEC SULKIN

Episode Date: September 16, 2019

This week Robbie is joined by Alec Sulkin, a longtime friend of Barstool, a writer on tons of hilarious shit ('Family Guy', 'Ted', 'Ted 2', 'A Million Ways To Die In The West', & more!) and most importantly, a massive STAR WARS fan! Robbie and Alec have been DM'ing about the Wars for quite some time now, and FINALLY got in front of some microphones to go balls deep into just what it is that fuels Alec's hyperdrive in this very podcast. Alec tells Robbie all about growing up a Star Wars fan, writing on Family Guy, eventually getting to tell the Star Wars/Family Guy story, and even what it was like to watch 'Blue Harvest' at Skywalker Ranch with George Lucas himself! He then shares his personal rankings of the films, and his list is sure to ruffle some feathers! Make sure you check out Family Guy's Season 18 premiere on September 29th. Follow Alec on Twitter... -@thesulkYou can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

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simplisafe.com slash mom today. simplisafe.com slash mom. He's one of Seth's right-hand guys, one of Seth's best friends, and we talked a ton about Star Wars. Alec is a massive Star Wars fan, and we've kind of talked over, I don't want to say over the years, but over the past few months at least, about Star Wars through Twitter, through DMs, and he said he would come on the podcast to talk about Star Wars, and that's what we did for about 40 minutes. We just geeked out over it. He told me about getting to write the Star Wars Family Guy episode, getting to sit down and watch that with George Lucas, what George Lucas thought of that. He gave us some actually cool deets about the new season of Family Guy, maybe who's going to take over as the new mayor of Quahog, replacing, obviously, the late, great Adam West.

And it was really just a cool chat. Alec has been a huge friend of Barstool for a long time. He hosted a rundown back in the Skype days with Dave KFC and Big Cat back in 2015. It's honestly worth going back and checking out now. It's very funny, holds up very well, and it was cool for me getting to sit down and talk to him because I've been a Family Guy fan forever, and I've been obviously a fan of his work forever. He's made me laugh a lot over the years, so it was cool, and we will definitely do it again before the rise of Skywalker. So without further ado, please enjoy this interview with Alex Sulkin. Listen, before we get into this interview, stop what you're doing, look down at your left wrist.

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2 million watches across more than 160 countries, and their collections are always expanding for you get 15 off today with free shipping and free returns by going to mvmt.com slash mom see why mvmt keeps growing and check out their expanded collection right now again go to mvmt.com slash mom today join the movement i'm doing great i'm just glad most importantly wasn't followed by most importantly he created Dad. co-hosted the rundown on February 24th, 2015. That's crazy. I remember when that happened. I was a fan of Barstool at the time. I obviously wasn't working for the company, but I remember feeling like that was such a big deal. So it's funny now to look back and be like, holy shit, like that was four years ago. It's funny now to look back and say, boy, we get so much better guests now. It was really fun. I mean, I love you guys. I love Barstool. I think it's hilarious. I think

it's great. I think it's just the perfect combination of sports, pop culture, and comedy. I love El Prez. I think he's one of the greatest characters since Vince McMahon. I think he's awesome. And I love the work you do. I love that you're just a huge kind of like movie nerd guy like me. And you just get very excited for the same things that I get excited about. So I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate you saying so.

And maybe it's sometimes too excited, But I do have to ask you, when Stewie says, I'm going to go over there and yell, viva la stool, like a young white drunkard, that's got to be you, right? It was. It was definitely a thing where I was feeling like we need to, you know, we make fun of so much pop culture on Family Guy. And I felt like, you know, sometimes when you make fun of someone, you're just straight insulting them. And other times you're recognizing them. You're saying you are worthy of being, you know, nationally mentioned on television.

And I think with Barstool, it was definitely that. I don't think, you know, there was, it was just to let you guys know that we're fans over here so i think that's how it came off i mean for me i think it definitely came off that way because i remember watching that live and just being that was one of those like am i living on the planet earth moments uh because i've been a family guy for so long. My brother owned all the DVDs when they were on, you know, you could buy the seasons by DVD. Sure.

And he introduced those to me, so I was super into it as a kid because I probably shouldn't have been watching it when I was, but I was anyway. So when that crossover happened, as a fan of Barstool for so long, as a person that at that point was working at Barstool, and then as a fan of Family Guy for so long, my mind was blown. How long have you been writing on Family Guy? Well, I've been here over 15 years. That's really crazy. I know. It's insane. So I came in sometime in the spring of 2004, and it was when Family Guy had been canceled by Fox and but was coming back. OK. And so I was brought in when they were preparing for that comeback, which happened in 2005. Did you know Seth before that or no? I did. That's basically how I got the job. I mean,

the secret about Hollywood is that agents never get you jobs. It's just like you meet people and then you end up working with them. So I was working on a very short-lived sitcom on Fox called The Pit. And it happened to be, it was being made while Family Guy was in this cancellation period. But since Seth still had like an overall deal, it's called with, uh, with Fox,

they assigned him to this show, the pit. So Seth would come in like two days a week. And honestly, you know, I'm, I'm much older than you are. I'm like Seth stage.

And, but I wasn't a family guy fan at that point. Like I loved the Simpsons I grew up with The Simpsons and I always kind of had that attitude about Family Guy like who the hell are these guys but then when I met Seth and worked with him he was obviously hilarious and we were as I said we're the same age so we started kind of hanging out socially and we used to do karaoke a lot and uh so one time we were, I'll never forget it, we were outside of the karaoke place and he said, you know, they're talking about bringing

Family Guy back. And if they do that, would you want to come work there? And I was just like, sure. I'm thinking that it would never happen because that never happens. But sure enough, they brought the show back and I came on board, of course, just loved it ever since. And 15 years later, here you are. So I've got to ask you, before we go forward, what's your karaoke song? Oh, well, LL Cool J, Mama Said Knock You Out. I can do it with my eyes closed. Wow, that's a real good one.

I always picture myself when I'm watching Hard Knocks, and they're hazing the rookies and they get up there and sing. I'm like, I would kill. I would get up there and sing Mama Said Knock You Out. You crush it. It's like the video, the viral videos always go crazy, like the white boy dancing in the hood and everyone freaks out. So you've been there 15 years and eventually you get to write the Star Wars Family Guy episodes that I want to talk about a ton with you because I'm in love with all three of these things. But before we do that, let's take it back to the beginning with you and Star Wars. What is your first memory, your first recollection of Star Wars? Well, here's I'm dating myself again. How old I am. First movie I ever saw in the theater was on

my dad's lap. Star Wars. Holy shit. How old were you? I was four. And do you remember like, do you remember that like blowing your mind? Was that like a life changing experience? Was that your baptism? I mean, absolutely. I mean, just like everyone who kind of remembers Star Wars from the first time, I just have this distinct memory of the title, you know, floating through space and then the giant, you know, Carillion spaceship coming over your head right in that first shot and thinking like, what this is. I'm so all in on this. Like, this is amazing. And I remember, you know, my dad at the end of the movie whispering to me when they're going to the medal ceremony. He's like, who do you think she's going to give the medal to first?

Of course, I was wrong. But so I just have all these great memories of the Star Wars movies. And I remember when Return of the Jedi came out, my mom took me out of school to go see the premiere. And like, I was the first one who got to come back to my class and be like, yeah, Darth is Luke's father. Oh, wow. That's amazing. So, yeah, I mean, I've loved it since forever. And we'll get into it, but I'm an apologist for the prequels. Oh, I love that because I'm sort of an apologist for the prequels.

I go back and forth on them. Oh, me too. So we can get into that. I'm sort of too. But I'm an apologist for the prequels. Don't really love the newer ones except Rogue One, which you know. Which I know, and we got to get into that as well. We got a lot that we've talked about off air.

We got a lot. I'm waiting to drop the questions on you. but how deep did your fandom run as a kid were you all in on the toys and this that you said your mom took you out of school for return of the jedi so i assume yeah at the entire original trilogy you were just a fanatic oh i had so much of that stuff i mean i had um the the sort of you knowlength size Millennium Falcon. And I had the, there were a lot of fun transport ships. It's like the Rebel transport ships, like the first transport is away.

I had a couple of those that you could just stack characters in. So then I would just get all these characters, put them in the transport ship, and you could get like a portion of the Death Star. So I had that. I had the Han Solo gun that made the noise when you press the button on the side. I had very early, early, like terrible lightsabers that were just basically like flashlights with pieces of plastic on the end. And when you would hit them against anything, they would like warp around whatever you hit. They were so like flaccid.

Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about. Me and my cousin used to, God bless my grandmother, we would go over her house and just unravel all of her wrapping paper tubes. And we would color those in like lightsabers. And the second you clash them, flaccid, just immediately flaccid. Yeah, yeah, just dead. But yeah, and I stuck with it. Even in my adult life, probably about 12 or 15 years ago almost, they actually started making these awesome lightsabers. I bought five of those. They're those ones that are something called –

Like the real effects or whatever? Yeah, real effects. I got to Luke one of those in there. They're pretty frigging sweet. You turn the lights out, you get a little too tipsy one night oh shit i'm a jedi i know it's awesome that was so fun and we used to have because seth obviously is a huge star wars fan too so i would i would bring two of them here into the office and there'd be many late nights when we were working here and seth would just i would know this is the cue seth everyone would be in the writer's room and and Seth would go over to the lights and just

turn them off and we would instantly both light up our lightsabers. It was so great. That's hysterical. It sounds like the writer's room was our office. That's the kind of shit that goes down here. So do you think Star Wars contributed to you becoming a storyteller and a writer? Do you think that was like a pivotal thing for you? Or was it a combination of some other things? Well, I think that that had something to do with it. I think that that certainly, you know, it just added to my, it just widens your

worldview at a very young age, because you can see how much is possible in in movies and you know storytelling like that um and certainly obviously with lucas and the special effects and that's you know you can't top that and and writing for animation is in a way similar because you can just kind of do anything you know you can write a scene that takes place on the moon and then you don't have to, you know, have sets or actors or anything like that. So I feel like they kind of go hand in hand. But probably most of the reason that I'm a comedy writer is I was just always such a like, you know, kind of class clown, wise ass kind of guy. And I realized pretty early on that there wasn't much that I would be happy doing aside from this. Before you write the Star Wars Family Guy episodes, you have inserted, or at least Family Guy had inserted, a ton of Star Wars jokes into the series. Did you ever hear back from Lucasfilm about those jokes?

When you write a joke like that on Family Guy, do you have to get creative license to say something like that, like the Boba Fett? You do. You do, okay. So did you hear back from – at the time, obviously, Lucas owns everything. It's not in Disney's hands yet. So did you hear back from him? Yeah.

We didn't hear back – well, so there are two versions of that answer for the for the jokes that were inserted before we did our Star Wars episode. I think there was just a person at Lucasfilm who we dealt with. It was not George Lucas, you know, who was like their life licensor or something. And they were always great. Like they whatever the joke was like they were in. I think they were it was at that time that was, you know, they kind of had the prequels going, but I think they were happy to have Star Wars out there more in the pop culture.

Obviously that unfortunately has changed with Disney. Yeah. But there was a time when they were just awesome about it. And obviously I have a whole different great story about when we did the Star Wars episode itself, their involvement was heightened in a way that I couldn't believe. So yeah, they were amazing. So let's talk about that. When you get the Star Wars episode, the first one, Blue Harvest.

Yeah. First of all, before you even deal with Lucasfilm, like what was your reaction when you heard you were going to be able to do a Star Wars episode of Family Guy? I was thrilled. And it was, again, another outside of karaoke conversation where we were talking. Seth and I were talking about some, you know, star Wars joke we had done or something like that, or possibly a new star Wars joke. And he just said, he's like, we should just do the movie, like our version of the movie. And obviously I was like, yeah, like let's, let's do that.

And then it just, it just gained momentum from there. And I remember the guy who was our showrunner back then a guy named david goodman um he every episode obviously is a half an hour and so i went off to start writing this and i i just on night one i called that guy david and i was like i think this is an hour like this can't be a half hour and he's like what no we never we don't do that we can't get an hour blah blah so of course cut to it it except was like yeah this should be an hour so it became an hour and it was obviously just so easy to fill an hour with star wars jokes and because you can alternate between incredibly memorable scenes of theirs and hopefully like good jokes of ours and it just

it just, it just worked great. I remember when I was off writing the first draft, that's what happens with the writers here. If you get assigned a script, you go off for two weeks and you write it. And then it comes back into the room and everybody helps to kind of punch it up and rewrite it. So it was so fun. It was the easiest script I ever had to write because the story is already in place. You know, I don't have to worry about that. So it was just all like adding, you know get into something something something dark side and it's a trap like there's so many just straight up star wars fan jokes where there could be fans of family guy that don't even know what we're talking about there right absolutely and that was okay with us and because we had we had a good mix of writers on staff who were there were probably a half dozen people like me who were like all me who knew every line of all the movies.

And then there were 10 people who didn't know it that well. And that was actually incredibly helpful because they came at it with just a totally new perspective. And sometimes if you watch something 100 times, you can't see the forest for the trees anymore. And you can't see an obvious joke that trees anymore and you can't see like an an obvious joke that's there yeah um but we had some great guys and i remember one of the guys steve callahan who was not a big star wars fan particularly like he pitched that line great great kid don't get penisy you know like instead of don't get cocky which i was like i that's so funny and i've never i never would have thought of that. So it was really a good mix. And, of course, Mark Henneman, another hilarious writer here,

pitched that whole thing with the couch in the dumpster when they're trying to get it out, and that was awesome. I think I told you this the first time you – sorry to cut you off. The first time you DMed me, I think I told you this, but that couch gag is maybe the funniest thing that has ever happened to my mom my mom like if i if i want a good laugh from her put on the couch gag and that will get her every single time yeah that was great and uh and then of course just beyond that we so we we wrote the episode you know they animated it and every version that came back was just it just looked great like you know they they really that was a moment in family guy history where

the the animation changed a little bit we used more cg in those episodes so things could really look cool like the x-wing battles and stuff right the x-wing battles yeah just even the little things like that that first Carillion ship going overhead. That was CG, and it just looked fantastic. But then when we had the episode ready, to stay there for like two nights, I think it was, and to sit and watch the episode with him, like right next to us. We met him.

We're getting our pictures taken with him, autographs, all that shit. Then we walk into this like amazing theater there and we just plop down it was like me Seth and George Lucas sitting like three people in a movie theater watched the episode he laughed the entire time and it was like one of those moments like you said you know when you heard Barstool and Family Guy it was for me it was like the same thing I was like I cannot believe that this is happening like this is the coolest thing that i'll ever do i mean if you could see my face

right now my jaws on the ground that the whole thing were you were you shitting yourself about like oh my god what if george doesn't like it well you know honestly i don't remember having that feeling because i just felt like even at that time like I knew that the episode was really funny and cool like it looked cool it was funny like I just I I didn't have any doubts about that and also just having you know Seth and and and George Lucas were I can't call him George so I'm just gonna call him they were you know I feel like you could call him George, so I'm just going to call him George. I feel like you could call him George. I think you got the right. I don't think so.

But they were hitting it off very well even beforehand. And so I could tell just kind of by the way the meeting was going that it was going to go well. And there was a very funny moment in there when we were talking to him before the screening. And he said, well, and after the screening, why don't you guys like stay in the theater and you can watch any one of the Star Wars movies. And we were like, okay, that's awesome. And so we watched Empire after. And, and he said, he said, well, he goes, he goes, you could watch one of the prequels too, but they're not as good.

He just threw that off. And I was like, oh, that's sort of refreshing that you know that. That's very funny. So out of the three that you made, Blue Harvest, Something, Something, Something, Dark Side, and It's a Trap, what are just, if you could pick a handful for me, a handful of your favorite moments or jokes that like as a star wars fan you loved to get in there um well i mean obviously the the couch thing we talked about i thought that was like a a great moment uh in star wars i thought it was it was cool um like just having like, like, the expanding to the John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra there for that one great piece of music, which, of course, they let us use all the music, which was key. Like, we couldn't do it without that, obviously. Yeah.

There were just, there were so many moments in those three like it's funny i need to re-watch them but i just know every time i it was doing star wars for everyone here was like a joy then doing empire was like a little less so and then by the time we got to jedi we were all like oh my god make it stop but that that that being said like watching any one of them they're just packed with great jokes like i loved uh the thing in uh in jedi you know when they're about to push him off jabba's barge and they do that long beat with them all nodding knowingly each other like okay our plan's about to start and you know they cut to a baseball pitcher nodding and like different people you know nodding repeatedly and and then you know we had the clip of Ted Knight from Caddyshack going,

Well, we're waiting. That to me was, like, very funny. Yeah, I mean, there were so many great moments. I love all that. I love the I love you, fuck off moment from Something Something Something Dark Side. That's amazing. Now, obviously, with Disney, I feel like it would probably not happen, moment from uh something something something dark side that's amazing now obviously with disney i feel like i feel like it would probably not happen or at least it would be very unrealistic to happen

but do you ever watch like did you ever watch the prequels and thinking like oh maybe one day we'll do the prequels or you think of like jokes like if we did that episode do you ever have those thoughts or no yeah well you know first of all i think I think it would be tough around here to get the groundswell enthusiasm to do the prequels. I don't know if I'll go the other way. I don't know if you guys would be like excited to be like, yeah, we'll trash these things. Well, there's a combination of things now. It's like, you know, you'd think now that we're kind of part of the Disney world that those things would get easier, but they've actually gotten a lot harder. Like we can't, you know, if we ask them to use, I think, a likeness of the Hercules character from the sort of forgotten movie Hercules. And they were like, no way you can't. And it wasn't even like a slam on the movie. It was just happened to be a show when we were back in like ancient Greece. So we were like, oh, let's use the Disney Hercules character. And they were like, no, you can't. And so, you know, I think we ended up barely getting the rights to use Launchpad McQuack, which is like a weird sort of Scrooge McDuck character. So it's really tough now. They don't want to license out any of their stuff.

And it's annoying, but listen, I understand it. It's clearly a business that they've mastered. And so they know what they're doing to keep their properties fresh. So it's just kind of a bummer that we probably won't ever do that so here's what i'm going to ask you to do for me now and this is this is going to make people angry i know it's going to make people angry but everyone be civil alec can you rank the star wars films for me uh rogue one and solo included you could throw the spinoffs in there okay well we can we can take out the suspense

and go ahead and put Solo last right away. Okay. Solo is absolutely last. I thought it was just a... I don't know what's worse. It wasn't like a smoldering pile of garbage, but it was just so bland and mediocre and in my mind did a lot of damage to a character that I love.

So, yeah, I've soured on it a lot since I saw it in the theaters. Theaters, I went in with no expectations. I was like, I don't think this is going to be good whatsoever. I didn't want to see anyone other than Harrison playing him. And I left and I was like, all right, that was OK. Other than the, you know, the whole part where he got his name. Oh, the name part is ridiculous. I've gone back.

I've watched it a few times. It's really not a good movie. It comes off like a movie made by a bunch of different directors, which it was. Which it was. And I don't know if I'd be interested to see Lord Miller's version, but I'd rather see anything but that. So let's put that

last now here's where it gets controversial because if we want to start at the top i put as number one not very controversial empire strikes back i think it's you know obviously you could make an argument for the original star wars because it started at all and it's certainly a fantastic film but for me the empirekes Back was a much more interesting story, much cooler to see our characters in real jeopardy and the revelation of Darth being Luke's father was amazing. You know, that movie to me was like,

okay, you've had a great movie with Star Wars and you've followed it up with like a fantastic classic worthy of almost like 70s cinema somehow. So Empire's won. Here's where it gets controversial and get ready for the angry telegram. I think you'll get the angry ones. I don't think I will.

I put Rogue One in second place. I thought I was so blown away by Rogue One going in like you with Solo with minimal expectations. And like Seth and I would kind of joke like, oh, here's another Girl Space movie. You know, like, oh, more Girl Space because it was the time of like Rey and everything was sort of like Girls in Space. But to me, Rogue One, the story was fantastic. The actors in it were just top-notch, like much better, honestly, than we got the first time around. Like they just, they knew who to get.

Ben Mendelsohn as the bad guy was amazing. I love Mads Mikkelsen as the sort of dad was an incredibly interesting character and what's his name diego luna was great and the girl i can't remember her name it's going to kill me felicity jones amazing felicity jones fantastic and the and then the breathtaking way that they led right into the original star wars which i had no idea was coming. And then when it was happening, I was like, oh, my God, they're doing they're doing this. Holy. Oh, my God. I cannot believe what's happening right now. I left the theater. So like I think in the last 20 years, probably that and Infinity War were the two movies where

I left like, oh, my God, that was fantastic. So I have to put Rogue One in second place, slightly over the original Star Wars, which may sound absurd to some people, but I stand by it. I feel like K-2SO is hilarious. K-2SO is an all-time Star Wars character.

Awesome, awesome. And I heard Lord Miller wrote his dialogue, and that was kind of what helped him get the solo gig, which sort of led to a bad thing. But so so Rogue One obviously had the benefit of being being made in whatever, 2015 or 16, when the special effects were fantastic so you got the full complement of like space beauty and action and what's that and tarkin tarkin's in the movie oh that was incredible as well and the funny thing was seth had never seen rogue one uh and i kept telling him i'm like seth you gotta it's great and so finally one day he was like well why don't you come over to the house and we'll watch a movie? I'm like, we're watching Rogue One. So I made him watch it with me. And he when Tarkin came up on the screen, his first reaction was like, how are they doing that?

What is that? And so he was he really liked it too and uh so okay back to the list i go empire i go rogue one i go star wars i go return of the jedi which is just a pick because i was 10 when i saw it i don't i think it has awesome moments in it i don't think it's like a fantastic movie but i think it has really good moments in it that i will never forget um then uh this is where the list gets a little bit murky for me i go return of the jedi revenge of the sith which i actually really liked um and that that's also kind of controversial because i know there's a recency bias with these newer movies so So I go Revenge of the Sith. Then I actually go Attack of the Clones, which, again, controversial.

I know. Attack of the Clones because I loved the goddamn Gladiator Pit Jedi fight, which I thought was, for me, it's like if you can give me a few moments like that, like what's better than like 100 lightsabers, you know? So I love that. And also, even in those movies, George Lucas, he always would take the time to put in like an incredibly cool sound that you'd never heard before. And in the Attack of the Clones, he does it a couple of times. The depth charges in space i thought was like the

coolest thing i'd ever seen at that moment like when they you know the boba fett and or django fett and obi-wan are kind of chasing each other in their spaceships and there were just a couple that one of the creatures in that gladiator pit had a roar that just sent shivers down my spine that I loved. So there we go. Now, then I put Force Awakens. Then I put Last Jedi reluctantly because I didn't really like it. And then I put Phantom Menace, which was, God damn it, what a disappointment. But I love the Darth Maul.

Darth Maul was amazing and almost lifts it like a rung higher because Darth Maul was so cool and then of course you got you got Solo dead last yeah Solo's last the only

thing for me I see I love the new ones I absolutely adore The Last Jedi. I love The Force Awakens. I hate Attack of the Clones. Attack of the Clones is last for me. Everything about that movie, just with the sand, with the gladiator pit, with the hundred lights. I go the opposite way. Especially, I didn't like Yoda fighting either.

I liked it when I was a kid, obviously. But now I grow up, I'm like, why would Yoda be fighting with that lightsaber? And finally, I just have a few rapid-fire questions for you to close this interview off. I really, really appreciate you giving me the time. This has been a blast. As a writer, I know you're

generally an animation writer, generally a comedy writer, but I'm going to put some problems in front of you that J.J. Abrams is going to have to solve in episode nine. And I'm going to get your answers as to how you would solve them. So number one, how do you bring the emperor back? What's your story? I mean, the emperor has to come back in some kind of like, you know, dark side echo chamber type situation like it it's going to be like i i because we all have seen the great clip of her unfolding that sort of dark side lightsaber which is very cool very cool

um but i think that's going to be all part of some like like almost dark side fun house that she has to walk through so i think that it's going to be like she's going to get lured into some trap a la luke going to cloud city she's going to you know feel like she needs to save her friends or confront uh kylo somewhere she's going to be lured somewhere that people are going to tell her not to go and then she's going to get there and it's going to be like you know walk like luke in the cave and empire it's going to be she's going to be walking through and you know she'll hear little snippets from darth vader from you know dark side's greatest hits um and i think that the emperor will be a part of that. I don't know that the Emperor is going to be like a character really in the movie.

But I think that he'll appear in sort of the mirror of Galadriel type thing. Or he'll just kind of appear and laugh and say evil things. And then Kylo will pop out from behind him with a lightsaber. So I think that's how it's going to happen. It's a good description of the Emperor. He laughs and says evil things. Speaking of Kylo Ren, do you believe he could be redeemed? I think he will be redeemed and die like Darth Vader.

All right. I hope that kid dies. He's a little emo bitch. You kill Han Solo, I say you got to die. I know. I hope that kid dies. He's a little emo bitch. You kill Han Solo, I say you got to die. I know. I know. I agree. I was kind of in on having him do it, and then I'm not loving totally the way that they're going with that character. It's like a lot of people made that joke. He just got his ass kicked by someone who had never held a lightsaber right away so how powerful can you feel like this person is um but i think yeah i think he's going to do something to save ray at the end and then die like i don't i don't see it being just like a straight kind of dooku beheading i think he's going to redeem himself and die, possibly with like, you know, the ghost of Luke there to kind of squash out the ghost of the Emperor's presence.

All right, I'm down with that. I could get down with that. And speaking of ghosts, do you bring back Ewan McGregor or Hayden Christensen for this movie if you're in charge? Oh, well, I don't bring back Hayden Christensen because I feel like that would just fuel the kind of laugh track that people are ready to, you know, dismiss this movie. But Ewan McGregor always, like, I mean,

and as we know, he is coming back to do some more Obi-Wan stuff for them, which I think is great. But I think you do bring him back i would i think the fans love you know every time they talk about the prequels they're like ewan mcgregor was great totally i think that anytime you can bring him back do it and finally how do you end the saga what is your closing shot oh quote well i mean i like the and it's not my i can't take credit for this but i've heard it and i love the theory uh ray overlooking a binary sunset or a sunrise well clearly

oh sunrise yeah okay that's that's interesting that's an interesting twist. I like that. It's going to absolutely be a binary son something. Yeah. Maybe even at the Lars Homestead. Who knows? Right. Could be. It could be back on her home world. We never really got a satisfying answer as to who her parents were. Do you think we're going to get anything with that? I think we're definitely going to get clarity as to, you know, what went on there. I think, honestly, the more and more I'm thinking about it, the more and more I'm thinking there's a chance

Palpatine is somehow related to Rey, or Palpatine, like, created Rey using the DNA of maybe him mixed with Vader, mixed with Luke. You know, they had that hand from Cloud City. I don't know. Right. Oh, yeah. And I know in the first draft of The Force Awakens,

J.J. had Luke's hand floating through space, was the first shot of it, which I think would have been horrendous. But now that he didn't use that, J.J.'s got some kind of fascination with Luke's hand. I don't know. Take the DNA from it. Right.

Oh, that's so interesting i've never heard that um and then maybe you could you know satisfy the people where it's like yeah ray's parents were nobodies but she's kind of related to ray you could call her ray skywalker i don't know i'm just trying to make everybody happy here yeah you know the my my issue in general with it is like listen jj arums has accomplished quite a lot in his career he's no slouch like obviously he's done pretty cool things for a while but i don't know i i just don't know that i love any of his movies like i i you know lost was cool and you know some of the ideas he has are pretty cool he seems like a really good idea guy.

Whereas it's like Spielberg and Lucas, it feels like they can translate cool ideas onto the screen in a way that makes me, like, very excited. I feel like J.J. Abrams somehow lacking that. So I'm hoping that this last one will be his best because I think he really needs it here.

Definitely. I hope so as well as someone that likes his movies and loves all his movies really. I like his Mission Impossible. I like his Star Trek. I like a lot of the stuff he's done. I wonder if it's a generational thing for you and me where it's like you kind of saw the people you know he's emulating whereas I'm looking at it as like oh shit this guy's awesome you're like i know what he's fucking i know what he's up to back there right but as you guys say i'm barstool all

the time it's you know angry old man shout so you know i'm i'm just i count me in that category in that way so i'm i'm but I'm always ready to be proven wrong. You know, like I go in wanting to buy so badly for the last five goddamn, or, you know, seven, I guess, with Rogue One and Solo. But for all of those movies, I go in hoping, you know, that I'm going to love it. Totally.

It just hasn't happened as much. I mean, you can hear it in your voice throughout this interview that you're clearly not one of the toxic Star Wars fans that's running around the Internet complaining about every little thing that you didn't get right. Sounds like you fucking love Star Wars, which is what I love. I do. I do. I loved it. Like, listen, I didn't love The Last Jedi,

but when she took that ship and lightspeeded through that other ship, I was breathless in the theater. was like that that was and then of course all the theories came out online about why didn't haven't people done this before yeah and i was like okay that makes a lot of sense but in that in that in that moment like i the theater was like you know all the air was sucked out of that theater it was just great. There were a ton of amazing moments in that. You get that, you get Kylo and Rey going back to back. I love the whole Luke projection at the end. I'm a

fan of a lot of it. We're going to have to get you back, I think, before the Rise of Skywalker. We'll do another podcast, hopefully hyping it up, you know, right before getting us while the blood is flowing. I would love to do that. I would be honored.

All right, Alec. Tell the people where you could find you. I guess just Twitter and whatnot? Yeah, Twitter at the Salk. I still am, God knows why, working in that coal mine. But that's really the only one to go to. I mean, I'm on Instagram if you want to see pictures of my kid. Love that.

And obviously Family Guy. Still kicking it Guy still kicking it, still crushing it. That thing. Yeah, Family Guy, still going good. We got a lot of funny episodes this season. And I can announce here, I think this is the first time it's been announced anywhere, that we finally replaced Mayor Adam West with the great and godlike voice, Sam Elliott. Wow. So he's going to be our new mayor. He's Mayor West's cousin, Wild West. Oh, I love that.

The new mayor of Kellogg. Wow. Thank you for the scoop. An amazing scoop. That's the greatest scoop my mom's basement has ever had. Robbie Fox exclusive. Amazing. Alec, thank you so much. It's been greatest scoop my mom's basement has ever had. Robbie Fox exclusive. Amazing. Alec, thank you so much. It's been an honor talking to you today. Thanks for talking to me, Robbie.

I want to thank Alec again for coming on. If you're not subscribed already, please make sure you do so and leave us a rating and review on iTunes, Spotify, whatever you're listening to the show on.