The Big Picture - The ‘Star Wars’ Rankings and the 'Andor' Miracle

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

May the Fourth be with you! Sean is joined by Chris Ryan to revisit the hit second season of ‘Andor’ and break down the countless things that make it a truly special television show (0:48). Then, they conduct their ‘Star Wars’ rankings and sort through every movie, as well as ‘Andor’ and ‘The Mandalorian’ (59:29). Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Chris Ryan Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Sarah Reddy and Lucas Cavanagh This episode is sponsored by State Farm®️. A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.®️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennacy, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Star Wars. It's May the 4th, which is the best possible opportunity to talk about a year-old season of television. That's right. We're finally digging into Andor's Season 2 and putting it in the hierarchy of Star Wars movies and TV shows, helping me to do so as my pal, the number one Tony Gilroy Whisperer in the Land, Chris Ryan. Thanks for having me. We will dig into the show, rank the movies, talk about the future of this beloved franchise. Right after this. Well, may the fourth be with you, Chris.

How are you feeling? You as well, man. Thank you. You know, I know this is a big holiday for both of us. It is. But it's cool to honor it in this way. Do you believe in the force? No, I don't.

You don't. No. And I think Andor kind of brush that aside. Is any kind of like childhood sort of like attachment to some of the stuff in Star Wars? Like you watch Andor and you start to see it as a lens for which to view reality and review history. Let me share a little bit of my personal experience with you and how it connects to Andor. So over the last 10 years and especially the last five years, you have seen me evolve or devolve into a person who has less and less of a relationship to television. You host the signature television pod in the universe, the watch.

I don't know about that, but thanks. That's my opinion. Okay. And that show, you know, you have to watch a ton of TV. And so every once in a while, and increasingly less so, you'll say like, hey, do you check this out? or what do you think of this? Yeah, usually for its cinematic value or something genre that I think you're going to just respond to.

Right. You've always been very generous in that way with recommendations or just being curious about what someone thinks about something. And I did watch the first season of Andor, effectively while it aired, but you started sending me messages about Indoor season two because you were watching it,

you and Andy were covering it on the watch. And I was like, yeah, I'll get to it, I'll get to it, I'll get to it. And last year was particularly busy on the big picture. We did the 25 for 25 thing. and we were coming out of a long Academy Award season, and I felt like I had a lot of catching up to do on movies. And so, you know, and or season two aired essentially a year ago.

Started airing at the end of April of 2025. And I never got around to it until January. And I watched it earlier this year after much prodding from you. And then a lot of people, I think people heard me say on shows that I hadn't watched it yet. Yeah. That was starting to become like Bill's Big Lobowski thing or something like that. you're like, I know it's going to be great and I'm going to love it.

Right. Can I just maybe simulate the experience of loving it? But sometimes that can be very dangerous to raise expectations like that and to have so many people that you trust and so many people you don't even know say like, you're going to love this. This is so in your wheelhouse.

And I was so delighted for it to be in my wheelhouse. I knew what it was going to be because of season one. And I think there's an interesting conversation about season one versus season two. But season two to me was the supererolative season and it was the one that I got, I felt the most connected to the show. Okay.

And I felt was most kind of fascinating in terms of what I'm interested in, which is this collision of writing and filmmaking that is happening on this show. With some remove from it, what do you make of this TV show? Where do you think it stands? I think it's the crowning achievement of Star Wars,

especially in my adult life. Obviously, nothing will ever change my relationship to the first three films. and how it created for me or gave me something to call my own that were very old myths and very old stories and now spoken about this so well with like the relationship between

the Joseph Campbell stuff and Star Wars and it really is our translation of all that stuff but I've been thinking about this a lot since Star Wars has been kind of stalled out for a while you know especially in the movie theaters about like whether we need it anymore and whether or not it's, something that is actually as durable as maybe we once imagined and whether or not it's actually

something that really resonates with people anymore, especially younger people. Well, we is, it's an interesting choice there because we were fortunate to already get the movies and the way that we did at the ages that we did. And I just went through this with my daughter where we just watched all the movies. And boy, they still work. They still work on young kids. I think the question you start to ask yourself is in your 20s, your 30s, your 40s, your 40s, your 50s, do these stories resonate in the same way?

And can the new versions of them keep resonating? Yes. And so we also, I'm saying that off of the back of the sequels, which I think I went into with a lot of optimism and curiosity. And by the end of it was like, so we just did the first three movies again. Right. The Ray trilogy. And we're just never going to be able to get out from under the Skywalker's.

And we're never going to be able to really get out from under these iconic performances from those first three films. And in some ways, Faloni, even though Dave Faluny, who now is a sort of creative president or the co-ceo of Lucasfilm is not really, I really don't vibe with his vision of Star Wars and his staging of Star Wars.

I think he's actually like an interesting choice for this job because I think he takes things up to a certain point in time and is like, I'm going to explore all these pockets of history of the galaxy, but not push the ball forward or up in the apple cart

when it comes to your expectations about what Star Wars can be. So that's the thing that I find really interesting about this era of the shows and the films. Philoni and Gilroy are probably the two people who have brought the most to what you can call gap filling. Where their interest in the stories is a lot of like, well, what happened when before this went on? You know, Gilroy obviously kind of got backdoored into it by working on Rogue One. And that is that entire movie is premised upon. Well, here's what happened right before the movie start.

Yeah. And it's worth pointing out that they could not be any. more different in their approach to Star Wars lore Star Wars as an institution whereas Tony Gilroy came in almost as a job for hire to work on Rogue One and wound up taking over

a bunch of the reshoots for that movie then actively tried like campaigned against doing and or and against himself being involved and sort of infamously wrote a long memo as like nobody should do this but if they were going to do it

this is what they have to do and Kathy Kennedy was like, sir, you've gotten yourself a job here by accident. Dave Falunni's been studying for this job for most of his adult life. Like, he is studied at the foot of Lucas. He is the keeper of the timeline of the galaxy, like history. Everything he does is in service to the rules of Star Wars. So you have like this incredibly progressive and provocative side of things on one hand. I mean, it's almost a dark and light side of the forcing. And you've got a very very kind of traditional and almost, I wouldn't say

safe, but I would say, like, reverent side of things with Filoni. And that's where Star Wars found itself up through Andor, and then I don't think Tony Gilroy ever wanted to do what Dave Filoni's about to do for Star Wars, but they have made a choice to go with Faloni as the sort of driving force.

And there's so interesting to compare, and I can't really say too much about Dave Filoni's work, because I haven't watched Clone Wars and I haven't watched Rebels. So having not seen those two series where he really made his bones, as a storyteller, that's my understanding.

But I have watched roughly 75% of the Star Wars Live Action series, a lot of which he has shepherded, co-shepherded, kind of helped navigate. I think Andrew's the only one that he hasn't had a hand in. Well, I may be accolade, I guess, but yeah.

And you know, I've found many of those shows to be quite leaden and dull and unfeeling in some ways. And I know that people can disagree and we can kind of talk about the ones that we've seen as we go through this discussion. but I don't think I'm really click with his tone of storytelling. Whereas Gilroy, you know, I'm an affirmed Michael Clayton superfan

and I find his level of characterization and story and also what kind of what animates internal struggle for him and how it comes out in action and characters to be the best of the best. I think he's the most interesting mechanic of character storytelling that we have. or so he gets to throw himself into this world that I had really ever only seen enunciated by Kevin Smith and he in clerks very famously there's the moment when Randall and Dante are talking about

how the death star works and the idea of maintenance and the people, the cost of doing business in the empire which when I was a teenager blew my wig back. I was like I didn't realize you could think about pop culture this way. We got dozens and dozens of stone conversation of guys like you and me at parties or in dorm rooms being like, what about, like, what happens at Moss Isley? Yeah. Like, what's the deal there?

Like, what are those guys? You know, and then, like, interrogating those ideas. Andy and I, for a long time, when they announced that Star Wars was going to become a television property as well, we were like, here's the opportunity to do the Moss Isley show. And here's the opportunity to do Death Star Janitor show. If you wanted to really go for it, there is a huge swath of Star Wars fans who are like,

I want the marginalia. I want like the little stories. And in some ways, that's what Rogue One was. It was a throwaway line in a New Hope that became an action-adventure movie and basically a heist movie leading up into it.

And then Andor is Rogue wanting Rogue One, where it's like, well, what happens before that? What leads this guy to the point where he's like, I'm going to go on a suicide mission to save the rebellion? Yeah. And the first season of the show, I think, is quite interesting, but ultimately not as satisfactory because of that way that it's built, the way that you're describing it, where if you can get on board with it as a pure espionage story and about a story about a person ultimately committing

to an idea and committing to a movement that he's skeptical of at first. It's very effective. I like that the series immediately shows you like Cassian shooting a police officer in cold blood and just like, this is noir storytelling. I'll never forget watching that first 20 minutes for the first time and just feeling like Star Wars has never done this before.

He did it. There's been something adult unlocked here. It's not adult in like a lurid way. It's just mature. It's thoughtful. but it's not afraid to be transgressive against maybe some of the religiosity that we bring to Star Wars

and that this whole endeavor is very ground level. It's about individual people coming together to make change. They don't always agree with each other. They don't always really have the same specific political valence. But broadly speaking,

they know that they have to come together to overwhelm something that is more powerful than they are individually. Such a great idea. But the first season ended and I was like, okay, we have a lot, like a long way to go here. Yeah, well, it's worth noting that it was originally conceived as a five-season show and that it was going to be a season per year leading up to Rogue One.

And I don't know how much of the story that they actually sketched out of how many episodes and how many of the seasons they really were like, and then this happens and this happens. And one of the cool things about Andor is you can actually rewatch this because of the collection of short stories that it is rather than the not. that I think people think of it as. It's really about the most important 10 to 11 to 12 moments over the course of five years. And they're broken up into these three episode arcs. So you have the Aldani arc or the Gorman arc or the prison arc.

And you can kind of pick and choose if you're like, I'm going to skip the first three episodes of season two or I'm going to skip this or skip that and go back and revisit it, which is strangely like for as much TV as I have to watch, I think because it's, there's so much new stuff all the time. Like, I look on people who are like, I'm just rewatching succession for fun. That's what I don't have time for. And that's what I have no interest in doing. But and or I have revisited a lot. Maybe not like episode by episode I'm doing an and or rewatch,

but I will go back and be like, I went back for one line that I wanted to see or reference and now found myself sitting there for 40 minutes watching an episode. I haven't been able to do that yet. And it is something that I want to do. I did obviously revisit a little. bit just for this conversation that we're having, but I do feel when I watch the show what I think Gilroy has talked about and some of the other authors of this series, which is those three

episode arcs that you're describing, feel like individual novels pulled from a series around one or two characters. So by citing Le Carre or Alan First, which are those books are sacred text for you. Really operating in that mold, which like, does a lot of television do that at this point? Like, I feel like it's, if it feels something very novel, forgive the double usage of the word, to saying like a few episodes of our series are basically one tract of story, and then we're moving on and it's part of a wider experience, but like the prison break experience in the first season is a completely different show, the production design, the characters that are featured, the tonality,

the energy, the lighting, like everything is just different from the previous three episodes that it come before that. There's something to be said for and or probably, I think Andy and I were just talking about this with a different series,

maybe zero zero, zero. Oh, we were talking about this in the physical media podcast. That was yes to be released. But it's almost a vestige of this boom time of streaming television where they were like, yeah, like you tell us, you know,

here's a bunch of money. And so go where I got like $600 million or whatever it wound up costing to make this show. But they weren't like you have to prove it every three episodes or we'll talk to you at the end of season one and we'll see where we go from here. Or hey, it's a big hit. You've got to come up with 35 more hours of this now.

It kind of feels like because of COVID, they weren't going to be able to keep mounting this and because of people's schedules and because of people getting older and because of how time consuming it was. They were like, we can do this in two seasons. And I think he got the miracle chance to tell the story exactly the way he wanted to tell it.

And so even in those three episode blocks, he knows why the prison break is important. You know, he knows that this is when everyday normal people who have been stepped on by not just the empire, but just life and the world, are like, yeah, you know what, fuck these guys. I am against it. We don't have to just accrue credits

in some weird way in this prison when we find out that in fact you're just walking to your death anyway. Yeah, but one thing that I love about what the show does is something that I have groused about over the years around Star Wars and most specifically when we talked about our draft,

we talked about the lack of courage and not killing Chewbacca and Rise of Skywalker where that felt like a real kind of, you know, bending the need of the fandom too that like we wouldn't take this away from you under any circumstance. This show.

frequently introduces characters and kills them three episodes later or five episodes later or two years later. Or tells you in the beginning of the series like, this guy's going to die. Right. And not just Cassian because he's going to die in Rogue One. That's right. But they're like, this guy knows that this is going to kill him. Well, that's the other thing maybe just we should say is like, this show is called Andor

and, and Orr dies at the end of Rogue 1. And we're like, okay, so we're going to watch this guy's whole life knowing what it's already leading up to. It's crazy that they made this. Yeah. If you think about everything that happens in the sequels and how they're just like, well, kill Hansel, but we're going to bring him back

almost immediately as a ghost, and he's just Harrison Ford. It's not like in any way. Do you like Yoda? We've got Yoda here as a force ghost. The emperor, have you heard of him? Star Wars has always done that. You know, it's like as soon as Darth sacrifices himself for Luke, he's back in some capacity. But I always was, it wasn't the fact that they brought Chewbacca back that would upset me. It was the fact that

it was like, you want your cake and you want to eat it too. You want us all to go through the anguish of seeing a beloved character die. and then instantly take away that feeling by bringing him back to life in the case of Chewbacca, it's like, oh, a mistaken identity. But Andorak does not have that move. Now, you could say, like, oh, like a bunch of these people could have survived, but not the hero. And from the first decisions that he's making where he's stealing things and killing security guards like you were pointing out,

like it sets him down on this path. Yeah, it's really interesting because it's so evident that Gilroy brings none of the infantile romanticism than most of us do to Star Wars. I mean, it's just, I kind of don't blame J.J. Abrams for doing the things that he did because it's like, this shit matters to me, man. Like, there is a kind of possessiveness, a youthful possessiveness to these stories.

But if you don't have that or you don't care about that, you might be better suited to telling some of these stories in some ways. Yeah, I think he's got a heretic sensibility when it comes to this. And you start with Star Wars when you're a kid, and you're like, this is about good versus evil and this is about a kid who's from nowhere being special like me, I think.

Or you can just be like, it's about the really cool guy who comes along 30 minutes into the movie and is who I want to be when I grow, whatever it is. I think the same goes for Leia. I've watched that happen with Leia. But taking Star Wars, the idea to take Star Wars and be like, this has like Russian novel backbone.

Like we can go It would be one thing If they were like A sitcom set in Moss Isley Like at the canteena That would be like fine Or I'm sure that there's versions of that that would work

But he saw it and he was like No This is gonna be What is the rebellion? They keep throwing that word around In the first few movies And into the prequels No rebellion's a revolution

And I can put everything I've ever read And everything I've ever thought About resistance into a story about a doomed protagonist who's going to give up his life against the object of fascism

which is the death star and to see that that's true point card play to be like I can see where the cut is coming I'm so interested though to situate the movie in time because there's just so much there's a lot of history American and European history

that he is kind of working his way through as he draws some of these characters. But Rogue One starts in the Trump era, you know, the film's in production at that time and being put out in the world. And then this series is happening over the course of the second Trump term. And a lot of these ideas just feel like

they're in everyday life in a lot of ways. Lines from the show being used as placards in like no king's marches and stuff. Exactly, which is just such an interesting crossover and obviously you can see that Gilroy's thinking about that, maybe not literalizing it as much when he's being interviewed as so as not to draw too much like overt, obvious political tension, but if I had to guess, I think he would rather be the person who was like warning us all when things felt good than be like, oh, the show is weirdly prescient. Right. And now kind of

being brought into a zeitgeist to like talk about like fascism. Well, that's the thing is even the course of the last nine to 12 months of American history that has transpired since the show ended, a bunch of stuff that's in the show feels like we watched a version of it at home and I think that the show is one of the things that the show is really adept at very skilled is

portraying paranoia and dread which I find most stuff these days it can accomplish and I'm so interested in the idea that because we recorded the 1976 draft and we talked about a bunch of movies in that draft

taxi driver network all the president's men, that time of the conspiracy thriller and how it seemed to be echoing something we were feeling in the culture at large, that people were doing things behind our backs, and that those things that they were doing were nefarious, and that we should be concerned as a society. And that's maybe why those movies have all continued on in the consciousness and, like, remain rewatchable.

That's right. Never expired. This show's the same thing. See, I mean, it's doing the exact same thing. I was struggling to think of like a really good conspiracy thriller movie of the last few years. Uh, yeah, I mean, would you call how to blow up a pipeline, a conspiracy throw? Sure, but that's a movie about direct action. Yeah, and a little bit more confrontational and it's what it is about.

But that is a good example. But when you watch Krennick lead the working group that's going to plot out the fake resistance on Gorman to be the catalyzing event that allows them to mine the planet to death. This is when that exact kind of storyline, that strain. of the story is what took the show, I think, from very,

very good to truly great and exceptional to me and the way that that is all drawn. And it's not subtle. It's fairly clear what's happening here. But like enunciating the way in which power operates

under authoritarianism and the way of which people's emotions are stoked so clearly. And what is undergirding all that and what people want from foreign territory is just an incredible act of writing.

And taking someone like Krenick who I love Ben Mendelsohn, but it's a fairly one-dimensional character in Rogue One. And an actor who can sometimes view one note. It's a note I love. It's one of the beautiful notes. He can be flamboyant.

He can choose scenery, sure. But I think he imbues him with a much more deeply insidious and kind of pathetic nature and the way that he flexes his power is amazing. And then you also realize, you know, within that framework that he's also...

He's got a boss too. Working for a higher power. That's right. That's right. The reason for me, the counterbalance has to be that the other side of the conflict is complicated as the empire. And that is the flip of Andor. And it would have been easy to just be like, these guys are resistance fighters. Their aim is true.

Their motivations are pure. And the reason why these guys wind up being sacrificed. the reason why so few of these characters ever show up again is because they're all fucked up and they all decided to give their lives over to a fight

and they have their ideas about how the fight should be fought and... They frequently don't agree. I mean, the rebellion, quote, unquote, is all these different factions. And hanging by a thread by every turn. It's the great drama of the show.

Yeah, and they basically is funded sometimes knowingly, sometimes not, by these rich people who are indulgent to the ideas, but not willing to get their hands dirty. And they've got this guy, Luthin, who can't come out and just say straight up, I am Axis, I am the guy. So he's pretending to be an antiquities dealer.

And he and Cassian go all over the galaxy and meet all these different people like Sao Guerrera and they're all like, I think I'm the rebellion. You know, I am the Luthin of my storyline. And they're like, yeah, checkmate, man. Like, you're going to do what I need you to do here. I know, well, that's the thing that is so clever about it is that everyone feels that they are the most important person in the execution of the plan and that they have the most at stake at any given time. I would say Luthon weirdly is the only person who doesn't have any anxiety about that.

He is like the true philosophical militant where he kind of follows through on every single step that he feels as necessary for this work. and it is his life's work. But Mon Mothma is a completely different... She's a completely different figure. She's a public-facing figure who clearly got into this line of work to help make change and make society better and safer.

Witnesses something happening but can't act publicly against it until she absolutely has to and does. But the idea of drawing together spies living in secret, but publicly, politicians, true down-and-dirty, Rebels who are doing the grunt work and are being, you know, eliminated time and time again while trying to accomplish one incremental thing that gets you over years time a step further to vanquishing whatever the perceived evil is, is I find it hard to kind of like hold the whole show in my head, you know? That's that's one of its great achievements. This is why like I'm not really looking at my computer. Like I, there's those, there are episodic sequences of this show.

show that still are with me like they were yesterday. And like that whole Aldani thing is essentially like exactly what you're talking about where you've got the Ebemoss Backrock character is essentially an outlaw. You've got Cassian who is one trigger pull away from just being the Ebimoss Backrock character. Nemek, who is the political ideologue. Yeah. And winds up being perhaps the most important person in the rebellion in some ways because...

He's like the Marx-Lennon figure. Yeah. Yeah. And then you've got these. dutiful soldiers like Fay who are all working for Luthin and trying to get Luthin's, you know, the light of Luthin to shine on them.

What a fascinating collection of portraits of people in resistance that aren't just all like, we all have a common goal, let's work for it. It's like, no. Like, Mon Motha might as well be like a blue check lib person who's like, I thought maybe if I just voted the hardest, it would work. But it turns out I'm going to

raise money and give it to separatist groups. No, I mean, in all examples of dramatic political social movements, whether it be the civil rights movement in America, whether it be changes in Chile, like, you can look at all these examples at Gilroy sites or that are clear inspirations on it. They're warring factions within the groups. There are people who don't agree about the way in which it works. One of the things I really like about the show is it shows you characters who seem minor and become major over the course of two seasons. Yeah, it's the wire thing. You know, like, which is, that's a, there's a kind of deliberate, like, thought through quality to the show that I've, it's one of the reasons why I struggle with television so much is it often feels like, they're like, I hope we get renewed. And if we get renewed, we'll come up with some more stuff to do. And I fucking hate that. And I know that it's the business and I, you know, I don't really blame the creatives who are working in that environment. But in this particular case, even if the show didn't get to have its five seasons, seeing Clay in the way that we do. Yeah. That's, that is, of, of many artistic master strokes, I wonder if Clea might be the greatest one.

It's the kind of what her character gets to do and become over the final three episodes of the season gives me chills to think about that. Yeah, but what she doesn't get to do, I mean, like any other television show on, she is just like the woman who's in the store who says, you can't do that, Luton. Right, right, right. And that's in every fucking show is there's a character who's just like, hey, hero, you're, you got to think twice about this. Right.

That person, to be the person who like saves the rebellion by killing Luton and then escapes and gets the only salvation almost of anybody on that show is her and Bix getting out of there. I know. It's beautiful, though, and it really, it's a real genuine payoff if you've stuck with this series through all of the episodes

that spending time with them, caring about them, trying to understand who they are. But like, I didn't, I don't feel any affection for Clea through the first 20 episodes of the series. You know, I was like, she's, yeah, she's interesting to look at and she has great chemistry with Stelan Scarsgard and they're kind of like father-daughterish

quality, but why does this person matter? So this is the, I would say this is a good case for TV is this is I think also Gilroy getting off book English badass actors and then being like oh, like they can handle even more of this stuff

and another example of this on the imperial side of things is Partadaz who is this ISB kind of counterintelligence chieftain who runs terrifying meetings. In fact, one of my favorite lines is nobody get comfortable. This is not a meeting.

Call your families. You're not going home tonight. Nobody, I mean, Gilbert really is the Shakespeare of the business meeting. But that last scene that he has with Krennick, where they've put out an APB for KLA and it's like, what are we going to say is the reason behind

basically like turning the entire eye of the empire on one person? And part of guys is like she's diseased. She has a virus, and if she's exposed to anyone, she'll cause thousands of deaths, and she needs to be quarantined.

And, you know, the underling goes running out of the room to send this. And, you know, it's just Krennick. It's just Mendelssohn. And I can't remember the part of his actor. His name's Anton Lesser. And he's in Thrones,

and you've seen him a hundred times. Yes. And he just turns to Krennick. And this entire time he has been, so still and so precise and he just like his shoulders drop and he's like you were supposed to be ready man

like you were supposed to have the Death Star built by now like I can't and critics like I can't protect you you're going to go down for this you know to write that character into that moment and give these two guys

an unrealized spoken intimacy with each other because they've come up through the military academy together or whatever it will just set off fireworks in your brain when you're watching it.

And that's what, when it's good, television can pull off. Right. You know, when it's Madman and when it's The Wire and when it's Deadwood and when it's this, it's like cooking at a level

that maybe even movies can't achieve. I think there's, I will admit here on this podcast, this movie podcast. That is true. We just don't get that routinely enough and... Here's my thing.

And here's why we're talking about it today. The moment that you're describing is also very similar to moments that happen in the Parallax View. Like, we don't have as much time spent with the figures in that world. But that sense that there's something between two people and that they're making a choice and one has more power than the other. Movies can do that. And this show doesn't exist without movies.

And I would say that that is the foremost inspiration on the show. Now, the time spent and the novelistic quality, the scope of the story, definitely that's a huge influence there. but there are so many movies about this idea and so few television shows about this idea of revolution and change within societies because it's hard to dramatize this. Like one of the reasons why the show is so acclaimed

is because it's been so rarely achieved. But... The only reason they got to make this show is because they called it Star Wars. Exactly, exactly. The only reason they got to make this show is because it was the Death Star that they're trying to blow up.

Yeah. If it was just overthrowing a sci-fi government, like there's no way. There's no way they get to build Gorman. You know, but because he could go into a timeline and be like, what's this? We've never built that. We should show this. You know, like, that's it.

I was thinking about the different kinds of movies that are heavy influences on this show. And there are multiple because of that trio episodic structure that you were describing. But it's, you know, we've got revolutionary classics. A lot of European films like Z and State of Siege, the Costa Gauvers movies. You got Army of Shadows and the Jean-Pier-Milville films. You got Battle of Algiers is clearly a huge influence back in the news, thanks to one battle after another. Oh, yeah. You've got prison break movies.

Sure. Stalick 17, Bridging on the River Kwai, Latrue, Man Escapeed, Spycraft movies, all the La Cary adaptations, the conversation. You noted that Sandbaggers is a big influence on this show. It's a BBC show from the early 80s, late 70s, early 80s. It's available on Prime Video, and it is basically, basically, a special operations department of the British Secret Service or the British, you know, MI6. It's really only told from the perspective of guys waiting for the phone call to come back in to be like mission accomplished.

And it's just dude smoking and doing inter-office politics and trying to manipulate members of Parliament or members of Whitehall into doing their bidding. And it's, I don't know if Tony saw it, but it is a very good and or precursor. Interesting. You know, it is Saw Guerrera and Luton talking in a cave rather than the fight that they're talking about. Yeah. There's another form of movie that is no longer very popular, but was at a time, which was a sort of World War II adventure resistance movie, like where Eagles dare. And there's some Fritz-Long movies, like, Hangman also die.

Guns of Navarone. It's a big one. I think Guns of Navarone is probably pretty dramatic influence on this show, given the sort of like men on a mission quality. changing the scope of the sort of physical landscape that they're a bunch. Yeah. And then also my personal favorite kind of movie like this is the sort of post-war racketeering espionage, the third man, and the conformists, the lives of others, like, people kind of operating on the fringes of a very vulnerable society. And the show is clearly interested in all of these things. And in fact, it's sometimes like replicating moments from some of those films, or at least we're calling them specific.

And you mentioned this already, but this idea of the really the off-book British actor, the show does what so many good TV shows can do, which is it takes complete unknowns to us. Yeah. And just says, like, come into the world with this person. And in fact, this show would be much worse if it was a bunch of famous actors. But the fact that you've got certainly some holdovers from the films, you've got Diego Luna, you've got Forrest Whitaker, familiar faces from Rogue Wan. Ma Mothma.

Yes, Genevue O'Reilly. He's got her. But then you introduce Thelan Scarsgaard, and I think one of the great performances of his career. Ben Mendelsohn returns from the film. Fiona Shaw is introduced in the first season, giving an amazing performance. Catherine Hunter, Benjamin Bratt. These are all people we've seen before quite a bit.

But then all these other people, Denise Goff, who I, you know, British actors, I'm sure I've seen before. Mind-blowing. She did perhaps the best performance in the series. her and uh her and uh the guy who plays cyril um have this truly indescribable weird relationship that i think is like such a beautiful invention of this show that really could have only worked because they get such a long duration of time circling one another being with one another and spilling kyle solar is the is the actor who

plays cyril karn um even someone like richard sammel who is the gorman leader who believes that his people are prepared for resistance, who's a long time working German actor, and the thing I recognized him from immediately is Inglorious Bastards. He's the German lieutenant who is beaten by the Bear Jew. And it's like, oh, right, that guy. And then a whole bunch of new faces. You mentioned Kyle Solar, who I'd never seen before, I don't think. Femarsei, who's in Thrones, but is quite amazing. Terrific in this. We mentioned Elizabeth Dulao. Clayah. Andrea Arona, possibly the first time I saw her. in season one

and has now gone on to become a... You think she'll be Wonder Woman? I think she is Wonder Woman. Are you excited about that? Sure. Yeah. Do you think there should be a Wonder Woman?

Do you think that's a character that should exist? You think they're just like James Gunn's doing a great job we're gonna keep everything as is once they do the merger? No. I don't.

But we'll see. Could be wrong. Yeah. You're gonna see Supergirl? Probably. Would you see it if you weren't obligated to? Wow.

It's hard for me to even fathom that life. You know one thing, speaking of Supergirl that I like about the show, too, is that even though it is, does feel like a hand-to-hand spy show most of the time, when it needs scale, it can get that Star Wars scale up. I mean, Luton's spaceship fight

is among the great set pieces in Star Wars history. Incredibly cool. The other thing is just, I knew I was in good hands in season, too when Cassian steals the tie fighter. And I was like, holy shit. Yeah. This is actually what it would be like if somebody tried to fly one of these things.

You know, like that was another way of kind of tilting our perspective of what we think this world really is, where it's like, it's human beings. It's not just stormtroopers pushing buttons and moving things around. Yeah, Cassian escaping from Aldani while a paralyzed guy is giving him the instructions of like when to turn to get out from under this like incredible, like natural light explosion happening in the sky. The prison break on Arkinah with Circus. Unreal. Yeah. So to me, in addition to Clayah's arc

at the final third of the last season, the thing that confirms the show's greatness for me is the Gorman Massacre. I thought we could take a little bit of time to talk about episode eight

and why it's a very interesting and fascinating piece of filmmaking. Of course. Can you take me back to when you and Andy were doing the pod?

What was your reaction to that episode? So, I think that we were like this was the one thing that had been in the air that this was going to happen. So when Gorman starts to get mentioned at the beginning of this season,

if you were doing any online reading, people were like, this is canon. So there was something that happened there. And if you want to get nerdy, you can get into Wikipedia and you can start reading some of this stuff. And there was some incident that happened on Gorman.

And Tony basically used that. And he was like, this is where everything is, going to come to a head. I still think the thing that blows my mind is Cyril's death from that whole thing. And the idea that they spent so much time on a guy whose life amounted to pretty much nothing and who has forgotten to history almost instantly. But there are so many achievements within that episode. I mean, what did you think when you saw it? I think I was amazed by the way that they integrated real life history

into that scene. I mean, it's a seemingly a moment that shows like the French resistance. It shows American political movements. It's extremely violent and upsetting. That's echoed in the backed and cross sequences

in one battle, like basically like double agents working on other sides. You know, the orchestrated rebellion and the Reichstag fire and all of these different moments in in world history where authoritarian

state incites people to fight back so that it can make a larger point in its efforts to seize power and I don't know

it just got me very emotional I'm crying at this Star Wars TV show and I especially because I have had such a blah relationship to most of the TV shows I was really taken aback

by how how sharply drawn I think all this was, even though you know where it's going. I mean, in two episodes earlier, as you said, Krenick essentially explains what they're going to do. Like, we know where this is all headed. Yeah. And Luthin and Andor have these conversations. And And Orr kind of warns Lutthin about why this shouldn't have how they're not ready.

And... But Luton and Krenn are like, we need this to happen because of what's going to come out of it. That's right. And these two men being so savvy about the way that these things work. You know what it reminds me of a little bit? I'll just share this personal piece with the world at large.

Me and you and Zach Barron occasionally will have some conversations about politics. And whenever we're having that conversation, I find that you both are a little bit more hopeful than me. And I tend to see the world patternistically. And I'm like, well, this happened here

and then four years later, this is going to happen here. And I think I'm always trying to think about it as like no matter how painful or bad things get, things swing back, it's not good that they swing back to the negative side, but that

this has to happen for this to happen and that there's a group of people in the world who try to manage power that way that they say like, well, if we do this here, we'll do this. And then there's some people over here who are much more impressionistic or reactive or impulsive.

And the movie really psychologizes that so well in the individual characters. The idea that both Krennick and Luthin know that you got to break a few eggs to put a light gloss on it in order to get the things that they want and how deeply that affects somebody like Andor who has fully thrown himself over to this movie

he's finally accepted that he is a rebel. Almost every moment I think throughout the entire series Cassian has like an actual objective that is not what Luthan wants him to do. It's either find my sister, find Bix, get back to Marva, get out of this whole fucking thing.

Like all these things that are never like defeat the empire. And he is an unwilling participant in the beginning of Rogue One when you first meet him. He's like, so I've become a murderer. Yeah. I've become an assassin. Yeah. And these four people on a base somewhere in Yavin send me out.

Oh, and he resents Jin so much. Yeah. And he's so angry with her when they first come together in the movie. Yeah. I just, I again feel like that is such an incredible act of writing to make us feel like there are people who are true believers who can't see the big picture. There are people who see the big picture who are true believers, but have also been made cynical by their own dedication to the cause.

Or there's madmen. There's Saw Guerrera. Smoking Ridero and just like, I just want to live in a constant state of guerrilla warfare. Yes. Which is also, I mean, there are people in real life movements who operate that way, you know, who bomb throw, literally. So I find all of that to be incredible.

I think it was kind of a relief to me to not have to worry about where the show is going. That's another thing. Which is kind of weird because I think we probably go into a lot of these expanded timeline experiences being like, what is the point of this? Right.

We know where this is going. Right. You know. It's the prequel problem. Yeah. And for that reason, I guess, I'm still trying to wrap my head around how this happened.

How they let this happen. And how could they have let this happen and not let so many other things that sounded cool happen? I think that because this was still on the side. And I think that this doesn't mess with Skywalker's. A $600 million side, though. Well, I mean, for a brief Bob Chapec moment, we were like, hey, you got scared money. Better than Iger?

Scared money does not make any. But they were pouring money into Star Wars, and Kathy Kennedy, to her credit, somehow got them to greenlight this. I'm sure she also was like they are not going to give you $1 billion to make five of these but you know we can tell a really great story and this will go down as one of those

great unacknowledged masterpieces of television like The Wire where you know true heads know how good this is I was curious whether or not you felt like the end of season two sort of after Luther and Clayah's storyline and after the

the Deidro storyline is all wrapped up did you feel like it rolled too heavily into Rogue One in a way that like almost was too deferential to Rogue One. I mean, I think Tony always knew Andor was going to end with the opening moments of Rogue One, the same way Rogue One ends with the opening moments of a new hope. Sure. But I felt like it gave Rogue One like more resonance to me, honestly. Like when I went back and watched Rogue One after Andor...

But doesn't Rogue One open with a flashback to Jin's childhood? Yes. So it's not like a direct... No, it's not explicit, but I think he's getting on the ship to go to find Galen Orso's daughter or something. Yes, yes, yeah. No, no, I was like, this is fairly logical to me. I'll tell you what, in the same way that one of the things about Rogue One that I really enjoy is that it ends exactly where a New Hope picks up. Sure.

And I'm like, this actually feels coherent to me. And it gives you both things. It gives you CGI, Princess Leia, receiving the plans for the Death Star and walking on, but it also gives you Vader. you know, wreaking havoc and doing something we hadn't quite seen before. I think the show does the same thing. Speaking of Vader reeking havoc,

this show features no lightsabers, no jeddyes. Brief mention of the force. Brief mention of the force. Just very little of the core mythology. And the force is kind of treated like maha. Like they're like, hey, I don't know space healing. Like, I need a doctor. Yes, which is such a fascinating choice

and indicates, I think, probably how a lot of non-believers feel about believers in the world. world. Well, it also blows out the aperture of the Star Wars galaxy to all of a sudden have somebody be like, hey, man, don't touch my shoulder. Like, I need actual... You know what else it does, though, for me?

Is it makes something like Alderon being exploded feel more weighty in the other films. Like, it gives more literal gravity to these planets because you come to realize that they're populated by people who have no idea who the fuck the Skywalker's are who probably don't even know Darth Vader is. Yeah. You know, like there is this expansive galaxy, and that's a word that you hear used or you see on the scroll at the beginning of the film,

and you just come to accept them as expressions of the titanic nature of existence that is being fought for. But by dispensing with all of those things that feel so essential to these stories that the Skywalker saga, you get more humanity. You get more like the sense that this is, maybe this is a real place that could exist. I mean, it's like, this would be the equivalent of making a movie about Dark Ages England,

but having King Arthur just be somewhere in the background. You know, and rarely, but rarely do we get that kind of like a depiction of a time period. Oh, can I tell you what I always thought would be a cool idea for a Star Wars TV show? You reminded me of it earlier. It's sort of to that point. I think it would be cool to have a kind of like have-gun will travel style show that just follows one blaster, but like it goes into the hands of different people. So every episode is like...

This was the promise of Mandalorian when it started is it did feel like a episodic western from like the 50s and 60s. Yeah. I wanted to talk a little bit about... I wanted to hear about some of your favorite performances. Like I know we kind of went through the... Yeah, yeah.

The litany of people that joined the show, but did you have anything in particular that jumped out of you? Yeah, I think... It's easy to overlook Diego Luna. Even though he's the titular character and he's a person who's constantly pushing back against what we want to happen.

He's one of the people who, for the first season and a half, it's like, he's kind of doing the thing, but he's not fully committing. And he's such an interesting actor to me because he has leading man good looks and not leading man energy. He's like a much more vulnerable and suspicious type as an actor.

It has like almost like a young Dustin Hoffman kind of... Little twitchy. Yeah, neediness, yeah. And like a little bit, just angsty as an actor. And I've heard Tony talk with you and Andy about just clearly how much he like admires Diego and that he wouldn't have done this without him. Also like Diego was essentially the onset, onset ambassador for like the larger project because Tony would be like,

I'm writing, I'm approving, I'm doing, doing cuts and stuff like that. And Diego is there every day doing all these scenes. Yeah. And so I think he gives a truly special performance. I think the two new faces, Elizabeth Dulao and Faye Marseille are, they'll like, if not, the heartbeat than like the pulse of the show in a lot of ways and like the the constant cutaways to them in a room alone just like trying to navigate and make sure everything is okay yes it's very very similar

to like looking at jean hackman in the conversation and you're just like something is not okay yeah right now like what is wrong what is it he's hearing what is going to be around the corner that could blow everything up this sense of suspense that the show has so i really love them she has a great reaction when some guy comes into the antique store and tells them that Aldani has been attacked and she has to pretend to still be a clerk in this store but she's also looking at this guy who she knows is essentially the orchestrator of this

and her eyes are kind of wet and she's just like it's a great moment. Yeah. What about you? I was like Scars Guard. I think that he has like three over the four or five moments of articulating the thesis statements of the show

and I think he's like somebody who uses probably at this point like a bit of his physical limitations like he is not going to do a lot of running around to his advantage where like Luthen is like often confronted with possible capture or death and it's just like

I'm either going to talk my way out of this or I'm not but I'm not going to run you know we're not going to go scooting across and having like a fake 70 year old man set piece here. Yeah, I think there's also something about his character as an actor where he's kind of ornery and confrontational as a performer. Like most of his best characters are sort of like, are you fucking kidding me? And that's perfect for Luthon. No, it's a guy who's like mourning the loss of his life, but not his death, but like I gave everything to this thing that I'm not

even going to be able to have a victory lap for. Yeah. Yes. Yes, totally. But there's a confrontation he has and saw in the first season where he's basically like, hey, I know you want to go ride shotgun on this mission, but we're going to let this guy basically get caught by the empire so that they think they've got a beat on us. And so I was like, well, what if I tell him that's what you're going to do? And he's like, do what you want to do. But like, you have to decide right now if you're going to go or not. Yeah, yeah. And it's like he's caught by a crazy guerrilla military leader, but he stands stock still and it's just like it is what it is. And it's just a great moment of like,

the conception of that character coming away for me. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Shout out to the friends with the same niche taste as you. You know, ones that will join you in watching a three-hour silent film about the cats of Europe, followed by a cheesy superhero blockbuster. State Farm brings that same supportive energy to insurance. Their 19,000 local agents are there to help you choose the coverage you need. So you can spend less time thinking about coverage and more time in front of the big screen.

Go online at statefarm.com. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. One other thing I want to cite is I love the scenes between Genevieve O'Reilly and Ben Miles, who is her high school pal who is funding the... The day gets in over his head. He's a banker who goes into some debt, has some money troubles, and then, you know, suggests he may expose Mon Mothma and what she's doing for the rebellion.

And then Luthin does what Luton does. I was told I would be taken care of. And this is sort of like, he's the great, you see all these billionaires now who are like turning, maybe they're pivoting to the right, and they're all like, hey, I gave heavily to the Dems for years

and now I'm the bad guy. Like, fuck you. I mean, that's such a subtle dagger to that whole wing of people who have flipped in the last five years. So, and I love the interplay between those two actors. And Ben Miles,

who's like an actor you've seen before, but I'm sure you don't know his name, has just such a smarmy, insinuating quality. And he's really put Mon Motha on the back foot. I mean, she really is terrified for her future. And then there's that, you know, wonderful scene. Is it her daughter's wedding? Where she has to kind of perform and has this exultant dance. Well, because she knows that now she's in too deep. Now she's gone past because I think she knows what's going to happen to him when he leaves the wedding. And or is a show set inside of a movie that itself was set inside of a movie.

But within this show, there could have been five or six. shows, you could just do Mon Mothema's Palace Intrigue show. Yeah. The diplomat for Mon Mothma. Yeah. And it's a testament to being able to take small sections of story and imbue them with the depth that you would usually give an entire other series. You want to shout any other superlatives out before we move on?

Well, to me, the show is all about the conversations that happen between characters within it. So I think I've referenced a couple of these, but I wanted to throw out some of my favorite scenes that aren't set pieces. but have the importance of them. When Lutheran recruits Cassian in that warehouse, and Cassie, and he's like, your dad got hung out in that public square, and Cassian pulls the blaster on him.

And he's just like, if you want to actually stick it to these guys, you have a decision to make, come with me. Cassian saying goodbye to Marva, probably the most, like, heartstring tugging moment of the series. And that's when she's like, that's just love, you know? These are both season ones Yeah, and Luthin's sunrise speech That's in when he's just like

I'm never going to see the The fruits of my victory If it does come to pass And then honestly like The Krennick too for the him interrogating Dedra And the amazing moment where Mendelssohn puts his finger on the top of

Denise Goff's head Which was unscripted apparently And the Krennick imparted as moment that I mentioned One other one that is so great is it's not much of a conversation, but when Cyril spots Andor during the Gorman uprising, and he's like, it's you.

And Andor's like, who are you? Just like a perfect stroke of, we know everything, but not everybody in this world knows every thing in realization. And also you pointed out Cyril's death, which is so perfect

because it's basically like a blaster shot from the side that we don't even see coming that's just like old school Western. Yeah. You know, it's like a John Ford movie. Will Star Wars ever do anything like this

again. Can they afford to do anything like this ever again? I think I don't want to say something as silly as in our lifetime, but I don't think for the next decade, at least. Yeah, so we have the Menorin and Grogu film coming later this month. Seen, I guess, roughly a fifth of it so far. Wasn't that impressed? I hope it's good. I hope I like it. But it's crazy how big this show feels and how small what I saw on a big screen felt. And that's kind of the inverse of what you want, not that and or would have been achievable as a film. It wouldn't have been, but it could have been directionally, like the kind of story you could have told over a period of time baked within the world. Yeah. And that's one thing that it felt

very missing from what I saw at least from Mandelorian Groku. And even what I feel was missing from the show The Mandalorian, which I did like the first two seasons of. Yeah, the first season especially is quite good. But I never really felt like the bigger story that is sort of like the wraparound cover stuff. I don't think there was supposed to be one. I don't, but I don't, I don't, Is it Dinda Jarn's like quest for clarity within the way? I think Favro was making, I'm sure they were in collaboration. An episodic question. But Favro's like, you know what would be cool is if Werner Herzog was chasing this cowboy across space.

Yeah. Which is cool. Yeah. And he's got a baby and he's got a protect him. It's a samurai movie. Yeah. And then I think Fuloni's like, yes. And also the Mandalorian have a rich history of like this sword that they have.

you know, like, and like all this stuff that goes into it. The Dark Sabre? The Dark Sabre, yeah. Which I think, you know, like, there are people who are like, that whole story is amazing and you got to go and read about this character. Some of that stuff was cool. Yeah. Gene Carlo Esposito and, yeah. I enjoy all that.

I think the more crucial movie to talk about is Starfighter, which I don't know anything about, but given Goslings sort of pivot to optimism and sort of more lighthearted fare. I'm going to safely assume is like a really heartwarming comic heroic film I mean will it be Han Solo as a Jedi I'm a little concerned about that because of the genius of the first Star Wars film is there's Han Solo and then there's the Jedi

Yes and is it like a glib Jedi I don't know I don't know I don't know if it's like Han Solo with a young Jedi you know but I don't think that augurs well for the idea of let's have Chandler LaVax,

you know, like Star Wars High School movie. Would love that. You know, like, probably not. You know,

it's funny. But there was a moment in Star Wars I was like, Ryan Johnson and Beniof and Weiss are going to get one. I, you know,

I would be interested. I don't think Mangold's High Republic show is a movie, is that going to happen? It still is on the long list, so maybe it could happen over time.

Alice has a book out of the library, out from the library right now called, it's like, Jedi school, or Young Jedi Adventures or something and it's written as almost like um gosh

how do you it's not an epistolary novel exactly but it's like a series of documents some diaristic some of like homework assignments from a young kid who's gone to Jedi school and so like I read this book to her and there are all of these kind of like it's like found media

inside of the thing that shows you like well here's what Yoda told me today and I thought to myself like the Goonies but Star Wars or something like that would be a lot of fun. You'd have to accept it. And this is some of what, gosh, what was the most recent Star Wars series called?

Ackolate. No, after that. About the young kids with Jude Law. Oh, skeleton crew. Skeleton crew. Yeah, skeleton crew. Has some of this quality, whereas a little bit more childlike,

a little bit more flight of the navigator. Okay, let's just rank some stuff with me. Okay. Let's do the exercise. We're going to do the exercise. And I think one thing that I don't know that I thought about much while watching Andor in real time. But when we did the draft

a couple of weeks ago and I revisited the prequels, I was like, narrative-wise, it's closer, Nandor is closer to the prequels than it is to the original films. In terms of all of the, like, taxation, senatorial process, parliamentary games.

Like, a lot of Andor is like, um, how are we going to explain a mining project. Right. You know, it's interested in the bureaucratic

nature of the empire. And, and I thought... But there is a so much... Okay, well... The key difference is the performance

style in the prequels, which is obviously not very good, is classic melodrama. And the performance style in Andor is a very clean, pure... It's not naturalistic.

It's like, it's tight. It's like every character is portrayed by Robert Ryan. It's very straight talking, very clearly delivered. And it's... not grand the performance style either. It's not, there are speeches, but it's not Shakespearean.

No, it's like, it's the Michael Clayton School of Acting. Exactly. Yeah. Which is obviously our favorite thing. But you're right that the subject matter is closer to that than the original trilogy or even the sequels. It did make me laugh, though. The, you know, I think Tofer Grace famously has done like recuts of some of the prequel movies. And I was like, could you do a Tony Gilroy cut of the prequels that would actually kind of

get closer to that. I don't know if you could do it with those performances per se, you know, but I wouldn't mind going back in time and saying Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson, and Ewan McGregor are in a Tony Guillory trilogy. It would be pretty cool. It would be very exciting, but even Sam Jackson, it's like, he's a little off his game in those movies, you know. We can get into that now. I mean, I, I, when we did the draft, so I did the, more or less, the rewatch project, you know, skipping through stuff that I'm basically singed in my memory. I've seen, rewatched everything this year. And knowing that we were also going to do this ranking,

I found myself having this funny impulse to get some reclamation projects going. I really, really, really tried, for instance, to revive solo. Didn't work out? It's not Aaron Reich's fault. It's the script's fault or whatever they, I think that that was like, wouldn't it be cool to do a young Han Solo movie? And nobody stopped to be like, what's the story? And nobody stopped to be like, here's something that Tony has mentioned a ton of times when he's talked to me and Andy.

And I've heard him talk about it in storytelling in general. Is intention. The idea that what's the story's intention? What is your style's intention? What is this actor's intention? And I don't think solo, I dare say, I don't even know if Rogue One and its original conception had like an intention. It's cool. A cool idea.

Yeah, it's a cool idea to have the Death Star with, modern special effects, but I don't know if they were like, yeah, we have a complete clear idea that we can get from A to B without somebody coming in and being like... But that's hard and that's not something that I think most studio executives respond to because intention implies theme, that there is an emotional and intellectual core to the work that you're doing as opposed to this is why this should be made. And this is why this should be made is because people want to see it because they're curious about how they got the plans of the Death Star. Yeah. And that's actually at the absolute.

intersection of Star Wars' problem. Yes, but the problem, one of the issues is that's a Wikipedia entry. That's not as... I know. But so is and or if done wrong. Yes. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Where'd the rebellion come from? Who were its chief architects? Who pushed the ball forward? Could have been really boring.

Could have been really action-packed. No, it could have been House of the Dragon. It could have just been like, hey. Precisely. You know, like here's, I'm walking in and I'm going to say what I want. Yes. So, for you, there are 28 pieces of... No. 14.

So we're just doing movies here. Movies and or Mandelorian and Grogu. Okay. Or excuse me, movies and or the Mandalorian. If you want to talk about the book of BobaFet, if you want to talk about Obi-1 Kenobi. I've seen those shows. I don't think they're successful.

I don't think Asoka is successful personally. I haven't seen the two animated series. I haven't seen the Clone Wars film. So we can only work with what we work. How high would Andor go here? Well, so I think we can dispense with like, is it Empire and a New Hope? at the top of the rankings.

Yeah. And what order would you say they go in? Well, I am now in a New Hope phase. Okay. Tell us about it. I just think that there's some parts of New Hope that I find a bit dull. Like, I find Daegobah a little bit dull. You mean an Empire?

Sorry, an Empire, yeah. So I have New Hope a little bit above Empire right now. No kidding. Yeah. Is it just you trying to undermine my draft status or? No. It's just, I think I talked about this. I was just like, I just think New Hope kind of rocks from the first note to the last,

and I think Empire maybe gets... We spend a lot of time on tattooing. Yeah, I know. It's like a lot, a lot of Luke, like, wandering around the desert. Yeah, but you get the fucking binary sunset. You get, like, the origin of him being crabby. And there's, like, all the stuff with the Jaws and he's avoiding the Tuscan Raiders. Tuscan Raiders are still cool, no?

I mean, it's great when Obi-1 shows up. Do you find... I'm negging the most important movie of my life. life. But, you know. Would you put and or above either of them? I wouldn't, but only because they, it cannot exist without them. And my page was going to be Empire One, New Hope 2, is Andor the third best thing. Now, I know what you said, andor is basically your favorite Star Wars thing. Yeah. At least because of the phase of life theory. I mean, it's most intellectually stimulating and emotionally resonant movie to me as an adult. But these are two of the most important movies of my

lifetime as a child and ones that I still watch once a year, you know, as an adult. What do we do about the New Hope Empire situation? Point to us? Like, I don't know. Like on Survivor. Yeah. Which think of that. I have Mr. Beast right here.

Beast games on the Star Wars rankings? Holy shit. Is Mr. Beast really one of the most famous people in the world? I believe so. I don't really know who's in front of him or behind him. It's probably you're in there. But, like, Mr. Beast is more famous than Bill. Are you fucking kidding me?

Yeah, I'm just asking. Bill Simmons? Yeah. If Mr. Beast and Bill were both at a Lakers game, who gets more like, hey? Well, that's kind of a loaded proposition there. It's a home game for Bill. Yeah, yeah. I think Mr. Beast is more famous.

Okay. How many, doesn't Mr. Reese have 500 million YouTube subscribers? It's a lot. I think Bill's probably had 500 million listeners over the course of his career. I do not think that's the case. Do you have a coin in your pocket? I don't have any change. I'm going to give you Empire,

because it's your podcast. Thanks. Appreciate it. Empire One, New Hope, 2, and or 3. You think that's crazy? No. That and or is better than Return of the Jedi, which is kind of silly.

It's just be nice. What? Just be nice to return of the Jedi. It's underrated at this point in my opinion. I like Return of the Jedi. I'm just saying, is it possible that anything could get above that? Thank you, Lucas.

Keep filling those in. Could get above Jedi? at four? Can any prequel or sequel get above Jedi? I'd have the Rogue One conversation. I'd have the highs of Rogue One? No. No, no, no. No. No. Okay.

Seriously? I'd have the conversation. I'd take the meeting. You don't like to take the meeting. You like to be definitive in your proclamations. I like to take the meeting. I like to say, let's get coffee. Let's knock it out. I'm going to go out. I'm going to have a cigarette.

I'm going to come back in. We'll talk some more. You know, Rogue One over return of the Jedi. I think it's just a conversation to have. I'm fascinated. I probably wouldn't put Rogue One over Revenge of the Sith. Oh, I would. I wouldn't put it over Jedi, Last Jedi. Rogue One is really cool,

but Rogue One, to me, actually commits an interesting sin that you could argue and or does too, but Rogue One does it in more overt ways, where with Rogue One, I can feel all the archetypes from other movies being plugged into that movie. You know, the individual characters that represent the team that they'll work on. I'm like,

well, this is Dustin Hoffman from Papillon, and oh, this is, you know, a character that Donnie in has played in five samurai movies. And, you know, which is cool. Yeah. And it kind of scratched that part of my brain in a way I enjoyed. But I was like, this is barely a movie. Like, they just kind of took all these archetypes

and slung them together. Okay, so you have return. Let's, you have Empire Strikes Back, a New Hope and or. Would you put Last Jedi for above Return of the Jedi? I don't think I can. Okay, so Return of the Jedi, three, four. What do you, what, you? You like Lastdata.

You're not like a all, you're not a major legion. I may be like the last man in the world who, it doesn't feel very strongly about it one way or the other. You know, like I thought it features some incredible sequences. What? That's the funny way of putting it. Well, you know how like it's either you're on one side of this war or the other?

And I'm somehow, I'm Switzerland here. You know, like, I think the discourse around it overtook the movie itself. And when I tried to rewatch it, I was like, there's lots of stuff that I like. I find the Luke and Ray stuff a bit tedious to watch. Like on the planet of like and her sort of apprenticeship. It is a bit tedious at this point.

And the casino planet stuff is awful. But then there's some really cool stuff in it. And this is the best driver. You don't like Benicio? He's good. He's good. I like it more in the way of the gun. I'll bet you do.

So what do we do here? This is really the pickle of this whole enterprise is the original trilogy, Magic, and or falls in our lap some 50 years later. We're like, holy shit, this happened. And then there's 17 other things or whatever. Yeah.

And I like all this stuff. I got to say, I went and I saw the prequels of my daughter. We had a great time. It was fun. Good. If I had a daughter, I'm sure I'd say the same thing. I don't know, man. Like, Attack of the Clones.

Yoda's fighting Count Ducu. Like, this is pretty cool. I'm just a kid again. Okay. Nothing wrong with that. Yeah. I've told this story before about fighting with Chris X on the phone when I moved to New York. And he was like, you keep talking about this fucking prequel shit, man.

This is garbage. And I was like, I don't know. Kind of enjoyed it. I think it's okay to have kind of enjoyed those movies. Their flaws are huge. Their flaws are vast. It's just funny because at this point we have like these more than a dozen things to choose from. And as hard as I tried, I just couldn't figure out like a,

a crazy Zag pick. Or, like I said, with Solo. Like, this isn't like watching James Bond movies and you're like, actually, never say never. I'll tell you where my gut would take me on this one. I would probably go five last Jedi, six Rogue One, seven Revenge of the Sith.

So you have Rogue One over Sith here in this telling. With you in mind. Okay, thank you. Navigating this with you. Probably Force Awakens after Revenge of the Sith. Yeah. which I think is a very fun movie Me too. And certainly

it absolutely mimics the arc of a new hope but there are moments Han on the ship. It's true. All of it. Kylo killing his father. There's stuff in that movie that I'm like these are movie chills.

It's actually a good way of summarizing how I feel about those sequels which is like there are a dozen across the three movies, wonderful moments and I don't think I can coherently tell you the story of those three movies. I can, but only because I've spent so much time with them recently. But like the story of Force Awakens.

You were over at my house with Alice, and she's brought out the book, the little golden book retelling of the stories. And she was just narrating it to you word for word because she's committed it to memory. Very fun reading to Alice moment, because I've gotten to start pitching relief. I'm reading to her at night. Thank goodness, yeah. And first of all, like, very cute thing is that she eats apple. before she goes to bed and she eats them very close to your face while you're reading.

This is true. And so she's like crunching down while I'm reading a Spider-Man book to her and I'll like stop to kind of look up at the crunching. And she goes, keep reading. I'll return that in kind. Keep ranking. Yeah. Keep ranking.

Force Awakens. Force Awakens. And then. You can put clones here. I think it's clones. And then I think is a little messy. I don't really know where you go from here. I think Solo goes here.

Well, okay, wait. I think it might be Mando. I was going to say Mando. Mando is a show. Is Mando even better than clones? I think it might be. What they did to Mando as a secondary act. At the end of the first season, though,

it would have easily been in the top six. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's better than, I would probably put Mandalorian season one definitely above Revenge of the Sith for me. Definitely about, yeah. I think it would have been right behind Rogue One.

But then when they turned it into, two, here's two seasons, then they're going to do Boba Fett, but in the middle of Boba Fett, they're going to lose their nerve and do a backdoor Mandalorian season 3A. Okay. Let's make Mando 10. Okay. I think, is it then solo?

Or is it then Phantom Menace? I can't, I have to put Solo about Phantom Menace. I find Phantom Menace to be almost unwatchable. Phantom Menace has dual the fates, though. I know. You don't like it? You don't care about it? It's fine.

Solo doesn't have a single moment that's as good as Duel. I'm overruling you. Phantom Menace is above solo. You don't think the train robbery in Solo is, or the... It's fine. It's a box game

when he walks in and Donald Glover's like everything about me is true. That part is fun. Yeah, but it's not as good as... It's not magical. Okay. To me, Duel the Fates is magical.

And then that would leave Rise of Skywalker 13th and the worst thing that Star Wars has done. And they have to hold that. They have to take that. What a consequential film. I mean, really a film that I think changed this entire franchise's past, present and future.

We've been talking about Star Wars as an industry and as like a business story and as a behind-the-scenes story for almost as long as we've probably been talking about Star Wars as like a story that means something to us. Is there any sliding doors or moment in the sort of production history or the gossip history of Star Wars that you're like, God damn and I wish that had worked out? Whether it's Ryan finishing the trilogy. I'll tell you I don't think that was ever realistically going to happen I don't know the details

but I remember and maybe it's Andy who's brought it up a few times but wasn't the original idea of the first JJ movie the Michael Art script the lightsabers falling from the sky it's falling out from space into a planet and it lands yeah

and there was something about the refresh concept there and not being not having too much fealty to what's come before that I think messed with that trilogy and that trilogy which I think is

ultimately one third very cool one third very entertaining and one third disastrous could have been something completely different and I never actually read that script I don't think you might have read it did you read it I don't know that that script

in its entirety ever got out but I think people were like here are sections from Michael on script and they've used some of it and some of it is about like hunting for Skywalker and like looking for where Luke has gone but it's funny

I mean that's like one of those things where it's like that broke Vann's brain that Luke abandoned his friends and I'm like who cares? I never even crossed my mind I know it's so interesting that with different relationships that we have with these things

is there anything else for you a sliding door that you think would have been interesting? I think JJ is the sliding door I think JJ's you know The guy who made Super 8, the guy who kind of was originally just sort of like, I love Star Trek, I'm happy to be on Star Trek,

getting this job and then being like, ultimately my job is to remake New Hope and remake Jedi and try to use these people, these older actors as much as possible, and keep them present in these movies. I thought they cast those sequels wonderfully well, but ran out of script. to give them.

And so, like, there was just basically not enough for Oscar Isaac to do, you know, and there's not enough for John Boyega to do. Agreed. And they didn't make

the tough choices. Like, for every moment of Ben Solo killing his own father, like, you get, like,

a hundred things that you're like, eh, you really, you really pulled out of the spin at the last second. I totally agree. Totally agree.

The Star Wars rankings, according to us. Number one, Empire Strikes Back. Number two, A New Hope. Number three and or number four, Return of the Jedi. Number five, the last Jedi.

I sure we'll get some good feedback on that one. Number six, Rogue One, a Star Wars story. Number seven, Revenge of the Sith. Number eight, the Force Awakens. Number nine, attack of the clones. Number 10, the Mandalorian. Number 11, the Phantom Menace. Number 12, solo, a Star Wars story.

And number 13, the rise of Skywalker. Where do you think Mandalorian and Grogo will go on that list? Got check. Can it get above attack of the clones? Yeah. I think it can. It could. It could.

I find it very strange how unclear what this movie is about has like the fact that like we've gotten so close to its I know having seen the beginning but even what I know through the first 20 minutes I'm like this is the movie or that they're like we did tell you what the movie's about and you're like that's it could be yeah thanks for doing this Chris

well thanks for having me and thanks for watching Andor what's your next big TV project? I'm watching Euphoria in real time. Did you watch episode three? I'm not caught up yet. Okay. So I've seen the first two.

And it's a show I like. What's the... I haven't finished Succession season four. Not Succession. Industry Season four. Oh, you did finish it. I haven't. Okay.

So that's on the plane that can. That's what I'll be doing. That's the exact place they'd want you watching it. It's being serious. Oh, that's exciting. Hey, thanks to Lucas Cabinon and to Sarah Reddy for powering through a series of recordings this week.

Thank you guys, appreciate you. Thanks for our producer Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. Later this week, a very special treat. A very fun podcast. The physical media high counsel will return. We'll see you then.