My Mom's Basement - EPISODE 350 - 25 YEARS OF THE PHANTOM MENACE WITH JEFF D LOWE

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

Robbie Fox is joined by Jeff D Lowe to discuss the 'Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace' 25th Anniversary re-release for May the 4th, which has raked in over $15mil worldwide so far! They look back at the movie, its marketing campaign, why it was viewed as such a disappointment upon release but a nostalgic favorite now, and more! Plus, they discuss the ending of The Bad Batch. ****************************************   My Mom's Basement is a weekly podcast hosted by Robbie Fox, started in March 2019, to discuss movies, music, comic books, wrestling, mixed martial arts, and more with his friends and idols alike!   Subscribe on Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/MyMomsBasementWithRobbieFox Subscribe on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/my-moms-basement/id1457255205 Follow Robbie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatrobbiefox Follow Robbie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RobbieBarstool My Mom's Basement Merchandise: https://store.barstoolsports.com/collections/my-moms-basementYou 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

Hey My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Hello and welcome back to My Mom's Basement and a surprise Revenge of the 5th or 6th, depending on which day you're listening to this, episode of My Mom's Basement with Robbie Fox and my co-host for the day, Jeff D. Lowe. We are here to talk about The Phantom Menace and the 25th anniversary re-release of The Phantom Menace. It did really, really well. More people saw it than I suspected. Made over $8 million domestically, over $15 million worldwide. Second highest grossing re-release of the past decade. The first was Avatar 2022.

And it's now back in the top 50 highest grossing movies of all time it's 46 it's real narrow right at that uh like 50 mark so pretty unbelievable and we both saw it in theaters you saw it out in la i saw it out in jersey it was a good time yeah it's i will never take for granted seeing a Star Wars movie in theaters, even if it's something that I think is going to be dumb. Did I see Solo twice? No, I did not. I did not see Solo twice in theaters. But any trilogy movie, and I'm sure I'll think this one day

if they re-release The Ride of Skywalker, which I don't really like at all. And to be – I mean, I'll just say it. I really – this movie stinks. This movie sucks. It is what it is. I don't I'll just say I really this movie stinks. I really suck. Like, I just it is what it is. Like, I don't have the love for it that some people do. I love Clone Wars.

I love. Well, I'm not. I guess Rebels doesn't connect as much, but I love Clone Wars. I love all the prequel stuff in terms of animated. And but for me, it hasn't made this movie any better. Like, and some of the characters, like cooler and other stuff. But with that said, I still had a lot of fun watching it. it hasn't made this movie any better. Like in base of the characters, but cooler and other stuff. But with that said,

I still had a lot of fun watching it. Like I, if they re-released it next week, I would like to see it again. I saw it 10 years ago and they released it in 3d. I didn't do the 3d one. Cause I can't do three. You saw me in Disney 3d glasses. It messes me up for like 24 hours.

I got to do drama mean and all that, but I want to start there. Cause I know how you feel about this movie and I know how you feel about a lot of like different things in this movie. But for those who aren't aware, what is your relationship to the phantom menace? How old were you when it came out? Did you like it when it came out and your feelings changed over time?

Like what is your relationship to the movie? Yeah. I mean, I, I was eight when it came out. So that seems like you were the perfect prime age for this movie. And I thought it was, I mean I so I was eight when it came out um so that seems like you were the perfect prime age for this movie and I thought it was I mean I was always gonna like no matter what at that age um and I think the more I went on and the more I watched it on VHS and stuff the more I realized

that I just didn't like watching it again that much. Like I just didn't enjoy it as much as the others. Like I never found myself watching it over and over again where, you know, the originals endless, endless rewatches. Um, I think that was me when I first saw it. I,

I loved it. I mean, remember I, I thought, I thought Jar Jar was great. Uh, I had, I,

there were two, two, the first toy that came out was the battle droid. I like the standalone speeder where he like, he stands up on the speed. I don't know what it's called. I should know that. It's the Paul Blanc mall cop segment.

Yeah. Yeah. That toy was like the standalone, I believe first toy released. And I got that. It was awesome. And the toys were incredible. I had the,

I had the, the, the, were incredible i had the i had the the the razor thing that really is like the comlink it's like a gillette yeah i had that yeah i loved that yeah it was awesome i had all the toys the legos had come out a couple years prior for the originals like the legos were a huge thing it was amazing i loved it but then i think just like the the older i got the more i realized like, oh, this kind of sucks. Like this is like it's not as fun. Like it's not fun. That's that's that's the thing for me.

Well, it's funny because I have almost like an opposite experience. It was probably the VHS that I like played the most up until like Revenge of the Sith coming out. Like up until that point, this was probably as a kid my favorite Star Wars movie. And I would pretend to be Qui-Gon when I was playing with my cousins. I had his lightsaber. I thought he was the coolest Jedi. Darth Maul was of course the coolest

villain. But I would play it over and over again. Looking back, I now remember making my grandma get up and fast forward over and over and over because I wanted to see the opening. I wanted to see the part where Anakin is running in the desert and he has to drop because Darth Maul's coming in. I wanted to see the pod race and I wanted to see the final scene. There was like four, maybe five scenes in that movie that I was watching over and over again.

But the rest of it and even seeing it in theaters, I love this movie. I'm so nostalgic about it. And one of those people who grew up with it. So I love it. Even seeing it in theaters for the hundredth time, but first time ever in theaters, it was like, this is a little boring. Like right after the pod race. Oh my God. It hits a slog for a while where you start actually talking about the taxation of the trade routes and the, all right, we're going you have a committee investigate this anytime chancellor velorum is on screen it's pretty fucking boring it's then that that's where that's where like it's made for it's definitely made for kids with kids in mind in some parts and that's why i think i enjoyed it but then that's why i think i also stop enjoying it so quickly

is because it'd be one thing if it was like kids like a pixar movie right or like there's some kids stuff right but then maybe when you get older it's like okay the kid stuff isn't as like amazing to me anymore or it's still great but like there's some more stuff in here like there's some references or there's some you know larger themes that you're trying to explore that you're like you appreciate more as an adult this like once the kid stuff wears off it's like oh my god this is so boring there are no larger themes like that yeah no yeah it's just like it's bad like the kind of the irony is everyone talks about how george lucas like stole dune from frank herbert and dune denny villeneuve with dune the movies is he tried to take the face politics out of it

he's like because the you too you read the you read the dune book it's like the stuff happens off screen it's like if it's if you're playing the book out in your head as a movie the dune action like happens off screen and that's when they came out with the one in 1984 whatever like that movie um that movie had that stuff like a lot of stuff happened off camera and that's what this movie feels like and that's what this whole trilogy feels yeah not to get into a technical intervention of the sith but so many things i think of the line when when when obi-wan and anakin are stepping off the speeder at the beginning of range of the sith after the 95 minute long opening scene is they step off and he goes uh he goes like for that one time you

saved me on whatever he goes uh well we're not going to talk about that does they say like three or four different things that they did i'm like where's that let's see that could have been the trilogy yeah like that that which is what clone wars ended up being which is great it was awesome so yeah that that again that's the thing it's like this once the kids stuff wore off for me i quickly had nothing to latch on to like i thought i thought good jar jar getting the apple or whatever the fruit with his tongue was so fucking funny and then like i grew up two years later and i was like well now i i don't care about taxation this isn't fun would you rank this dead last in your star wars rankings at this point probably not i think i've i've moved

over the last like year or two i've moved attack of the clones a hair below they're almost tied tech is pretty bad i like this one better than attack of the clones i think this one has a little more it looks better like it looks better a little more redeeming qualities it has probably a better score although the attack of the clones of the the love theme between anakin i do love the love things pretty good love theme might be my favorite of the trilogy but that's not enough to that's that's not enough to bring it above attack of the clones i i just don't like it just it just looks off like it's so cg it's so green screen blue screen and this one really wasn't this one i'll tell you what we you and i've talked about this plenty i don't know if we ever talked about

the same like platform together but the behind the scenes of the phantom menace i think changed behind the scenes for the history of movies because no one ever got that much access after that because it's it's just it's two hours of embarrassment for it's like you just see how the movie is fascinating and captivating yeah and in that you see how much of this was real like it was they went to great lengths to make it look real and that's why like the the jj abrams like everything is practical now really with a shot at the second third because this one like for the most part it was all it was practical like they did an amazing job they went through the sandstorm they show in that where the entire town that they built for tatooine was like half demolished and they had to rebuild it mid-set

a lot of naboo is just italy and that continues a little bit in two but two doesn't spend as much time there as this one does um the by the the ship name is the staff the stap even like the ships weren't fun like at at walker at like those are like this this this toy i'll send you the link and the other thing too the toy that he got it came on like a like a clear pedestal and the droid didn't sit right on it like it was the perfect sign of like what's to come it was all of those battle droid toys didn't sit right they were all way too flimsy and yeah george said like like they were like butter they would fall like butter as well um what was your favorite part of like the marketing campaign even like looking back now because i wasn't alive for the marketing camp i was alive it was like one

easy my sister got me an original one from ebay not long ago it was it was the uh the yum brands kfc taco bell pizza hut they did the thing where you get the like the top there'd be there'd be two like tokens at the top of a cup or whatever you you buy from and you're by the way i wore my robe in honor of the jedi today it's like really hot in here i did not need to wear you pop you would pop it off it'd be like mace windu like mace Windu and Yoda were like, if you got those two, you won like 25. Were they like hexagons? Is that what you're talking about? They were like the clear hexagons or no?

They were for attacking clones. Okay. And those came in like Dorito bags and like Pepsi products. I liked those. So I got to experience that stuff. Yeah. So KFC Taco Bell Pizza Hut. I'll just read you what the what

the prizes were it came on like you got like a map almost like a monopoly board basically um and you were trying to get all the pieces for it and you would win things depending on what you got it was like you had defeat the dark side and win um one of them was battle for naboo collect gay medallions uh to win a million dollars. So actually, that was a tough one. That was like Qui-Gon, Darth Maul. Another one was 10,000. Another one was a million.

Another one was a million. And then it was Mace and Yoda. You could win like 1,000, which a lot of people got. So that's right. So that was one that was easier to get. And they were also doing the cup toppers. Yeah, you tried to collect the tokens to fill up the the board and they had all the cup toppers right and they had they had the cup toppers too yeah those are hysterical i mean the darth maul one people always say like he didn't realize in the

moment but it was a spoiler and speaking of spoilers what different culture it was in 1999 where the novelization came out a couple weeks before the movie and the soundtrack was out like the week before and everyone just flipped to the back looked at the track list and it said like death of qui-gon and i was like yeah yeah well fuck it's basically a qui-gon die qui-gon's funeral or something you know it's like oh man yeah you didn't have to like put that in the track list but that's crazy to me i do remember even getting the revenge of the sith video game before the movie came out and being like oh my god this is like a preview of what we're gonna see isn't it and it really fucking was i don't think did that with with attack i think attack of the clones was

the case too though i think it very strange that they would do that back then and like i guess just the internet wasn't as much of a thing so it didn't get as widespread but that seems like a massive spoiler like if i was going into the phantom menace i would think like liam neeson's gonna fucking lead this whole trilogy he's gonna be the obi-wan well i guess if he's the obi-wan he dies in the first one but you know what i'm saying i've never really had a movie fully spoiled for me. I don't know if... I think Austin Powers and Goldmember, somebody spoiled the beginning.

That was like the parody movie? Yeah. No, actually, no. People sent us... We got sent... Someone spammed myself and Ken Jack Avengers Endgame videos. So we saw a quick portal shot like a week before

i think i got some shit spoiled for me in one of the one of the marvel movies recently and i was oh you know what it was i think i got some of the multiverse and madness stuff spoiled for me i think i got like krasinski as uh mr fantastic or something it might have been some of that stuff but yeah crazy by the way for this was uh the chihuahua colonel sanders and then just like a pizza hut delivery girl and they were on the boo getting ready to go into battle i the marketing campaign with the food places were the best now it's what i remember the most the marketing campaign was incredible and i look at now one of my favorite things ever is marfa lump the pepsi tie-in alien that they had ilm design he's literally just like they give him a little backstory he was adopted

by a human family in iowa and he just loves star wars and pepsi and they had of course the pepsi machines which still pop up in the wild every now and then you'll see them on reddit and the uh whole line of like pepsi was it pepsi diet pepsi and mountain dew drinks that you could collect all of them and i think steve j collected all of them and like brought them into barstool we had them for a while yeah yeah yeah we we we still have them i think somewhere i think i stored them i think they're storage yeah yeah so somewhere in the barstool storage we have like a set of phantom menace pepsi cans that are all empty look at i think he put like a pin in the bottom of all of them to clean them out which i never would have thought of but yeah we have

steve j's collection of those this is being uh sold for a lot of money one day yeah no they're not gonna get sold for a lot of money also day yeah no they're not gonna get sold for a lot of money also the action figures there's a new collectible store in the mall in jersey city and i went in there just to be like oh shit what do they got they had some phantom menace figures all still five dollars a piece like everyone i when i redid my office in new york and i have them in boxes here in california because one day i'll set it up and move to a house or something but when i went to redo my collection really all of them were just as cheap as could be the attack of the clones of revenge this stuff is horrible they were horrible because at least at least the phantom menace they kept the box similar to what it used to be like the old kenner

and they eventually went back to that with with the with the sequels but oh man they were they were so cheap i could replace everything clones boxes are are huge they're bulky and then the phantom menace boxes are all the curved uh darth vader head shape right yeah i like the phantom menace ones the best oh yeah and like you said they had the little things that you could put into the fucking once razor and then you get the little noise and everything um favorite ridiculous characters there's a lot in the phantom menace there's the obvious ones the famous ones the wados the new gun ray named after new uh nuke ingrich um then the ones that we kind of like the ben quadraneros co bibble um we mentioned anakin's little friend who calls things wizard and says yippee and stuff his name

is kitster kitster benai was you think he ever got an action figure i bet he did at some point that i don't i might i would have that one if he did so i like i would i would have bought that i don't know if he did i mean it's safe to assume if he's a Star Wars character, he has one. But also the other. Oh, my God, I don't think he has one. The other nemo was a lot. Don, after Christophe, the Connecticut senator. So he did a double political reference.

He apparently wanted to name Palpatine Richard Nixon back in the day. I think he mentioned that to someone. I just take first and last name. Richard Nixon is Palpatine Richard Nixon back in the day I think he like mentioned that to someone I just like take first and last name Richard Nixon is Palpatine's real name and I think they were like George you can't fucking do that like I think that's gonna take people out of the movie it says there's a Kitzer toy I don't know if this is like custom made though I'm looking at images right now and I see nothing. Absolutely nothing. I see like,

this looks like they painted an Anakin toy. They made Anakin and they made Anakin from the end of the movie when they give him the little braid. That can I, that'd be my worst character braid Anakin at the end of the movie. They also, they sold a braid around the phantom menace. You could just buy a braid and it was like star Wars branded.

There was that. There was the jar jar lollipop that it is his tongue just sticks his tongue right into your mouth that's a great one great viral one people still are blown away that that existed yeah the worst weird character it's it's it is i'm scrubbing through right now in disney plus it is crazy and that's another thing that i always forget is that they are in gungan city 15 minutes into that movie yeah pretty quick um and you don't meet anakin until like 45 minutes in seal bibble's a pretty tough character the the naboo he's he's really annoying he's like he's kind of sneaky there's a couple really annoying characters and jar jar obviously takes the cake but ceo bibble is like a loser and like just kind of like an he's like the the advisory council to the queen um or like a governor whatever

ah just horrible he has he has one scene that's such bad delivery when he sends the message onto the ship where he's like you gotta get back here you gotta send us a message or whatever and obi-wan's like it's bait don't fucking send him a message back that whole like distress call that he puts on i guess he's supposed to be like a sniveling like he's not really doing the best acting job it's just so cringeworthy every time and also some of the things that they point out in the plinker review which of course is one of the most classic like phantom menace fans or non-fans love it um from red letter media once you watch that you can't watch the phantom menace the same way again because every single time i watch the movie now and the decoy kira knightley character is like hey go clean up that droid

to padme amadala like the real fucking queen i'm like what in what world would she be like hey go clean that fucking thing up there's so many scenes like that i mean even the all the ceo bibble scenes the hey we're making her sign the treaty and you have to force her you have to get her to this part of the city it's like why don't you just forge the treaty if you're making her sign it by will whatever but all of that stuff you have to think about it kind of hard to understand it but if you think about it too hard you understand that like it all falls apart it doesn't really all make sense it's kind of a house of cards yeah it's it's just it's so overly complicated i mean the first star wars is so fucking simple all the first three are also simple like they're they're

so straightforward like the only confusing thing in the first three movies is when he goes back into the woods and empire strikes back and he yeah like the vision of vader like that's which they joke about in the family guy star wars is like ah it's kind of confusing it stops movie dead like it does it it's amazing like i. It stops movie dead. Like it does it. It's amazing. Like I love that. It always confused the hell out of me as a kid. I couldn't understand like why that was Luke's face.

Right, right. Exactly. But this stuff is just, it's so, it's just such a mess of like them, you know, the blockade, the invasion, the senators and like who they're going to talk to. They're just, it's an expansion of the universe. There's a lot more characters because they're allowed to do it they had the money they had the room to do it yeah i just the the boo stuff should be awesome and for me it's just so bland what does he what does he say oh you must contact me that's when he gets all like yeah yeah and then even like even some of like the like the side characters like

like panakas whatever like he's like he's a kind of moody and like yeah i would like to see more of him in in the trilogy they off him after this one he's pretty much done yeah isn't it like his cousin comes in the next one i think so yeah who's who's the um who's the pilot who's talking to anakin in the first ship i have no idea what his name i saw the movie yesterday and i have no idea what his name is i'm i think they like i think he's an antilles like he's an Antilles. Like he's like wedge Antilles, but he's not. Oh, is he? I think, I don't know. I'd have to, I'd have to go look at it.

I get them all confused. There's just so many weird like character name choices. And like, just again, they're all kind of miserable and moody. And that's just, I just don't, it's just not fun. Everyone in this movie is stoic except for like Jar Jar. And he's over the top non-stoic, but like Obi-Wan's kind of stoic. Qui-Gon is super stoic everyone in this movie stoic except for like jar jar and he's over the top non-stoic but like obi-wan's kind of stoic quagmire is super stoic anakin is is stoic not by uh his writing or is like whatever it's just unfortunately like jake lloyd's acting is all just like one

it's monotone the whole thing are you an angel it's a lot of that right that's i think my big thing is like again i had fun watching it i enjoy star wars that's why i like yeah yeah like the the content itself is not funny you know someone actually didn't realize was in it uh was dominic west who's in um the crown he plays um he's in he's in in a lot of scenes of The Crown. He plays, what's his face? He plays fucking the king in The Crown. He plays King Charles? Charles. He plays the older... Who's he in Phantom Menace?

He's just a background character. Oh, I see. Yeah, I didn't know that. He plays the older Charles. Diana. He's the same he's the same like lines all the time yeah i'm pretty sure um warwick davis has two roles in this he's like spotted during the boonta eve classic and he's little greedo man right for one of anakin's friends yeah he um wald is his his rodeo character name and then the other character he's just like yeah he's he's one of wado's like degenerate buddies with a really bad he showed up to set that day and like george

was like what are you doing here and he was like i have a day off i just wanted to watch and george was like no you don't get to do that like go make yourself look different and set up to wardrobe i'm pretty sure that's the character is in um solo right yeah they brought him back for solo which seems like rat man or something so bizarre that they were like there it is yeah weasel yeah they were like call up warwick and let's not like make him a new alien let's just do the one from phantom menace that people will remember like what what changed his mind like how did he become he went from a scumbag to like yeah like we're gonna fix the galaxy like rebels saw the empire

for what they were i don't know yeah like what what it was that race he had a classic he saw like people turn it was like rocky four for tatooine they were like you know what's the i'm sure it's a pod racing i have a very funny question in pod racing that i'd love to i didn't i didn't look up on purpose i think we'd look it up while we're here okay um but yeah that's that that's there's so many bad characters in this i i don't i i don't like see you bibble for me i think it'd be my my my least favorite just simply because he defines the attitude and the mood of all the like and i know they're i know they're being invaded like they're being invaded

like it sucks but there's just such a like a grouchy grumpy attitude and it just kind of kind of the vibe for the movie like everyone kind of hates each other in this movie yeah like that obi-wan kind of hates k-gon he's like he's like you're an idiot dude yeah they have to like obi-wan's not in it before qui-gon dies yeah yeah that's that's the other thing that they point out in the blanket review that i always come back to is that this movie just doesn't have a main character which makes it very like that makes it hard to follow a little bit a little bit disjointed where it it's like, is it Obi-Wan? No, he's not in the movie nearly enough.

Is it Qui-Gon? Maybe, but not like no. I don't think so. Is it Anakin? It takes 45 minutes to meet him, and then he doesn't have much of an effect until the very end when he blows everything up. He's the biggest Mary Sue in Star Wars in that moment.

But I guess he's the chosen one. That's pod racing. The story, I guess, is the Force is the main character. I don't know. I also always forget that Samuel L. Jackson has absolutely nothing to do in this movie.

Yeah, and they're grumpy as fuck too. That's the other thing. They're in a like they're all moody it's like that's the thing it's like there's nothing you stoics a good word they're very stoic but they're all sort of so down and negative about everything you're like oh my god like i know the galaxy sucks but even like the jedi galaxy ain't bad for you it's you you would walk all around like cock of the walk nothing's wrong so i don't know what you're all upset about you know it's fucking sad too every time i watch the movie when anakin has to leave his mom knowing what happens to his mom especially like two makes that even sadder and he goes back and gives her the hug and he doesn't want to leave her and then

as soon as he gets to the jedi council this kid is like nine years old just ripped from his mother's arms his slave mother's arms they're like this kid's fucking still thinking about that mom what the fuck and they're like absolutely there's two seconds ago like i think we could still train the kid mace is like i don't fucking think so misses his mom misses his mom it's been an hour hasn't it and he still misses his mom i don't think so it's the the way i guess too that they treat him they they treat him like meat and that's that's their thing too is they like for a midichlorian count yeah like like he and then that that's where it loses so much of like the charm of the jedi too is that like it's boiled down to a number like he's just he's just a freak like that's all he is

and he's given a little bit of personality right like you know the pod racing and all that but even in like the part of the movie where i think you'd want to maybe build up more of that kid and more of that character he's silent driving a car he's just driving like a race car that's basically what he's doing yeah you're just showing he's like super skilled i guess to set up for him being able to blow up the death star the mini death star at the end of the movie but like yeah there's not which maybe you're hiding that maybe at some point you're like okay jake lloyd has his limitations let's make the pod racing scene 20 minutes long that's the pod racing scene i love it and i loved it as a kid and it's the perfect scene for merchandise and toys and video games and all

that so i get it but watching it like now you eventually you're like okay i get it like i didn't i'm not here for a racing movie man it becomes a racing movie for like a long time yeah i'm gonna look at boon to eve classic results this is what i this is what i was i've never made I'm not here for a racing movie, man. It becomes a racing movie for like a long time. Yeah. I'm going to look at Boone to Eve classic results. This is what I, this is what I was. I've never made this up,

which is shocking. There's going to be a lot of did not finish. I noticed that at the end is like, is Anakin the only one that finished at the end? Less people died than I thought. They give a lot of people the spin out after their, the pods are, you you know very smartly constructed where the front half will explode into smithereens and then sebulba will like spin out there's there are there are some there's some really funny notes here but i i'll continue

what you just said there the the pod racing scene is absurdly long but so much i think back to anakin of of what's wrong with anakin in that character is i think it's a product of the obi-wan and qui-gon mess too which i didn't i don't really know actually the backstory too much in this i only know it's a little bit from um the weekly planet they do their caravan of garbages and they do like their long breakdowns we talked about how the plan originally was not for obi-wan and qui-gon which you can tell because obi-wan just doesn't do it like they're like stay at the ship just yeah stay there don't move they call him trying to see like if they could sell the wardrobe for you know money for the parts or something and he's like i don't think there's enough in there little moments like that going back to him the back where it takes up it takes away from probably what should just be obi-wan honestly yeah like like i like qui-gon and i i love that liam neeson does that role but

it is it's unnecessary and it takes away probably from developing anakin more and like whatever developing their relationship to the whole trilogy is going to be built around you're eventually going to get to them fighting and that being heartbreaking you got to do something for that to be heartbreaking and it starts off he just he's a burden that he hates because he's only doing because he wants to do it for

Qui-Gon so I just think that's that all probably could have been played out a little better just movies overstuffed here's the results of the boon to eve okay first place anakin second place gascona one of my favorite characters as a kid which one is this guy i'm gonna have to like put faces to some of these aliens really tall long neck okay that's who i thought you were yeah that's exactly i love the pod describe it i always wanted anakin's helmet in this too and i loved the uh the like blue yellow and red buttons that

he has to hit to set everything up and flip the switches and stuff yeah i always wanted that as like a toy or something just that that command center uh aldar beto is the next one uh not a character anyone really knows i don't know if they show that character honestly uh fourth place is ebe endicott uh another character they don't really show these names are incredible another one is elon muck which i'm not sure it sounds like a reference to Elon Musk. Another character I have, I don't ever seen till this moment. And then the sixth place finisher is bowls. Roar.

Bulls roar is another character I've never seen before. Yeah. You look at everyone else didn't finish. There's like a one little screenshot of his ship. I'm not even sure if it's from the movie or if it's from something else. Yeah, there's so there's there's a bunch. There's another one, Mahanik, which is that's the the ground character with three eyes. Yeah, really.

So that's a character we saw a couple of times. It reflects in that alien in this movie. I feel like they figured out a new way to make the eyes move, and they were throwing that in the background of a bunch of scenes. There's a couple other ones that we see. There's Teamtoe Pagalis. That's the one with the circle pod that spins around and gets shot. We saw that.

Sebulb, obviously. Rats Terrell. That's the one that dies. Oh, yeah. In the cave. It crashes hard in the cave he sees the thing coming and he's like ah and they and there's a really elaborate deleted scene where they it's a significantly longer introduction of the padres and they show his whole family with kids and

everything oh no and then they kill him too dark yeah i Yeah. Pull that one back. I don't think everyone knows Ben Quadranero. It looks like a big vagina. Nick Turani's favorite Star Wars character. A little fun fact for everyone there. Yeah, he loves Ben Quadranero. I think he owns like a Topps signed card somehow. Signed by Ben or something. I don't know how Ben signed it, but he signed it.

And then Dud Bull, which is the one that looks like an alligator. That's the other one so yeah my favorite lego sets growing up as well i had the pod racer set it came with anakin sebulba and someone else it came with uh it was a green pod racer i'm not sure which one it was odie mandrell that's the other one i forgot he's got he's got the pit the great pit crew that's what they say oh Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, they're not that great when it comes down to it. I don't think they're the best.

No. The Anakin pod Lego was awesome. That was another good one. Yeah. And people love this was Aayla Secura, right? You see her on the ridge shooting her. She's not shooting, but she's just standing there. People freaked out about that.

She was almost like the phasma of this movie, I think, for people at the time. Like, oh, shit. And she didn't do it. Do you mind the Jabba? I kind of like the Jabba cameo. I like the Jabba cameo. Well, I like the, like, I picture being there on opening night, not knowing they're about to say it. And then being like, it's run by the Hutts. Them saying that about Tatooine.

That little piece of fan service i think is kind of cool and they give java i think they give him like a wife sitting in the background yeah um i don't know if it's supposed to be his wife or his sister but it looks like a girl java a girl yeah i like that they include it's not like it doesn't stop the movie dead in its tracks it kind of just moves along which that scene is very long so i i do like that i like the bib fortuna all that i love the commentators i think the commentators are funny them being like a siamese alien talking back and forth to each other uh fodens bead on a do yeah yeah those guys are sick yeah it's skywalker and the uh the guy who plays bib fortuna in phantom menace is the guy who played Bib Fortuna in Phantom Menace is the guy

who played Bib Fortuna in Book of Boba Fett. They actually brought that guy back. I didn't know. That is pretty cool. Oh, so here's one thing I wanted to bring up with you that people that don't know this about you, I think it might surprise them. A lot of people that don't

like the Phantom Menace will actually say i don't like the phantom menace except for the final lightsaber battle at the end duel of the fates that shit is sick you not so much you don't love duel of the fates music's unbelievable yeah that's who it is guard doula and i assume a girl right i gotta brush up on my phantom and his trivia names yeah yeah involved in clone wars is she the one that has stinky i don't know she has stinky i don't think she has stinky stinky the hut and then what's what's what's what's the hut that has the cajun accent oh mincy the hut yeah oh Yeah. Oh, Zero. Zero. Zero, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Like, oh, Jabba, boy. It's like, oh, my God. What the fuck? Yeah. That shit was weird. The hell? Yeah, no.

Duel of Fates for me is not... Here's my problem with Duel of Fates. Amazing music. I like lightsaber duels to have, like, an emotional, meaningful connection to them. They just... I mean, Qui-gon saw darth maul for three and a half seconds on on tatooine before that right like they had no run-ins and they didn't even talk it was just on site as soon as no it's just on site like that's the bad guy guy looks like the devil let's start swinging yeah yeah and it's it looks

cool loved it as a kid but the more I've gotten older like it just doesn't mean anything to me like they're just just which is fine yeah it just doesn't have like that emotional first one obi-wan vader connection second one obviously like he's he that emotional first one obi-wan vader connection second one

obviously he's like he's he's avenging that obi-wan and then the third one is the my very lightsaber duel is return of the jedi i think it's it's the most raw emotion that and empire neck and neck for me the the best moment is probably luke freaking out when vader mentioned leia in jedi yep like there's so much there and even like people will bring up the sequels even the force awakens like yes oh it's really good fight like first off i like that it's not over choreographed but second of all like she just tortured it like he just tortured her like 20 minutes ago at least they met maul doesn't have that so it's like they're just swinging at each other and maybe that's like part of it is like he's just his brutal killer and doesn't doesn't care but devil's advocate it

doesn't really have emotion until qui-gon gets killed sure and then that's when you're like from that moment on yeah like the sequence where obi-wan's holding on the saber moves it's like kind of shot like empire how the saber moves in the snow and shit like that's pretty awesome i wish you would have died sooner because then it gives you something that's not a bad take yeah like if like that's part of it it's very over choreographed that's my main thing it just looks like they're they're just practicing what they were told to do um you know it's the nerdiest thought i had when obi-wan the laser gate opens after Qui-Gon's killed and Obi-Wan and Maul do the famous like back and forth where he goes back and he goes forward and he blocks it both ways on Maul. The thought I had sitting there in the theater was like, I should learn that for Star Wars celebration one day, just do it in front of a crowd. And then I caught myself in that thought.

And I was like, oh, man, that's pretty. As I was sitting there and, you know, my, like, Star Wars Disney shirt, my Star Wars Baby Yoda socks, my Star Wars Vans. I was like, damn, that's pretty fucking nerdy. 10, 10 a.m. movie. Gotta do it. Phantom Menace. I'll do it.

I'll definitely do it. Like, that would be so funny for a video if I, like, learned how to do it full speed. It'd be so funny. I even like the big power things that that block them from fighting i think that's actually like a i know that's i'm sure someone could could could say well if you don't like that you know if you like to fight why do you like that part you know it's just like the environment's awesome it's just there to make it into that room basically and it's just like the

fucking massive energy beams that's one of the coolest environments ever and it makes no the room makes no like logistical sense. Once again, a room in star Wars with no railings for no reason whatsoever, other than to make this fight seem like more exciting. But yeah. Um, yeah,

I don't, I don't, I don't hate it. I just don't like, it's not like you're like, you said it perfectly. It's like, I don't like it,

but the fight's cool, but that doesn't, that just doesn't ring true for me yeah yeah um do you think they run it back next year after seeing this did 15 million worldwide for the 20th anniversary of revenge of the sith i don't know because this one doesn't have over revenge of the sith yeah next year's 20 years for that they They didn't do it for, like, you would have to skip Attack of the Clones. I don't know if they would care. You could do Attack of the Clones 25th in a couple years. But I saw these numbers and immediately was like, oh, shit.

How could you not do it? No, because I think Disney and Lucasfilm were too anal to not do them in order. Maybe. Maybe they'll, do you think they'll throw out like a double feature or something maybe that'd be cool just to just to get there does not have have the um i don't think it has the nostalgia right like this has a nostalgia factor yeah yeah it doesn't it just doesn't have that and there are some things that i do quite like attack of the clones yeah but overall it's just so much the obi-wan uh subplot is pretty great

for the most part yeah where he's just like him after jango them getting into the dog fight in the asteroid shit yeah like that's mostly good yeah the, the stuff on Tatooine's tough and like the crying it's, it's, it's the worst script of the three movies too. Yeah. Even though Revenge of the Sith is pretty bad script too. There's a tough, tough line.

You know what's crazy is there are, there's some really tough dialogue, like famously bad dialogue in Revenge of the Sith, but still, I think it's so far and away the best like from a movie standpoint it there's just something about it that actually works like the other two like they work for me as star wars fans i feel like revenge of the sith works for almost everyone that sees it even though it's not like technically a good movie there's a time

jump in it but you also feel for me like there's the time jump between phantom menace and acolytes just too much i just think i think you lose so much of that and where i think between attack of clones and avenger the sith like i don't know you can feel that connection a little more and you get you kind of kind of latch on and grasp to it easier yeah i. I think the same actors helps a lot. Like, obviously, you and you get, he's the same guy through the whole thing. But, like, getting Hayden back and getting Padme back in the same, you know, type of role. I feel like all that helped a lot.

It builds into it easier. Like, I can connect to it more. All right. Any other thoughts on Phantom Menace before we talk a little bit about a bad batch before we get out of here yeah i don't know i i think i guess my i'm trying to think other things that i mean i wish the the deleted scene with grito i wish would have made it in the movie it's so bad i was gonna say i don't like the deleted scene with grito it's so stupid it's like grito don't grito don't be bad one day you might get shot over it's basically

what they say it's like yeah it's like a muppet baby grito like hey by the way we know who you're growing up into it's not as bad as um like the thought of it wasn't a real filmed deleted scene i don't think but the thought of like han solo meeting y in Revenge of the Sith, they were going to go forward with that. That would have been really bad. Every time I hear that, I'm shocked that that was even an option. There's a little concept art of a young Han Solo just wearing his normal outfit, but it's smaller. You know who's the worst character?

Jira, the old lady who works in the town where anakin's from and sells fruit yeah oh she hope she hope she died in the dust oh she's no but her and anakin have that one conversation um the the grito thing is bad fuck was there well was there one more one more oh we talked about before not to go all like like woke star wars but then the the nemodian characters are just they're just unbelievable the voices they do are almost shocking in hindsight it's almost shocking that you know george who is from from everything i've heard about the guy pretty liberal i'm shocked he hasn't gone back and made a special edition change where he just takes like the racist voices out of the movie

it it is it it's it's you can't unsee it when someone says that that it's like it's a racist character of of asian people you see and you're like what the fuck yeah and i said not trying to get woke but like it's pretty undeniable. I was sitting in a theater with like six, maybe eight Asian people. It was all Asian people in my theater and they were loving it. But I felt like the Jesse Pinkman gif where he's like sipping the water. Like, I hope it's okay that I'm here for this. You know, I felt just uncomfortable just being there.

So they're going to be in They're in the acolyte The nemodians? The nemodians are in the acolyte But not these ones They don't have crazy life spans Yeah I like the idea of This alien species

That they're just scumbags Pieces of shit But it It will always make me just go, oh, my God. I'm surprised. One of those things where the thing piece that came out today would be even crazier. You're like, holy shit. And Watto, I mean, oh, my God.

People say the same thing about Jar Jar. Yeah. Jar Jar, like, I don't know. I feel like Jar Jar isn't as on the nose maybe I'm crazy for saying that maybe I'm not the right guy to say that but the other two feel like oh my god this is like a direct caricature of how people make fun of certain people Jar Jar I'm like I could see it in some scenes and other scenes I'm like I don't know he just seems like a crazy yeah no I get that I mean I just think I think just like a wacky goofy I think the whole like Gungan species is.

And I also say this, too. I gotta be honest. I'm not even sure Jar Jar is the most annoying of the Gungans. Who the general guy is more annoying. He's pretty. He's pretty bad. He's not as bad as Jar Jar. I like Jar Jar, but I mean, Jar Jar's got some of those scenes where you're like, all right, tone it down, Jar Jar.

In the words of Rocky Raccoon, it's a bit much. Jar Jar's bad. Boss Nass is really bad. Boss Nass is horrible. You know what? That was one of the only like out loud theater wide laughs among the eight people in my theater was Boss Nass doing his little, you know, I'm going crazy like that. And everything is bomb bad with him every fucking other word out of boston that mass's mouth is bomb bad you are bomb bad general

oh you are bomb bad band like everything captain tarples that's the other gungan it sounds like george had a carpool tunnel while writing the script and was like i could work that in carpool tunnel that kind of sounds like an alien man george yeah him imagine being the first person to read the loose leaf script that george wrote this on and just reading those long scenes of bombad this bombad that and being like i guess he's a genius he made the first three right like i wonder if you want to make a different language and he's like he's like i don't have the energy for this like you thought that would be a good idea to make it like yeah the next level the next level of craziness for the franchise but the the other until he's that I mentioned was at the end of Revenge of the Sith.

Okay. Not related to Wedge, though, which is a little odd, but just saying his name. They're like, apparently not related to the galaxy. One of the weird things I've always been confused why they did that. Yeah, it's strange. I like them bringing Wedge back in Rise of Skywalker. I know you mentioned it as a not good movie but i like that moment it's weird that he's in the millennium falcon but i like that moment

he is yeah yeah no no he it is really weird he's okay it's it's uh it's what's you mcgregor's uncle yeah who told him not to take this role he's like i don't think that's a good idea for you when because because so and until he's at the end of range of the sith that's the same guy who gives leia the plans in rogue one he's the one who gets choked by vader in the beginning of a new hope oh wait that's supposed to all be the same guy yeah so i just don't i don't do they say until he's name in a new hope like they could just name something different right yeah weird weird yeah it's just johnson you know it's common name out in the galaxy a bunch of yeah that is that's

that's their smith and tilly yeah yeah um all right before we uh finish this up some people were asking us to comment on the bad batch and i don't think clem watched it you did watch the bad batch i thought it was a interesting series like i thought the first season was pretty good i thought the second season had lulls like a lot of lulls but wound up finishing pretty good and then i thought pretty much all of season three was really good i liked all of the like project necromancer it felt less um like mission of the week in season three yeah and more just like we're actually going to advance the story tell you what's happening with omega you get the stakes after um tech dies in season two of like all right they're they're like going to kill off

characters in this show and they pretty much delivered on that they killed off hemlock the villain of the whole series uh they brought back the zillow beast which people loved from the clone wars that episode where it like goes over coruscant like it's fucking godzilla you get a cool epilogue which the clone wars also gave us like a nice the vader epilogue seeing the old clones in this seeing adult omega in this i thought that was cool and then you get answers at least as far as like okay why did they shut down the cloning program? Well, because Tarkin wanted to push it aside for the Death Star. Which I like. I like that they did like Stardust.

All of that was good. Connected to Rogue One and or like, I do like that a lot. Like, that was kind of my thing. I was like, I was like, where? So when they first came out with the show, remember the idea? And this is, it's never as crazy of a theory as people think, but people were like, like, is,

is Omega like Anakin, you know, like the first attempt at Anakin. Remember that? It was like crazy theories. Like, like what could, what could she,

maybe she's Palpatine really, you know, right. Like bullshit like that. There's a lot of like, she could be Snoke. They were experimenting on clones. Maybe her face changed

yeah right no so I'm I'm glad they didn't do any of that shit and they they they developed the characters well into something different um so no I I did like I liked how it ties into the the end of prequel-y things that we have right now because I I will say Andor stuff is my favorite stuff that i it's tough for me to pick between andor mandalorian stuff because i didn't love the last season of mandalorian as much as the first two yeah but andor is pretty unbelievable star wars like it's like it's like it's it's amazing tv so i like anything talking about season two is making me so excited he's he's like season two is my

greatest work it's the most important thing i've ever done and tony gilroy isn't one of these like you know studio like i'm a star wars guy nerd like he's not that he's kind of like a filmmaker type who is doing star wars and using it as a medium to tell his stories and stuff he's very i don't think he would be hyping it up just for the sake of like hyping star wars fans i think i rewatched one recently oh no for sure i agree completely i don't i i trust him on this one for sure yes i rewatched rogue one recently and rogue one has its its faults like there are a lot of issues in the rogue one i where i think it just kind of gets boring. And it's just kind of lifeless in some spots.

But there are some things that I'm excited to see in the next season of Andor that we saw. I'm excited for K2SO. So excited for him. I was going to say that's almost like you could say it's an issue with Rogue One. When everyone dies at the end. Spoilers for Rogue One. He's the death that is like it hits you the hardest. Every time K2SO, like the robot is like it hits you the hardest every time K2S like

the robot is the one where you're like oh man like and then you watch Cassian and Jin die on the beach and it's sad but it's not like you know it doesn't pull at your heartstrings like the fucking robot did and that's maybe an issue with the movie and I and you're gonna so it ties right into Rogue One so you're gonna see a lot of a lot of rebel stuff start to pop up in this next one, which I think is very exciting. Like it's, there's just, there's so many inner workings in like adult themes here for Star Wars that I just really enjoy. Like it's, it's funny. Can we just say, I just said like that stuff's boring and Phantom Menace, but I forget doesn't play out over 12 episodes.

Like it's, it's not this long dramatic story it's the short tune of our movie and it's bogged down by it well it's a half step it's a half measure of like is this for kids is this for adults right and it was like this is for adults this is we're treating you like you're a smart audience exactly and it plays out perfectly like and there's just my thing is i i want parts of star Wars and that's why I've always been a last Jedi fan is I like when they move in different directions. I like that. They come up and master strings and then they put the fucking strings back

on for a render to the Sith or for whatever. Right. Skywalker. I got there. That's like my, that's why I like Andor. It's like, you're,

you're seeing things. I love seeing these, these local police officers basically in star Wars. I think it's, it's like you're you're seeing things i love seeing these these local police officers basically in star wars i think it's it's fascinating to watch well kind of a good transition we also got a look at the acolyte after the phantom menace re-release how do you feel about the acolyte because going into this show i'll be honest i'm excited for higher public era seeing a new era we've never seen in star wars i'm excited for it i thought the clips look looked cool i thought it looked matrix inspired which i don't

know what the chicken or the egg came first with like trinity being in the show and the show's action looking like the matrix but then i hear stuff like they're bringing in light whips from canon and legends and light whips have existed for decades and legends but they're basically a if a lightsaber was flaccid if it was a fucking whip that's the sort of thing that worries me because i go i don't care i like when you make star wars weird and wacky but i know a large portion of the fan base is just going to be pissed off about that instantly and they're going to go disney's ruin and star wars so like how are you are you bought into this being a great show because this could be like one step forward before and or season two or this could be one step back before and or season i'm not bought into being a great show i don't know

if it will be if you told me i had to pick one side or the other i'd say i don't think it's going to be a great show um and that's i know a very that's very negative thinking but i need to see that i need to see the proof first i want it to be good i'm very excited to watch i'm very like i like the premise the trailers have been good there's been a couple tough line deliveries in the trailer that worry me i'm worried about like the script writing and acting because boba fett was hamstrung by that oh my god so yeah um it had some okay moments which was just the episode of the mandalorian they put in the middle of it obi-wan had some stuff i liked i liked the obi-wan probably more than most but one was was tough in some spots i like to soka uh love to

soka yeah i like to soka so i guess my concern is i just I worry about if it becomes too corny and stupid, which is very possible. There's that many lightsabers and Jedi things. Yeah. The more lightsaber and Jedi stuff, sometimes it becomes overkill. And you got Jedi Wookiees. We got Jedi aliens, which like, I hope it's good though. Sounds cool. Yeah.

On paper, you jedi wookiee sounds very cool it looks like i know star wars doesn't always work out like that and or looks very lived in and very real well a lot of the other ones looked very much like they're in the volume and the volume is a very cool tool that some shows have used well first two seasons of mando people know what the fucking volume was they were like holy shit that wasn't real where obi-wan there are times you're like damn this looks like this was filmed like it just looked weird it felt small i don't know it's hard to explain but indoor just felt expansive and big and the accolade a lot of the trailers like it does feel big they did say which is funny that like like you said when they used the volume for the

mandalorian it was like this is groundbreaking technology favreau's done it again and the accolade they came out and they were like we just want to let everyone know we didn't use the the volume at all zero scenes in the accolade use the volume it's like oh you're telling people that it's like a a warning now that like don't worry we didn't we didn't even touch that technology. That's weird. Yeah, I guess my thing with that is that use it if it can help extend certain scenes. But I think Star Wars part of it's like they're kind of forgetting what ruined it for people with the prequels. And Attack of the Clonesanger sith are a great example is they just looked off like it just something felt and looked wrong and i think that is so and there are people who say like i don't notice that thing in movies but i think even if you don't i think you subliminally

notice it like something like the subliminal part of your is like fuck that doesn't look right and i i just hope that they continue to go further away from that because the more real shit looks, the more it looks like the thing that we like, which is star, which is fine. See, that's where like, I'm okay with people saying like,

I, I get it. You didn't like last Jedi. It's not you. I'm talking about people in general. Like, you know, like,

cause you wanted Luke or force awakens. You want a Luke and Leah, you want stuff that you know already. For me, that's not always the case, but if there's one thing that is, I want, if there's one thing I want that I know it's the look and feel which that's just a broad thing at least make it

look and feel like star wars definitely and that's my hope i hope it's good i really do to bring it back to the phantom menace that's like a big part of the reason why i think i still like the movie is the look and feel of it bring me back to seeing it for the first time they bring me back to playing with the toys and at least that movie had amazing toys and merchandise and stuff because the look and feel even though it didn't look and feel like the star wars people knew it has a distinct look and feel that people now associate with the prequels and feel so nostalgic about people feel nostalgic about the marketing stuff that we talked about in this podcast people get nostalgic about the way toy shelves looked in toys r us just with the display setup stuff and that's a big part of what george lucas was great at to be honest he was great at

the world building he was great at the ideas and he's probably better off letting it still feels like our work yes yeah yeah it's still it's which i'm not saying attack clones of rangers don't but they start to feel like they're going away they start to feel like they're you're getting away from it a little bit which he at least like anchored the prequel aesthetic here and those play off of what he started here i don't know where he got lost in the next two, but he got lost. He got lost quick. And we were talking to Clemmer about it on the long take. And Clemmer had such a funny like take because he was obviously an adult for

Phantom Menace. So he said he was like disappointed by that, but he was kind of like, all right. It's like when your team is like, you know, down at halftime, but you're like,

we can, we can come back from this. I think it's, it's not out of the range of coming back yet. And then he's like when your team is like you know down at halftime but you're like we can we can come back from this i think it's it's not out of the range of coming back yet and then he's like as soon as clone warster attack of the clone started he's like oh no we're done it's it's over people were out of the title of phantom menace that's the other thing like that i don't remember at all because i was just title when people heard the title phantom menace they're like what the fuck they're like what is the phantom like what is that so people hated it that's crazy stupid although i think it's funny when people say you could swap this and rise of skywalker and they would make a little more sense like the first one being called the rise of skywalker and the movie where the phantom menace is actually behind it all

and comes back it it could work. People say you could swap all the titles, right? You could swap a lot of them and a lot of them work. Yeah, it's weird. All right. That was our look back at the Phantom Menace 25th anniversary special podcast. Hopefully next year on May the 4th, they do put out Revenge of the Sith back at theaters.

I would love that because like Jeff said, I'll never take for granted a Star Wars movie in theaters. Never take for granted seeing those big title those big title. A long time ago, Galaxy Far Far Away, like come on that's the best. Even in my theater at 10 a.m. with like me and eight people in it, people started giving it a little clap.

Yep, same here. Alright, we will talk to you later, hopefully for more Star Wars stuff soon