The Flop House - The Mandalorian and Grogu, with Will Hines

Episode Date: June 13, 2026

It's a rare "Flop House in the Aisles," as we took to the theater to see the tepidly-received (though still wildly successful) latest Star Wars thing, THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU. It's got a li'l green guy in it! How bad could it be? And for a very special episode, we needed a special guest -- the talented actor and improvisor Will Hines, returning to the show after a seventeen year absence! See you in another 17 Will! (JK, why would we do that?) Stay updated on all things Flop House, plus a little extra, with our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets! Wikipedia page for The Mandalorian and Grogu Recommended in this episode: Dan: The Sheep Detectives (2026) Stu: The Devil Wears Prada 2 (2026) Elliott: The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians (1981) Will Hines: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2025) Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinflop

On this episode, we discussed the Mandalorian and Grogu. Because Hollywood said, what if the movie Dutch was Star Wars? Yeah. Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flop House. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. My name is Elliot Kalin. And before we get into the laughs and the giggles and the ribald jekkinapes,

I wanted to mention that we have a special guest with us today, returning to the podcast, we have one of our favorite guests, even though we haven't had them on in a while. After like a decade's in absence. This is actor, improviser, author of the book, How to Be the Greatest Improvisor on Earth, which is a great book. I genuinely recommend it.

Co-host of the podcast, Screw it, we're just going to talk about comics, one of my two favorite comics podcasts, and the podcast. Screw it, we're just going to talk about the Beatles. My favorite Beatles podcast. We have joining us, Mr. Will Hines. Will, thank you so much for being with us today.

Every 15 years, I'm going to be on this show. It's just like, there was a period in Spider-Man comics where every 15 issues, venom would show up. You're our venom, except it's years.

Will is the Haley's comet of the podcast. Will, what was the movie on the episode that you were on before? Swing vote. Swing vote, yeah. That was an episode I was not on. Okay.

You were not on it, yeah. I was just going to chalk everything up to a lifetime of drinking too much for my memory being bad, but. That's why we haven't had, Stuart has been, his attendance record has been too good since then. We haven't had a need to break. There's a, we have a case that says break in case of Stewart absence and Will is in that case. Yeah.

The funny thing is, I'm recording today with strep throat. So there's, I mean, what could stop me? Nature wanted you to not be here. Yeah. The universe was fighting for the balance to be restored and you did not be here and me. No, Stuart heard that Will was going to be on replace him. He goes, no, I'll, I'll be there. I want to talk about comics for a change.

Stuart, it's funny you weren't there too because that was like an early Paul Schrader riff. That's right. While you were absent. Writer, director of heart peeps. Yeah, I know. It's the episode that gave us Chopin goadables, I remember. Yeah, that's a great episode. We should have a lot more often.

That was a great episode. You guys are really funny when I'm on. I'm like, I don't know, I'm like a bass player, I guess. Wow, our guitar solos were good when you were here. Come back again. This is going to sound like an insult when I mean it to be a compliment. Many have talked about how the Marks brothers were better when Zepo was with them. Even though he seemingly does nothing, you know.

Yes. I'm proud to be the Zepo of the Flop House. I would love it. I truly would put it on my business card, which I just got business cards for the first time. And just confuse everybody. Hi, I'm Wohanx. Traveling back in time or something? Yeah, I've got to go door to door selling vacuum cleaners.

So it's like, what do you do with these things? I remember, like, I got, we got, you know, daily show business cards. I remember being, like, excited. I got a daily show business card. And, like, there was, like, this huge box with them. And I was finding them for years afterwards because I didn't do anything with them. When I struck that on my own, I ordered business cards and I still have almost all of them. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I got them because I operate an improv theater in Los Angeles. Not to Big Dog, you guys. Yeah, but it's like a physical space. and our box office staff once accidentally threw the trash out in the wrong dumpster out back. We threw it out in the back of this beauty supply store. And they were so mad at us that the landlord of our, because we're in like a shopping center,

called me and was like, hey, they're really upset about whatever you guys put too much garbage in their dumpster and they're mad at you. And so I ordered business cards just to go over to the beauty supply store and hand them one and say, I'm so sorry that happened. call me if there's ever any trouble. And so I ordered a thousand business cards to use one. Classy. Because you can't buy business cards in units of less than like a million. You're not allowed to get just like 10 cards.

But someday, when you break into the corporate improv market in Japan, you're going to be glad you had those business cards. A very elaborate trade-offs of those cards. About just the right amount, just so it's polite, and hand over a business card. They call that yes-ending is you bow as well, but you end it. a little bit more than the other person. Oddly enough, though, this is not a business card podcast. This is a podcast.

Why not? It could be. Where we watch a movie that was either a flop critically or commercially. This is an unusual case. I would say that's a... I'm going to add a corollary that sometimes we just want to talk about a specific movie. Well, let me finish my sentence. This is the...

Let's see where Dan's going. Maybe it takes us in different directions. This has the lowest opening of a Star Wars picture. so, or a live action one. I don't know what, you know, cartoon ones got. I think there have been no cartoon theatrically released Star Wars film. Oh, there's Clone Wars. That was in theaters.

That was a TV show, right? Yeah, but there was a, no, there was a movie. It was an animated Clone Wars movie? They did it at, they absolutely did a Clone Wars release in the theaters. Google, tell me if he's right. Fascinating argument. But my point is, in Star Wars terms, oh, you're right, Star Wars the Clone Wars, 2000.

I knew I was right. I knew I was right from the beginning. This is the patented fluff house, you know, barely veiled hostility, plus can't get the show started that you all tune in for. What was I say? You said this was the lowest opening of a live-action Star Wars film. On a Star Wars metric and has had some mixed reviews. And, yeah, we just wanted to talk about it, as Elliot said.

Now, Star Wars movies rarely get all. like stellar reviews, right? I feel like generally they're pretty mixed. With the exception of... New ones. New ones, sure. I mean, even the first ones got mixed reviews, but that was more case of like people didn't really know what they were dealing with to a certain extent.

But it's true that, I mean, often big, but... Often entertainment popcorn movies, even when they're great, don't always get great reviews. You know, they're... Because reviewers often, they just don't know... It feels like it's relatively recently in the life of film reviewing that they have understood that there's a metric for movies that are not trying to be high art,

but instead are just trying to entertain and recognizing that as a worthwhile achievement. That being said, this one I think got particularly... There were a lot of reviews I saw where it was like. The reviewers almost felt like it's going to be too obvious if I say I didn't like this movie. So I have to find a way to say that I didn't like it that doesn't feel like I'm just dumping on it

because it is a movie based on a television show based on another movie, you know? I also think that, like, to some degree, I mean, this is much lesser than what you said. But like to some degree, I feel like the art form of movies is now old enough that people have seen enough movies that were like, oh, this was just made for entertainment, become classics over time that they realized like, oh, yes, of course, like these things that we think of as established classics, like many of them were light entertainment. Like, we can appreciate craft in a way that maybe they were averse to when we were. was like, okay, well, this is a new art form. We have to hold it to, like, I don't know. I'm just making stuff up now.

But I think that there's something in that. I'm sure you guys have said this and said it better, so please correct me. But I feel like the Star Wars movie franchise has got to be the, like, fewest number of actually good movies proportional to its, like, real estate in the culture. You know what? We haven't said that. I think you're right. Real estate and culture, I think is an important point. Yes, yeah.

Like, just like how much it occupies. Everybody knows Star Wars how, like, ubiquitous it is, how beloved it is, how powerful it is, how like truly iconic in a way that few movie franchises could ever hope to be. And yet, almost all of the movies are mid or bad. I think, well, I think it's because you have like, I mean, you're right, because it's one of the few movies that has it like influenced, where people are like, yeah, I'll put Jedi down as my religion. You know, it's rare that a movie starts a religion. Right. But you're right, I think it's because what Star Wars really is is you have the original trilogy of movies, which are pretty great. For all that Return of the Jedi is like a little bit of a drop.

Like, they're still really great. And then you have people trying to recapture that spirit for decades now. And it's, I think we're now, it feels like we're finally, like, fortunately or unfortunately, running out of the fumes from those original movies. Right. They had to create new things that are good on their own, like Andor or, you know, Mandalornees season one of the TV show was delightful. It's all right. And the end of the...

In mainline film, I mean, those are both TV. In mainline films, like, you know, it's a contentious movie. And I think that the people who don't like it are wrong, but I don't care. They're wrong. But The Last Jedi was the one that tried to do something new. And it scared them so much that they're like, I don't know. Let's not. I'll admit.

When I saw Last Jedi in theaters, I really liked it. Watching it again recently, I don't like it quite as much, partly because they're taking the focus away from white people. Do not like that. But maybe it is. I'm just kidding. That's a joke based on... Based on idiots who don't like the movie for that reason.

But it's watching it again, especially watching it with my son. He found it very boring and confusing. And watching again, I was like, yeah, this movie, the plot is like a little too complicated. And it's a, it's a, for, considering it's got, it's an action movie with cool set pieces, it works much slower. And so it's one of the things where I'm like, if there's the Star Wars movies and or aside, which is a different kind, they're aiming for something different, it's a TV show. If you release a Star Wars movie that a kid finds boring and hard to understand. Yeah, you missed.

I feel like you're missing the mark somewhat. Yeah. As a childless man, I don't care. I don't think that my metric is your child. But as a guy who understands the place of Star Wars, a space fantasy series. I mean, the thing is, like, I think that's interesting. A whole span of types of Star Wars things at this point. I don't, but I would say that that's not, it's not successful as a whole span of Star Wars things.

Star Wars at its best does a thing where it is taking childish entertainment and uplifting it onto a higher level of production, like storytelling. It's a, for lack of a better word, everyone talks about, or if there was that period recently where people were talking about, like, sophisticated horror or like, what do they call it? elevated. Elevated horror. Like Star Wars is, the original Star Wars essentially elevated B cereal, you know. Yeah. Like they're taking B cereals or science, not necessarily even science fiction, but space opera, kind of the goofiest, least serious type of science fiction.

I think it's... And so you've got to, I feel like, but if you try to elevate it too far, then it's like, well, this isn't really... You're not doing the thing you need to do, you know. Everything, I agree with everything everybody's saying, and yet I also want to talk. And... But I would... That was the subtext of...

Everyone on a podcast ever. You've been encapsulated it so well. But, you know, Elliot, as you know, my comics podcast recently, not even last year we did a thing on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We did like a little look at the turtles, which you were a guest on. I was grateful to poop here on one of those episodes. I talked about TMNT number three, I think. Yeah, we accidentally gave you the least consequential of all the early issues. That's just a quick car chase.

Just a car chase. We didn't plan it. Look, here's the thing. I was too old to have really been caught up in Turtle Mani. wave one. And so I never really read any of that stuff. So out of a curiosity, my brother and I said, hey, let's read all the original Eastman and Laird Turtle's books. And they were really delightful and great. And then sort of watched some episodes of the original Saturday morning cartoon and the original movie and just kind of like, what were the rocket ship proponents of Turtlemania

1.0? And, you know, I was like, oh, yeah, this stuff's all great. I can totally see. But it was like, oh, it opened my eyes to how a lot of these beloved. franchises which sometimes have well-crafted entries and sometimes have just kind of stuff that misses or is bad. They're like toy movies. They are toy designs first and foremost.

And Star Wars was the first movie where the effects were good enough that it's like, look, say what you want about the plot or Mark Hamill's acting or the pace. These are the best toys that have ever been made on Earth to this point. I will say, I think Mark Hamill's really good.

I like him a lot. I like Mark Hamill, too, but he was a lightning rod, right, for criticism. People wanted to jump on Star Wars. It was easy for people to, like, for people to make fun of him because, I think because that character is such a, is such a, I think Hamill is a good actor, too. I think he's really good. He's playing a dweeb and he's doing a really good job of it. Yeah.

The misfortune of being cast next to Harrison Ford, which is like, yes, which is rough, you know. The most charismatic. Even like Ryan Gosley next to Harrison Ford, be like, who's that nerd Gosley? But I think, yes, yes, right, right. But I think, yeah, there's this, like, this, like, great. cool like toy design quality and stuff and that it's those those first movies i've talked about before the podcast that first movie i find to be such a miracle of storytelling where when it starts you don't know anything about that world of those characters and by the time they're going after

the death star you're so invested in it and when hans shows up a character you met an hour and 10 minutes earlier when he returns to help luke you're like yeah he's back yeah it is it's just amazing the way they pull it off and i i haven't seen that pulled off again in a movie the same way until the Mandalorian and Grover. Hit the bullseye. I was going to say, we've talked in our bibs and dig into this meal. We've talked a lot about Star Wars on the macro level.

Let's talk about it in the micro level. We don't have to talk really fast if we're going to go out of my quote. I'm going to stop you again because I've only been on this podcast once every 15 years. I've got to ask, is this how it works? Everyone's dragging it off the rails and Dan, you just like selflessly grab it with ropes and Drag it back on the tracks. Well, I guess, I mean, Elliot passed me the ball there, so it wasn't, you know, it's a team effort sometimes to drag it back on. But usually Elliot's the one throwing the ball out of the...

Things have changed since the swing vote days. Things have changed. I am the guy... If we're playing a baseball game, I'm the guy who, instead of catching a foul ball and throwing it into the stands, I'm catching a fair ball and throwing it into the stands. But... Micro-level, you were saying. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

You know, he's a little guy. Baby Yoda. Grogu is a little guy. I love that little baby guys. The Mandalorian and Grogu, a title built. They're like, look, we're just telling you what it is. We know the show is called The Mandalorian. We know you're in it for Grogu.

Don't worry. He's in the title. What's a title with zero poetry in any way? Stamp it on the box. Tell them what's in the box. Yeah. Someone wakes up from a coma, the Mandalorian and Grogu? Do that would speak of nude language?

Yeah, no, thank you. I don't like foreign films. And also, the way the title looks on the poster, I think, is very funny. Because it looks like it says, the Star Wars Mandalorian and Grogu. Which is like, just the way they play. This is very funny to me. Oh, that's really funny. Grogu seems like an afterthought.

It seems like it was called the Mandalorian for months and months. And some studio exec's like, where's that little green guy? And they're like, Jesus, just put it in the title. We can't have this guy constantly. At first they, at first they, at first they, misunderstood. He goes, where's that little guy, Yogurt? They called it the Mandalorian yogurt, and Mel Brooks was like, I'm in this movie. Hold on a second.

Finally, the Space Balls Star Wars over. I guess I got to start training again. What if Mel Brooks entered this movie, like, with all the gravity of like, you know, the way like in sometimes late period superhero movies like an old, like, you know, like in Deadpool and Wolverine,

like when Chris Evans enters this human torture or whatever, but this is Mel Brooks is yogurt. It was the real Star Wars. I would have reversed all my feelings about this movie. It would be the greatest movie ever. It would be so good, yeah. Okay, so we start off the Mandalorian.

We start off episode one of season one of the Mandalorian. We all know what a Mandalorian is. There's no reason to explain. No, the Mandalorian, of course, look, I actually didn't even make it. I know that everyone loves the first season. I didn't even make it full of the first season of the Mandalorian. I'm like, okay. I'm not just genuinely surprised by that.

I found the first season, I mean, light, but really watchable. I think it's super watchable and really fun, but he's such a thin character. I love Amy Sederis. I found a lot of good guest stars, yeah. What I saw, I found perfectly watchable. It was just like, I think I was already feeling like, I don't know if I need this much Star Wars anymore. Okay, sure. By that time.

And Werner Herzog, come on. He loves that baby. I mean, the fact that the, I love that, the Werner Herzog was in the, was in the Mandelian show because they're like, we need another great. great director to suddenly appear as a surprise in the movie. We'll just get Scorsese. Like in the Mandalorian and Grogo, too, who's going to be the director that's in it? Like, are they finally going to get a, like, David Lynch's ghost back in or something like that?

Yeah. Hung Lee or something shows up. Scorsese might be the best acting performance in this movie. Yeah. So the Mandalorians, are they like all bounty hunters? They're pretty much. So as we know from the Star Wars universe. It's the Star Wars thing where like a one race is like just like a.

certain thing. So one, yes. In Star Wars, everyone in the one race does the same job. But two, it's like the Muppets. But the Mandalorians are also like, it's like a religion or like a culture, right? So you can be inducted into it. Yeah, they're like Jedi's, except their rules are we're bounty hunters. We never take off our masks, which is dumb because how do you eat, drink, any of that stuff?

You never kiss. They come off pretty easy. When they take the helmet off, it just pops right off, right? You know what I would do? If you never want anyone to see your face, you know what you put underneath the your mask, a fucking ski mask. Just cover up your face. Yeah, balak lava.

They don't have that technology. Oh, I guess you have light speed technology. You don't have the ability to make fabric that doesn't cover your eyes and your mouth. It's also weird that he like shaves down to a mustache. I would think it would be all crazy and style. I have to assume the helmet does that. That's why you wear it. Yeah.

All Magillorians must have a secret mustache. By pointing this out, we're highlighting, I think, one of the things that we had circled around before, which is the idea that the more we examine the Star Wars universe and the more we attempt to elevate it, I think the more it shows that there's just a general shallowness to the Star Wars universe. Yes, I think that's true.

I feel like, I'm not like, hey, I have loved Star Wars in my life, but I feel like there is, the more you start kicking over stones, the more you realize you're like, oh, there's nothing down here. It's empty. A large part of that by design, like it's, It's supposed to be simple. Yeah, but the thing is when it's simple and then you explore it and you find, it's like, my younger son loves to play Minecraft, partly because he likes to explore the worlds.

And it's like, there's not really that much there. Like, he's not discovering new things. It's just the same old trees and animals over and over again. But I think that with Star Wars, people talk about like, oh, the Star Wars world is such a cool world. There's so many corners to look into, but there really aren't. Like, it's not, there's not that much going on. Yeah. And there could be tattooing.

There could be. There could be, but they just keep going back to the same wells. Because the closest thing you can compare it to is probably like the Marvel universe, right? Where there are a lot of corners to Marvel universe. That's because there's 80 years, 90 years of publishing behind it of people trying out different stuff and most of it not working. With multiple creators. With multiple creators. With many, many hundreds, if not thousands of creators working on it.

And so you have a, it's just tough. It's really tough. And it's just not, yeah, it's not the most complex world. But you also don't have the most complex character in The Mandalorian who is. So I didn't remember this. from the show, is he dumb in the show? Because in the movie, he's very dumb. He believes whatever anybody tells him at face value all the time.

The bad guy he's looking for at first, nobody can find this Imperial Commander. It turns out he didn't even change his name. He's just operating into the same name on another planet. Well, that's everyone's fault. That's not just him. That's everyone's fault. But the man in particular, two very obviously evil characters lie to him. And then when he goes to somebody else and goes, oh, they lied to you.

He's like, I don't think so. That's not what they told me. What? Explain. He's very dumb. He's a very dumb guy. But we'll talk about that. Well, let's get back to him because we haven't even learned what he's done yet.

Okay. He's on a mission. You know, like at this point, he's working for the new republic. He's hunting down, you know. Which are the good guys in this, not a right wing, like, commentary magazine or something like that. He's basically a Nazi hunter. He's fighting, you know, empire refugees. It's like Marathon Man, but with monsters and lasers, yeah.

Yeah, and it's not as good. The empire has turned into, like, weird little, like, crime bosses. There's little warlord fiefdoms left over. And that's, I mean, and that's a cool idea. And that's a realistic idea. That when the empire, when you kill the emperor, it's not like the empire just, everyone just suddenly goes, whoops, I guess we're not doing this anymore. Yeah, yeah.

They all have their little power bases they're trying to maintain. And he's going after them. And it turns out, his, he has one move, which is walk into a room and start shooting people in the head. Yeah, true. He is not a master of stealth, strategy, planning. It works great most of the time, except that it gets him to every, so I'll let, I'll let, I'll just skipping it slightly, but like he comes back on mission and goes, things

went sideways. And it's like, they didn't go sideways. You did a bad job. Like you did this in the worst possible way. Yeah. Well, this war, yeah, this warlord is abusing his like sort of like under, you know, like the local town leaders. Yeah.

Yeah. And which leads to, you know, a joke that I would have found funny if it wasn't so telegraphed, which is like when Mando comes in and like shoots everyone and like they're all supposed to cover his exit, but they all just point to where he went. And I'm like, it could have been funny, but I don't know whether it was the direction or whatever. I just saw it coming so far away that anyway, there's an A-T-A-T chase or at-at, depending on if you're nasty, I guess. wrong. Yeah, there's some ad ads walking on the most precarious little ledge.

Yeah. Like goats. Like, mountain goats. Yeah, that's because, yeah, I guess ATDs are pulling goats and how we all are able to maneuver around rocky ledges, yeah. And Groku shows up. You forgot Grogu.

He's got his adopted child. You know that the Mandeloran is the hero of the movie because he shoots a lot of people dead. He does not stop to help anybody if they are in trouble. and he brings a baby with him into situations where he gets shot at and shoots people dead. He's the hero of the movie. Handle itself. That baby's a powerful baby.

And the Mangloreen is really, he's really... He's got all those Yoda powers because, again, every race is the same. So it's so funny because I was reading someone making the point about, like, Yoda looks the way he does in the stories movies because he is elderly. Because he is 800 years old and the idea is that the force has been keeping him alive all this time. But then they're like, we got to have more Yoda aliens. I guess they all look like little old man. and they all dress like Jedi and they all live hundreds of years. You know, every race they're all the same.

You know, if you're a rodee and you're going to be a bounty hunter, you know. I would agree with you, but he's very cute guy. He is very cute. And he is primarily, at least appears to be primarily a practical puppet. He's a little puppet man. He's a very expensive puppet. I love a little guy. Give me little guys.

And you know what? This movie delivers more little guys as we go on. I don't care if it looks quote unquote fake. I love him. I love the way it looks when he's running around. Dan, do you love it if you could see the puppeteer's arms sticking out of his butt the whole movie? You would be loving that. If somebody told me that they didn't like it because it looks fake,

I think I'd slap their face. And I don't even care that much. I just, I'm like, that's the good part. Every Star Wars character, you have to evaluate how good of an action figure slash toy is this character. And Grogu is an A-plus five-star toy. one of the all-time greats right up there with Boba Fett and

Hawth, Han Solo. The rank war was pretty good. That was a great toy. So the Mandelot so Boba Fett and the Mandalorian they show that if you have a cool looking helmet you don't say very much, you can get away with being pretty bad at your job

and still be the coolest guy in the universe. Yeah. And because the Manoran also, he benefits and it seems to be aware of that he's benefiting from what I would call Star Wars. War's protagonist Defense Shield technology, which is if you are the hero of the movie, nobody's

going to hit you when they're shooting at you with lasers. They could be an inch away, firing straight at you. But his armor is like super... He has like a John Wick suit on, right, basically, right? Yes, yes, exactly. It's made of that fancy steel, it's super blasterproof. Yeah, it's, you know, it's different IP, but it's basically out of Antium.

Yes. Let me say that because we saw this in the theater, I was not there with like a little glowy pin making notes. I'm heavily relying on... I can jump in. I do care about my fellow audience members. Oh, so you worked at the Alamo, I guess.

I mean, ironically, the Alamo is where you should have gone because they have lights underneath those little tables. So I've taken notes at Alamo movies and makes it a little easier. No, no, I'm just saying I'm heavily relying on the wiki summary. So if anyone wants to jump in, please feel free. So after a big snow battle with... the ATATs and ATSTs. He captures this guy,

brings him back to Sigourney Weaver. He blows him up. Oh, he blows up that guy. That's the problem. Sigourney's like, we wanted him alive because that's how we find other people.

And, you know, Sigourney Weaver, you get to see her in a rebel suit. So that's, that's a mark in the plus column for this. Some nerd somewhere was just ejaculating into his pants that's seen Ripley in a rebel.

I think I was excited. It's looking in the mirror right now. I don't know. But she wants... Look, when you nerd into the abyss, the abyss nerds back into you. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

I don't know. I'm sure I was projecting, and I did think Sigourney Weaver was cool casting. But every line she said, I felt like she was just a whisper away from bursting into laughter. Yeah.

I mean... Especially when she ends up in the X-wing flying or whatever at the end of the movie. It looked both great and insane. I mean, she is... I mean, I love her. And she's so good. There was this feeling of her of like, all right, whatever.

No, no, no, totally. I love Sigourney Weaver. I was so happy to see her in this movie. It does, it has big, like, we have you for one day energy. Right, right, right. She didn't have the dedication that she shows as the villain in the movie holes with Charlotte Lowe's, you know. But, yeah, she, the next assignment for Mando is a big one. They got to find Commander Coin, who I guess is like the warlord of all war, Lord's,

like she literally has like a deck of cards of like bad guys yeah bad warlords trading set yeah I mean this is a takeoff of a real thing like when we invaded Iraq I think it was they handed out decks of cards with the with the images and names of like the high up guys and son of Hussein's well it was stupid when our government did it

and it's stupid here especially especially when the main card she gives him has no information of it's not really the question funny is they're like all we know about this guy Commander Coin is that his name is Commander Coin. He's the worst of the worst. She's a Nintendo villain, Commander Coin.

But I was, this movie is so, and I'll, this is a, this is an overriding note for this one movie. it's so boilerplate and flat and not detailed in the way you want it, a Star Wars thing to be. They don't even give him like a story of something particularly bad he did. They don't have, he's not like the butcher of Best Bin or something like that, that like Commander Coin, the butcher of Best Bin. Instead, he's just Commander Coin.

We don't have to tell you anything about him. Who cares? There's, there's so many places where they could have had a little bit of color a little bit of like if you're be a good DM you know flesh out this world a little bit he's give she's giving him a playing card which traditionally in the world of playing cards there's info and stats and like a fun fact and she gave him just truly a coaster with a silhouette of a humanoid i have to object to you uh traditionally in playing cards we have uh clubs spades okay parts and diamonds but in trading cards in trading cards you're right which is a

The trading house cards is a form of play, you know, so. I just wanted to make a dumb joke. You're actually right. But the funny thing is, all she had was the name, and as we've already said, that turns out to be all you needed to find this guy. That actually was the exact amount of info that you did need to find it. If he had shown up on the world and said, hey, do you know where a coin is?

They'd be like, oh, over there, yeah, sure. You know. He's in hiding. No one knows. He's like a ghost. He disappeared. But this was, I was talking to somebody about this the other day, and they pointed out that that is a Star Wars universe thing is,

When you want to hide, you'd use your same name because people assume, well, if I'm looking for the son of Anakin Skywalker, surely he would have chosen a different name than Luke Skywalker. So that would be crazy for him. We don't have one of those. We've got a bin Kenobi, though. What are the odds? Such a common name is Konobi.

That's a different guy, different guy. Different dude, different. If he wanted to go incognito, he wouldn't use the same last name. Maybe it's a sci-op. It's like, well, surely he would. Yeah, I think that's just that. He's thinking one step ahead, you know. They'd expect me.

It's like, it's like, it's the logic that contestants on the... Sorry, you're going to say it, Stuart. It is the logic that contestants on the traitors used to determine who's a bad guy based on how they're voting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That exact sort of thing, sorry. But so he goes to, so he goes to this planet where he's going to find Commander Coin. Well, no, he, first he has to go to see the hut twins or whatever. Like, there's a couple of siblings.

Yeah, he's going to see the hut twins. So this new republic has made a deal. The hut twins, We'll give him, we'll give them the where to find Commander Coyne. If he, if Mandelroyne first gets their nephew, Rod of the Hut, son of Jabba the Hut. Yeah. Oh boy. And it is very clear.

We're going to meet another hut. They are literally big slimy grubworms who talk like this. Oh, well, of course we miss our nephew. We just want him to be safe. So this is we. And Manloin's like, checks out. You're loving uncle and aunt. This is like the first time we see now Huda, right?

Yes. as a Star Wars fan is the hut home world. All the buildings are like these big like fungus-grown structures with like a little bit of metallic stuff. It looks kind of cool, but it's all lit like dog shit, so any action later on just looks terrible. It's too bad.

It's all dim brown light. But the designs that were cool, the designs have a real Mobius type of quality or like a Miyazaki quality. I think those look cool. Yeah, and I feel like a lot of the designs in this one are drawn from classic sci-fi things, as we'll see when we see the dragon, what,

the dragon snake or whatever later on the dragon, uh, whatever. But when it comes to the huts, definitely for me, it is diminishing returns every time I see a different member of this species. But they found, they found two new ways to make the huts less cool.

One, as we'll get with Roddell Hut is to make one jacked, just to have a small hut. And the other is, the other is that they speak English through most of the movie. And they look ridiculous. And huddy sounds awesome. And huddy sounds so cool.

It is the most fun Star Wars language to say, No Jabba Wonga. Like, that's the best, you know. Like, their mouths are too big and gross to be able to speak galactic common or whatever. Can you imagine if in the middle of a Star Wars movie, Chewbacca turned to Han and said, so what are we going to do next time?

Like, you'd be like, well, the hell is this? It's terrible. Good casting. Yeah, it would be the casting, yeah. And, like, not only are their mouths too big and gross, but also, like, the huts are fucking, conceded assholes. Why would they speak this other language?

They want to speak their perfect blah, blah, blah, language. That sounds awesome. So it's a, it's a couple of big mistakes there. And I think it's just for ease of, so you don't have to have a lot of subtitles up, and then you can cast a famous name as Rod of the Hut because that's what makes the movie.

Parlaying his bare credit to be Rod of the Hut. Hey, he's in a Star War, man. You know, if you get offered a Star War, yeah. You're going to take that. Again, I feel like that it's currency that has been devalued over the course of the... Even now, Elliot, you're going to say that if someone just wants to cash you in a Star Wars movie... Someone said this to me... Someone said this to me yesterday.

I was complaining to those movies. They go, so if they offered you a Star Wars movie, you wouldn't take it. I go, of course I would. One, cha-ching, but also, too... Yeah, of course I would. I'd try to do the best job I could. It probably would come out. Not great.

What are you going to do? Like, of course you're going to take it. But that doesn't mean... Like, just because you're going to take a job doesn't mean that everything they're doing is amazing or that they should do it. That's a separate issue. His work in this is maybe not. He should have insisted on speaking huddies the whole time, honestly. Yeah.

Will you? Yeah, I was like, with the huts, have we seen this many huts before in any of the other? We were lousy with huts in this movie. Crazy with him. The twin huts, the nephew hut. And there's just that random hut that you see sliding along a burrow and then going in slipping into a burrow.

Yeah, like, NPC hut. Yeah. They're walking through the halls and like, looking down the hallways and seeing like huts all over each other like it's fucking irreversible or something. Yeah, yeah. This is from the Clone Wars, right? I didn't watch the series, but I believe it. Well, so these guys, these, the Hutt twins show up in.

At least Rada is. But the, and the Hutt twins show up in either Mandalorian Season 3 or Boba Fett or something like that. I didn't see it. They've been introduced in the show, in one of the shows. But anyway. I think it's a funny, it's a funny layout for the Hutt Palace, which is that there's a tunnel. that leads to a huge gate door, which just leads to one big throne room.

And I'm like, the layout of this building doesn't make sense. And if I'm watching a stor-wis movie, I shouldn't be thinking about how the layout of the building doesn't make sense. IP that gets, like, too successful. It's so funny when things that were probably initially decided, you know, to be good in one sequence,

then have to have, like, a whole, like, leg of the lore resting on them. It's like, Jabba the Hut and Return to the Jedi needs to be the big scary bounty hunter that's after Han and he works great as this giant literal slug lord. Yeah. Just kind of gross. Who is limited in how much he can move?

It works great for the sequence. He looks great. He sounds great. He's a big fat crime boss. He's Sydney Green Street. Like, it works fantastic. It works great. And now to have to build a whole hut world and like government system and like modes of

entertainment. How do they get around? What are the street cars for a slug land? Is it just huge flatbed trucks are moving, going around? Is it just tanks of water? Certainly, if it keeps to the Star Wars thing and they're all mobsters, that's a terrible economy. No, it's an all. Someone's got to have a legit job.

I mean, to be fair, that is what the United States is turning into is a mobster economy. So we'll see what it's like to live in a hot world. Also, like, at a certain point, you have to be like, so they're intergalactic gangsters. Do they have the wheel? I don't know that they do. So how they accomplished all these things, you know? Anyway, Mando is looking for Rada. He goes to Shikari, which is kind of a Las Vegas planet, or at least this part of it,

just this city. I mean, that's the other thing is, in Star Wars, all planets are the exact same all over the entire planet. You're a desert world, you're an ocean world, you're a city world, as opposed to in real life when all those things exist on our one planet. Yeah. He finds out that, well, first he goes, he's like, the first thing he does is look for information by talking to Martin Scorsese's, Monkey. Monkey Scorsese, yeah. He's got

forearms. He does what anyone would do. He goes to the first street food vendor he sees and basically bullies him into accepting money for information. And this is Mart Scorsesee he has like a four-armed

monkey man who... Pretty great. I mean, this is a highly... I'm not mad at it. Honestly, might be the best performance in the film. I mean, Scorsese is great. It's not like this is his first time acting.

The same with Werner Herzog Herzog and Mandalorian. Like, these guys are professional actors in addition to being directors. You know? Yeah. Who's a better? He's better than Sigourney.

I love Sigourney's casting, but I think Scorsese is a better performance. He's better than Pedro Pascal, and I don't think that's Pedro Pazcal's fault. Yep. I mean, Grogu, I cannot count as a performance. Thank you.

I think it's the number one, you know, if they're going to go for Oscar bait, it's got to be Martin Scorsese, best supporting actor, Mandelorian and Groke. It's better than that old fisherman, fisherman lizard guy on Mal Huda. better than that?

Yeah, better than that. Not like a lot better. All these other people are very functional and good at what they need to do. Who plays the character who's like the Mandalorian's like sometimes co-pilot? Oh, yeah. That character for looking as sort of wild as he does makes no impact whatsoever. No. Yeah.

And he's a character from other stuff, but I don't know the name or they don't bother to, I don't know if they say his name in the movie. Maybe they do once, but I don't remember it. I do want to point out. that the when they get to is it Skatari Right? The planet Atari

Yeah Shakari Shakari sorry Skatari Because the tips don't lie Yeah Skatari of the Skittari of course is the Foot soldiers of the Adeptus Mechanicus

But in Shikari That's where the Sardukhar from Who are devoted to the emperor You know In the Dune universe Yeah yeah yeah The God Emperor of Dune

The The Emperor of the universe Different than the God Emperor of Dune of course But anyway, continue. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Are we going to talk about 40K or are we going to talk about a tune? I mean, if you're honestly asking me which I'd rather talk about, but continue, Stuart, yeah.

The soundtrack changes, and we start getting like a, like a synth-wavy store. And the song sounds, there's something about the melody that reminded me so much of low by Flo Rida. I was very distracted. I loved a lot of the music in this. I liked when it got synthier. This is the guy who did sinners and like a bunch of other stuff. That's always been one of the, the Strengths of the Mandalorian show is the music. The opening music is so good and it sets it all up.

This movie, the music's really good. But that's always been a Star Wars secret weapon. Like that you imagine that first movie without John Williams' score. Oh, yeah. It's like it's just not quite as great a movie. Music has always been a really major thing in Star Wars. Sound design in general is like incredible in the Star Wars franchise. Everything just kind of sounds cool.

Yeah. But the music and this is really good. Like, you know, I know that they've done different things in the shows. But for a movie, I feel like this is the first time they've like gone away from like pure orchestral John Williams-y stuff. And so this is one case where this movie is doing something different. But it's mostly more of the same. But it's aping what it did in the show. It's the same composer who did the show.

So Ludwig Gorinson, right? Goerensen. And so it's continuing this. style from the show. But that was one of the exciting things about the show, right? When it started was that it sounded a little different,

you know. But yes, it's funny that... Like Apple computers, they were thinking different. Even though they should have been thinking differently. But that's... That's why you're a PC user, Dan,

because you're not cool enough to drop the L.Y and give her that ball. I am an Apple user. What am I talking about? But you're like a PC user who in an Apple... So, Martin Scorsese... No, no, I wanted to say about Martin Scorsese. That's what it was.

It is fun. that like Mando keeps going back to this monkey bender who like there's no evidence that he like particularly knows more stuff than anyone else on the street and he actively is like go away go away I'm not going to talk to you I mean also let we should make it clear in case so people don't write in mad we don't see that it does we see if he has a tail or not because if he doesn't have a tail then probably he's not a monkey but an ape of another kind of sure it's all right he's a different kind of primate space ape sounds of tons of email windows closing All right.

I won't. Say addressed it. Fine. Their void shields are up. He does have one of the funniest moments in the movie, which I think was legitimately funny, but also it makes that Mandelman look like an idiot also. Where he goes, I'm looking for Rod of the Hut. And he's like, oh, you mean the most famous guy on the planet?

And he points, and Mandelaun is standing next to a billboard that says like Rod of the hut with a big picture of Rod of the Hut on it. Yeah. Yeah, we find out Rodda's been. working as a gladiator for the local crime lord Janu. And there's one thing we know about Rada, he's not his dad. No. He doesn't want to be like his dad.

He left town. His fucking waist is snatched. There is no way he is his dad. No, no. He is so, he is a beef hunk of meat, just a beef hunk of meat. Just a beef hunk of a. Good space slug. He is a.

So he is a real character arc where he starts out as seem like a pretty good guy who doesn't want to be a gangster. And by the end, he joins the New Republic and becomes a pretty good guy who doesn't want to be a gangster. So this is the movie's idea of an arc. As they introduced Rod of the Hut, he's like, hey, I don't want to be a gangster. My aunt and uncle are trying to kill me, so I'm just trying to stay away from them. And May and Lorraine's like, no, they

care about you. They really want you back so they can, because they love you so much. But he's always the same character. No one, no one grows at all. He's a freelancer in the beginning and he's on salary at the end. Okay, fair. He goes from 1099 to W2 is his art. They should have, they should have visualized. They should have visualized his change then by him changing the paperwork he files.

This is a bit of an overall critique maybe early in the show for it. But that is the fundamental issue with a lot of this movie is that no one has any sort of character arc. Everyone is the same at the beginning of the movie as they are at the end of the movie. Setting aside Mandelurian stupidity, the basic structure of the story is we need somebody to get this bad guy and Mandalorian goes in and does that. And that happens like five times and then the movie's over. Except by the end of it,

it goes from, we're trying to, we're trying to mop up the bad guys of the empire. They're still around two. Yeah, I guess we'll bring in X-Wings just help the Mandalorian

with his personal vendetta because he has to murder people who have seen his face. Well, I mean, they do, no, they do. But then afterwards, they're like, oh, it turns out

those huts were also selling us out. So it was good that we blew them up. But you don't know that until after they bombed them to shit. But anyway, but, But there is one character arc in it, which was described to me by a co-worker recently as, at the beginning, the Mandalorian doesn't let Grogu press a button in the starship.

And at the end, he lets him press the button at the starship. Oh, wow. Grogu's really grown in responsibility by the end of the movie. Yeah. Yeah. So, but anyway, Rod is like, hey, man, I'm not a prisoner here. I'm exactly where I want to be. I'm working off my debt to this, Janu.

He's going to let me go after the next fight. I'm going to be a hero on this planet. people love me because I fight good and it's going to be great and he doesn't want to be saved. So what happens next? So the landlord, so the millionaire goes to see, I think this is when, is this when, or is it after when, when Java, Rod of the Hut is like, oh yeah, Janu, he's the guy, he's Johnu coin. No, that's later. That's later. He goes to, he goes to see Johnu at a salt bar, right?

He goes to find him at a bar. He, like, he intimidates one of his goons. You know, like knocks one of his tusks off the end of his tusk. Yeah. John who comes out and... He seems very civil. Very civil with this situation. Yeah.

And so this is... Salt is very valuable on this planet. He's a gangster trades and big hunks of salt. And he's like... That's like the real world for a time, you know? Yeah, yeah. Madelorian, like, yeah, beats up the bar. I don't remember why Johnu, like, tells him that, like, oh, I'm lying to Rod.

I'm just going to kill him after this. Because the movie needs to get moving forward, and Mandalorian is not smart enough to figure it out for himself. He's also trying to convince him to participate because he thinks that the Mandalorian would be his next great gladiator. But it is very funny for him to be like, he goes, you should join my stable, you're a great fighter. I'm going to kill Rada.

I'm about to trick him and kill him. That's the way I treat people. If you over perform, that's what happens. The Mandalorian seems to be considering it almost because he's so dumb. You know he's not going to do it, He's always like, okay, you will have an opening. I've been looking for more job security. Yeah, but he goes back to the jail late at night to tell Rada like, hey, this is what's going on.

You're going to get killed at the next thing. And Rada is so convinced of this crime lord's goodness for some reason. He wouldn't do that to me. He's like, no, no, not, come on. And he calls for the guards and Mando gets gas. It was a trap. It was a trap. Yeah.

He now has to fight. Where's Admiral Yipbar to tell him it's a trap? Oh, he died. He has to fight Rada in the gladiatorial arena. Meanwhile, Grogu is in a little cage by John who's. It is cute. Brogu forgets that he has force powers and just watches everything happen and doesn't do anything. So we get a gladiator fight between Mando and this jacked hut.

Guys, I can't stress enough how much I detest the design of Rada of the hut. I mean, if you told me there was a job of the hunk. There was a hut There was a hut that was like a gladi fighter. I'm like, okay, we got a big old fat slug rolling around knocking dudes over. That sounds great.

Nope. They made him like weirdly muscular. And the more they moot, like I like Hudson theory, but like them moving around all digital style, looks like dog shit. It's horrible. And there is, to say, there are, you could have him, like you're saying,

you could have him be an intimidating fighter just by him being super tough and just a big thing. that will get you. And there are wrestlers we're just big dudes. All strong men are like huge. Yes.

Stuart, what do you feel about the Hulk Hogan aesthetic? Do you like wrestlers? Did you like the Hulk Hogan character in the world of wrestling? Because the other thing about this, about Rottas, he can't stop doing the Hulk Hogan

like lifting his arms over his head and flexing and stuff. I mean, I like the idea of a, like a peacocking, uh, wrestler type guy. I think that's fine. But I think it would be better

if he was just a giant blobby's look. But also, he doesn't, Jeremy Allen White's performance as Rod of the Hut is, you don't believe this is a character who would be peacocking for the crowd. He seems like, yeah, well, you know, I just want to live my life. I don't want to be, I just wanted to get out from under job of shadow and be my own man somewhere in the universe. So I became a famous gladiator fighter. That's the only way to do it. Let me kill people, please. It'd be funny if it turns out that he's just a showbiz guy.

Like he's like, he becomes a tap dancer. Like he's the first like song and dance hut. I would love that. That'd be great. You know, like a Jackie Chan type background. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, a kid forced to perform and then, you know, trained to be the greatest martial arts start all time.

Hot tap dancing would even work. I mean, he could kind of be the only one on this planet he would do it. It would be he's got to get little prosthetic feet. Yeah, it is. It's a show we haven't seen before again. That is true. Well, speaking of his... We have yet to have a big good...

I mean, they tried in the Return of the Jedi Special Edition, but we've yet to have like a really good, cool, big musical dance number in a Star Wars movie, right? Yeah. Speaking of his peacocking, it's his undoing. He's flexing for the crowd, but that allows Mando to get the upper hand. But he tosses his weapons away. He yields.

He's like, oh, he, you know, rot a won. So let him go, forcing Janu to, you know, enact his evil plan with both of them in the ring. And they'll both have to fight all these monsters that he floods the ring with. Stuart, you're shaking your head. I disagree. So because this ends, like, they have this glad you're a little fight between all these monsters. It ends with, like, one of them, like, managing to disable the electric fence that's keeping them in, and monsters then rampage over the Star Wars city. I'm like, yes, I've not seen monsters rampaging through a city in a Star Wars movie.

I like this. I'm with you. I'm shaking my head because the monsters of choice are a direct reference to the first Star Wars movie. They're the old. The chess piece, right? Oh, yeah. And so you see them do some of the same things. That was what bum me out is that I'm like, oh, they're just doing that.

Well, and what bum me out was, that didn't bother me as much, although I got kind of bored of it. At first I was like, oh, that's funny that they used some of the guys from the hologram chess game. And they're doing the same moves even, you know. But what bum me out was the monsters go on the loose. In a movie that has a hero, the hero has to catch Rod of the Hut, right? But he keeps getting distracted by these monsters because he's got to round up these monsters and save the innocent civilian. who are now being attacked by these monsters. Instead, the Mandalorian goes,

I don't give a shit, and just flies after Rod of the Hut, leaving behind people being, I have to assume, killed by these monsters. I mean, that was one of the couple moments in the movie. Look, I don't know whether they deserve death for it, but they were all coming to a blood sport. Dan, Dan, those monsters, no, those monsters are out on the streets. There are people on the streets who, not everybody in town

went to attend this gladiator battle. Like, if it was, if there was a, like, a Freddy versus Jason match in an arena, and you dropped an innocent person in, it. That audience, they are culpable in whatever happens. But if Freddie and Jason get loose and are rampaging through, they've left Madison Square Garden, they're rampaging through New York, not everybody in New York was tuning into this bloodsport. Now, is Freddie in the real world or is he in the dream world? They brought him into the real world. They brought him into the real

world, yeah. They wanted to stop being polite and start getting real. So, but I saw, this was one of a couple moments in the movie where I feel like one of the issues with the Star Wars franchise beyond the quality of the storytelling or the characters, whatever, is that the moral underpinning of the series has degraded over time in a way that I find really troubling where in the first movie it's like the empire is obviously bad, they do bad things,

they kill Luke's parents, or his aunt and uncle. And the good guys are against that. The bad guys are all faceless, you know, or affectless, you know, almost robotic figures. And the good guys stand for freedom, individuality, life, etc. Over time it has become that

the good guys are just the good guys because we say they're the good guys. The bad guys, the bad guys because they say the bad guys. And in the Mandalorian movie, the Mandalorian does not act. He's not a heroic character. He doesn't help people.

And by the end of it, it is, but by the end of it, it's like, well, I have to kill these two huts because they saw my face. And I'm like, well, that is not, that is not something I can stand behind. If you're supposed to be a hero, if this is a movie like payback with,

or a point blank with Lee Marvin, then I go, okay, I buy it. But if it's a Star Wars movie, I do, I cannot accept that. But he's a bounty hunter. Like, that's the thing. Like, he's a different type of lead character. But then you shouldn't make the movie as if he is a heroic character, which they're trying to do.

I mean, this is a pro-capitalism movie. He's a freelancer. He's, he had clear terms for his contract and they were violated, and you are allowed to stand up for it. And also, if you're there to get Rod of the HUD, and that is what you are being compensated for, that's all you should do. This is, this is the most capitalistic movie I've ever seen. Maybe, but Star Wars has moved away from its Marxist, communist roots. I don't know, but it's on the side of the workers. You know, he's slaughtering his bosses

because they have not held up the contract. I don't know about that. What it really comes down to me is that is this moment where the mandolin just lets innocent people get attacked by monsters, which would have been a cooler sequence if he has to stop these monsters. Actually, what I said is true because he violates his own contract all the time. He violated multiple times. He's bad at his job.

But also at the end when he's the one who violates the contract, to be honest. He does actually. No, that's right. But also when they take his helmet off to shame him. And he says, they go, ha, now you're an outcast because we've seen your face. And he goes, or I could just kill you. And is the audience supposed to be like, yeah, exactly. Go ahead and kill them because they saw your face.

Like, that's a bad rule. That's a dumb rule. And I can't, I can't, if he's a bounty hunter who is a morally gray character or he's the villain, I totally buy, he would have this rule of if you see me a face, I have to murder you. But to be like, well, he's the hero of the movie because he's got this cute kid with him. But if you see his face, he has to murder you. I don't buy it. I don't buy it.

I don't buy it. This does not bother me. I'm like, oh, yeah, he has a. morally great character who happens to be being used as a weapon for people we like. And he has a cute kid, but that doesn't mean he's not doing these, you know, bounty hunter things. But then I think it has to, I just feel like the movie has to present him in that way. And I feel the movie is not presenting him in that way. They just didn't.

They didn't bear down on this point. Like, you're absolutely right, Ellie, and what you're saying. But I don't remember that as being like, when he took his mask off, I just was like, oh, they want us to see Pedro Pasquette. Like, I think that's true. They're just like, oh, these huts, the hut twins, as you say, every single thing they say is so clearly evil that we don't mind when they meet an untimely end. Whatever the logic of, you're right. You're right.

But I was so much rather if he was like, if he was like you lied to me, you're, you know, you ruined people's lives as opposed to, oh, you saw my face. Now I got to kill you. I think I have to admit also, and we can get off with the plot. I apologize. I have to admit that also I can't erase the fact that I'm seeing this movie at this. this point in time where it feels like morality is degrading all around me in the world that I live in. And we live in a gangster country now that is run by a hut, essentially. If there's no, if there's any fictional character that Donald Trump reminds me of, it is Jabba the

hut. And so to then, to be thrown into a Star Wars movie where part of the fantasy of Star Wars is not just, I get to be in space and shoot lasers, but also there's a world of good and evil and good is fighting evil and good will triumph over evil. And so to be thrown into that, I feel like if this movie had come out during the Obama era, I'd be like, eh, whatever. But coming out now, I'm like, Star Wars, don't you succumb to the darkness as well. Like, I don't want you to be corrupted the same way that the government and the Justice Department and big business and tech have been corrupted. So maybe that's it. Maybe that's why I'm so frustrated with it, you know.

Anyway, we're sensitive to it. Rana tries to take it on the run, but they chase him, they get them with the help of Zeb, the pilot friend, I guess, who makes no impression. It just kind of shows up when they need them and doesn't do anything else. Yeah. And Roda's like, don't take me back to my uncle and aunt, I guess. Don't take me back. They just want to kill me so they can take over the family business, which would normally fall to me even though I don't want it.

And Amanda's like, no, well, I got to give you to them to get the location of coin. And Rodda's like, oh, I know what coin is. It's Janu. And this is the point where I'm like, look, I, I know this movie is going to be just a series of kind of unconnected quests, but you really make me feel like I'm wasting my time when you're like, oh, is that guy we just left? You know?

But it's not even like they have to scramble letters in his name or something. John O'Neoyack, John Who Coin. He just goes, oh, yeah, John Who Coin. That's my boss. Yeah, he doesn't have to, like, pull a mask off or anything. No. It doesn't even reach the level of complexity of a Scooby-Doo plot, figuring out who the bad guy is in this one, yeah.

So they've done John Who's mansion. Yeah. It is, I love that he does have like a mansion like an 80s like drug lord in an action movie. And they're like, oh, there's a bunch of stormtroopers here. Checks out that he's like an empire guy. I don't know. They just do a big raid. They just capture him.

They capture him. The sequence I have no memory of even though I saw it less than a week ago. Well, there's some goofy comedy stuff with like they're trying to, you know, Mando's trying to explain to Grogu over the comms. Like, I need you to get the. ship running so we can have a... And like he just keeps pressing buttons that shoot missiles. Oh, you know what?

That's pretty funny. Him shooting the missiles was funny. And I did like the designs of the luxury land speeders, which look like sports cars, basically. Like, I thought that was funny. I thought it was crazy that these fucking stormies are just blasting away at the, the land speeder that's carrying their boss. Their boss.

I realized the cut up land speeder. One of these will probably hit him. I criticized the comedy filmmaking with the gag earlier, but I do think I really enjoyed. Well, the fact that he's like, no, no, don't do that. That's why there's a protector over it. And then he just does it with the second one that has a case on it. It's funny that it goes from, it was an accident too,

he just wants to do this. Like, Grogu is a kid. This is the most kid behavior from him, the whole movie. Or it's like, yeah, but I want to do it. So I'm going to do it. Anyway. So what happens? So that is a good moment.

That is funny. Yeah. He gets these... And Zelens. They're baby... They're four bar, Babu Fricks is what it is. Yeah, Babu Fricks.

Remember Babu Frick? And I don't remember Babu Frick being so much like the minions from the minion movies, but they talk just like the minions. He was pretty. I mean, like, he was a little bit more like old man. Like, eh! Okay. But it's also the thing of every Star Wars race is the same thing.

so Boba Frick seemed like he was a little old man, so his race is just little old man. I would have all... Well, they're all mechanics. And they all, they're also all mechanics. I would have either... So these guys show up and they're going to be part of the adventure later on.

And I would have loved if either A, there would have been like a little bit more variety between the Babu Fricks. Sure, that you can tell them apart anyway. Or if they did cool stuff other than just hung out. Like if they like built some of your shit. I mean, it is...

I love that they're constantly, doing like sort of pop-eye style chatter where like it's like most of them's like yeah and the bit every once in a while you'll hear like actual words come on baby they always call me baby baby this way baby like I like I love all that I just wait like hey I'm very happy with the meal that's been given to me but could I like for it to be more interesting yes it could have been it could it you want it you want a you want a better meal than what's been getting even though it's it's even though it's filling your tummy yeah but I do think and I do like another joke another gag that I did think they pulled off well was when they're taking

the Mandalorian to their ship at the end to escape and he sees the Babu Frick ship is tiny and he can't fit in it. Yes. Yeah. But this just augurs the best you know like the best sort of stretch of the movie is about to show up which is when the tiny

little guys take take it's under state. Yes yeah. But um anyway. It essentially becomes Star Wars minions for a short period of yeah. Grogu and the minions yeah. Yeah hell yeah. Give it to me. So he drops off coin. Yeah, they go to, like, what's his face?

The Mandalorian, our main guy. What's his face? That's appropriate. They go to his little house, right? His little. Yeah, he's like, I need a break. I need to take a little vacation. I need some R&R.

So he goes off with Grogu to just hang out in his shack for a while. With the little Babu Frick dudes. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, and, uh, a. bounty hunter from the huts shows up. And I like the design of this. Sure.

He's a space ninja, you know? Yeah, he's got a little bit Kung Lao, and he's also a little bit taller, and he has, like, a hat that is armor, basically. He's a tall-in guy. He's got one of those wide hats that you see in, like, Ninja Scroll, but he uses that as a shield, you know, yeah. It's hard to tell where, whether he's a robot or not at times. Does he have any lines of dialogue?

I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't remember if his name has ever mentioned, and he's got a pet wall. He communicates menace. For a guy who doesn't speak, like, the visual design is effective. As the kids would say, he is constantly aura farming. The kids would say that. But he's the Boba Fett of this movie.

Now, what kids have you been hanging out with, Stuart? I'm concerned about this. I mean, I'm assuming kids on the... I'm assuming most of the people who are posting on the Internet are kids these days. But he is, what Boba Fett is to, like the Empire Strikes Back, this guy is to the Mandalorian. He's the cool looking silent bounty hunter who comes to do the job. And again, he's got a pet wolf. And so the Mandalorian manages to, you know,

shoe Grogu and the four little guys off to safety before he gets captured. I'm going to look up what the name of that species is. We can't just keep calling them the Bobber Fricks. And I just don't know how to say it. It's A-N-Z-E-L-L-A-N-S. I have it in front of me. And Z-E-L-L-E-L-N. And Zellen.

Yeah. But, you know, Mando's taken to the twins. They are, they've got Rada. He didn't escape. They're going to slowly torture him over his hut lifespan of hundreds of years by zapping them in the brain, it looks like. This movie is so dumb. Just hear you have to say the events that happen in order,

and there's no connective tissue. There's none. No, it really does. I mean, this is just like the next. cut scene begins. This is the big criticism the movie has gotten, which it feels like two episodes of a TV show slammed together. And I think we can't deny that criticism.

Like, it really does feel like two episodes. Not even a good TV show. Like, there's no cause and effect. It's just like another toy enters. You know, Will, I can't disagree with you, but also, like, the dumb is what I like about it. So I don't know. It's a tough one for me.

The point you're out in the movie now, I got to say, like, you guys told me you have to go watch this movie for your if you want to be on this podcast you have to go this is the price you have to pay yeah so i so i did and i was kind of excited to do it but just because of my schedule i ended up having to watch a 10 30 p.m. showing of the magillurian up at um the americana and uh which a fine a fine theater oh it's that theater's fine i wish you didn't have to pay for parking do more local l a stuff oh it's quite i i love the americana i like buying tickets on the old app yeah yeah um but at this point in the movie where it's about like 1240s you

5 a.m. 1230 a.m. And I'm sitting there and it's like and I'm like I looked up at the screen and I go, what is the problem? Like what are, what's happening that's bad? Like just can't everybody just go home and like

everybody's free and they're out and like why are we stressed? And it was just like so insane. Because the huts are never going to forget their crime lords. It's like if you're cool people see in your face, this movie's over. Right. No, they, yeah, well, they punish him, as you say, by removing his helmet.

Oh, the ultimate shame. And they drop, revealing. I don't care. Go home. Revealing that face. That mustache. Yeah. And they, they drop him into a pit of water beneath them.

Classic hut move. Yep. Which. Even that, it's like, I guess all huts have monster pits with trap doors that they put people in when they're mad at them. So in the first of having a house room. party they're like show me your pit oh nice what kind of monster you got in there oh very nice yeah and first he this is where the magic happens uh welcome to my pit um first he defeats these smaller monsters uh and you know i did like these are so my understanding these are a man of mans like the

so they took a background's character from Return of the Jedi and they made them into kind of like creature from the Black Lagoon type when do you i didn't recognize it when would we have seen it Jedi. He is so far in the background of Jedi at Jabas Palace. I had a couple of the figures, so that's how I remembered. They made a toy of him. He's got like a staff with a skull on it, and that's easier to see in the background than the actual figure. He is, like, if they hadn't made a toy of him, nobody would remember this.

You can barely see it. I am vaguely seeing this kinner toy in my head. But to get back to the, so he defeats these and you're like, oh, you know, he's defeated. Oh, no, no, no, my friend. there's a big skull-headed water dragon that is in there that I thought looks cool.

This is like a direct like 70s sci-fi not like paperback cover right? It looks, I mean it looks exactly like if it isn't a direct lift it looks so much like that kind of monster yeah. Okay.

Well, maybe that's what I liked it. It's some kind of monster from a 70s paperback cover. Because I thought it looked cool and I don't care. No, I think it does great. It looks cool. It looks really cool, and that's some of the best effects in the movie, I think, are that creature.

It was scary. And in a otherwise fairly drab environment, it's this like pale, sickly white color. Yeah, this is this pomp of brightness. And I think the fight between him and the Mandalorian is one of the better fights in the movie. And we haven't mentioned, so he, you know, he's fighting it. He defeats it, but it's like he's poisoned by the bite. I have not made to this point. He doesn't have his helmet on so you know paper bus got to be in these scenes.

Yeah. Brogu and Zellans have been on their own adventure, flying in their tiny little spaceship. Maybe this is part of the thing is, there's so clearly things in this movie that are meant to appeal to children, which is Grogu, the Babu Fricks, to then have that being the same movie

as the character was like, you saw my face, I have to murder you. It's a clash of tones. That's true. I would agree that that's a clash of tones, now you pointed out, because I was primarily thinking of this as a kid's movie,

You know, like, and like, I was going to save this to the end. But like, you know, Lucas said, oh, these are movies for kids. And that was always kind of annoying when it felt like it was a justification for why the prequels were bad. Yeah. But now there's been so much Star Wars. Like there have been so many movies made that I am fine with the idea of like, yeah, this one's for kids. Like maybe it's not pointed at me. It's pointed at like younger audiences and the dad who brought them.

kids, make it a movie for kids. You know, don't try to have it both ways. But anyway, so, but they're having their adventure. They're having, and I love all this shit. They're running around in the woods. This is like little rubber guys running around. Yes. It just constantly, over here, baby.

Come over here. Oh, no. Watch out. Oh, go. It is very fun. If the whole movie was that stuff, man, it would be one of my favorite Star Wars movies. There's like a lot of subspecies in Star Wars where they just kind of mumble and throw

a word out every now and then, like the Jawa's. I think you could get them all together. a room and it would be so fun. If you did a movie called, you did a series called Star Wars Little Guys, and it's the Jawa's, the Babu Fricks, Baby Yoda, it'd be great. Especially if in the background

you have, you know, the high stakes crazy stuff going on, but it's the little guys like doing the little stuff that's important. So here's my pitch for what I think would have made this a better movie. You call it Star Wars Grogu and the Mandalorian. Grogu is the star of the movie.

It is his point of view. The Mandalorian stuff is kind of happening in the background. But you're seeing like Grogu dealing with stuff. And you get more of the fun stuff and less of the dumb stuff. No, no, I'm taking my head because I'm like, man, like, I think I enjoyed this movie more than you guys. But, like, this is the version of the movie that would have been great. Like, yeah.

I cannot argue that you're, you fixed it in one idea. Flip that title. Flip the billing. Was the, just Jin Jajaran, he asked to have top billing all the time. Is that in his contract or what, you know, so. But anyway, Grogo and the Anzalians arrive in time to get Mando out of, like, the little, the pit he's trapped in. They all run off. You know, like Mando is poisoned at this point, obviously.

So he's, you know that he's in danger still, but like he's still got his strength enough to run away. And there's the great gag that Elliot mentioned before, where he like goes to the spaceship. He's like, oh, I can't fit in that spaceship. That's for little guys like you. Of a box that like the toy Millennium Falcon would have come in. Yeah.

So he tells them to go. He tells Grogu to go. We don't see Grogu going notably. Is that going to be important? You know, we ain't going anywhere. No, come on. The Groster. The Mandalorian shoots a bunch of people and then collapses.

By people, we're talking about battle droids. They're all robots. At this point, at least, from this point in the movie, except for the two huts, anything he's shooting is a robot, pretty much, right? Yeah. And so Grogu uses his force powers to, like, heal the wound, but the poison's still in there. like Amanda's like basically in a coma at this point. There's a very funny part where he makes a,

he makes like a hut to store, not a job of the hut, but like a hut dwelling to store a Mandalorian in and he's using his force to move him, but the hut is not big enough and he keeps bonk in Mandalorian's head against the back of the hut. I'm like, more of this, please.

I'm like more of this. Yeah, and then, you know, like there's like a whole sequence where sort of Grogu's left to sort of fend for himself and care for the sick Mandalorian and he keeps running, off to a local fisherman on the planet.

This character I found a little confusing about, just because it was like, oh, so there's other people on the planet who are not part of the hut kind of world? I guess there would have to be. It's a planet. No, that would make sense in a normal movie, but in Star Wars, that doesn't... Star Wars, it's very weird, yeah. Yeah. I'm going to say, this is very akin to the Beatles movie Hard Day's Night when Ringo breaks off

from the band and walks around by himself. And it's like this sequence of kind of sweetness and innocence. and it's also a break from all the loud mania. And it ends up being a lot of people's, like, favorite part of the movie. Not that it's got everything you want, but it's such an oasis, joy and calmness.

That's what, this is like, Grogo was like the Ringo of this group, in a good way. In a good way, it's like, just let me just, I don't need to see John Lennon crack in wise. Let me see Ringo be in sweet and earnest walking around. It is such a,

if we can talk about the Beatles from one, I love that section of that movie. I mean, that's a great movie, but I love that section of the movie. But also, what a, you have to give Ringo credit for having the understanding and not the like the ego that he's like, oh, if I'm portrayed as this kind of like,

you know, kind of like a simpler member of the Beatles who's not the fast talking fast thinker and I just have this moment where I'm kind of worrying about myself a little bit like that it's going to look great as opposed to like, well, I don't look cool in this section. Right, right. Because it really does seem like a lost child whose parents have let him wander away.

He's like, well, I'm the third month. popular member. At that time, I guess the most popular member of the band, right? Because they would always say he would get the most fan mail or something like that. I mean, there's nobody in the history of the human race

who played the cards they were dealt better than Richard Starkey. That's really. You're a mediocre drummer in one of the least famous cities on earth and you will become the most beloved human. If you and Paul McCartney

walk into a room, they're more excited to see you. He's not a great technical drummer. I would argue. That's what I'm saying. He brings a lot of joy to his day. I would argue that he knew exactly what the songs needed. He was great with the bills. Play the cards that he was dealt.

You never have to do a complicated fill in your life. Stewart is looking at his phone. Like the Beatles? That Ringo is like, I'm on it. I'm on it in a band where the third genius is George Harrison. I am working with three geniuses. I do not have to be a genius. I just got to be.

I just got to be adorable, you know. So let them be adorable, eventually quit the band, then kind of come back, and then who knows, and all that stuff. Let's get, let's take a trip back to Nalhuda and talk about how, uh, so the whole point of this fisherman character. How would the movie be different if the Beatles were in it? Where would you put the Beatles? If you were either casting this movie in the 60s and you had to put the Beatles in, who would they play?

Or would the Beatles be characters in the movie? I mean, none of these characters are as interesting as the Beatles, but if I had to do it, I think I'd make the Mandalorian George because I think George is the most amoral Beatle. What? I think so. Even with all his spirituality and all that?

Yes. He just was the most grumpy and kind of like, let's get on with it. Like I think he would leave everybody to die in the streets. Come on. Not all the time. George Harrison was the most like shoulder shrugging like, who cares, want to go home and go to sleep?

I think. Okay. Like when the Beatles got together in the 90s. That would be the argument for being the Mandalorian and mine. If you're both agreeing, it doesn't matter how you got there. Okay. But I think he's the Mandalorian. Grogoos Ringo.

Paul is the guy on the ship who's like flapping his arms around a lot and really doing a lot of activity, but we don't need him. And John Lennon is... You could have gotten a little bit easier on here, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know who John. I guess John Lennon's Rata. I don't know where else to put John.

See, I think I might put... Maybe John Sigourney Weaver. I don't know. Maybe. I think I might put... Let's see. You know, I might make George Rottah. Okay, that's funny.

And Paul would be Grogu. I can't figure it out. No, I can't do it. Okay. I don't know. Ringo is really Grogu, yeah. Ringo's Grogu. It could be John is the Mandalorian.

Paul is Rada. And George could be the Hutt twins. Hey, let's take this long and winding road back to Nal Huda where Grogu is the whole point of this fisherman character is he's just there to give Grogu some magic medicine. The antidote to the poison And so he takes it back Gives it to the Mandalorian Who wakes up And they go to the ship

And he's like, we got two options here, kid We can go on the run And we'll always be on the run Or we can stay and fight And Grogu's like, hell yeah brother He doesn't say it No, he's like Googuga, let's fight Grogo needs blood

He pulls out, you know He puts on his little gizmo from Gremlin's two headband. I mean, 10,000% Pizma walked so Grogu could run. There is no question. Yeah.

So they break back into the Twins Palace. They battle through the droids out there. I didn't even realize this bounty hunter that is coming after him throughout this. He's from other Star Wars. He was in Clone Wars and stuff like that. I didn't realize that. So this is not a first appearance.

Design-wise, he feels very of a piece of the clone. Wars. It's my understanding that the new guy, the new Star Wars guy in charge is very keen on bringing back a lot of these Clone Wars

things. Yes, because that's what Clone Wars was his thing. Yeah. So he wants to bring this character. But I'm not knowing the Clone Wars at all, I was like, oh, this is a cool new guy.

I guess I'll never know what his name is, but he was introduced in some other thing, you know. I don't care much about the stuff that happens in this last action sequence other than what if it was the last action hero? We get these two giant robots. that are Phil Tippett animated things.

Those seemed very warhammery, those two giant robots. And that was cool. I like to see the stop motion on those things. And Grohlop helps the Mandalorian to defeat them. Yeah, yeah, the young protect the old and the old protect the young. That's the way, right? That is the way. Never take off your mask.

No, the way is a song by Fastball, actually. Oh, never mind. I don't know. They fight their way in. They free Rada. They fight the twins. Roda fights the twins. They all collapse into the pit.

It's a big fight. Everyone's split up into their different fights. So Mando is fighting Embo. Rod is fighting his aunt and uncle. Gumbo is. I don't know what's doing. Harpo is fighting Chico. Harpo punching Chippo.

Harpo punches Margaret Dumas. It punches the old lady that he's playing cards. Oh, yeah, she can't take it there. Just Margaret Dumas. He does? He does? Yeah. Is it Margaret Dumont or is it the other woman that he punches?

I can never remember. But they're playing cards. Yeah, you're right. It's not Markets to mine. It's one of the women in the car. And he instigates a fist fight and he punches her in the stomach so hard that it lifts her off the ground. And she goes, oh, yeah, she can't take it there. It's such comedy fighting.

I feel like I feel bad. We're all laughing at. At no point do you think he's really hurt this person. Yeah, yeah. It is all very great. It's clearly a gag. It was not a thing he did on set because he was so into the Harpo character and they left it in, you know. Anyway.

Anyway, they're all fighting. They all collapsed into the pool of... Yeah, so the dragon's sake is going to kill them all. Force powers to pull Rata up. So Rada is safe. So the good guys are saved and the bad guys are Wurmbi. And the bounty hunter just goes like, peace out, just leaves, yeah. Yeah.

You paid me to fight for you, not to save you. He should have said that, but he doesn't talk, so. They got to escape. And so they call in. They call in the... No, they get up. They just appear. They just show up.

And they do an airstrike. They're like, we're got to blow up the hut palace. And they're like, but we're in the hut palace. Well, we got to get out in time. And so they have to Butch Cassidy jump from a high point as this blows up behind. It's so dumb. They fire on his location. And they're like, are you sure, dude?

And he's like, never been sure. Are you sure? We can't do that. Yeah. This is the beat of the movie, 100% I would lose if I was in charge. Like, it feels so much like, well, it's a Star Wars movie. It's got to end with some, like, X-Wings coming and shooting something. Yeah.

We don't need it at all. It's so unnecessary. It raises even more questions for me about, like, so the mission of the X-Wings now, they're going to activate an entire X-Wing squadron to save this, like, free agent bounty hunter who keeps screwing things up for them. Like, they just blow up this hut building for no real reason since the huts that have just been eaten by a giant snake. You know, there's no... It's just totally... And they jump from a high height

and Rado's like, that mode isn't that deep. But of course, they're fine. It doesn't matter. It's just a waste. Who cares? Well, we learn after the fact, as I said before.

They were feeding information to the Empire. Yes. So that's why they had to take them out, you know. But, yeah, Rodo stays and decides to work with the new Republic folks. And what's his name? The co-pilot or whatever pilot's like,

I think I've got a suit that'll fit you. It's like, no, you don't. Look at this guy. That's weird. He's wearing a New Republic Mumuu. Like there's no suit flight suit that fits a guy

with his slug body shape. Come on. Mando and Grogu is what I meant to say. They get in their ship and fly off into a new adventure. Mandalorian season four, who knows? Maybe that's where they're going. Maybe that's it.

That's the story. That's the movie. So to boil it down. As we said, to boil it down, the plot of this movie is the Mandalorian takes on a job, messes it up. gets in trouble,

gets saved from messing up the job. End of the movie. And like, if this was a, I could see a version of this where it's a stripped down crime thriller version of a,

of a Star Wars movie or where it works really well, but it still has to be so big and end with an X-wing blow up at the end and it's just, yeah, it's a, the movie doesn't fit that. It's like, sometimes you see a movie and you're like,

oh, this is like 10 pounds of movie in a five-pound bag. They put so much stuff. This feels very much like three pounds of movie in a 20-pound bag where you're like, I can't even find the movie

in the bag. Yeah. Yeah. Let's we're, you know, we're trending there already. Let's do our final judgments whether this was a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie we kind of liked. I'm going to say that like, yeah,

what you're saying is correct. The biggest problem that this movie has, I think, is it doesn't justify why it's a movie. Yeah. Like, it doesn't feel like a movie. And I'm not saying the stakes have to be high, but there has to be a character arc.

You know, like it has to feel like things are happening sort of in a inevitable progression rather than like, and then this thing happened and then this thing happens. It has to feel like there's a story. It is telling you a story, you know, and it doesn't really feel it's doing that. That said, I kind of like this movie. I think that it benefited from me having pretty rock bottom expectations. I'm at a point now where like I still love the Star Wars stuff I love and the rest of Star Wars stuff, new Star Wars stuff. new Star Wars stuff. I don't know.

Maybe I'll check in on it if there's a reason to, but I don't care that much anymore. So having those low expectations and feeling like, oh, this is a movie for kids, not necessarily for me. As I said before, I enjoyed it enough, particularly the stuff with the little guys. My whole letterbox review was, quote, let's do a silly one. And that's the way I felt about all that stuff where it's just like, yeah, we can be a little goofy here. So, you know, I have almost already forgotten about it, as you can see from my trying to summarize it. But I enjoyed it enough while I watched it. What, Elliot, you give a.

Oh, sure. I'm going to say that similar to the movie Solo, I think that this was not a Star Wars movie and was otherwise the same movie. I probably would have liked it more. If it was just like this bounty hunter episode of an adventure in a far off space fantasy world, but I think once you slap the Star Wars name on it and are in that world, even after the devaluation that that world has had over the past 20-some-odd years, I still feel like I'm expecting a little bit more. I'm expecting something a little bit more magical, a little more special.

And I think this is the first Star Wars movie where I dozed off for like a minute in the middle of it while seeing it. Like this is the first story, like seeing this was my son's first Star Wars movie that he was seeing in the theaters. And he seemed pretty kind of like not that engaged by it. And so even if this is supposed to be like one for the kids, like it didn't satisfy the kid. I was curious about that, yeah. Yeah. Afterwards, he was like, did you like it?

And he goes, it was okay. That's pretty fair. How old is your son? He's seven and a half. Okay. But he's seen the other movies and he got so into the world of Star Wars as a, as a thing to know about. You know, he liked the original movie so much.

And so I think, and then there's that, for me at least, there's that tinge of like, if this is the one for kids, why is this the one where the hero is supposed to be the morally gray character who has to kill to protect the memory of what his face looks like and things like. It feels like this movie is, it's like a mish mash. And so I'm going to call it

a bad, bad movie, but we've seen worse movies. It's not, it's not like I was, while we were watching it, I was not like, ugh, ugh, ugh, instead of just like, eh, all right. I wish they had, I wish they had like just try a little harder instead of, it felt, it felt a lot of like,

oh, we have the release date for the Mandalorian movie, so we got to get something done, you know, as opposed to what's the greatest, coolest story we could tell with these characters, you know, or what's one moment with them that's going to be so memorable that we got to put it on the big screen because it's going to be so cool, you know?

Yeah, and that's the kind of stuff that I hope for when I see a Star Wars movie. Stu, Will, what do you think? Yeah, I mean, that's, I'm going to jump in. I'm going to say this is a movie I, that is just about a movie I kind of liked. I feel like it wastes a little bit too much time in a bunch of places.

And as much as I like, you know, when I, watching the original Star Wars movies, like that stuff would be, like the establishing shots was the stuff that got me so excited. I feel like that, like, I've kind of lost a little bit of that now. I don't know why. Maybe something changed inside me. But all the stuff with the little guys I was a big fan of. And, yeah, yeah, I don't need, I don't need to see a jacked hut. I'm not into that. Somebody is.

Are you sure? But yeah, it's kind of missing any. It's missing any, like, magical moments that I feel like even, you know, I feel like Last Jedi had a few moments that were like, oh, wow, that's pretty crazy. To even, or what's the one with the prequel one? Oh, damn it. The one that Chris wrote. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I think that had some good stuff in it too. But, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, this one didn't really have any magical moments for me. Will, when you were just watching the movie, you just texted me, call the Oscars. So what did that mean? It's a five-star, transcendence statement of where we are as a country.

It's a statement of what the Star was French. I should be. No, I'm like kidding. This movie forgot to exist. It's a bad, bad movie. It's sort of the equivalent of, yeah, it forgot to have any point of view or stance or comment, really on anything at all.

It is like watching somebody, else play with action figures for two hours and you have to every know of them be like, why is that guy doing that? And he goes and the kid kind of goes like, because he's bad. And it's like, okay. And that's what it was like

for me. And again, I probably influenced that I started watching it at 11 o'clock at night. And so this movie finished at 1.12 a.m. And I've never been more glad to see the closing credits come up. I was like, thank God. And I just got out of there. And you're still tired from it. I'll never recover. So it's a little bit of

an unfair review. But I'm going to say it's not, it's inoffensive more than bad, but I'll say bad, bad, movie. It's, I feel like we live in a world right now where the general feeling

in terms of consumer products, things that are sold to people or stories they're told people is that's good enough. This will be good enough. Yeah, you know. And I feel like, And the equivalent to that.

It's not terrible. It's like, this is good enough. To me, it's like the smartest kid in class wrote a term paper an hour before it was due just so that he didn't get in trouble. It's like, this is all right.

I don't know. You obviously were not inspired when you did this. And there's enough glimmers of competence in here that I see. You could do something interesting, but you didn't do it here. John Faber was generally competent enough. I think the first season of Mandalorian is a really good time and earned its runtime, basically. I don't think I needed any more seasons of it. But it was a delight.

And it filled a, it filled a, had a nice simple, story that a lot of Star Wars stuff didn't have and it wasn't exposition heavy. And I thought it was, it like did a Star Wars thing that I had not seen done before in a nice enough way. And this is sort of like a video game cut scene that goes on for two hours and 12 minutes. Put that on the poster. Yeah. All fair. Sunscreen companies calculate SPF by testing it on volunteers' butts. There is a can of spam. in the Mariana Trench. A Nobel Prize-winning physicist from the Manhattan Project invented modern speed bumps.

Meso-American native people invented kidney medicine that glows in the dark. On the podcast secretly incredibly fascinating, we explore this kind of amazing stuff. Stuff about ordinary topics like sunscreen and spam and speed bumps. Topics you'd never expect to be the title of the podcast, secretly incredibly fascinating. Find us by searching for the word secretly in your podcast app. and at maximum fun.org. If you like too many podcasts, you'll love SoundEEP with John Lick Roberts.

It's got clips from all your favourite podcasts such as Diary of a Tiny CEO. Leonard Sprague, tell me how you make your money. I go to the beach and I steal people's towels. Remember armour? Do remember the trend of everyone whacking themselves on their head with hammers and mallets when they wanted to lose weight?

And Elty John's Lobbly songs. I'm here today with Kiki D. Hello, Kiki D. Hello. Oh, Elton. There's dozens of episodes to catch up on and brand new episodes going out right now. So, if you want far, far, far too many podcasts,

then look for Soundteep on maximum fun. Boop, Boop. I'm going to take a moment to talk to you about Factor. The Flop House is sponsored in part by Factor. I'm not just randomly bringing it up, guys. They're helping us, the show that we're on and you love. They have paid us. money to talk about them and why we like them. And we were going to do it. Luckily, we do like them.

Luckily, we do like it. Luckily, this is a product we do like. So that money is just the icing on the cake, the money icing. Um, you know, eating well can be hard, but sometimes that's not about will willpower. It's about a setup. You got to have the stuff around. You got to have it easy to make. You can't, you know, you want to put as few impediments in your way if you want to eat well. Factor can help you hit your goals this season without planning, grocery runs, or cooking, because they've got meals built around your nutrition goals. What goals might those be? They've got high fiber stuff, high protein, carb conscious options for strength and workout recovery,

Stuart Wellington. Check out Factor's Muscle Pro Collection. The factor is fresh, never frozen, over 100 rotating weekly meals, including globally inspired flavors like Asian and Mediterranean. So there's always something new to look forward to. And you don't have to go out and get it. Ooh, boo, boo, boo, the outside world. Actually, that's someone who works from home.

I would love to go out on the outside world more. But most people don't have that problem. So they're delivered straight to your door and they're ready to eat in two minutes. So you have more time for everything you love this spring. I have eaten and enjoyed these meals. I can have high standards when it comes to foods. I don't typically enjoy pre-made stuff, but I have enjoyed these Factor Meals quite a bit,

and I have enjoyed their convenience even more. So head to FactorMeals.com slash flop 50 off. That's the numeral 50, and use code flop 50 off to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscription only while supplies last. until September 27, 26. See website for more details.

Are you looking to connect with your family? You know, our brains make memories, but we forget those sometimes, especially as we get older and more parents. One way to keep those memories front of brain is with photos. And one way to share those photos is with aura frames. The great thing about the gift of an aura frame, is you can preload all the photos

and add a gift message before it ships so that your dad can put that on the shelf when his friends come over and say, hey, look at my cool kid, and he doesn't have to pull up his phone and pull up his Instagram and show you the pictures. He's got them on the frame

and they just show him those. His friends are going to have lost interest by that point if you got to put those on the phone. No, you can have those photos on display in his aura frame. You can also share your photos and videos effortlessly. You can download the app on your phone and text the photo straight to the frame.

So you don't have to worry. You can cut out the middleman. You do not have to worry about your parents figuring that sort of thing out. And you can keep adding anytime from anywhere. So maybe you get caught up in some kind of international game of esuvionage and you're trapped and you need to, the only way you can survive is by sending an image of yourself to your parents or a frame. You can do that from anywhere.

That's actually a pretty good idea for like a movie thing. Anyway, now, this is an easy way to shop for your parents, specifically if I think we got Father's Day coming up. Hey, it's a great Father's Day gift. If you want the digital photo frame that is picked as number one by wirecutter, you can save money on it now by visitingoraframes.com. For this limited time, listeners can get $35 off of their best-selling Carver mat frame with code flop. That's A-U-R-A-Fraims.com promo code flop. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

I'd like to take a few moments before we move on to mention some things I'd like to plug from the world of Elliot Kalen. And guess what? It's all the same stuff that I usually plug. My new comic Barbarian Behind Bars is roaring towards the finish of its five-issue miniseries, as we're recording this, issue four just came out, and issue five will be coming out soon. Find out the exciting, thrilling conclusion, for now, perhaps,

to the story of Dark Horror, the Barbarian. Will he get out from behind bars? You're going to have to read issue five to find out. Harley Quinn, I continue to write for DC Comics, despite the wishes of many Harley Quinn fans. And my Bat Quinn storyline, the Hark Night Return, the Hark Night Returns is currently running

and it's actually getting some of the best feedback that I've gotten during the run so far so I hope people enjoy it. This is Harley Quinn as her understanding of what a grim, gritty Batman would be like and that one's continuing and it's a six-issue storyline and I think it's going along well.

So it's a comedy book that features primarily female characters. I would imagine you're going to get weirdos complaining about you. The weird thing is I mostly get complaints from people who are who don't like that it's a funny book. They want it to be an adventure book

rather than a, or like, this is how we supposed to take Harley Quinn seriously? I'm like, the clown lady. The clown lady, yeah. Yeah, but I love writing it. So I hope that some people enjoy it, but this back when storyline people seem to be liking. And my book, joke farming, how to write nonsense joke farming, how to write comedy,

another nonsense from the University of Chicago Press is still out there and will continue to be out there forever, I guess. Pick it up. I just finished recording the audiobook version of it. People have asked me about will there be an audiobook? I just finished recording it.

I'm not sure when that will be out, but I think relatively soon. So stay tuned to this space. I heard when that comes out, if you listen to it on like two times speed, it's actually illegal to do it. You'll get arrested. It's too dangerous.

Yeah, yeah. Hey, let's answer some letters from listeners. Sure. They've done so much for us. Let's do the bare minimum for them. Yeah, and I'm sure they don't even know who I am, but I'll get in on this. Yeah, yeah.

This first letter is a John... Let's get in on this. This first letter is from a John last name withheld. Hey, guys, I just came out with a Mandalorian movie. I hope you like it. Can't we get what you say about it. From John's chef, last name withheld. John, you know, was an improviser.

He did, he was on an improv team in I on Chicago. Oh, really? Back in the early 90s. Yeah. Like around when, like, Seth Myers was doing it and Ian Roberts and... He's made other tremendous movies. I will never... I will never forget seeing swingers for the first time when I was an adolescent.

I used to do this thing where this guy in New Jersey had a program where you would see a movie before it was released. He would arrange to have a movie before it's release and sometimes he'd have speakers afterwards. And I would see this every week. And they showed swingers. And it was just, it was like, I was, I think 14 or 15 or whatever age I was when it came out. But I was like, I thought it was so funny. And I was like, what a cool movie. Like, what a cool fun.

And I haven't watched it in years. But I'm like, there's something about like seeing that movie, movie, it being like, this guy's going to, I can't wait to see what else this guy is going to do. Yeah. And I just, I want him to do more stuff that's his own stuff. The funny parts of swingers are really genuinely funny. It's got like a really sure hand on its comedy. And it was very cool until every uncool person.

Yes. It wanted to be cool. Well, it's like when Austin Powers came out, it felt like it was the cutting edge of movie comedy. And it so quickly became like, oh, this again. Yeah. Yeah, do I make you a horny baby? Great. No, baby, no.

This letter is from Kevin Last Name Withheld, who writes, Hey, Peaches, in 2024, I finished the book, The Brothers Kermazov by Dostoevsky. While reading it, I found my receipt for the purchase of the book in the pages. It was purchased from B. Dalton in December of 2006. This book had been in my possession through multiple moves for nearly two decades before I actually read it.

What's strange is I read many longer and more difficult books in that span, but for whatever reason, I continued to pass over Brothers Kermazov again and again whenever I finished a book and needed a new one. Brothers Kermazov was excellent. I'm glad I read it, and now it's a title that's been on my shelf the longest without, and now the title that has been on my shelf the longest without being read is the Adventures of Auging March, which I'm sure I'll get around to eventually. Your recent episode in the film Mercy

featured two book-related letters so I figure this is fair game. What is the book or series or author you keep putting off even though you tell yourself you want to get to it someday Best Kevin Last Name With Hope? I think this is a funny letter to me

because I'm literally sitting next to a bookshelf with many books on. This is my two-read bookshelf and there's so many books on it where I'm like, yeah, I've owned this book for a long time without reading it. There was a, like, I had a, the, this, I think it was a year or two ago. I finally read the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 2A, volume 2B, books that I remember

buying on vacation when my son was a baby and he is now 12 years old. And I'm like, but the, so I feel like nobody should feel ashamed for holding onto a book for a long time and never getting around to reading it and they finally get around to read it, especially when it's a book like the Brothers Karamazov, which is like, that book is already a hundred years old, you know, more than 100 years old. Like it's not going to, the book, the time is only going to help you appreciate that book more because you're going to be older and you'll have more life behind you. That being said, I also have the first volume of remembrance of things past or in search of lost time,

the pro series, and I'm like, I'll get to that at some point, probably. But the other one is I keep telling myself, when I finally finish the job that I'm on, I will finally take out from the library, Gargantua and Pantagrol, and I'll finally read it. I've wanted to read it for years. It sounds like it's super funny. As funny as a 17th century French philosophy book can be. But that's one where I've been putting it off for a long, long time. That being said, just on a whim recently,

I got from the library and read the biography of Samuel Johnson, which is like 900 pages of just Samuel Johnson going out to dinner and saying witty things. So I should really pick up these books and finally read them. I can't remember whether I mentioned the specific thing on the show before, but that's never stopped us in the past. I don't think it's like been on my shelf for particularly long because I can remember exactly when I got it, and I'll get you that in a second.

But the thing that sprung to mind is the mirror in the light, which is the third book from Hillary Mantle about the Tudor Court after Wolf Hall and bring up the bodies. And the thing is like I read both of those books, the earlier books. I loved them. I was excited to read the third book. but I got it for Christmas right before COVID hit, and we all went into lockdown.

And my brain was not equipped to read something that complex at that point. And now it's years later. And I'm like, I can't remember the like hundreds of historical figures she has put into these books and what the relationship is to one another. And so I just haven't picked it back up again because I'm like, I don't think I'll follow it anymore. you know, much as if George R.R.R. Martin ever finished the next book. I'd be like, I have no idea what's going on at this point. Oh, I could fill you in, buddy. Yeah.

The, I have been meaning to read the Fafird and the Grey Mouser stories by Fritz Lieber forever. I know I would love them. I just never get around to it. So that I would really like to read a series of. Stuart, you know what we should do? I just read for the first, I started reading those recently, and I read volume four, because it's the first one that fell into my hands, and volume one, we should read those together. You should, you should start reading, and let's read them together, because they're super fun.

I'd love to talk about them with you. Yeah, awesome. I guess it's a boring answer, but when I hear this question, it's the book Dune. I've had Dune since I was 14 years old and been meaning to read it, and I'm sure I would like it. I love a lot of sort of adjacent things. I like, I mean, not that these things are all identical, but it's like I like Lord of the Rings. I like Game of Thrones.

Again, and I like all the Isaac Asimov Foundation series, and I like Stranger in a Strangling. I mean, stuff where it's like, well, this is probably going to hit something for you. And I've just, I've had it since then. I don't know what it is. Every time I pick it up, I'm like, I don't know. There's just so much happening. And I just put it down.

You know, even as someone who likes Dune less than people who like Dune, I found it very readable even at, you know, 800 pages or whatever. I know. I think the thing about Dune is I think you should try to go into it. I've read it a, I've read the first book, Dune book, I don't know, probably four times. And the sequels I have, it's like as you get farther into the series, I have read them less and less until there's some I just have not read. Because you only really need to read the first book.

But I think go into it being like, as you would with any science fiction or anything, there's going to be a lot of world stuff I don't quite get a hang of but let me not worry about it because it's so, I think it's written so beautifully, you know?

Okay. For me, at least, Dune cast a specific kind of spell. The only thing I can really compare it to is when I finally took Stuart Wellington's advice and started reading Gene Wolf novels and it was like, once I started reading Shadow of the Torturer,

where I was like, oh man, this is like if this is like Dune kicked up a notch even in terms of like, I got to figure out what's going on here. So I guess read Dune, or read Shadow the Torturer, and then read Dune, and you'll be like, oh man, this Dune is a breezy read. He's not using, every page doesn't have five antiquated words

I have to look up on my phone to figure out what he's talking about. The second, you know, very, very important letter is from Jonathan Last Name Withheld, who writes, Hello, Peaches. I was listening to an old, episode of the show where Stuart explained he could make many songs into songs about him by replacing you

with Stu. I realized you could do this with Man and Dan. You can be songs like the Beatles, Nowhere Dan, Leonard Cohen's, I'm Your Dan, and the classic song where Neil Diamond explains to a girl that she will soon need a Dan. Songs about

Elliot pending. Jonathan, last name with help. It was a real problem when my kids realized that Elliot is an anagram for toilet. That was not helpful. I mean, I have one more L than the word toilet, but otherwise it mostly works. But, you know, but it's hard to fit to songs, yeah. Yeah.

Will, there must be a lot of songs that you could put Will into, though, right? Yeah, sometimes. I'm just a Will? Yeah. Fool on the Will. I'll get back to you, but I'm excited to figure that out. Will crazy after all these years. Oh.

Jag a little will. Schoolhouse rock. I'm only a will. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, of course, the Metallica's first album, Willem all. Uh-huh.

And the Willing moon. Yeah. Anywho. License to Will. Yeah. Shoot to Will. Hey, bungalow will. What did you will?

Bunga O Will. The ruin's that. Just okay. Just taking one name and replacing it with another name. They're similar name. Bill and Will are basically the same name too. It's heartbreaking. It is.

Oh, I'm shattered. Let's recommend some movies. Movie we've seen recently or not so recently. It doesn't matter. I don't know why. I always specify that. That might be a better use of your time. I went out and saw the sheep detectives,

a movie that the moment my wife, like I saw this trailer, I sent it to my wife because I'm like, this is 100% going to be up Audrey's alley because it's a cozy mystery. And cozy mystery with cute animals? Yeah, sure. We've made this mystery even cozier

with the addition of sheep. Yeah. But it's kind of amazing. Like the movie manages to be, you know, a functional mystery, extremely funny and also, like, touching and about real emotions at the same time while also being a movie about sheep who are solving a crime. And I feel like, you know, there are certain, like, spousalding. family films that come along like your Paddington twos or your babes, and I'm comfortable now adding the sheep detectives to that class. I really, really enjoyed it.

So that's my recommendation. I saw that movie, and I also really enjoyed it. I thought it was really good. Yeah. I'm going to recommend another big-budget sequel, similar to Mando and Grogue. But this one, I think, captured kind of the spirit of the original material a little better for me. and that, of course, was the recent smash hit,

The Devil Wears Prada 2. As a fan of the original, I feel like it updates a number of the things. It omits the elements you don't like, specifically Adrian Grenier. And I feel like it's such a joy to get more of Merrill Streep doing this character. She's so fun,

and she's such like, I don't know, she's such a great performer. It's just great to have her in a movie being kind of mean. And the movie also takes advantage of putting her in situations that are comedic just because, of course, it would be very silly to see her have to go to a normal cafeteria or fly coach, for instance. So I found this to be a lot of fun. And it was like just what I was like kind of hoping for from this movie. Yeah.

It delivered. Yeah. And it has a sequel, it kind of overdelivered because there's always a little bit of doubt with a sequel. Like, are they going to be able to recapture? So when they do it, it's kind of, it's a feat. It's a feat to be a good sequel.

Especially considering how much time is past, you would think that there would be a lot of effort to just do a lot of like, remember this. Sure, right. And they did not that much of that. Yeah. I think a lot of the original team was involved. That's often.

Yeah. That can help. My recommendation is going to be a bone temple. 28 years later, the bone temple. I just saw it last week. And I know it came out like a year ago. I was a fan of 28 days later. Didn't see 28 weeks later.

28 years later, I thought was good. But in a lot of Danny Boyle films, although I really enjoyed the ride, it felt like a little bit sort of disheveled in a way, although I enjoyed it well enough. And the bone temple was like, awesome. It was just like a really well-constructed story with a terrifically fearsome villain. And I was compelled and just thrilled the entire time. And I'm not in the bag for zombie stuff always.

I'm not a guaranteed give a crap about the zombie landscape. But I was, this whole movie had me. And I just was so grateful to be wrapped. You know, just to be like my attention was just so thoroughly held that I had finished. I'm like, oh yeah, good story, good movie, just a solidly good movie in a way that I was, I loved it. Yeah, it's really special. It's really good. And it, I feel it's too bad that it was released so soon after 28 years later because I think that affected how many people went to see it and how well it did. I think it, if they, I think people kind of didn't realize it was a different movie. I didn't at first when it came out.

Yeah. I remember seeing the billboards for it. Didn't they just come out with one of these? Is this like D.L.C? What's going on here? Downloadable content. And 28 years later, I liked. I like 20 years later, but this was just was really a special film.

Yeah, it's really incredible. And it's rare that you get to get into the psychology of the zombie, you know, to, like, which was really good. And I was genuinely moved by that whole bit. Yeah. That's a good movie. I'm also going to recommend a movie that's got a little bit of the spooky, a little bit of the creepy about it. little bit creepy about it. And is it a Czech comedy

directed by Oldrich Lipsky? Yes, indeed it is. That's right. This is a movie that was mentioned briefly in our Evan Dorkin episode. This is the mysterious castle in the Carpathians. This time, it is a parody

of a specific Jules Verne novel, but with a lot of added stuff to it. And it was not as immediately funny to me as Dinner for Adele or Lemonade Joe, the other Lipsky movies that I've recommended on this podcast. podcast, but it gets really, really funny. And it's just like, these guys are, this opera singer is vacationing in the Carpathian

mountains. And the whole thing is he's singing, he's constantly shattering glass and things like that. And his, his love has disappeared and he's got to, he wants, he's looking for her. And he becomes convinced that she is in a castle near this village that he's in where people think that the devil is there and there's spooky things going on. And it turns it to be a little bit more science fictiony. And there are some, there are some gags in it that I think are so funny. And there's a lot of Jan Spankmeyer designed kind of like steampunk things.

And it looks really good. As it went on, I thought it got sillier and sillier and funnier and funnier. And it's readily available on Tobey. So there's nothing stopping you from watching it. And that's the mysterious castle in the Carpathians. Again, this Oldrich Lipsky, his movies are the closest I feel like I've come to finding Mel Brooks movies made by someone who is not Mel Brooks. And I think they're really funny. I came close to dialing one of these up the other day.

I know that's not as good as actually watching it, but that is the furthest you've gotten me toward watching a Czech New Wave movie yet. Well, these are not Czech-New Wave movies. These are just Czech-Movies. It's not part of the new wave. Maybe you could make an argument that Lemonade Joe is a little new-wavy in some ways. You got to sneak like a bikini in the title or something and dance all over it.

No, the thing is like, I'll like it. I don't know what's... This is like that book question. I don't know why I haven't. I should watch a genuine classic of... I should watch closely watch trains. You should watch closely watch trains is, is legitimately a movie on a different level.

That's just, I think that's an amazing movie. But there's something, there can be something, as much as it makes me feel like a Philistine sometimes. There are times that I'm like, I don't know if I want to watch a subtitled movie right now, but then when I watch them, I really enjoy them. You know, I start to forget that I'm having to check the subtitles and it makes me look at the screen and not distracted, you know.

But you do have to be in a movie, sorry, a mood already where you're like, I'm not going to be distractible right now. Like sometimes I'm like, I know that I can't do this. My attention is not where it needs to be. Yeah. Even if I'm going to like it. I think the one you might like the most, Dan, is dinner for Adele. Or Adele has not had supper yet or whatever.

Because that's the most, it's not a parody of Sherlock Holmes. It's a parody of like American detective pulp fiction, but it's a. Like that too. There's something kind of, I think you might like that one more, but I don't know. I think his movies are very funny. I saw another one of his movies recently called Four Murders is Enough, Dear. And like that one, I think, didn't think it was quite as funny as the others that didn't quite hang together the same way. But there was still some very funny stuff in it.

It is a great title. That's a Gialo title right there, baby. That was one where, this was one where there are two competing crime gangs that are looking for a million dollar check that has fallen into the hands of this school teacher who's kind of a nevishy guy. And they keep killing each other, the different gangs. But he keeps getting caught with bodies. So people think that he's a serial murderer and he becomes famous in the town and everyone's going. of him and respects him now because they think he's a serial killer and he's like every time he opens a door a body falls out and there's a scene where he's with the police he's like every

time open a door a body falls out see and he's just opening doors in his apartment as dead bodies fall out of it amazing um well before we uh close up shop on another episode will is there anything you want to plug um i guess just my podcasts which are screw it we're just going to talk about the beetles and screw it we're just going to talk about comics uh they are what is advertised. It's just folks chatting about those things. So check them out. You say that there is another podcast inside of Skuit we're just going to talk about comics called

Screwut. We're just going to talk about war games. And that comes up a fair amount. It's coming up more and more, which is weird because that movie is less and less important. As time goes on and we somehow keep finding reasons to go into our sub-podcast. But there's a couple of podcasts where when a new episode comes out, I put them right to the top of my queue. And Skort we're going to talk about comics is, we're just going to talk about comics. is one of them.

And I always enjoy it. I do with my brother and his opinions are steadfast and immovable. And the only, we've bristled recently because if I don't like something and he likes it,

he will not let the podcast move on until I change my opinion out loud. And then we can continue and it's kind of funny. And you and your brother, Kevin, are both master improvisers. You know, you're so funny at picking up a bit and then just running with it.

And, you know, I think that's an overstatement, but I do appreciate it. You invented improv. when you and Kevin started the Compass players. I have two brothers, and none of us are emotional people. We are deadpan, low energy, non-dynamic, and all three of us do improv comedy on stage.

And to me, it's the funniest thing that any of us have ever done is just that we do that. That at Thanksgiving dinner are three of the stoniest, most still men. And we'll be like, what do you think of how's your improv going? How's your improvised comedy career goes? Three guys you should be librarians and arguing about how to properly categorize encyclopedias

and yet we go on stage. Well, but I would say if you're looking to, if you're interested in improv and you live in a place where they don't have an improv class or theater to go to, Will's book, How to Be the Greatest Improvisor on Earth is a genuinely really good book about it. And honestly, if you want a free copy, this is true.

I'm going to save my email address right here. Wines at Gmail, H-I-N-E-S and Gmail. I'll give a free copy to anybody. If you're curious, I wish I'd known that before I bought a copy of it.

That's right. Just because I know improvisers are broke a lot. Yeah, that's true. I certainly would appreciate it if you buy it, but... But when I, it was a text that I went to

multiple times when I was writing my book, joke farming, because I thought, what you said about improv and how it works, I thought was just really helped me get to the heart of some comedy principles.

That was very helpful. You know, I'm a dead pan an unemotional man. And I have... Shut up. I've done okay in podcasting, and I'm not a good improviser.

So if you want someone who has those qualities, but also is talented in some way, then you should listen to Will's shows. Stuart and I are constantly like, how is it that Dan's the only one of us that has any improv training of any kind when he's so quick to shut down bits?

We'll start a bit and he'll go, don't put me on the spot. I don't know. It's honestly very funny response. Well, I mean, there are rules in improv where you're not supposed to just like throw someone else into a thing that you invented. Yeah, I don't know.

I haven't taken any improv classes. Yeah, I wouldn't either, yeah. Anyway, thank you for being here. We'll try and make it less than how many 15 years. Yeah, let's have Will back. Hey, no, I'm happy with every 15 years schedule. I'm happy. I'm truly proud to be a part of this podcast universe

to whatever degree that has happened, so I love it. Two episodes, I'm psyched about it. Thank you for going out and seeing this movie, making an effort to leave your home for this podcast. In the middle of the night. My honor to be the least happy member of a four-person audience, 1030 at the American.

At my theater, there were some old people who were cheering every time Grogu did anything, and that kind of made me happy. Cool. Some like wine moms were in the Nighthawk. That's great. Just loving it at 3pm. People loving a movie is great.

It was a noticeably stony audience when I went to see it. They did not seem to be reacting to it much at all. But maybe they were still dealing with a hangover having to sit through the Masters of the Universe trailer. Hey, maybe it'll be on a future episode. Maybe not. But, you know, stick around, find out. If you like this podcast, we're part of a network. Hey, we're part of a network of a podcast.

It's called Maximum Fun. Go to Maximum Fun.org. Check out the other great podcasts on said network. Also, thank you to Alex Smith. He goes by the name Howell Dottie on the internet. He is our producer and makes this all work. It's kind of important to have someone do those things. The reason when you're listening to this episode,

you won't hear my younger son walk in and ask me, when am I going to be done, is because Alex will do the work of removing that from the audio. So thank you, Alex. You're doing it. Thank you, Alex. But for the flop house, I have been Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington.

I'm Ellie Kalen, and we've been joined by guest Will Hines. Expert. Expert improvisatory. Pick that cue right up. Yeah. It takes years of trading to be able to do what I just did. So we're talking about a movie about a little kid and his dad, adopted dad

going on adventure it's called Dutch man we can't stop talking about Dutch you can't stop talking about Dutch just like America Dutch fever join the national conversation

watch Dutch it'd be so funny if they're like to bring America together to heal us we're starting something called the national conversation we're all going to watch

the same movie and then talk about it together and that movie is they have a rotating barrel with movie names in it and they pick it up movie is Dutch starring Ed O'Neill.

Yeah. And that's how the Civil War finally started again. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artists-owned shows. Supported directly by you.