The Reel Rejects - STAR WARS Is In Serious Trouble...

Episode Date: August 22, 2026

Star Wars: Starfighter & Ahsoka Season 2 had their debut at D23. Greg sits down with Kristian Harloff to talk about the current state of Star Wars after D23. With Starfighter, Ahsoka Season 2, the future of the movies, and a new era of Lucasfilm taking shape, can Star Wars become a major cultural event again? Did years of Disney+ shows hurt the brand? Does Star Wars need a bigger plan moving forward? And what would it actually take to get audiences excited again? We get into all of that, plus what Star Wars can learn from Marvel, the importance of moving beyond Episode IX, and whether the franchise can truly make a comeback. Follow Kristian Harloff:    / @thekristianharloff   Intense Suspense by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Follow Us On Socials:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/  Tik-Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@reelrejects?lang=en Twitter: https://x.com/reelrejects Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ Music Used In Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Happy Alley by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB:  https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm going to have popcorn in my teeth the entire time. What's going on, ladies and gentlemen? I am joined today by the one and only Christian Harlov. It's good to be here with you, Greg. I'm excited to be here. Oh, my God. It's the second thing we're filming today. That's true.

This would be the first one, though, right? This is the first one that goes up. We just watched Howard the Duck. It's a Lucasfilm day for us. That's what it is. It's a Lucas film day. Like how he did that. Whenever Christian comes back to L.A., we normally just hang out.

We don't ever film stuff together. And now all we're doing is filming stuff together. That was it literally. Spent the most time together today. It's because we're filming everything. But yeah, I think that that's what we said we both liked is we normally get food together or we'll have a drink or just, you know, bullshit. But work needed to be done. Definitely.

Well, today, I mean, since you're here, I was like, I want to talk some Star Wars because I have had thoughts about Star Wars. I went to D-23 and I paid attention to the reception or lack of there after. This is not some like clickbaity drama thing because I'm sure the thumbnail, whatever I concoct is going to say something like, can Star Wars be saved? And I mean it though. Like can Star Wars actually be saved because I am at a point with it where I am starting to actually feel that real concern for the brand. Because there's a long time where like I know people talk about Disney killed it and whatever. But there's been things that I've been paying attention to going, this might really be in more trouble than people are out. actually acknowledging where it's at.

So I want to dive into it with a lot of specificity. But before that, I want to mention that one thing that Christian I've been doing is that he, it's always the first sentence. I don't know how to get through. What's the first sentence we say about what we're doing? Well, you're better at this than I am. If they are aware of me, then you hear me talking about, but if not, one of the things that I think has been very different lately is how things are getting made.

and you look at whether it's look at what obsession did. Oh wait. Are we talking about Star Wars? What are you talking about? I'm about the project that we're working about. Oh,

that's what you're doing. I was like, I didn't know if you're talking about your project or you're talking about it. You very well what you're saying could be talking about Star Wars. No, no, but I said,

but it may be so, but it's also, but it kind of plays, it absolutely plays into what we're working on together because you've got obsession, you've got, I think if you would have heard the third one, you would have known where I was going with it,

but backrooms and you like Chris Stockman's movie, right? And you look at those and what they've done. And Marquisplier, the people, they kind of bypassed. You call them Markey player. Markipler, what do I do? Markiplier. Markiplier. Markiplier.

That's up. So I do it. I've been back to Long Island. But yeah, you look at what those, what all of them did and the way they kind of bypassed, they went past the system. And I just saw recently, I think it was like the ringer that had this whole article on how independent TV is being made now. And they're getting past the gatekeepers and,

no longer saying, well, I got a good script. I got something, too. Well, great. Well, you got a great script, but we want to change this, this, this, and this, and then that. We want to put that person, that person, and you're left going, oh, you just had a credit on it and you have no involvement in it. So I wrote something with my writing partner, Martini Peritori, and she is brilliant. And we said, we want to just write and star in this thing and build around us, like, with talent. And I, and we have a really great director on board, which we haven't announced yet,

but we will soon. And then I said, Roxy had read it. Yeah. And she said, Greg asked me if it was good. And we laugh about it because you're like, is it though?

And if I can interrupt, with everything Christian just said, I heard all that. And if I'm being totally honest, in my head, I'm not doing the eye-rolling thing where I'm like, oh my God,

a guy building a project around himself that he wrote, this is probably shit. That was like literally how my brain operated because in LA you hear something like that a lot. And most of the time it does just seem like something where someone's trying to make themselves a star is normally what it just comes across as. 100%. And then when I was hanging out with him, I actually asked to read it. And I have no qualms giving honest feedback.

I have to read a lot of friends. So I gave it to. Yeah. Literally why I gave it to. I give friends. I mean, I've had opportunities where people want me to be a producer on it. And I had to be really honest with them of like why. And sometimes it could be really uncomfortable because they're friends.

But I'm willing. I know that's just what I have to do if, if, if I'm being asked to give feedback. And this was something that he wrote and I read it. And I was so surprised by how much I ended up loving it because it started getting my brain going on like, oh, you could do this, this next season, this, or this next episode of directions you can go. I found like the creative juices in my brain going. And I found it all rooted in the characters.

So I was like, wow, this is so much more than just, I need to become a famous actor or something. I was like, this is something really cool and different. And very surprised. I was like, no wonder you're getting momentum. And no wonder you're able to get a person on board who can direct it with a really, really impressive IMDB is all I'll say, you know. Yeah.

And well, that was the thing to it. And he responded the same way that you did, right? And he came back and said, I'm really impressed with this. I want to be involved with it. and was because for me, it's more so, and you love, I think you love the I Play Rocky trailer, right? Yeah. That was inspiring to me, not because I have no interest in,

whether people want to believe this or not, I have no interest of like you said. You can see where people would say, oh, this guy wants to just put himself in the forefront of B star. I want to tell this story. I love the character. I love the characters in general, and I think because you can see it when you read the script,

like, there's bits of my personality in there. And there's things in there that I know that people are like, oh you haven't because I went to theater school I've been an active before done this but I haven't done it in quite a bit like this is I'm not I'm not going to do Shakespeare I'm doing a character that I know I'm doing a character that I know where the story goes I have six seasons in general where in my head where it goes you and I were talking about exactly what you just said like it can go here it can go it can go here what if you did this and it it involves podcasting it involves relationships it involves generations and all those things and it's just

it's like a thing that I want the audience to say, we did this. We've been calling it on my channel. We've been calling it our show, because it's like it really is the audience of show. They can walk around and say, we did that. We were able to make that happen. That's the beauty of what, thank God,

because of what you do here, what I do in my channel. We're lucky enough that we have people who support us that want to see us do things, but they gotta believe in the project. Yeah, and I really believe in the project. So it's a really, it is a great script. The pilot for it is great. So he's a producer on it by that.

We didn't say that. Yeah. Yeah. And I was, I specifically asked what can I do to? I wasn't like, let me write. I asked what I can do to get to become a producer on it. And that's how much I believe in it. I was like, I have to like put myself out there for this.

And it's called trending. And there's going to be a Kickstarter. Not now, but it should be coming out soon. Yeah. So if you put, so that works. Thanks for bringing that up. Is that that, and it's a process. I'm learning about Kickstarter too.

I didn't know anything about it. Like, and it's, you have to, first thing to do is you have to apply. And so then once they approve you, then you have to go through the pre thing, which is like 30 days. So at this time, we're like right around the corner to getting approved. So if calculations are correct, it should be anywhere between like right at mid-September until mid-October is where it's usually runs for 30 days. Okay, cool. So maybe it goes to like, you know, September 20th until October 20th, but it's going to be in that range. Cool.

So yeah, guys, keep a lookout for that. Thank you. And well, you'll hear us probably talk a little bit more about it. closer to the date. Now, that only took like 10 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. That's what people showed up. That's why they clicked on the video. So they're going to be like, I want to hear about the project. So as we transitioned back into Star Wars and creativity, I have like some minor talking points. Yeah. Some minor ones. But where this stem from is that D23 happened. And it got me thinking about a D23 that occurred a couple years ago. That was when they first announced Hayden Christensen coming back, the Obi-1-Kinobi

show, Asoka, and D-23 was dominated that year by Star Wars News. It was super exciting. I don't know when this was, obviously a few years ago when they announced all that. And then at D-23, after the Marvel panel, which I feel like was a mistake, they should have done Star Wars before. After the Marvel panel, they play the Asoka Season 2 trailer, Hayden Christensen's there. They play a it. They just move on. Ryan Gosling and Sean Levy play the Starfighter trailer, which is good. It's a good trailer. Yeah. But then they just move on.

And then there's no hype following this. And it made me flashback to when they first announced Asoka, to when hating, like it used to be a big deal that hating Christensen is back. And now it's just a thing that we have been conditioned to be normalized and used to and it does not feel special anymore. And that's a big problem. I mean, look at Mandalorian failing at enough.

Like, it failed. It failed. It massively underperformed at the box office. And some people might push back me like, well, Star Wars, they pushed out too much content. And that's a word you call it content now. Now it's Star Wars is content now. And they pushed out too much of it. And it was all on television.

But what really struck me with the thought that I had was, oh, but the movies now are rare. They're rare movies. they shouldn't have a failure at the box office when movies are rare. And then they're announcing an Asoka season two, which really does seem just catered to people who are really invested in the TV shows and the core base, but it's not going to reach past that. And Starfighter, that looks good. And it looks so much better than I actually thought for Sean Levy directing it,

because I like Sean Levy's movies more than most people, I feel. I like Sean Levy's movies. I think they're really enjoyable. But the last thing I expected to be like, wow, this looks actually really cool. We didn't really get a taste of like the story in it, but there's some like cool visual, aerial direction with the, whatever the fucking, the jets.

Yeah. What are they called? The X-Wing. The X-Wing. The X-Wed to blame. With the X-wings. Some stuff that look really cool. At the same time when I saw it,

I know this is going to come across negative. And is that I can obviously go, like many people who said this, positively about Mandalorian and Grogu. Like, I just expected a fun movie and I had a fun time. And I think we're at a point where like, that's not good enough anymore. A fun movie and a good time. And that's kind of the impression that I got like, this looks better than Mandalorian. I'm excited Ryan Gosling's here.

And one thing I think they're doing that's smart is it does take place after episode nine. Yeah. Which is super important. At the same time, no real hype following anything of what happened. There's no more. it's not a conversation in the zeitgeist anymore. And to me, I'm like, that's a really bad sign of where we're at with Star Wars. Yeah.

But what do you think? Oh, man, a lot to break down there, too, because I agree with a lot of it. But I think that when you go and you start with the D23 announcement side of it, of the excitement behind it, too. I initially thought that Star Wars should have been after Marvel, but not with the panel that they gave. Okay. Because I kind of go back and take it on a sports side of things where baseball, used to be America's pastime in like the 50s, right? And then football kind of overshadowed it.

That was Star Wars. Star Wars was like the big geek thing. It was the number one thing. Marvel has overshadowed it. And even D.C. right now, even though D.C. is not in a good spot, people are more excited and hoping that D.C. stuff's going to be great, waiting for Batman, waiting for Wonder Woman, more so than they are Star Wars stuff.

The Mandalorian and Groger release was a catastrophic error to put that out. I see what they were trying to. to do. Yes, you can blame it on Eiger. You can say he was trying to do with the Moana 2 style thing. Don't make that a TV show. Let's make a billion dollars in the box office and get the budget back. They were never going to make a billion dollars on that. But by releasing that and making that the first movie since Rise of the Skywalker, which wasn't, it did well, but it wasn't received well by the fans. You take a break, fine, take a break. Come back and hit hard. They don't. They put out a movie, not only do they not hit hard. If you were a fan of that show and you want to connect

the storylines and make sure things are happening leading into a bigger universe, it doesn't. It's just a standalone adventure of the two of them that could have been like a side episode. And you're kind of cheating the audience by saying, if you went in there expecting a big Star Wars movie and you got like a side episode, it's disappointing. And it's why the movie didn't do very well. Now, for the announcement at D23, what I thought they should have done, first of all, they should have released Starfighter to the public to get the hype going. I think that they didn't because they didn't want it to overshadow Asoka, which is ridiculous. And I feel like that might be a phloaning call. Maybe it wasn't.

The other side is what I heard is they didn't want to get lost in the shuffle because of Doomsday and the other stuff that they're promoting. But then why show it at all? But they should have shown that trailer. Asoka, you're 100% right. It is absolutely for the TV audience and the Rebels audience, the Clone Wars audience. And that might not be a bad thing if that's where Star Wars TV lies. But it's not your saving grace. If you put Starfighter out and it does well,

what they should have ended with, is the announcement, what is Kinberg's trilogy? Is it, you know, 10, 11, and 12? Because if so, well, then that might get hype going for Starfighter because you're like, oh, will that then lead us into this new time period? Because there's no hype around it, as you said. There's no, and the other side of it is, too,

they still stand by this philosophy. And people will say it in this comments, and I couldn't disagree more, that, well, Star Wars always been for kids. When you go back to episode four when it came out in theaters, it wasn't just kids that were seeing it. I had interviewed Clancy Brown at one time.

I guess he was a 19, 20 years old. He went, lined up, went by himself. The reason why that movie was the biggest movie of all time is because everyone saw it. And it spoke to everyone, not just kids. They definitely geared the prequel, at least the first two, a little bit more towards the kids. But that generation grew up,

Star Wars. This generation, these generation X, Alpha and Generation whatever that, what was it? I can't even remember it. Z, X, Y, whatever, X, Y. Whatever, X, way. They are not Star Wars fans. It's,

you grew up at the prequels, right? Yeah, but I grew, I've seen the movies prior. No, I know, but when you were, when you were growing up, I'm a 90s kid. Right, yeah. I was the original trilogy. So as kids, we have those memories, and I think that they should start making movies and I know people go

oh they roll your eyes like you said when it comes like what andor did well was character driven make it take itself kind of serious and you don't have to make it as political as and door but take it more serious and maybe gear it a little older now and maybe that's what starfighters do well you mentioned andor and that was something that I did want to address because

I know that people will probably come in and be like they still have done some good stuff like and or and or season two it's great great it's it's it's it's a It was amazing. I think it's one of the best things Hardware's ever done. I love the hell out of it. The thing, though, is, and this probably will ruffle some feathers,

because I know there's a lot of the passionate people with the TV shows, the TV shows will never be as important or consequential to the audience experience as the movies. No matter how good the TV shows are. And you could make Andor as a movie. Yeah, and then when it comes, so I think, like, the closest we got was in the Marvel realm

when Wanda Vision was coming out and Loki, that was the one time where it was like, oh, this might change TV connected experiences, but then because the movies didn't really seem to give a shit about really connecting it or didn't want people to feel pressured, even though I know Marvel just said, like, you should watch Loki and lead it to Doomsday. It still feels like you probably don't really need to.

They'll probably just explain what's going on. And Star Wars, I think, has a similar problem with that. is that it doesn't really feel like we need to keep up with the TV shows ultimately. It's never going to be as much of a culturally important event as a film will be. And they did kind of just pump out so much television. Some of it, okay. A lot of it, like I think Asoka's biggest problem. I mean, the quality of the show is very mixed in my opinion.

But who it tended to was definitely the animated show fans. and if you only tend to the core base, you're never really going to be the cultural juggernaut that you once were. No, and that's why I said, if your goal is to then just cater to those fans in television, and that's your plan, well, then so be it, right? And it's a perfect example. So on my channel, you know, Sam,

who watches these things when we should never seen Star Wars before, and I did a very different path. I actually started her with Andor's Season 1 and 2. Then we landed to Rogue 1, Episode 4, 5, jumped back into the prequels, watched a Patterson cut of Obi-One, and then went into Return to the Jedi, and then the Mandalorian season one and two, which we haven't done three yet. But the reason I bring that up is because we watched season two, and when Asoka shows up, I had to tell her, like, oh, that was Anakin's Padawan.

And people are, well, why didn't she show her Clone Wars and Rebels? Because you shouldn't have to. Yeah. I was showing her from a mainstream audience perspective, not a hard, core Star Wars fans who just ingests all of it. She doesn't. Yeah. So you end up,

well, I said, that's more of a feloni problem, unless that's who you're catering to, but catering to, but the movies, the movies don't need those shows. That's going to be a universe, and it's for hardcore fans,

and that's actually really good, then good on them. But in order to get them back to that spot, they have to make really good movies. And from what I hear, Kinberg, who is just writing the new trilogy and not directing, them. He's a big fan of Andor. And, you know, he had involvement in Logan and everything too. You can

involve and make character-driven really new characters that people respond to into a new trilogy. You have a shot. If Starfighter does not succeed, though, I really think that Lucasfilm or Disney should consider selling Lucasfilm. I think it's going to be a massive trouble if Starfighter does not succeed. There's a lot of condition that's happened with Star Wars where it's not about the one thing that Marvel has kept consistent, which is smart on them, is they keep doing things that continue, things that are the future. That's why I emphasize the Starfighter. An important step they did was have it take place after episode 9. You keep talking about the new trilogy that Kimbrough's writing, potentially. And there's been so much of the Star Wars experience that is just stuff that

happens in between the movies. And that can, there's always a thing that's slightly, no matter how engaging it is, it can slightly undercut the story. It can slightly undercut the stakes. Like with the Soka, there's all that emphasis on Thron. But at the end of the day, it's like, well, we know he's not going to win. We know he's not going to rule the empire. And someone might come back and go, well, when do they, when do the bad guys ever truly win? I'm like, that's not the point. The point is we already know what's supposed to happen after this stuff. So it's not that when that can pop into the back of the mind, it does diminish the stakes of what we're experiencing. Someone would jump back and say, well, what about the

You knew Anakin was going to go bad. Yeah, but you wanted to see it. You wanted to see it. You wanted to see how the turn happened. And a prequel's job is to make you go, oh, I know what's going to happen, but I don't want it to. Right. Like X-Men first class, like, oh, Xavier and Magneto get along, but I don't want to see them, like, become enemies. You know, like, because I love their chemistry.

The whole job is to make you not, is to make you, like, wish against that. And they want you to sit there and go, oh, that's how it happened. Yeah, right? Yeah. And I want you to feel that. And then so the thing is that I, just to bring it back to, I just, have to harken back on the fact that Mandeloreen and Grogu being the first release

hurts because if Starfighter would have been the first release, if it's really good. Yeah. Since Rise of Skywalker, that excitement starts to build more because you don't have people going, well, the last thing they put out in the theater,

because regardless of if it was a television thing or not, it is still the lowest performing Star Wars movie, I think that and solo together. I think it's under solo, But it's a stat. It's a blemish. Well, here's the thing when I said, everything I've heard about Starfighter. Yeah.

And when I saw with Starfighter, story-based wise, it doesn't seem like it's really going to do anything that different. Some people are going, oh, we do. Wolf and Cub time thing. Well, beyond that, just like the actual movie itself. Now, sometimes generic works in terms of storytelling. to get people back in. Sometimes those are juggernauts, these biopics or whatever that sometimes come out.

So sometimes that's just fine, like just doing exactly what it should be. And I feel like Star Wars, after Ryan Johnson, they got scared of being really creative and taking risks. It seemed like maybe on television, they were willing to do that. Andor was a very, the most mature thing I think they've done.

And, but after the movies, after Ryan Johnson, it seemed like we don't want to take risks anymore. We want to play it super, super safe. And not having bold storytelling, I think, is just going to make it more stale. And that's my main concern with Starfighter. Like, it looks cool.

I love Ryan Gosling, one of my favorite actors of all time. But how different is it, right? But how different of a Star Wars story is it going to be? Or is it just like, I love Star Wars, so I'm making a Star Wars movie. And that's kind of the vibe I get. And I can get that. They've got to make it feel, first of all, I don't understand why they've gone away from John Williams' music.

It drives me crazy, but that's another conversation at a different time. But the one thing I say, as much as I don't think Thaloney should be the guy running things, you cannot necessarily really blame, if Starfighter doesn't work. You can't blame him on this one because this was still a Kathleen Kennedy won. That's another reason why I thought they shouldn't have made an announcement at the end, because we get that Asoka is yours. We get it. He's the showrunner of that, and that's another problem, is that he was the showrunner.

runner during his during a tenure when they're trying to reach the guy and he's the show runner of a series they should have

made a big statement I'm taking over the company here's the first thing that I'm really doing because snuff writer was not was not announced under him

was announced under Kennedy so he I want to see what his vision of it because he's got I feel he's very similar to Lucas in a way

where he's not a very good dialogue writer but he's a very good storyteller and I think he's a little too you know he holds

on too tight to the philosophies. Some of the philosophies, George Lucas had, you got to follow. Because he's the father of all this stuff. But there's other things that I think he refuses to let go. And I think that that could hurt in the long run, but we don't know yet because we don't know what he's doing

outside of TV stuff. So to compare to Marvel right now, where Spider-Man brand-new day is out, $2 billion movie, there is a lot of hype and talk about Avengers Doomsday. So Marvel has created the conversation again, when Ghost Rider was announced, I was creating a lot of conversation, X-Men.

So Marvel's, what I think Marvel has accomplished right now is being culturally relevant in the space. When do you feel like the last time Star Wars felt that way? When Luke appeared in the Mandalorian season two. Yeah, I'd probably say that too. It's not even like my favorite season of television, but I would probably say that too, yeah.

And it's not a coincidence of what you just said. How did Marvel start to get themselves back? Spider-Man, one of the most popular IP comic characters of all time, if not the most popular. They're bringing back Downey. They're bringing back Evans. They're getting hype back before there's some of their people

that really helped get them to the forefront. Now, I don't necessarily think that means bring back Luke, bring back. I mean, I still say, and people push back on this too. I think if you're going to do a Star Wars series, what Star Wars should do in television, I think, is instead of doing two, three, four seasons of spin-offs of animated shows,

do like miniseries or movies. The $180 million you put in Mandelaar and Grogu make a cool like old Republic movie. If you don't think it's gonna do well in the theater, put it on Disney Plus and see how like a spinoff movie does. Or I always thought like Darth Vader like should have, if you had one like Darth Vader like six part series for right after, you know, when he's purging the Jedi

and everything too and going through it. Well, we had those movies. No, we didn't. We never had those movies. We had the movies of him turning into Vader, but we never saw the internal battle, him still battling the fact is Anakin still in there

and just the pure evil of going in. But that's TV stuff. Movie stuff needs to establish new characters in order to get what Marvel has. And what Marvel is doing, they do it with old characters. Star Wars has to start to establish some of the old into the new.

Light savers. Don't get, bring back the crawl. Do the John Williams force team, those things. You know, when you see a James Bond movie, you have a new James Bond, you never get rid of the theme. Yeah. You got to still hold that it still feels like Star Wars.

You try to go too new with stuff and you lose the audience, but you still have to create new characters and new people for us to get behind. Well, I think filmmaker vision can still be an applicable thing. That's why I specifically brought Ryan Johnson. Yeah. Because James Bond, how they bounced back after a couple of Pierce Brosnan ones were not well received and they rebooted it was they got a filmmaker vision. And I think that's why people are also excited for the, this new era because we got Denis Villeneu behind it because you know it's going to be a vision

behind it. And we need something that has a vision that can feel consequential to it all. And that's probably the word I would apply for the TV shows is that they just never feel as consequential and they never will feel as consequential to the experience of like I love Mall Shadow Lord. Like there's, none of this is about the quality of some of these shows. Some of these shows are amazing that they're still producing and some of them are kind of whatever. But yeah, at the end of the day, I think they've kind of made Star Wars feel like streaming content. Right. And that's why you've got to start to build new characters as far as movies.

But to go back on the Ryan Johnson part of it. Oh, I guess I'll ask really quick. Do you feel like they should probably just halt like shows and everything for a while? Like let people really forget about Star Wars? Not if they're going with that kind of plan that you've mentioned where they're just going to go after that audience that watches the animated shows and everything too. And they make it just for them. and it's just some content because it's not going to hurt the brand

as much if people aren't even aware of it. Some of my friends don't even know what Asoka is. They don't even know what that is. But if they're just making it for the hardcore fans, if you're not trying to get that to be the thing that gets you back in the forefront, I don't think that hurts. It's the movies that you start putting out more stuff like Mandelorian Grogo in the theater,

that's going to destroy the brand. But to go back to the Ryan Johnson part of it, I think that the problem with those movies is the difference with what more, Marvel has. Marvel clearly right now has like a plan. They're going to take these Avengers movies lead into Black Panther lead into the X-Men. That's their future. You know, they've made that clear. Star Wars, when they put those things out, Force Awakens is coming back and the big three are coming back. Well, what's the plan? We have a plan. The treatment that George Lucas wrote,

he's got the whole thing. We're going to follow that? No. Oh, well, what are we going to have? Well, we got JJ. He's doing the first one. And the second guy who's doing the movie is going to follow his No, he's doing his own thing, but it's going to be really creative and cool. Great. Are we going to tie it all together? Yep. Colin Trevor is going to come in and he's actually got a whole thing. He's going to tie it all together.

Oh, we don't like him anymore. He's gone. Are they still going to tie it together? Nah, JJ hated the old one. And there was no plan. The plan just fell in and the audience can smell it. It's like, wait a minute. That doesn't make any sense.

That doesn't make any sense. And there's no plan. So you can be creative all day long. But if it doesn't have a plan and the characters aren't moving, who cares you've been creative? Well, I think we also also get past. anything that just feels like, oh, another version of like, you know, first order or something like that. That's how like everything just feels like that of same kind of good guy versus same kind of bad guy. And eventually you'll see a lightsaber pop up in here and something.

And that's the part where they have to have an evolution in some way. That's right. That's what I was saying. Like you got to have new stuff. Yeah. With familiar stuff. Yeah. Because you've got to still feel like it's Star Wars, but you got to have like, you can't, like, they were trying to go away from,

lightsabers and everything for so long. I can still have lightsabers in there. And you can have, I really don't understand why you could dive into the Old Republic and make that, like just the scene in the trailer of what was going on in the Old Republic

before the rule of two of a army full of, imagine Game of Thrones style, an army full of Sith with sabres and an army full of Jedi kind of going after it a little bit more of a darker tone. That trailer alone would get hype and excitement.

So what Marvel has done really well is that I think they've made people feel like they have to be there again. Yes. Do you think Star Wars is capable of doing that? It really depends on the leadership, man. Right now, I just don't know if Faloni's got that in them. Personally, I mean, I hope Starfighter's great, and I hope the new Chilers is great, and then they'll have it in them.

But as we were saying, if Starfighter fails, my hope is that somebody like an Apple or Amazon buys them. And I know that's probably going to be almost near impossible because of the theme park side of it and all that stuff too. But I don't know right now with this leadership yet, but I think it's also too young in their regime to the new regime to know. Yeah. I feel like running on a dour note.

I feel like we've, I feel like we've said though, like ways where I feel, where we've, I want them to come back. We want it to succeed. I would love for Star Wars to succeed. I feel like it's much easier to make. videos that are all about like why Star Wars is dog shit or something like that. I'm like I don't even agree with that sentiment though. I never I any brand not just Star Wars I never are going to people say something is dead yeah it like and I always bring up this example coerre cry

Kobe chobrechaise showed that karate kid wasn't dead yeah would have said back then you were like chronic kid's dead you can't make another karate kid movie it's dead and they said well no you can but you have to do it this way that doesn't always work. It's almost like George Carlin always saying anything can be funny, but not everyone can make it funny. So if you have somebody who has got a really good take on Star Wars Terminator, you know, Terminator is another one franchise that's really hurting to bring that back. If you have the right take, I mean, look, Dune, who thought Dune was going to be relevant again? And Deney, like you said, brings it back and it's relevant again. So it's just a matter of creative take and how you're going to do it.

So there is a way to bring it back because Star Wars is fucking cool. Yeah. Like there's a lot of great elements and like the stuff, the games and some of the lore and even like you said, Darth Moll stuff,

I wasn't excited about that, but then I watched it, because Sam Whitwer truly understands the essence of character and everything too. And you could see it. And Flonie should get credit in that show too

because he was the executive producer of it. But that's also why I think Flonie should be running animation. I think they should be doing more animated. I think it was another mistake. Why didn't they announce like an animated Indiana Jones series with

the same guy who did the voice. Did you play the new Indiana Jones game? No. Is that Troy Baker? Yes. Troy Baker doing the voice of an Indiana Jones and animated, that's the animated series I want to see. Lucas films so much more than just Star Wars. You can't do another Indiana Jones movie right now, but an animated series in that vein

with him and Baker doing it, that would have been fun. I was hoping they were going to announce that. Oh, yeah. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Well, I really hope they can I hope Starfighter does something to start to be the first step in this race to get back to feeling like a cultural event again. Yeah. But anyway, that's our thoughts on it, guys.

Star Wars is fine. We hope. It's no Howard the Duck. It's no Howard the Duck, that's for sure. They got Howard the Duck in there. You never know. You never know. They own it.

But real quick, that's why I thought the Kylo Ren story sounded cool. Because that was like a Soderberg vision. The actor behind it had a vision for what they wanted to do. It would advance the story forward, not just be like, let's explain the past with Kylo Red. Like it would move it forward. That sounded really cool to me again. Yeah. It's the Soderberg driver part of it that I think sounds cool.

That sounds cool. But like he's dead. Sure. It's like everyone comes back. You decided. And first of all, I never thought. should be redeemed in the first place. They should never redeem them. They weren't going to do it.

In the Travaro's version, they were just going to keep him evil. But like you said, they do, well, Vader got redeemed, so let's redeem him. It says, that, and I just don't think that, I just think that sets it back to do it again. Because there's rumors again that people want it so badly that they might bring it back and that Soderberg apparently met with Adam Driver. And if you get that team, you have a good shot of making money on it. But to go to your former point, where does it go from the air? if you don't have those guys involved.

Because another reason why Marvel worked really well, and I use this example a lot, is that in the first, like, three phases, they knew where they wanted to go. They knew, like, they had an idea to get to the infinity, weren't all that. But they wanted to do these movies in between,

and they wanted to get the right directors to put their vision, have their creative take, but still tell the story that they needed to, but add their stuff. Ryan Coogler did that brilliantly with Black Panther. James Gunn did it great with the Guardians franchise and Peyton Reed with Ant Man and they did it in a way

they had a plan. Yeah. And Kylo Sotomberg movie was like, oh, but people want it now and it polled well. What's the plan? Okay, so I guess when you're saying plan like what is the culmination direction? Yeah, like where does it go further because Star Wars needs more than

one cool movie. It needs a full on vision. Yeah, that's the one thing with Starfighters. It just sounds like this could be a cool one movie that they do. And it would be able to be able to get sequels, but it might benefit from having, like, they want, there's a time when they want to do the Mandoverse that all culminates, they all come together with, like, Thron, which is cool. But again, it's like the television audience, right?

But for like the movie base, it would be cool if they had some type of new villain that they can culminate to to bring everyone together. Yeah, like build up towards. Like, if they start and they give you a little tease in Starfighter of what's to come, and then it's a really good movie, and it's like, well, okay, well, what's coming forward? because people go, oh, do we still need a shared universe? You kind of do right now in order to keep the brand going because there are sometimes brands used to just,

oh, you made one cool movie and that was it. Yeah, but that's not what the plan is with Star Wars, Marvel, and D.C. They want to keep making movies and want us to keep watching them. In order to do that, you have to have that continuity keep going for us to go, I want to see the next one. Because Spider-Man Brand New Day just got people excited for it. Whoa, whoa. Sadie Sink just comes in there, does that.

Oh, and now it's they're going to announce for a D23. Yeah. And it's just connectivity. And it's just get me excited for the next one. That's true. Good point. Good point. Well, guys, that's our thoughts for today.

Thank you for joining in. Leave your thoughts in the comments below. And keep a lookout for that Kickstarter. Whenever it does come out, trend in. Yeah. Thanks, man. Trending. All right, Christian.

Get out of here. Go home. I'm leaving. Go home. Go back to New York. Get out of here.