The Ringer-Verse - ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ Reactions | The Midnight Boys

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

The Boys are back, and they’re here to discuss the newest addition to the Disney+ ‘Star Wars’ universe: ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’! Then they give you their thoughts on where the movie ranks among other ‘Star Wars’ films. (0:00) Intro (5:39) Spoilers ahead (7:21) ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ reactions (1:21:38) Midnight Meter: ‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ (1:28:50) ‘Star Wars’ film rankings (1:39:20) Outro Hosts: Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, Jomi Adeniran, and Steve Ahlman Guest: Joanna Robinson Producers: Aleya Zenieris and Devon Baroldi Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome into the Ringiverse. This is, of course, the Ringer's nextest podcast feed for all things fandom. We are Steve, the architect, almond, the builder, and tigger of things. Jomi, the algorithm, the explainer, a dinner on, Mr. Margarita Bill.

You've got questions. He's got answers. Old Man, Van, he of the receding, resurgent, hairline, Coke, baby Chuck, the 24-carrier closer. Together, we are known as the Midnight Boys. We'll be right back after this. Follow us on socials, the Midnight Boys Pod on Insta and TikTok at Ringerverse on Insta, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok. Jummy?

We're having a lot of fun on there. Thank you guys for following. Continue to follow. The Midnight Boys and Ringerverse on socials. It's going great. Appreciate all your support. We're also on YouTube. What?

Like, comment, subscribe. What are you going? What's with you this morning? I'm sorry. You good, man? Do you want to talk about it? Passionate. You can watch every Midnight Boys at House of our episode on YouTube.com

backslash at Ringiverse. And also on Spotify. Programming reminders. Okay, on Tuesday, the House of R gives you their summer hypermeter. Now, what kind of thing is going to a summer hypermeter guys? Well, all stuff that's coming out the summer, we got the Odyssey, you got Spider-Man. Let's do our quick stuff. Let's do, so we're going to do a quick hype meter.

Mm-hmm. And it's going to be gun through. Up. Guns down. Okay. All right. Okay. Let's go. Call them out, Jomey. Spider-Man. Guns up. The Odyssey. Guns up. Street Fighter. Guns down. Oh, that's tough. Guns up. Guns up. Guns up. Guns up. Guns up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. It could go either way. Mortal Kombat set a weird precedent. Where we're like, could it be better than... What about. Guns up. House of the Dragon. Half up, half up, half down. Wow. That's just being controversial. That's crazy.

Like, what else? Lanterns. Up. Yeah, what's wrong with lanterns? Yeah, that first trailer wasn't hit for shit. Okay. What else we got? You don't like Kyle Chandler?

That's it for the summer, huh? I mean, it's still a busy summer. It's a busy. You have Supergirl? Supergirl. Oh, all the way up, yeah. That was the weakest year. Yeah, you like this.

You should like this. Guns forward? Guns forward. It's down. Down? Oh. The gun not just. I grabbed

Woman of Tomorrow yesterday. I bought three new comics yesterday when we went to see the movie we're about to talk about. I grabbed the graphic for Absolute Batman,

the graphic for Absolute Batman. I read Absolute Batman, but I read it on the online and I can't remember when I read stuff online. And so then I grabbed Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow. Yeah.

Oh, I think you'll love Women of Fall. I'm getting into it. I just need time to sit down and read my books. Read my comic books. Okay, I like to read my comic books. So there's our quick little summer hype meter,

but you want to go over and tune in to the ladies on House of R because their hype meter is going to be much more involved than getting to the movies, roll them out, talking all about stuff. Hopefully they'll talk about The Odyssey and all of the shit that's surrounding this movie.

This movie is becoming, before it even drops, a cultural stress point. Why? We should do a segment very soon on all of the talk around the Odyssey. We should do a whole separate show. What is the talk? There's so much talk.

Odyssey discourse primer Odyssey discourse There's a lot of talk Okay because we talked about the hell of Detroit stuff Talked about that we talked about You know Travis Scott People don't know Travis Scott They have no way people talking

My dad, my dad my dad They don't like it okay cool You don't like it It is what it is It is what it is what he's been doing For the last X amount of time On Thursday, Budmash Discussed fours of Horizon 6

That's a racing game is in that Yes sir You play that? Yeah. I've played the Forza, the old Forza one. Mm-hmm. I like racing games. Yeah. But also, you know why I like racing games?

Why? Because I got a steering wheel at the house. Oh, you do. And that steering wheel is getting busy, daddy. It's really fun when you have the steering wheel. Yeah. You have it on a big TV. And Lego Batman, Legacy of the Dark Night.

Have you played this? Yes. Yeah, really good. If you like the Arkham games, and if you like Lego, this is literally just going to be that. It's really fun. You collect all the suits. Lego Batman's very funny and charming Lego Batman's very funny you like Lego Batman

Chuck I'm not fucking with the Legos You're not fucking Lego anything No I like playing with Legos Once it's just like here's a Lego video game I'm like eh Lego Star Wars Was amongst the most amazing things You could do with your time

Oh then you're gonna absolutely love this Batman one It's like an amalgamation of like the Nolan films Like there's a whole story That's like mixing in the Burton stuff The Adam West stuff the Nolan stuff It's everything I said on 10th Z one time that Lego Star Wars, the original trilogy,

was better than a blowjob. Well, I would rather, I would rather play that. I was so into the game at one point. Whole office went crazy. Harvey laughed. Like, that's how good the game. That's how good the game was. Right, right. I was into the game. Jomi, don't talk about sex. Your parents were listening.

Okay, cool. But on today's show, the Midnight Boys react to the Mandalorian and Grogo, the long away that returned of Star Wars to the big screen. We saw it last night in 70 MMs, baby.

Universal City Walk. Top floor, big screen, one of the biggest in L.A., Mando, Grogu, spoiler warning, Steve Alman. We're getting ready to talk about Mando. You're listening. to a reaction podcast. The spoilers are coming.

All right. Now, to begin, your reactions, our reactions, your reactions, our reactions, use us, we're together. We are in Sympatho. We once again bring you the Midnight Manifest, talking about all the need to know, Chuck Wagon, please.

This is your Midnight Manifest for the Mandalorian and Grogue directed by John Favro, written by Favro, Dave Filoni and Noah Clore, starring Pedro, Patrick Mian Allen White, Sigourney Weaver,

Now, working for the New Republic, Mando and Grogu are sent on a mission to save Jabba's son, Rada. The Hutt twins now in charge of Jabba's territory want their nephew back. What they don't realize is that Rada is now a gladiator fighting for his freedom, who wants to distance himself from the family criminal enterprise. Mando and Grogu free Rada, which angers the twins. The Mandalorian must escape bounty hunter, Embo, and a host of droids. After being injured by a poisonous water snake and dying in the woods, Grogu embarks on a journey to save Mando and prove his love to his mentor and father figure.

that has been your midnight manifest for the Mandalorian and Grogu, then where do we want to start with this movie that was far longer than I think I was prepared for? I was like, oh, okay, this is the long movie. Well, let's get into the story of the movie first. Now, a lot of people that are watching this, but were wondering, like a lot of us were, what was going to be the story of this film

and how were they going to take the Mandalorian and Grogu, a show that is as episodic a show as Star Wars has ever produced, most of the Star Wars shows that get produced are, they're more of long stories that have their fractioned out and build their momentum, kind of like a more classic TV deal. It's a contemporary TV deal, shall I say. Mendel orian, Grobu, though, has always been episodic to the point of it was like old school adventure of the week type of situation, boss of the week, world of the week,

creature of the week, all of that stuff. Now, in the last sort of ill-fated season, they did get into a little bit more of trying to put a through line through all of the stuff that built energy to the end. It didn't quite work as well for some people because Lizzo was in it.

Now... Just because just Lizzo? Also Jack Black and also like Mando kind of became a cop and a bunch of other stuff. All of that stuff. The question was, what was this movie going to do? Was this movie going to be some type of deep exploration into these characters in the wider world of Star Wars at this time that

gets us deeper into that world, or were we going to have another standalone adventure between Dengharan and Grogu that was just going to be about their bond and kind of hygings they get into? They went for the second thing. How did you guys feel about that? I felt really, I was really surprised about how much I enjoyed that part. I think it's probably because season three loved such a bad taste on my mouth. So when I'm watching this and they go back to basics,

they tell like the simplest of stories. It's you send Mando to do one thing. He comes back and then there's a complication and then he gets captured. And all of that I enjoy it. And I think the thing that really brought the most joy for me is seeing Grogu like actually be a character. Yep.

Like there's a section of the film where it's 20 minutes. It's basically Grogu alone. and he saves Dind Jarn, he's trying to heal him, and he's like commuting with the force. And I'm like, bro, this is what I always wanted. Look at my little man growing up. I think ultimately the movie did what it had to do,

which is not only like showcase that these characters, not only like we can make this stuff like grand again, but also like we actually do at, like season three was an aberration. We actually do understand these characters again. Sure. I would agree with a lot of that. There's a lot that I have enjoyed about this movie since like the 12 hours that I've had since watching it. But as I was thinking more and more, I'm like, this really feels like kind of the, not the worst instincts of the Star Wars apparatus and the show, but still not the best instincts of all of this show. I feel like the structure and the pacing of this movie is kind of off the rails. a bit. This feels like literally four episodes of this TV show, smushed

together into one to where I could actually call cut to credits in certain aspects of this movie every 45 minutes to say that this is the next episode that you can sit. It's a good season of the Mandalorian. It's a very good half season of the Mandalorian. It's a very good season.

And it was fun. I had an enjoyable time with it. I still can't meaningfully say that I thought that any thing was substantive or move the needle in any way. And I think my major thought is that if this movie never happened, these characters would be in the exact same space, both physically and mentally, then when we started. And that can be okay. Could even talk about the movie before we got into the deeper. But I liked it. Trash. What's wrong now, then? What's wrong? What's wrong?

I like parts and I didn't like parts. I don't care. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Is this animal pack van? What is this? What's this energy today? I took an out of van. Oh, okay. I'm sorry.

I apologize to the audience. So he's humming a little bit. Chuck? I think it's very difficult to be upset with this movie. It goes down smooth. There's just something about Grogu that's magical, the Anzellens. This is very much Star Wars as kids entertainment. So if I'm, like, reviewing the movie as a, like,

This was a fun time to spend two hours with a bunch of puppets, with a bunch of creatures that I love. Yeah, it did its job. Just even story-wise, though, this is not an ambitious film. No. I struggle to even call it a movie. In a lot of ways, it was just like stuff was happening. And you're like, okay, cool.

This is, if people are like, will this restore the feeling in Star Wars? No. Will this make enough money for people to be like, okay, they can make a middle-of-the-road Star Wars film, that's what they did. So if I sound, like, if I sound muted in my response, it's not out of any, like, dislike or hatred. It's more so I'm like, okay, it was there. Like, we watch a movie, it happened.

I probably will never think about this again. And I think the one thing that is an indictment is, like, even on a story structure level or even like a narrative level, I think with a lot of Star Wars films, you want to re-watch a new hope or Empire Strikes Back or, or, Avenger the Sith for me, Last Jedi. For me, this didn't have enough going on where I would ever want to really return to it. It did remind me of the TV show.

I was like, okay, cool. So the movie in the film, you have Rod of the Hut, who's played by Jeremy Allen White. Carmie Berazado. Carmi Barrasado is Jabba the Hut's son. He's kidnapped and is in a fighting pit. Jack to shit. Uncomfortably so. Okay, but what's in a shit?

He's kidnapped and in a fighting pit. Yeah. Fighting for his life as a gladiator. What's his rocker routine do you think? What do you mean? Because it's all arms and chest. I mean, it's literally no leg day. Literally no leg day.

Nah, he'd be rolling. That was crazy. Would he be like barrel rolling against the next? Because you can't like win away. But you know, it made sense that he is more ripped as a hut because the other huds just lay around all. day, getting and licking women against their will. He had to get it out of the mud.

He had to get it out of the mud. Wait, if we're already just getting into the stuff, Rodda does not work. When I heard Jeremy Allen's voice, coming out of, like, this CGI ripped hut, it was jarring. Okay, so the ripped hut I can get by. He out there, he's doing, he's doing, you know,

two a days at the gym, you're going to the planet and it's going crazy. I get it. When I hear Carmi Berrazzavis, come out of a voice, come out of a hut's body. I'm like, brother, where's the Italian beef? Well, that's all I can hear. Because it doesn't play to Jeremy Allen-Wike's strengths as a performer. He's not like a vocal performer, like from what we've seen.

From what the best that we've seen him in and the bear, like you just want to stare into his gigantic, beautiful eyes and see what's going on behind his face. I think the thing with Rada was you had to humanize him, right? I think the movie was trying to do three things. I think the movie was trying to grow Grogoo up a little bit which is why they gave Grogul

a solo mission and the solo adventure why DeJarn was gone but it was also this movie is also to me in a way just let you guys know when we're talking about that Charles talked about in the manifest but for a time the Mandalorian is out of this movie

and then Grogo has to figure things out. I think audiences have been like sort of longing for that because at some point that scene, I don't want to be sort of a downer about it, but that scene is going to be Grogu's life. Dingerer will die. And Grogu will have to be a character that exists

as he looks back at his dad. And that is going to be very, very sad for us, but I think one thing that the movie did that was, from a story standpoint, that was actually pretty powerful, was put us in that situation as an audience. Then it's gone, he is down, Grogo is still young.

His lifespan is so long that he's still a kid. Can Grogu actually save the day? And he does. And it was awesome the way he did it. He was able to feed himself. He was able to build Dengarne shelter. He was able to use the force to close the wound, all of that stuff. So he's not a man, but he's certainly not the helpless boy that we first saw.

And the other thing the movie had to do, to your point, is they had to humanize a hut, which we've never even try to do. Right? We've never even tried to humanize a hut before. And we found out that that's a little tough. Okay? You know what I mean? Wait, did you like Rada and Jeremy Allen-Roy?

I did. And the only reason why I liked it, first of all, I'm an actual Star Wars fan. Like, I actually, I'm not a Star Wars fan. I love Star Wars. So if Star Wars is not a drag, Star Wars is a blast. There's no middle for me.

Right. Either Star Wars is a drag, we've seen it be a drag. or Star Wars is a blast. Star Wars is never just okay for me. Okay. So it's impossible, right? It's like the aforementioned thing that we talked about before.

I'm not going to bring it back. Legos? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right. So, but I knew watching Rada, because it worked for me, because they did all the things you do with the character that you want people to connect with. You first see him and he talks about how he doesn't want to be his family.

That's a huge. connect with his character thing. They tell you, he tells Grogu a bunch of times how he doesn't want to be like his dad. He doesn't want to go on his dad. That is the one thing that when you see a movie doing

stuff like that, humanizing character. And then at the end, they put him in peril where he has to be saved by someone else. So they're trying to make that character human. It's tough for a hug. It's tough for a hug. It's tough for a hug. It's tough for a hood. This is, and watching this, I was like,

oh, The Clone Wars stands one for better and worse, where it's like Rada, correct me if I'm wrong, it's the first character, was like an original character that they created for the movie. A little baby, yeah. Embo is a character from the TV show, The Twins, Adam Arkin in Clone Wars. And I think watching this, I'm like, oh, the reason I call this a children's movie is because a lot of the writing and the dialogue does remind me of an episode of Clone Wars. This is a lot of Dave Filoni's original characters.

It's told in the middle of a story, so you don't actually have to push the Star Wars narrative forward that much. So what I was left with watching this is I'm like, while I think it pushed Grogu as a character forward, I don't know if it did the same thing for Mando. I almost think like Mando as a character was a little bit in stasis. And it speaks to me volumes that the best part of this movie does not have Mando in it at all.

Yeah. It is basically a silent film with Grogu, and that to me was just like, this could have just been a 20-minute short film, and I would have been even more. Like, I wanted more of that section when Grogu's trying to save Mando. Mendo is an interesting place in this story.

Yeah. Number one, Mando is an interesting character. You can't see his face. Yeah. Right? And we see his face. Every time we see his face, we know something bad has to happen,

so we can't see his face. But he's also an interesting place from a story perspective because all of the Mandalorian lore that surrounded him has been thrown off. The Dark Sabre thing, all of that stuff is gone. Right.

So then the question becomes, now what is his main driving force? What gets him up to shine his armor in the morning? Okay. It's obviously being Grosda, which you see in this movie, but what I will say that they did do with the character is they've essentially made him a part of the New Republic.

They don't go hard in on that because I think they want the freedom to not have Mando care about anybody's one specific cost, but to know that he is aligned with them for Mandalorian, it's interesting. I don't know that we've seen one like that. Now, I think you're completely right in your assessment because we spent, again, not to part back on it,

but season three was all about the Mandalorian and what it means to be a Mandalorian. and like that specific group of people and it did not work like at all right and so at this point it's like advancing grogou makes a lot more sense in this part of the story because they haven't figured out the mando part of it they haven't right

I think they might have been like this the Mandalorian lore honestly scared people where I'm like as much as I did want them to push the narrative forward in Star Wars I was happy that we weren't in Dark Sabre territory Frankly, that's the stuff I love, that's the stuff I really enjoy, and they sold it in season three.

Absolutely sold it. And so leaving the movie, as much as I would have loved to, like, see them trying to, like, you know, kind of reverse on that and try to, like, make some less stuff, right? I'm really glad they didn't touch on that because it just left a really bad taste on off last time we saw that stuff. But sometimes I feel like this movie is kind of a indication that, like, Star Wars in the grander scheme of things, is a little scared of itself. want to actually push things forward because of it's very aware of its failures. And if you wanted to be that thing of going back to basics and sticking with an adventure that Mando and Grogu can be a part of, we've all seen all three seasons of this. We've all stuck around with these characters.

There's some sort of pre-baked notion that we would at least be somewhat familiar with some of these people. You know what? Star Wars is in its Drake era. Now that you're saying it, Star Wars is right where Drake is now, where it is like, all right, you get throttled so bad and the public is so tired of you that this movie feels like oh do you guys want a little nostalgia

wait wait too much do you guys want baby Grogu? Okay you guys like Bobby Frank right here's a little bit of the Anzellans and you're and once again I'm like hey yo I love all of these things in a vacuum but you are kind of like damn I remember when

these movies used to feel like an event right and this is not an event movie. This is just a kind of like placeholder until they figure out what the fans want. I'm not going to be as pessimistic. I think if I'm, if I'm leaving this movie, I think the optimistic take would be they figured out like what to do with Grogu. Like to make Grogu in actual, he's not just an accessory to Mand him. He's just not a guy on the shoulder or he's pushing it or he's got the little car thing. Groku can actually like participate and help and like be his own character. And going forward, if we see more of that, like, one day I would like to see

the little homie hold a little lightsaber or something like that. That would be great. But like we can actually get there. I can see that vision now versus him just being on the shoulder and ever so often lifting something and then collapsing with the force. But with all of the things that we've seen that the show has done to like affirm and like buttress that relationship between Dinn and Grogu, I would have loved to see something resembling that in this, and I don't think we really got it. More of the fact that everybody that Dinn encounters is like,

the twins, for example, they're like, you will die and he won't even be able to speak his first words. You won't be able to protect him forever. And he just kind of, like, and we've known this, like, since season two. And there's no real, like, reaffirmation or readjusting of his psyche around that idea. He's just kind of going along with. with it. Where I don't know, because like the idea of like when he was about to like go go visit him with Luke and like like she he was stopped. He's like, oh, he's right there. Like he just wanted to see him. That's his son. And from now I'm just like, okay, this is just this little homie that they're going on adventures with. And I'm not quite convinced that that relationship is affirmed. You want you want a little bit more emotional depth from like a little bit. It could certainly it certainly has the time to make that. I mean, I want to see what I thought was interesting was. Was. when Embbo is his name, right?

I actually was like, when we finally get to see their little like homestead that we saw in season three. I was like, oh, that's interesting. I want to see what the home life is like. What your home life is like, because I'm like, Dinn has been raising Grogu, they're now a family. Like, I act, like, him with the little like Babu-Frank uncles, I was like, if this was an episode of TV,

I just wanted a little episode where they're like going to the grocery stuff. Making coffee and shit. Yeah. And these were so funny, man. I am defenseless against the S-tier key jingling for me. No, that's T. When they're on screen, I was like, dog. Because when, what you would call it,

when Embo's like, fucking wolf kept trying to eat the babo, I was literally so scared. I'm like, they wouldn't have him eat it. Oh, I wanted the dog to eat it. No. No. Yeah. Brother, it's been such a bad week for dogs.

It's like killing dogs. You're going to let the Babu freak dog? Same thing. Come on. You know what I think Sorrows has to figure out. I think Sorrows has to figure out. what a lot of these things have to figure out, which is that for most of these audiences,

a good time at the movies is not enough anymore. When people ask, what's the difference between making movies now and making movies like when I grew up, is that if you went to the movies and you had a good time, you were good. Right. Like, that was it.

So you could make, like, Tango and Cash. Like, you could make, like, breakdown. You can make, like, a movie that, like, was a small, contained story that, like, had this thriller engine tour or whatever, you leave there, you could be all right. The movie could not quite work for the theater-going audience, but then you could realize how much fun you had with the movie at home.

You can realize how much fun you had with the movie on DVD, right? Then they started making a movie specifically for DVD, and then we started to get into this whole different deal where the town was trying to find itself and stuff like that. And so, like, for a Star Wars movie, I think just being in the world is not enough for people anymore. that the expansion of Star Wars killed that. It used to be that

50% of the fun of Star Wars, legitimately half of the fun, was just being in the world again. Just seeing a lightsaber hearing the... That's gone. It's just... Okay, that's gone, right? So, like, people are...

They don't care about that anymore. And also, we're cynical moviegoers. So, like, you're... You're watching the scene, and you're not in the scene to me. And this is not Star Wars problem by itself. this is like a movie problem. You're watching the scene and you're not in the scene.

You're not like legitimately in the scene. You're not like watching like what's happening. You're thinking what does it mean? What does that mean? Like who's coming? Like who's coming? Whatever. If that doesn't happen, you're out on the movie.

So that's a problem for like legitimately all movies. Like me and Jomey went to go see the drama. It's clear what the drama is about. Clear what the movie is about. It's crystal clear that that movie, is almost fantastical descent into people's insecurities, idiosyncrasies, into love, into society.

It's clear what that movie is about, right? But when you leave the movie, people then shred it to try to figure out what it's really about. Now, that is part for the course for art. Sure. But because these conversations are not being had between people,

anymore. They're not being really had in print as much anymore. They're being had on social media. Like letterboxed and everything. That kind of changes it. That makes it a little bit more desperate. And that actually raises what the movie has to do, which is why every film now is some kind of grandiose concept film like all it is to like get you or like whatever. Or that or is the dumbest piece of nostalgia that kind of blunts that.

Right. With Masters of the Universe. Mortal Kombat, all of that stuff. The concede of the movie is actually trying to pull you out of being too serious about the film. Right. Yeah. And so like here, this was all, this film was always going to have a little bit of work to do because it's not a movie that takes the Star Wars Galaxy very seriously. No.

In this galaxy, it is about Mando and Grogo. Yes. everything else that happens around them is just the situation that they're in this is a father and a son and the shit that happens to it now is this like from a film standpoint

it's interesting to even try this because you look at this and it's like it doesn't have like the typical movie structure but this part of it is just about them and that either works for you or it doesn't and my guess is that a lot of people will wonder

when they go to the movie theater if they don't get more wars for the stars if it was enough for them. So do you also think, piggybacking off that, when you're watching this, like when you're watching Empire Strikes Back, originally when you're an audience,

you're not worried about all these ancillary characters in where they are. You know what I mean? Same thing with the MCU. When we're first watching a lot of MCU, movies, you watch the first Iron Man, and it's a treat when you get to the final, when Nick

Fury comes for the Stinger, and you're like, oh, this world is bigger, but that comes after you've accepted Iron Man in this world. When I'm watching Mandalorian Grogu, it was difficult for me to sit there and be like, wait, is Is Is Is Is Is Is Is Issaq gonna show up? Is Luke going to show up? Is it, like, are any of these, like, are any of these, because what is actually happening

is I'm like, because there's so many Clone Wars characters in here, sure. You are, like, but like, aren't you kind of like faking out yourself for that, like, to not, like, actively, like, be present to Van's point. Like, like, and it's tough because we've been watching Marvel for decades now. And we're trained to just sit after the credits to wait for something to happen. For any movie. But that's been what the Mandeliorian seasons have been, though. Right.

Has been like, oh, this is, you think you're watching the episode of Mando? Oh, Lucas here. Oh, you think you're, did it. Ah, uh, Soka's here. And then they tried to, I think they tried to backpedal with the movie, which is almost weird because you're just like a TV show. is actually the place where you could tell the simple structure story that I feel good about it. And movies are for the cinematic,

oh, we're seeing this beloved character. So I'm not saying it makes the movie worse. I'm more just so saying that we know that this Star Wars world is so big. So when you put someone like Zeb in it, there is a little bit. I'm like, oh,

Zeb the, okay, I guess that's the only real additional character we're getting. And that's why when I say they strip this movie down to the basic. We're not really seen, outside of Rada and Emba, we're not really seeing characters like, again, like Asoka, like Luke, like Bo Catan, all these people.

We're not really running that back. And I'm glad that that's not bogging the movie down. Exactly, right? To your point, it's Mandalorian and Grogu. Den Jarna and Grogo. That's it. Right? Those are the characters that get the real, like get the emotional weight off in the story. I don't know, man.

I think that's a bit of like a, Like, we, I'm thinking about Dr. Strange and the multiverse of madness when I hear that. It's like, we go there, we're like, oh, man, it's going to be all these people in the movie. And we leave the movie that are in it. And we're kind of like, eh, that's, that's not what we want it. I think that's on us, right? That's not on us to manage our expectations. Like, halfway through the movie, I'm sitting there, I'm like, like, like, he mentions, like, the gunrunner, right?

That comes in. And I'm like, do we know what gun runner is? Like, who's it going to be? Like, who's going to come out of that ship? And then it's nobody, it's just a robot. I'm kind of like, oh, they're not doing this. they're not doing it. Yeah.

Like it's not, it's like, it's not happening in, in this movie. I think that's fun. I think that's, I think that's good. But you want to know

what Star Wars does it well, though. Not to bring it up, but I'm like, oh, Andor does the great thing where it's just like, instead of doing like the Easter egg shit, we are going to make you care about the characters

that we have on screen so much that you're like, no, no, this is about them, this is their world. When I was watching Mandalorian Grogo, they still are doing, like Zeb is a perfect example

where if you're going to put Zeb in this film, we don't really get a sense about how that relationship came about. And we never actually get any sense of how the Mandalorian and Zeb, what their relationship is to each other. It's just kind of

like, if you watch Rebels, you're like, oh, I know that character. And I was just like, oh, I would have likened more of a beat to just be like, okay, like, what is this ship like? What is this new crew? What is this new team? And it is just kind of like, all right, here's little cameo for you. Because Zeb pops

in it out of the movie without really doing anything. He is there to pick up Mando, take it back to him off. Yeah, he's just the show for it. So that's the thing about, oh my bad, Joe. No, no, no, you got it. Like, that's the thing about Andor is not, you know, Anor is a very desperate story. And so when you

make something like really desperate, we talked about this kind of with the villain thing, right? We talk about, like, which maybe we didn't talk about this. Did we talk about this, the villain thing? We might have talked about after the movie. What conversation was having? Okay, so I was having a conversation with people about, like, what makes a good villain, right? Yeah.

And I thought I almost brought this up on the podcast. We didn't talk about me talking to Jason Isaacs? No. Okay. No, you have mentioned this, though. Okay, so, like, I, once Jason Isis from the Patriot, I was once talking to him, I saw him in a gym. Oh, yeah. And I was talking to him.

I was like, you are a really great villain in a Patriot? And he goes, eh. I was like, what do you mean? He goes, well, the first time. I come on screen, I kill a kid and I like burn somebody's family farm down.

I'm almost certain I said this on the podcast. They'll find it. And so it's really it's not me. It's the writing. The writing puts you into a desperate situation to where he's like a good villain. He's like this was around the time that he's like, Heath Ledger is a good villain in Batman.

Yeah. It's like Heath Ledger doesn't do anything in Batman. Like he doesn't like kill a puppy. Like he does some terrible things, but he's a good villain. That's all about him. Right. The writing is such that they actually leave a little bit of question to whether or not his way of thinking is actually superior to Batman's. That's a good villain.

It's like what I do, whatever. Andor does have the advantage of just putting the characters in these really desperate situations. like super desperate situations like with desperate situations like being in prison and a hot floor and all of that stuff this is how bad the empire is and so that desperation makes you

doesn't make you ask the questions that the rest of this stuff makes you ask where's the emperor like you know what I mean like where's Vader like all of this stuff is happening these two people lord over the whole deal all the questions that you're asking right now about this stuff the question

We don't ask those of Andor because we are too, like, it's a good story, but it's also very easy to do when things are turned up to that level of desperation, right? When it's like that. And it doesn't mean that the show is not a badass show. It is a bad ass show. But we do allow Andor to exist in its own pocket of Star Wars in a way that we don't do for other Star Wars properties. For all the Star Wars properties, the more popcorn they are, the more they serve the average Star Wars fan, the more we want everything in them. Yeah.

The more we want to see. We demand a lot from that. We want everything in them. And that might be because these movies don't feel desperate enough. They don't feel important enough. I didn't feel like Mando and Grogu were ever actually in any danger. I wasn't like... Even when like Dinn was laid up for that like half of the movie.

Well, this is a hero story, so you know he's going to survive. Right. But I mean, but to your point, I don't want to rush off that. Like, do you think... And just real quick. In Andor, you know he's going to die.

Yeah. So think about that. And this is a hero story where you know that Den and Grogel are going to be okay. Like, we know that that's going to happen. So it's really more about the journey. In Andor, when we compare stuff to End,

we know that Cassian's dead. He's... We're watching the story of a ghost. So that, that changes a lot of the way we come to the story as well. But do you think that this movie

in Star Wars in general has a villain problem where when you watch this movie I was struggling to be like wait okay who's the villain though and what do they want? I guess it is the twins

but the movie never goes out of its way to be like how are these twins different than Jabba the Hut? They're just kind of like cartoon same thing with Embo. It's a character that works on a kid's show

because Embo doesn't talk a lot. But I'm like, if Enbo doesn't say anything throughout this whole movie, it's just kind of like a CGI character who's putting Mando and Grogo in a little bit of peril. I thought Embo was fucking phenomenal. I thought he was a sinister villain. I thought having someone,

from a story perspective, I thought that was one of the stronger parts of movies. Really? I hated Embel. So like having, so Mando fucks everybody up, right? Amanda is essentially the Bruce Lee Steven Seagall of this world don't matter how many motherfuckers you can throw Amanda

and what we haven't talked about is some of the action here is really really good really good this is the best part of the movie really good really good the opening action sequence where Mando is excellent after one of the

remnants of the Empire Day has to get phenomenal phenomenal the way he takes out two walkers all of that stuff right all of that's great but wherever he goes he fucks everyone up and then Embo when he gets to Mando's home

just completely just outclasses him outclasses him he he in his ability to capture Mando creates this sort of scale of badassery we know Mando is a badass

we see Mando fucking up everyone no one can stay in front of him. No one can do it. He's too tough till this guy comes around. I think it was better that he didn't talk because what the fuck is he gonna say? It was almost like how they did Boba Fett in the beginning of it, right?

Where it was, he was a super cool character for what he did. What this guy did was beat up Mando and use his big ass dog to scare everyone. So by the time you got to that end fight, to me, that end fight was, oh shit.

Mando can see him coming. They're doing this like what's going to happen. That was one of the things that worked the best for me. But to me, I'm like, Boba Fett can just be a cool-looking character because you have Darth Vader standing there. And Darth Vader is the villain. Darth Vader is the scary, like, unstoppable force that everybody's fighting against. There is none of that in this movie.

To me, the twins, I was a little bit like, okay, so there's just, like, lesser versions of Java. But that's kind of like against the Mandalorian's formula, at least when it came to its show. Like what was the overarching villain in that show? Was it like, oh my God, I'm forgetting his name. I'm just glad y'all see how I feel. No, yeah, no, of course. I know.

What I mean is, no, I'll tell you why. I'm just glad y'all see how I feel because I'm watching The Last Jedi and I watch all three of you. I watch one of my childhood heroes, Luke fucking Skywalker, crush a goddamn X-wing, Luke Skywalker moved so fast, he's imperceptible. Luke Skywalker, all this stuff I'm watching Luke Skywalker, throw his goddamn lightsaber over the thing. And I'm saying, that's not Luke Skywalker. I know that guy is.

And I'm hearing from you guys, hey, just fall into the story. This is the story they want to tell. This is more interesting. Luke Skywalker wants to cut his fucking nephew's head off. And that's where he's coming in these latter years. But now when we watch these movies, I'm hearing all of this other stuff. stuff that doesn't have anything to do with the movie, which I understand because I did it

for Last Jedi. I want you guys to just roll up in the same sleeping back of bullshit. Whoa. How does me being like, who is the villain? What does the villain want? Who are they fucking fighting? There's just like... Well, that's clearly outlined in the movie.

The villains are the huts. They want Rada. They want him dead because Rada is heir to the... to Jabba's entire crime thing. They want him dead. Like, Mando, I mean.

Rodda doesn't even want to be a crime lord. I know, but they still, but he's, but he's still, it's, it's, it's,

it's right. He's the heir to the, the hut's throne, but he was in jail, or the fighting puts, whatever, and so they want him so they can kill him,

so there's, he doesn't have a claim to it. Which is weird how you can't hear in a crime family. They don't know when he's going to, if he's going to change his mind. Yeah. We don't see the Hut twins do anything. Well,

they just do anything. laugh maniacically. Like when I say this is like an episode of Clone Wars where I'm like, that works for a cartoon network TV show for a two and a half hour movie, I do want to feel like if Mando is the baddest motherfucker in the galaxy, he's facing someone that like, even if we know he's going to be all right,

I do want to have that feeling of like, shit, how is Mando going to get out of this one? So write it. Write it. Tell me what you would have wanted to see. I, like, I would have wanted in my villain. And I think this is all great villains. For whatever the villain wants to demonstrate, it's a reflection or an inverse of what the hero wants.

I think the reason like Darth Vader works very, very well is that like he's imposing and black, he barely talks, he breeze heavy. He wants order. He's a totalitarian. Where it's like Luke is this farm boy in the rebels. They want freedom. They want a little bit more chaos. They don't want everything to be black and white. and you're just like you can understand that very, very easily.

In this movie, when Mando is fighting against the twins, it's muddled. They're like, oh, well, they want to kill Rada because that's their nephew when they want to claim to the throne. You're like, okay, but we don't see them really doing any criminal shit. We don't even see what their syndicate shit is about. So instead, you just kind of have like some cardboard cutouts. And that's like, okay, if it's a children's movie, I'm not going to like ding it that much. but I'm like, yeah, I would have wanted to see the inverse of Mando.

Who is the person in the galaxy who is like, hey, Mando and Grogu, you stand for this? Fuck that. That's the wrong way to see the world. That's the wrong way to see the universe. Interesting. So a couple of things. Number one, you know all of that about Darth Vader when you're first watching the movies. But then it turns out that none of that is true.

Yes. Right. Which is great, right? Well, it's writing that took 40 years, right? So, like, even when, like, all of the stuff that you learn about Darth Vader as it relates to Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, we didn't learn over the course of a long time that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker. And the mistakes that he made didn't have anything to do with order or any that stuff. The mistakes that he made were all personal mistakes.

So comparing Darth Vader to any villain that you would get. on screen for one time, you've had 50 years with them. No, but if you go to Empire Strikes Back, because this movie does have that moment where it's like, okay, we are on a swampy planet. And what is the thing that Luke realizes he's afraid of most? It's the Vader within him. And it's like, oh, that says so much about the character.

Yeah, we're going to get books about it and comics about it and the prequels. But even if none of that exists, the minute that Darth Vader, is like Luke I am your father, you're just like, oh, okay, so I see, I learn so much about Luke through the villain, and we never really get that in Mandalorian and Grogu. Even when Grogu is on his, on his little side mission, we don't really get that much about just what makes this character tick, because it's just like, okay, there's like a silent film, which is fine.

It is just, it's not cinematic. It is very much a TV show. Okay, so if I'm, because I'm, continuing to hold water for Disney. Thank you, Mr. Michael Moss. So this is what I would say. Number one, not all villains are created equal. Yeah. Where if you're talking about Vader,

you're talking about the, the number one villain in the history of popular culture besides the Joker, right? There is a part of this where the audience is, this is a movie that's kind of more for Star Wars fans. So expecting you to know who and what the huts are.

So if you have, have twin huts there at the top of the entire crime syndicate that are after one of their own, that person is in a dangerous situation because of the reach, the resources, and the viciousness of the huts, what they're willing to do, right? So if a hut was after me, I would think that maybe that hud would want to take me and put me in what they had Leah, lay-aware, and then get all down with me and had me dance around. They're going to lick you? Because I'm fucking sexy like that.

So, Hudson, a bad situation. We've never really had those types of villains in Mando, because we are in a villainless part of this galaxy. Like, this part of the guy, the guy that you're talking about, he's dead. Well, they tried to do that with Jean-Carlo Esposito's character. They did, and at the same time, like, having him there. But, like, the reality is, like, we're in a time, and this is kind of the conceit of the entire movie. That's why part of it is just what it is. That's what it'll be, because we're at a time when there are scattered smaller villains

and not huge iconic villains, right? That's another reason why the fucking First Order didn't really work, if we're being honest. The First Order didn't really work because it wasn't a new set of desperate villains that had these. It was kind of a sequel to the villains that we already knew. Quite little of the same. With seemingly unlimited resources.

But wasn't the original this Thron was supposed to be the backbone of the? Could have been, and even with Thron. Thrawn, dare really work in Asoka, not really. But I mean, that's to his point, though. It's like you take these characters from the show and you put them in live action and they don't really translate. Well, I mean, they can translate. I'm not saying I disagree. I'm just saying, right, right, right.

Like, you're helping to prove his point. No, no, no, that's not. I don't care anything about live action or whatever. I'm talking about when we're talking about villains. I think the villains in this in this in this movie are completely appropriate for the type of story being told. The villains here in a Mando movie, Mando's villains wouldn't be Darth Vader. Mando's villains would be huts and runaway empire people and people that would be escaping a bounty hunter or contending with one or other bounty hunters. Right. I'm saying make them interesting.

Make me care about that. Make me feel like Mando and Grogu are in actual peril. and like it's just that the movie does not have that tension. So if the movie doesn't have that tension, I think there is a reason why I'm like, when I walk out of it, I'm not thinking about the movie. When I walk out of a good Star Wars movie,

I cannot stop thinking about this universe. I cannot stop thinking about, oh, there was- How many times has that happened? In Star Wars? Yeah, for you. I think Last Jedi recently and or. I think the first two seasons- No, no, movie.

Oh, in the movies? Yeah. How many times does that happen? I think New Hope does it really well. Empire Strikes Back does it really well. I think Revenge of the Sith gets there. Certain parts of Phantom Menace get there. And I would say,

Charles. So you're saying that as, so you're saying as much as both Phantom Menace and as much as Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith have been derided by you, derided by you, that you both left those movies feeling like, I'm just asking. No, yeah, that's why I said parts.

Like, I think the duel of the fates in Phantom Menace is like, I just could not stop thinking about it from a choreography standpoint, from what it meant for the universe standpoint. I know that scene, but you said the world. Yeah, there were parts of it, yeah, where I was like, oh, this is really, really interesting. There's just a bunch of bullshit in the middle. There was nothing in Mandalorian and Grogu where I was like, that scene is going to be an iconic scene where I just can't stop thinking about, like, how they pulled it off. The action seems are really, really good,

but it just kind of slots into an era of Star Wars where I'm like, okay, you watch it, you enjoy it, and you kind of... Okay, so we're getting slightly bogged down here, but let me tell you why I want to. We'll get out of it soon. I know that this is never what the audience really wants to hear. It's because we can go into a movie, and your feelings of the movie are always fair.

Always fair. They're always fair what you thought about the movie. We're getting to a point in Star Wars, and all of this stuff to where, like, think about what we're doing. We've talked a little bit about this movie, a little bit about it, about what we liked, what we didn't like. We've talked about Darth Vader. We've talked about the Phantom Minutes.

We've talked about Revenge of the Sith. We've talked about Last Jedi. The Last Jedi, we talked about Luke Skywalker. We've talked about all of that. Maybe this movie isn't that. And if every movie that comes out from Star Wars has to be that, then I have something to say to everybody and this is okay. Then you just don't love Star Wars that much.

You love those movies and those characters and that stuff. Now, people say that same thing to me about Last Jedi. And I have to contend with that, right? I have to contend with the fact that Last Jedi wasn't the childhood theme park version of Luke Skywalker that I'm used to. So I pouted like a 36-year-old, what do you remember? was that? That was 2017. 37, 37 year old. I piled it like a 37,

a 37 year old man child. That's fair. But for us to really, really be able to not just enjoy but analyze this stuff, we're going to have to do what Kylo Ren tried to get ready to do

in Last Jedi, which is what? You guys remember what he said to her? Kill the past. Kill the past. But this movie, like, we're like, kill it if you have a past. Like we go, we get the past. Like we're going, at some point, we, I'm not saying we have to do it now, guys. But I'm saying at some point, we go, we're going to have to kill the past.

What day, Palloni and John Favro in this movie can't kill the past? Because whenever the movie gets shaky, they go back to the toy box and be like, hey, yo, this isn't Jabba the Hut, but it kind of is like Job of the Hut. Huts exist in this world. Where? The force exists in this world. But what I'm saying is, is there enough to analyze? These are new characters.

But they are new characters that are basically carving copies of old characters. So it's like if we're trying to analyze this movie, the reason that we keep bringing up a bunch of shit that's happened in the past is because I'm like when this movie is starting to feel shaky, it's because it's running back to the nostalgia, the nostalgia dream. Like what nostalgia of the original? I think, and I think I get where Charles is getting at. I think I said this.

We had this big post-credit discussion. at the end of the Super Mario Galaxy pod where we talked about Star Wars with Rob. And I think the thing is, and I said this then, back in the day when George Lucas was making Star Wars, he was making it off like Flash Gordon and Kirasaka films and all this stuff.

Like he was taking archetypes from different genres and making Star Wars. Now they're making Star Wars, like Dave Filoni's making Star Wars. the people making Star Wars are raised on Star Wars Exactly, right? It's like the Simpsons When they were making, they were like Doing Batman, the Animity Series, all this

Those are their aspirations Yeah Other people riding Simpsons are people who grew up watching the Simpsons. Yes. Right? And so all the archetypes you're talking about Are Star Wars archetypes, right? The bounty hunters, the huts All that stuff are just stuff

that like we see all the time in Star Wars Because those are the Like those characters that were used to And so you can sub in the twins for Java, Embo for Cadbane, all that stuff, it's all going to feel very similar

because these are all just Star Wars archetypes that you can sub in and put in at any time. So frankly, for the most part, the most different stuff we get are the force stuff. Luke, Leia,

Darth Vader, all that stuff is like unique within the world. The Bounty Hunter stuff, the stuff, the non-forced stuff is pretty kind of by numbers. And like I said, like,

like, like adventure series, like monster of the week, situation of the week, do this contract, come to complete the mission. They're not as, they're not as,

they're not as, I don't want to say complex because that, that seems a little like harsh, but a little, a little more simple, right? You could have sub-cat Bane for Mbo

and he would have talked a bit more, but it would have been, it would have been, it would have been, Job of the Hut could have been, could have been the Twins and would have been, it would have been a little bit more interesting

because we know Jabba the Hut, but it wouldn't be as, like, the movie would still be the same, is my point. And so, like, not to, like, completely agree with Charles, but there is a level of these characters can all, like, do we all have facsimiles for these characters in this universe all the time? So it's... I see you guys this point. You guys watch mob movies?

Yeah. You like them? Yeah. I mean, yeah, these archetypes, rom-coms, heist movies. So what I'm saying is, like, what I'm saying is this analysis is interesting. Because you watch, if you watch a mob movie, tell me some archetypes that are in a mob movie. The rat, you got the, um, the big boss. The big boss.

Big boss. Who tries to move away comes mad. You got the big boss. You got the soldier. Yeah. You also have. You got the Judas character. You have the pragmatic mobster who only kills when he needs to.

The wife who's like, right hand man. Then you have the, the, the mobster that's fucking crazy and is looking for a reason to kill anybody. Yeah. You have all of that stuff. Do you know why? Because that's the way the mob is. because that world, we know enough about that world

both through what we've created in the world and through the actual world, the way that it exists, that all of these characters, that's how they exist, right? And the reason why people are building characters that exist inside of a world

is because that world is fully formed. Right. And so, like, once again, you're getting to a point to where, for me, when we're having these discussions, the discussions to me are starting to become about okay like it's it's they're there it's

it's the movies and all of this stuff fandom period is starting to kind of be in like a like a like a figure four it's getting a little weird like if you enjoy being inside the world this is a world with body hunters and hubs and and and force users and all of that stuff the relationships between those people, the things that they do,

either those work for you or they don't. I'm not saying that they worked perfectly in this movie. But I'm saying that these are the huts that replace Jabba. Yeah. And then there will be other huts that replace Java. So for a whole group of Star Wars fans, they wanted to know who was going to replace Java after these huts. What were they going to be like?

Jaba has a son, all of this stuff. The DNA of the parts of the original trilogy or the Star Wars lore that exist in a movie like this for a lot of people, to me, if you're a Star Wars fan, that should be intoxicating for you. It's a deepening of the story that already exists. Like, this is a Mandalorian, but not like a Mandalorian we've ever seen before.

I think it cheapens the story, if I'm being honest. I mean, certainly, right? Because, like, so I understand that it cheapens the story for you, and I think that it will cheapen the story for a lot of people, just like, and this is cool, just like for me, turning Luke Skywalker into a coward cheaping the story, right? But it was still Luke Skywalker, right? It was still, like, having him in that story,

having him, that character is a lot less meaningful. Let's say that in Jedi, a movie that you guys all love, right? Let's say that in Jedi, that was any other former, like, escaped Jedi who was battling with the, they could have gone new. They could have said, you know what, Luke's off somewhere, we're not even fucking with Luke. Like, the reason why you care about

what that character went through is because it's Luke Skywalker. It is the nostalgia of that character that makes all of those decisions and makes that journey interesting. So there's always going to be a part of this that is going to be connected to the world that we live in.

All of the stuff that we're talking about with Andor, they're trying to destroy the Death Star. So like all of it, yeah, you can do as much as you want, as much as you want, you are inside of this world. That you're inside of this world. You're trying to destroy the Death Star.

Andor wanted to make sure that they reminded you that they were trying to destroy the Death Star. So you saw it. So you knew that you were back in the world. But within that you got Luther, you got Cyril. Yeah. You got characters that were so memorable

that it's like, it overcomes just like, oh, it's not just, nostalgia bait. It is just like, hey, even within nostalgia, we can introduce something new. We can introduce like a new character with a type of thought process or the way that they move through the world that deepens the world. Where I'm not, once again, I'm not saying Mandalorian Grogwood was a bad movie. I just thought some of the like, the Anzellons is a perfect example. I love the little Babu Fricks. They're great. You can't watch this movie and not be entertained by them. It's not anything. But at the same time,

it is going to be a little bit of jingling keys where you're just like, okay, sure. Like I've seen them, they're cute, you know they work. Hey, what else is there? And I think when we're talking about this movie, the reason that we're getting off on tangents is if we're just talking about the plot of this movie, not much happens. I'm not, I don't agree. Like, it is the reason why we're getting off of it is because this movie was always going to be rather than a piece of art that existed for itself.

it nobody sitting down in front of the film you guys the movie's not about to win eight Oscars and go crazy okay but sitting down in front of the film it was never going to be about the movie it's going to be a referendum it was going to be a referendum on Star Wars

the health of Star Wars the depth of Star Wars was a referendum of all of that we haven't talked about the goddamn terrifying snake dragon dragon snake that was sick the dragon snake like the poisonous all of that stuff there was plenty of things that happened in the movie, plenty of action.

Like, Mando clearing out the entire club where he fucking knocks the guys, worn off and stuff like that. I like him dropping the salt in the drink. There's plenty of stuff in this movie that happens. That is a lot of fun. But... What happens?

Martin's Gorsesey's great. March Corsese is great. I don't want the money. I didn't tell you anything. Like, he's funny in the movie. There's plenty of stuff in the movie to enjoy. I personally totally agree with the fact that it feels like a television episode.

Totally agree. Not just one, but four. It feels... I totally agree with the fact that it feels like a television episode. I think to our larger conversations regarding Star Wars and fandom, you know,

we litigate trailers based upon this is what we do now. The movie, before the movie comes out, we litigate trailers based on how we feel about the trailer. We litigate trailer how the trailer looks, the casting of this, the this and the this and that. And then we wonder why we can't fall into the movie,

anymore. Like, like, and it's not, it's still on the storytellers to make the story into something. But I will say

that we can't take a step back and breathe a little bit. This Mandalorian here, this character, Denjian, this character, this Mandalorian character deep into the entire world

of the Mandalorian for Star Wars live action. Through this character, we learned about the entire, well, in live action Justin. In live action.

We learned about sective. Cone Wars. Clone Wars. Yeah, it deep in things. Yeah, but in live action for a lot of people who weren't on,

we learned about the creed. The creed. We learned about all of this. We saw somebody break all of the rules of his life to go and like adopt a son

and go around and choose that son over his creed. We watched that son shirk the Jedi and all of that stuff. The world building that has

existed to Star Wars prior to this, has deepened the relationship of these two characters. Because Grohug who doesn't just exist as an orphan who Denjarn picked up somewhere. Grogu is the orphan that rejected Luke Skywalker and the Jedi. Denjorn is the Mandalorian that rejected his creed and his past and who he was and being the wielder of the Dark Saber to be a father. All of that foundation to me is the reason why these characters work together. Right. And that's the end of my checks that I'm getting from this.

me. No more from Michael Mouse. No more from Michael Mouse. I just think like I came away from it and it's not going to change the world.

No, yeah. But man, we can have fun with Star Wars. Like the movie gave you permission to have you to have fun. It really does suck that almost every Star Wars thing

is like becomes an existential like what's the state of fandom criticism and why can't Star Wars just be fun again and stuff like that? I mean, they did that in 2019. They did it forever. They've done it forever,

almost always since the Last Jedi and even before. Well, yeah, I guess you would have to go back to 2017. But this is like, it's a whole meta-comic phase. For sure. About, like, how we talk about these things and how we, how we like watch these things because last year that came out, divisive. They try to go back in 2015 and 2019.

I don't even, I would go farther than that. I think it broke all of nerd media. I think we don't talk about this. True. I agree. We don't talk about these things normally anymore. I agree. I agree.

I agree. I think that single thing plus all of the putrid, woke, fucking, not woke, but the people who hate woke. Oh, anti-woke. The anti-woke, all of that stuff. Sure, sure, sure.

I think we in the dirt. Yeah. Like, I think we in the dirt. And it sucks that it always happens when a Star Wars. But I also just think this is, this is a business decision where I think Disney especially and a lot of these other companies were like,

you guys want all of this all the time. And I think it cheapen Star Wars. It cheapens Star Wars when we got too much of Star Wars. Whereas just like, yeah, the amount of movies they were pumping out and the amount of TV shows they're pumping out and getting Star Wars and streaming, it just, of course people are going to complain about it more because it just becomes something that's constant. Same thing with Marvel. Marvel doesn't feel as special when you get a new Marvel show every quarter.

I think the feeling that Star Wars and the MCU and DC are trying to recapture, it felt really special when we got a Star Wars movie because we didn't get that many of them. And it felt really special to get an MCU movie when you only might get one every year. When you're getting two every year and three or four shows. And in a way, how cynical of us is it to be like, oh, so this is what you do with your first Star Wars movie after all this time?

make a fun and easy and breezy thing that's easily watchable for everybody to not be mad at, what the fuck? I would... If the movies was good, they can make six and ambitious. That's exactly what it was because in 2017, what do we get?

We got Thor, we got Thor Ragnarok. Then in February, we got, February 2018, we got Black Panther. And then in April 2018, we got Infinity War. It was not like, man, he was coming out. Yeah, yeah.

We was like, but here's the thing. And by the way, just to let you know, all the stuff that you're saying about the rarity of Star Wars movies is cool. That's true. But the prequels came out. George did what he wanted to do on the prequels. He told the story that he wanted to. Maybe George told a story from a directing and from a writing standpoint

that was maybe past his expertise at that point in his career. But he made the movies he wanted to make with the CGI that he wanted to use. And people still went nuts. We just didn't have Twitter. Like people No but here's the thing We were pissed off About one movie

Now we are pissed off about A movie and a TV show It is like people are mad at the Acolyte But they're also mad at Last Jedi But they're also mad at this And I was just like Yeah it's I actually don't think that it is

As long as the movies are good No one would care Because it's like I don't think you can make This amount of movies And them all be good Because it's really really difficult not only to make a movie, but to make a movie about these beloved characters.

It's not like, it's nearly impossible. Which is why when they make a bad one, it behooves you not to take it so personal. Because he's right. Because like, because he's right. He's right. You make three movies and then you wait 30 years to get three more, right? When the three came after that, it took us for a while to even get. into the fact that they was bad.

We didn't even believe the fact that Star Wars movie could be bad. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, so it was, and then I'm still not sure about how I feel about Phantom Minutes. I can't look at it as bad. It's too much. Really? Yeah, it's tough. It's tough for me to look at it as bad.

The experience around going to see it, what happens to do a little face to Charles's point? Yeah. Oh, there's so much stuff that's happening. I was with Marie Rout. We were watching the movie. I had already seen it, and I just remember her going, how they're moving so fast. And I just laughed.

I was like, that's, they're using the force. And she was like, what's the force? I was like, okay, time to shut it up now. Respectfully. Respectfully, I don't talk to women like that. But so, so is, so all of that stuff is difficult. But like, I understand that. But if you make more of the stuff, yes, more of it's going to be bad.

What more decisions that are going to be made that are not going to fly with you. I indict myself these things are storytelling decisions that either you love or you don't love. What they can't be every time they're not right is an affront to your childhood or a sign that this stuff needs to exist

in a very specific bucket. Like if the MCU, maybe not Star Wars, but the MCU was at its peak before television. Television, to Charles's point, still has a lot to prove. The MCU, to its point, was proof that you could scale out these things in a way

and make them not just all meaningful, but all good. Even if Captain Marvel, the first one, wasn't super fucking amazing? Because it wasn't. It was okay plus. It was cool. It was okay plus. But in the era that it was existing in, that was something that audiences wanted to introduce that character. and it worked for what it was.

Now, if you get away from yourself and you don't have as much to say and you maybe made some decisions on some characters that are a little bit more obscure, you take you're always one movie, one creator, one arc, one saga away from that. But rather it become, and this is my main point, and I promise I'll shut up after this

and I'll never take out of hand before a podcast ever again. Rather it be about the, filmmaking and the stories, it's always about the properties. For sure. Like, rather it be, like, we don't have a conversation about why Sean Shih is bad. We don't have a conversation about why

multiverse of madness is bad. We have a conversation about why Marvel is bad and why these movies are bad or why Star Wars is bad and why all of this stuff. All of these things are made by people who write stuff, then direct stuff, and send it away for Viz. And

there's four or five decisions that are made on each production that if they go different, maybe you like it more, you like it less. All right. But is it okay? Because I think a lot of people

will hear my criticism of the movie. It'd be like, yo, Charles hated this movie. And I'm like, actually, I think it's something like more boring and worse, which is like, I just thought the movie was okay. And if I'm talking about the movie just as what happened in the movie, yeah, if I go, if I,

I didn't buy a ticket, but if you buy a ticket to the movie, it is a valid criticism to be like, oh, this was structured like a TV show. So it was a little jarring. Or I felt like the villains were muddled. Or I felt like Mandalorian as one of the protagonists of this movie, nothing really happened with him. So those are all criticism where I'm like, it didn't make for an unwatchable movie. It just made for a movie where I walked out.

I was like, okay, that was just okay. And I think in fandom, either shit is the best shit ever or it's fucking the worst slop you could have imagined. And to me, Mando is in the middle. where I was like, cool time at the movies, we'll never think about this again. We got to wait for the next Star Wars movie. And I just, in the back, I think it's okay to be like, all right, it was all right.

I think, yeah, there's nothing, of course. I think that's a difference in our versions of fandom. Like, to me, it is the best thing in the world because it's Star Wars. You know what I'm saying? Right. There have been plenty, back in the day, they've been plenty of comics that I read,

plenty of things that I've watched that I've just been like, it's, you know, it was good. But I remember when, I remember when Batman Forever came out. Oh, no.

Batman Forever is just fine. So Batman Forever is Val Kilmer as Batman. With Chris O'Donnell as Robin. Great Robin, by the way. Chris O'Donnell is Robin. That wasn't Poison Ivy, right? No, that's the next one. No, that's the next one.

That's three. That's the Cole Kidman as the, yes, yes, okay. And so in that movie, you have the Ridler and you have Two-Face. Right, Jim Carrey. I remember going to watch the movie. Sit down, watch the movie, you know,

first movie, no motherfucking, Mike Keaton. Cool. It's cool. Come home, as, as my parents, it was like, was a movie good? I said, yeah, it was good. It was good.

My mom was like, like, my mama was like, son, it's Batman. that'd go well, shit. Not every Batman movie gonna be the best movie ever made. It's like, it's good movie. It's like good.

I feel that way about The Batman, where I'm just like looking back on it. I don't get on you on. The Batman, to me, is like a good movie that is not excellent. Where it's like, you can sit down, watch a scene and you like, oh shit, this is hot. We're clipping this. What? We're clipping this, brother.

That the Batman is just like a good movie. Yeah, they're going to kill you. I don't think the Batman is a great movie. Social. This is really good. You think you want to keep talking right into that. Social. The Batman is a.

Social. Social. Social. good movie. It is not. Social, social, social. Social. They are. Like, so Matt Reeves is doing like the whole thing.

You are, you are about to get your dick cut off. Why? Wait, did I just say something that was so controversial? They say that shit is better than the dark night, my nigga. I'm being dead ass on God. Hold on. Wait, wait. Wait, wait.

I'm being dead ass on God. They say it's better than the dark night. Hold on. Am I tripping? No. No. I'm like, like, you, I don't personally believe that. Hey, Charles, you're in the world of herd, my friend.

I personally, like, it's not, I don't think it's, like, I don't think it's really a conversation, really. You know, if you really want to, like, open up your mind and be really woke about it, we can talk about it. But frankly, I think it's different levels. You get online right now, Matt Reeves is, like, posting who's going to be in the Batman Part 2, and people are like, oh, man, I can't wait. James Gunning you in the dirt. This is going to be the greatest, the second greatest bad. or the greatest Batman movie ever, and the number two is going to be the Batman

2022. Like, it's a, it's, you're living in a different world. All right. I didn't fucking know the Batman has shooters like that. Bro.

It's got a whole army. It really does. I ain't know. You're lying. Now I know you're lying. All right, let's go back. We talked about other movies in the Star Wars.

Let's, let's see where Mando and Groomew stack up. Oh, wait. Let's rank, let's rank all main line has to be in a movie theater. So I think number one still is Empire Shrek's back. Well, yeah, it's not better than any of the original trilogy. No. No.

Is it better than Phantom Menace? It's a tighter movie than Phantom Menace? Yeah. I'm picking Phantom Menace over here. This movie don't have dual-of-fates. Like, you don't have, if you don't have dual-of-fates in your movie, I can't. I can't do it, I can't do it. That's fine. It's fair. It doesn't have dual-face. Does that have dual-face?

Attack of the Clones. Easily. Yeah, it's better than that. It's got to be better. Revenge of the Sith. Nah, fuck. You got to hear, mine? The fuck out of here. No. Road one, no.

Force Awakens? Don't ever play me? Force Awakens? I'll take Force Awakens. Force Awakens is better than this. I'll take Force Awakens. Last Jedi. Obviously, you guys are going to say no?

No. No. No. Are you going to take it? No. I mean, I've come to appreciate the Last Jedi. It's fine. Rise of Skywalker. Yes.

Easily. Solo. Yes. Yes. Now, listen. Now, listen now. Solo's not that bad. Solo not bad.

I enjoy solo. Alden-Earon-Rike. And I could make an argument, we can almost do a whole part on this, that Solo has a little bit more in it than this movie does from a dynamic standpoint. Talk to him. I agree. I agree. I could make an argument that Solo, but here's the problem with Solo,

and this is not to diss anybody. You have to nail Han Solo for Solo to really be. He really, he did his best, man. Once again, participation trophy as shit. There's solo was good. That's not Han Solo. Okay. And it's okay.

It's okay for us to be like, this was, I think solo is as good as you can make a solo movie that does not have Harrison. Okay. Fine. I mean, so, so when I said, and look, don't try to maybe act like I was being mean towards him. You, you. You. Can we get a hot dog after this? You.

Go to be. Yeah. Like, you go to. Wait, so, but the reason this is better than solo, because once again, I'm not hating that much on Mando and Grogu. I think it's worth the price of admission for the little Grogu side battle in the Bobbrix. Like, there's, when people are like, oh, yeah,

I was like, no, no, no, no, the Bobble Fricks and Grogu, like, in the forest by himself. They're climbing up the walls of that castle and going into the pipe. That's the little, like, lizard rain part of me where I'm like, I love Star Wars. I love little alien puppets. They and Zellin's getting, they lick back. It's great.

The last one, Rogue One, but it's, it's not as good. No, no, no. It's not as good.

So where does, so this is, I think this is a middle tier Star Wars movie. Right. Not middle tier, it sucks, middle tier where it's like,

it's not great enough. Yeah. To captivate me for years, but it is not bad enough for me to be angry about it. It's just a good time at the movie. And hey, even if you,

even if you remotely like Mando and Grover's, and you were even a little annoyed at how season three shook out. Guess what? This is a great correction of that. And you had a great time. I got to be honest, man, not to get back on like the big Star Wars Convo. But I tweeted this the other day. It's remarkable that we've made, they've made 13 of these movies,

including, actually, let's not include the Cornwallers joint, 12 of these movies, like straight to theaters. And there's only one that's like legitimately unwatchable. Well, two. You would say Attack of the Clones and Watchable? Attack of the Clones is bad. I was thinking that, but then... I don't know that it's unwatchable.

It's not unwatchable, but it's not great. It's not dual of the fates. But when Yota is sling that lice, Abraham and Doku-Go-Fa-Fa-Fa-Sah, that's a fantastic. Yeah, but there's too much. There's too much bullshit. There's a lot of nonsense in that movie. But that's the movie where... But think about it.

That's a movie where we get the... Duku gets busy. The same people, genocide, Duku. There's stuff to watch. But the thing, but, like, let's say you had, like, you're re-watching Star Wars, and you, like, I had to crib, you like, I'm going to put on the original trilogy. you're obviously going to watch all three movies. I'm going to put the prequel trilogy.

You're going to watch all three of the movies. If I tell you to go home right now and you got to go home and re-watch the sequel trilogy, you're going to tell me you're going to finish Lysadden and be like, all right, guys. Here's the problem with, Lysia, you mean Rye's Skywalker? No, no, no. I'm saying once the Lashdadi ends,

are you going to be like, man. Time to spin up Rises. Here's the problem with Rises Skywalker. You're not. You're not. You're not. You're not. It is nothing.

Yeah. It's souless. It's, there's nothing. Like, and there's weirdness around it because Leah, uh, Carrie Fisher had passed away. It's like all of this stuff. Maybe that scene where actually, maybe that's not even in that movie. Well, no, what R2 comes back to life. That's in, that's in, that's in the, that's in the, that's in the,

Wait, isn't that last Jedi? Wait, no, that's forced to wake him. Where he wakes up and gives the rest of the map. He has the map. Yeah. And he, but he won't wake up anymore. Yeah. So they got to wake Artu D2 up.

That's how trash. Some of that shit was because I forgot about that whole plot point. Yeah, he just wakes up and then just gives him the map. And then he gives him the map to Luke. He wakes up and Force Awakens. What does Artu do and he does something to Rise of Skywalk? Am I tripping?

Sure. I don't know. I've only seen it the one time. Like, I can't. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, I'm trying to do some of my. What about? What about, what about Han talking to Kylo?

Wack. Force Ghost? Force Ghost? On the little. Not great. Whack. If you talk, you like that scene? Oh, no.

That fight on the water was kind of all right, but, man. I literally cannot remember anything about that family. That's my thing, though. We talk about Star Wars as if it's the, like, abject, not. Peak of all fiction. We kind of do, because think about it. Like, we, they've only made one, arguably two boring movies. Right.

Right? Like, I don't, like, I think we need to, like, not really. adjust our expectations, but, like, really, like, stop missing the force for the streets. But, like, Star Wars, man, it ain't person. It's, let's calm down. Let's stop paying a little bit. Hey, look, I think this movie did a great job.

And again, it's like something. And all I'll say is, that's a nice album every 10 year average with Star Wars. If we being real. Yeah. And that's okay. What's the Elmetic? It's a, but it turned out, it turned out that that nigger was lying.

We ready for a midnight meter? Yeah, let's do it. All right, y'all know the midnight meter is 1 to 12. One being reserved for total dog shit. 11 and 12 for absolute game changers. Let's start with you, Joe, me. What are you giving this? I'm stuck between a 7 and an 8.

I'm going to, you know, I'm going to give it an 8, man. I'm going to give it an 8. I think what elevates it for me is that, like, we actually get to see Grogu be somebody. like what like what go grog can look like in the future he's not just a backpack he's an actual full-fledged character that can like has his own motivation that does the own thing and i and i really i really really really love that little section of the movie uh the action is great i had i had a fun time i think it's a eight for me yeah see if a little sparse i'm giving this a light to solid seven

eight eight eight okay seven i thought about a seven But I think it's an eight. Okay. I'm going to give this one a six. Okay. It's an enjoyable time at the theater. I don't hate it. Like I was entertained.

But with me giving it a six, the last question I kind of want to ask y'all is, in this summer of content, we've been talking about how important this year is just for like the stuff that we cover. Are we in the era where a good time at the theaters for us is enough? Yes. Or do one of these movies really have? Like, if we watch Spider-Rourable. And we're just like it's a good like are we going to be like yeah or are we like damn we really need what it is to like well I don't think that's movie by movie I think it's overall

we need two bangers though okay so I need so doon odyssey spider man avenger you need all those to hit I need two of those we need we need two bangers like it's like it's like okay they can all be good because people are going back to the movie one's got to be fucking awesome we need two bangers I and I think that which Which two is the most important? Which of those four are the two most important to be important? And so I'm going to be a little da-da. Okay, so here's the deal. Dune has got to work.

Yes. Okay. And it's going to work. Okay. Has to be a bang. Dune must be awesome. But let me tell you, the other one that has to be a banger. I think we all know it.

Avengers. I think got a bang. I think Blanked Avengers. Avengers has to bang. If Avengers. Avengers has to bang. Avengers has to. Like, if Avengers doesn't bang. We are going to put a coffin behind us and then

all wear suits. How could you say that? What happened to my father? What's wrong with you? Or anything? Okay. That's an insane thing to say. Come on, guys. Guys, that's come on, man. Charles, look at Charles. All right, that's a wrap. It's up to much. Avengers has to bang. And for me,

Nolan, they talk about you crazy, dog. Oh, come on. Here's the thing. If we be in real, because if we're being real, niggins going to hate on the Odyssey whether it's good or bad. They're going to hang on the Ozzy.

I'm not talking about that fake stuff, though. I'm not talking about that woke. No, no, no. I'm talking about they want to see Nolan trip. They want to see Nolan. They want to see Nolan fuck up. Ah, man, I'm not there yet, brother.

Let me tell you, let me tell you out something. The least of the movies that has the bang is that one. That one don't have to bang. That's true. No one's legacy is secure. First of all, I can tell you right now that if they cast Elliot Page as the ghost of Achilles, they're going to have picket lines. It's going to be a turning point USA conference outside of the fucking thing.

But are we on a not like us, not like us run where Denny looking at the Odyssey, if it don't move the way it moves, he's like, hey, yo. Yo. Nolan was on top for a while, but it's a new kid in town. He's a man if that happens. Whoa, you think the hierarchy of power. No, I think if he takes bond to where we think it is, then he's... I think it kind of already has.

Wait, you think it already is? A little bit. And that's why I'm not like... All right, we wild it. No, no, no. That's why I don't... Give me the filmography. Bring up the filmography.

But that's why I think... Let's give you Dini right back. Let's do it. Let's do a versus right now. A versus? Let's do Dennie Nolan versus. Okay, I've got Dinnies coming up. Wait, wait, wait.

If we're... Let's do it. No, no, fuck it. Are we wasted pod? No, no, we're going ban for band. I'm going to a midnight court on this tomorrow. Let's just let's just let's just talk about it now. I do a midnight court on this tomorrow.

Where are we starting? Because we can't, because we, now here's the thing though, okay? We can't, we can't go all the way back to 2000, right? Now you already change that now. You already changed it. You're late switching now. Let's go. If it's bad for bad.

Let's go. Let's go. We're first order. What's the last movie Danny made? June two. Dune two. Oppahimer. Dune two.

Doon. Over Oppenheim? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll be kicked off the pot. I love, Abaheim. Like, Oppahma not fucking with Dune 2, though. It's not.

It's not. I would. God damn, Nigerian mind? Igbo mine? Wow. Come on. Which one are you? Yoruba, come on.

Your above? Respect me. Come on. So what's the difference in Igbo and Europe? We don't have to get into it. I legitimately. Shout to Wale. I don't know.

I legitimately think Alperheimer is one of his best words. Shout to my Nigerian. Shout to Shout to Shout to Shout to Shout. Strong disagree. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's me. Okay, what's, uh, Denny's last movie? Dune, second last movie. Dune, Dune, part one.

Tenet? All right, you got to give it. Wash. Suck me. Next one. Blade Runner, 29. Dunkirk. Blade Runner, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, it's Blade Runner. I'm taking Blade Runner. That might be the Kirk. You take it Dunkark over Blade Runner. That might be, I don't, I'm not mad about that. It might be the Kirk, bro.

That might be Kirk. But no, my Blade Runner, 249 special. I, I, that's a tough one, bro. That's a tough one. That might be the Kirk, man. I love that Blade Runner movie. I love that. That's so fucking good.

I gotta go, darn. Pete Gosling. What's the next one? Arrival. Have it to be. Who? Haven't seen Arrival. You haven't seen a rival?

No. Dog, that's, that, that, no. Arrival is amazing. All tap in. I'll tap in. Brat. Brow. Arrival is so fucking incredible.

And for interstellar. Arrival over interstellar, easy. Yo, they box you, bro. Hold on, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold, hold. I got to get some, I got to call Joe. I'm sorry, bro. Who call who? I got a call, bro.

I got a call, I got a call. Joe Robinson? Yeah, got a call to her. She's literally in, right now. They started at 10, though. They might be done it. Let me say, well, then nigger will see if she'll open the goddamn, if she'll answer the goddamn phone.

Okay. I call her on my phone. Let's see. Let's see. Answer the phone, Joe. Joe, we're doing a Nolan versus Denny thing. She's still in the office? And I'm going to ask you right.

Are you still in office? Yeah, I'm studio five. Oh, come, come through. She's busy. I just want to ask her. No, come find me. Yeah, come to the studio. Yeah, yeah, come on the midnight boys real quick.

Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. So we got to get, we got to get another. This is a great person. Because I can't, I don't know what to do. You haven't seen a rival, bro.

You need to see a brother. You need to see a brother. So, hi. Just this is, this is the deal. Okay. we're going backwards. Band for band. Ban for band.

We're going Denny versus Nolan. Yeah. And we've gotten to... In the middle of your hot Nolan summer. We've gotten... We've gotten to Arrival versus interstellar. Okay.

Who takes it? Arrival. Easy. Oh, man. I don't think it's that easy. But that's because we're too old. It's not that easy. The youth love interstellar.

But arrival's better. Wait, youth love interstellar. Was there a resurgence? amongst the youth for interstellar? So it came out the 10 year anniversary came out. I hadn't seen a movie. I wouldn't see it in theaters, brother.

When I tell you, like it was like 10 o'clock. You know me, man, I'd be in that motherfucker. Sure. I was sleeping. I was locked in to 1 a.m. in that movie, brother.

That thing was special. I understand. And I saw Arrival when it came out. It's really tough for me to like put two baddies against each other. I think I'm contending with interstellar's cultural reputation

because Arrival is better to interstellarital. Arrival's way better than Interstellarital. but Interstellar is a bigger movie in terms of like its impact on people. For sure. Arrival's a hipster choice, but it's the better choice. Okay. All right.

So we'll give that one to Joe. Joe, you're going to help us finish. Charles is not here. Okay. That's your next Denny joint. Next Denny? This is, am I bringing the same Charles energy? Yes, you are.

It's the same perfect blend of a manga. It's actually like one for one. Cicario. Dark DiRises. I'm going to Sycario. Sicario. Socario. I'm going to fuck out of here.

All right. Okay. Now we get into, now we start getting into. Now we're into the nitty-gritty. Have you seen enemy by Denisville Nuff? I have. Okay. Inception.

Okay, Inception. Inception, unfortunately, yeah. Now we get to a movie that I really like. Prisoners versus the Dark Night. Tough. Okay, I'm sorry. All right. No one takes that.

We're going back. We're going back. Yeah, it's like you're going to do. We're starting the most recent movies. But see, here's a deal, though. Now it's not fair anymore. No, because Denny kind of like, Denny's...

Prisoners is Denny's... Like he's emerging. Yeah. Right. And no one's already... I'm sorry. I have not seen Polytechnique. I have not seen...

I actually saw it. Okay. I actually went back and watched these movies. Some of them I don't really get. But like... Can we run this back? Who won like Oppenheimer versus... Okay.

So... I was Oppenheimer versus Dune 2. Yeah? Dune 2 takes that for me. I'm having a hard time because I really think Aubaheimers is one of... Dune 2 is clearly better than Oppenheimer. Tell me I did not know you were in the Oppenheimer.

I am. Have I ever told you what happened when Rob and I went to go see that at a press screening? As soon as a credit roll, this woman was like, fake fucking God. Let me tell you something right now. The bomb go off, right? And you're thinking like, man, man, there's another hour of this movie.

How can they top it? And guess what? They don't. They do. Oh, yeah. Hell not. I was in the movie like, I was in a movie like this. When Rami Mollick,

Mommy Mollick didn't say, Charles, This is Kaiser-Sose moment? Charles, come sit down right here. I was locked it. I was sitting down on the table. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, no.

No, no. So you're, so you're, every year, you're two and two. I'm not acting like, we have to go back over the list for jokes. Okay, now it's Dune Part 1 versus. Now it's Dune Part 1 versus Tenet. Dune 1. Yeah. Right, and then what's the next one?

Blame runner 249. Dunkirk. See? That's tough. That's tough. I do love Dunkirk, though, but I love Blade Runner's love. I love Dunker. We went with the Kirk.

Yeah, I love Dunkirk. I think it was Denny, but then here's the thing, Denny just stops. But then Danny, like, once you get to... That's why I said before, the way we should do it... Top 5 versus Top 5? Yeah. That's what we should do. We should do this for the 4-Pod.

Find Nolan's top 5. Well, because if you ask me, half the pod is going to be doing that because we should do two pods on that because I think the prestige is top 5. Prestige is like way up here. No, I wouldn't be in a top five. No, prestige is easily what to be talking about. What else would you put in there? No, no, but that's like

podcasters think prestige is top five. Normal people don't. They don't put it in its top five. No. They would put Dark Night, Inception, Interstellar, you know, like a lot of people put memento over prestige, but I think prestige number two. I think it's out of his best.

I will say prestige is way better than Interstellar. I agree. So we do. So this is what we do. You should have your listeners vote on what are the top five. Well, we should do this. Do you believe in democracy? I believe in.

No, he does. He does. Do you respect the opinion of your listeners? I do. Is Thragging this episode? So what we should do is we should do, we should first do a top, two top five episodes for Denny. And we should do one top five episode for Denny. and, uh, no, no.

Then we should come back and we should, uh, make them spar. And on that spar episode, you should have House of Ar on. Can't wait. Love it. House of Midnight. Love it. Love it. Love it.

Love it. Yeah. Okay. So you guys do your Top 5 episode and then have us on for the Clash of the Titan. You know what? Is this our Midnight court? You know what? We almost might, maybe you guys should do, maybe we should take a top five from one group

and you guys should take a top five from all. You guys got too much. Yeah, man. They already do a Nolan. We did all the Nolan. So, yeah. Because the Ditty Top Five is pretty straightforward to me. The Nolan, even though I love prisoners,

the Nolan Top Five is going to be difficult. Difficult. It's going to be difficult. But to me... Number one is easily Dark Night, right? I mean, I think you must have our Dark Night... Dark Night Prestige. No, my number one is the prestige.

I think it's Prestige's best movie. I agree. Yeah. But that's my number one. I got a... I'm on the record. The prestige is my favorite. favorite Nolan movie.

Prestige is probably, it could. No. I got to put my but again, I think that's the hipster choice. I think the

prestige is best movie because it is the, it is the, the ultimate, optimal use of all of Nolan's stuff. Yes. It is Nolan

operating at his absolute peak of his All of the Nolan stuff works better prestige or worse. Have you seen following his first film? It's really good.

I really recommend you watch it. It really is kind of the prestige again. It's a little over an hour. It's really short. It's black and white. It's not a student film,

but basically a student film. It has everything that he's ever done is in this, like, first thing that he ever did. It's amazing. Insomnia, also think about it. Insoomia, low-key kind of great. Better than people think. Tenet's not going to make it.

But these movies, think about it. Think about it. Just think about it. You know what? I would not put Oppenheimer in the top five, personally. Let's go! Let's go! Man, when he get up there and he, he's like, yo, actually, don't put this guy on the committee, bro.

I was in tears my eyes. That was special. Yeah, I wasn't locked in. It's cool. It meant something to me. I think that I enjoyed the movie a lot, but mainly because of Barbie.

Yeah. John F. Barbenheimer. I put Barbenheimer in the top five. I wouldn't put Oppenheimer on top. I love, brother, that I was, I can't tell. I'm not mad that he has his Oscar for that because that's just like a career cumulative Oscar and that's fine.

I'm not like what a miscarriage of justice. But I would not put Oppenheimer in my Nolan top five. I would put, like, in my personal top five. it would make it, but like, that's, you know, I want Odyssey in the top five. I want the Odyssey to be so fucking good. That's what started the conversation. July 17th.

July 17th, happy 30th birthday to meet. So maybe we wait to do this around that time. You do it as like a ramp up to it, you know? There's a ramp up to it. Okay. Production meetings on the podcast. Denny, is there another director? Is there another director that could get in there

with those two guys right now? Right now, no. Can I be honest? I think Nolan, I think Nolan is just like, Denny, you over here. of Coomber is actually my child. Coog? I think it's Cooner's Den.

The Ryan Top 5 is thin. Ryan Top 5 is quite easy. I think Coomler is top 5. Just because his filmography is shorter. He hasn't made that many movies. He just said black. Black Panther. Oh, you just said the word black.

I was like, what? Number one, Black Panther 2, right? Creed. Yeah. Heavell Station. So these are all bangers, but I think Ryan's I think Ryan's getting to. I think Ryan is entering in, I think Senators is the beginning of his Denny.

So this is the right now. But would you put like, would you ever put like classic Spielberg up against him or something like that? I was just about to say because disclosure day is coming out. So that's a, that you got to sift through a lot to make a top five for Spielberg. What you mean sift through a lot? He's made a million movies. There's a lot of, I mean, this nigga made Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park, Jaws.

Jaws. E.T. Shindler's list? Yeah. I don't want to get. A. Yeah, the way I Head, here.

Like, yeah, he's top five. And Catch me if you can A Minority Report. The two best ones. Catch me if you can is a top five Spielberg movie. Oh, yes, it is. Oh, great.

Perfect movie. What director has the greatest top five? Okay, now we're getting. Probably Spielberg. It would have. I mean, we're, we gotta go.

We got to go. Can I just say something real quick, though? If you're not putting John Favro in this. If your top five has E.T. Jaws and Jurassic Park, it's going to be difficult for a lot of people to fuck with you. Now, you can argue what those other two movies are. I mean, look, there's a lot of movies.

Like, you could argue what those movies are. But, like, if your top five has those three movies, like, bro, no, Raiders of the Lost Art. Yeah. Different levels. Yeah, it's like, you can't. That's what I say. It's going to be difficult for the shit that we talk about. It's going to be difficult for somebody to fuck with you.

Yeah. Because you'd have to put Raiders in there too, right? I think yes, but I think Nolan versus Villeneuve is a great, is a great argument to have. And invite us on. Joe, before you go, yes. You know, you guys are going to cover Mad on Groker was well. You try to scoop my own pop, my take. Yeah, if y'all just like, look to the camera.

Don't give them no take. Listen to House of R. Yeah, listen to House of R. Yeah, give us the family. Yeah, give us the family. Our program reminds us on Tuesday. House of R gives you their summer. hype meter. This is Joanna Robinson.

She's the host of House of Arr, so you would go there and listen to her on that, do it now. On Thursday, button mash discusses Forza Horizon Six and Lego Batman Legacy of the Dark Night. Okay. Chuck take us out. Oh, excuse me, my bad, our producers. You don't have the producers in here. Please credit to producers. Our producers are our layers and theirs, Devin Baraldi. Join me a dinner on socials. Hashtag, dirty Mac and a dinner on. I guess we're leaving

with that one. An additional production from Arjuna Ram Gapal. Check, take us out. Mando and Grogu was just okay. The summer of hype keeps rolling. Stay locked in for Denny. Personal. Come on.