The Ringer-Verse - ’The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ Instant Reactions | The Midnight Boys

Episode Date: April 4, 2026

The Boys are back with guest Rob Mahoney and they’re diving into the newest Nintendo film, ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.’ They then bring you the latest in nerd news and discuss the trailer for ‘Supergirl.’ And if you stay until the end, we have a treat: a lively debate on the philosophy of the ‘Star Wars’ universe. (0:00) Intro (11:01) Spoilers Ahead (11:33) ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ Instant Reactions (48:25) Midnight Meter (57:01) ‘Supergirl’ Trailer Reactions (1:05:58) Outro (1:09:07) Post Credits Hosts: Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, Jomi Adeniran, and Rob Mahoney Producers: Aleya Zenieris and Devon Baroldi Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This is of course the Wringer's Nexus podcast fee for all things fandom We are Steve the architect Alma The builder and tinker of things Jomey the explainer at dinner on you've got questions He's got answers Old Man Van He of the Rescening Resurgeoning hairline

Coke baby Chuck The 24 carer closer Together we are known as I thought midnight boys Okay That's not Steve No Are you sure? I'm not sure

It kind of You guys kind of have a similar style, though. Do we? Did you come in your best Steve outfit? No, I left the cardigan at home. I'm going to be honest with you. But I did think about it. Because if you were channeling Steve, what would you have done? The cardigan, like what else?

I don't think I can get on Steve's level. That's true. The Steve's swag can be replicated. It's different. It's different. Would you have done like a, because you know, Steve's got like an anime tattoo of some sort. Would you have done like a... A jibly tattoo, no? Yeah. Would you have done like a...

Do a temporary? Temporary tat. As Steve. See, we got to get full wardrobe next time. Have you ever taken... a black woman to the movies and what movie did you watch with her? I haven't.

Why? I've been in the same relationship since I was 15 years old. Not a black woman. No, not a black woman. So we've been locked in. When you were, before you decided this is the one for me,

did you consider a black woman? I grew up in suburban Texas where I'm gonna be honest with you, not a lot of black people. There you go. Damn. Well, this is a change for you. This might be the most

you've ever been around. The Midnight Boys welcomes Rob Mahoney Thank you. One of the hardest working men at the ringer right now. I appreciate it. Working men at the Ringo right now.

It's happening right now. Okay, we'll be back after this. Okay, files on socials at the Midnight Boys' Pod on Insta and TikTok. At Ringiverse on Insta, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok. How are the socials growing Jomi?

The socials are going great. You know, we ask people to follow if they want to see Invincible, they're following. But y'all, man, we try to get that 15K if y'all really wanted some visible conversation. Every time I open my mentions, where's invincible, Jomey?

We want to talk invincible. I'll love to talk invisible with you. But we got to get to that 15K. It don't work without y'all. I'll tell you something. This is bad. Why is it bad? Making the audience do something

in order to get us to do what we do is not great. This is bad. This is Jomey, because we've talked about it, before save Jomi's job. Now, this is an abuse of Jomey's power. I'm dangling

Invincible off a building. Oh my God. And if you want me to save Invincible, you will follow on the socials. Okay, also let me jump in here. As the ombudsman of the Midnight Boys, as an avid listener of the Midnight Boys. Man, you're doing the shit all the time. You're constantly making demands

of people who listen to this show. It's different, though. Oh. It's always different. It's always different. The demands that I'm making don't directly influence the position I have here. The demands I make, I make, here's this, the demands I make are for the podcast. Subscribe. Watch on you, all of these things support everyone. What Jomi's talking about right now on the socials only supports Jomey.

That don't support everybody? No. They don't support everybody? I was going viral, getting our name out there. No. No, no. But also listen to this. Another thing I'll say.

I've never said, hey, if you support us, we'll cover a show. Either we cover the show or we don't cover the show. I've never said, if you got to subscribe, then we'll do fucking Superman the movie. I've never done that. I feel like there was some demon slayer. Like, you've got to build consensus to cover the show. You got to let us know you're interested. If you want us to watch it, they're already saying they want invincible.

You guys going to try to out argue me. It's going to tell. Like, they already said that they want Invincible. I got Oliver. This is the thing. They've already said that they want Invincible. Yeah. Jomi is saying, hey, if you want Invincible, you have to follow us.

That's transactional. I would love to cover. You guys, I want nothing more to cover Invincible. But you got to get to the 15K. That's the rule. I'm sorry. How far are we? We about like, what, like 6K away?

We can get there. Yeah, y'all got work. That's due. Y'all got work to do. By the way, I'll say this. I don't know that I'm covering Invincible no matter what they do. All right, man. All right.

I'm not watching it. Brother, the show hitting right now, man. I'm not watching it. It's going crazy. You all say that every season and it is rarely. You come back, man. You're like, hey, man, every year, ever since they took the nine-year break for season one, season two, it's been like, yo, man, it can't recapture the magic. Invincible is whack.

You get to episode eight, you kind of like, yeah, that was fire. I can't wait for the next season. Happens every time. Right. It happens every time. happening right now. And people are upset we're not covering it. They don't say anything to me. I haven't heard any one person say, hey, we should be covered in Invincible. I saw you were tagged in the post that I was also tagged in. Didn't see it. Rob, also before we continue, have you

been keeping up with anything? Have you been keeping up with Daredevil? I haven't checked on Daredevil yet. I mean, the last season really soured me. Should I be clocking back in? I mean, I'm here for Jessica. So what? We're like three episodes in. Yeah. I think we did an episode on episode one, and I think we're a bit lukewarm on it, and I think it's kind of finding its feet in the, like, did a double episode drop, what, this week? Okay. I think it's fine. It's fun of sauce.

Does it feel like one show versus one that has been Frankenstein together? No, it still feels Frankinstein. Really? Not for me. Not for me. It feels like a show that doesn't quite know exactly what it is, but it feels like there's a clear narrative. I mean, last year you could tell

that they, there's two different shows. I think they've got a clear line site in these last two episodes. I can be sold on Daredevil. I mean, great hero. The Netflix series is great. I'm like, I want to like it. I just want a reason to like it.

That's fair. What's your favorite superhero stuff, Rob? Where are you getting nerdy at? I mean, all over the place. I'm probably more Batman-oriented. Well, everybody's Batman-oriented. That's fair. It's fair.

If we're going Marvel, I mean, Spider-Man probably. I'm basic in that way. These are the big basic boys, man. I mean, look, I am who I am. You grew up in Texas. We didn't even get Kenny Pride until, they don't like 2000. Yeah, it's all good.

What part of Texas did you go up in? Dallas area. Yeah. Oh, come on. Hold on. Hold on. Dallas area. Yeah.

And there were no blacks. That's a choice. Well, I'm in the suburbs. Like, like, what? So, like, Dallas area. I've been to Dallas. Hold on. I lived in DeSoto for a little while.

Okay. Don't let Van set you up. No. No. Don't let, wait, wait, let, let, let, let, let's say. Let's hear it. It's very important. We have a guest, but it's very important way on Dick Rod, okay?

Because this is a legitimate conversation to be had. Okay. If you would have told me you were from Lubbock or something like that, I'd been like, oh, okay, no niggins. But you said you're from Dallas. Well, that's Mo 3. Like, you use the Dallas area. This is a choice, Rob. The Dallas area is a generous term for Plano, Texas.

I mean, objectively one of the whitest cities in America. All right. So what did y'all do on a Friday night in Plano? What did I do on a Friday night in Plano? Tell me. I wanted to fucking know. I mean, I wasn't doing anything interesting. I'm just hanging out with friends.

I'm watching movies. We're not, I'm not even going out that much. We're chilling in home. You're not in the streets? I'm not in the streets. You're not in the streets? Never was in the streets. Rob, I'm sorry.

I'm gonna be honest with you. Rob, Rob, kind of spitting. Okay, so this is Plano. I tried to tell you. Plano is 46 to 48% white, not Hispanic. 22 to 24%. What's the second biggest, from your, what's the second biggest ethnic group in Piano?

Currently? Yeah. I'm gonna guess South-E. Asian. Asian. Yeah. 16 to 17% Hispanic, 8 to 9%

black or African American. Yeah. So that 8% y'all probably put them all in plain at one point. They got a black high school, don't they? Of course they do.

See? There's a real train track situation. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you didn't go over there with them. Wow. Okay, so look. Stuff. I never knew this before.

So during this, so when we're talking about all of this stuff, You cover so much different stuff at the Ringer before we move on. Batman, Spider-Man, Marvel. Is there anything off the beaten path of nerddom that Rob Mahoney gets into? Like something like just a little bit, I don't know. Yeah, a little freaky.

What's freaky on this podcast? I mean, you get a little bit crazier, you know what I mean? You get a little bit. Like, you know, Howard the Duck. Howard the Duck is a little freaky. Anime, weird anime. All day. But not weird anime.

Okay. There's enough out there. But I'm not weird. You're not watching no Isakaz or nothing. Like, that don't move you? No hentai. No hentai. Sorry.

I mean, the tentacles are not really my speed. Talk your shit, Rob. That shit is weird. Look, just putting it out there. Yeah. I got to say, as a nerd, though, we're nail it. I am unfortunately quite basic. I am white bread of nerddom.

I get it. So. Yeah, I get it. I mean, it happens, right? It does. Sometimes you ask people who your favorite basketball player is, who's the player that really inspired you? and they go Jordan.

And you go, come on, fucking, give me some nigga that got like nine minutes a game. Like a deep cut. Like, say like you really love Jamario Moon. Or like, I do love Jamariam Moon. And you know who Fet the Streets, man? Zavier-Henry, man. Zavier here, like, say,

I was locked in. Vaughn Wai. Give me somebody that you, that you connected to. I thought Soniaue was going to be the goat, man. Possiments and Bonsu, don't even get me started. There you go. Hey, here we are. All right.

Well, on YouTube, like, comments, subscribe, share. You can watch every Midnight Boys and House of our episode on YouTube.com backslash at Ring of Versenocel on Spotify program reminders on Tuesday, the House of R, dives deep into the first two episodes of Mall, Shadow Lord. What's up, guys? Jomi from the future here, as the Midnight Boys tend to do, we can get sidetracked. And this week we did. We did. We had a whole 50-minute conversation about Star Wars that, trust me, you'll get to listen to it. It's at the end of the episode. So stay tuned for that.

But we got to get into the Mario stuff. I think that's important. That's what you're all here for. So let's get into the Super Mario Galaxy Movie Convo right now. Love you. Bye. Hey, guys, let's know. We're going to, we podcast it twice because we got into a Star Wars discussion.

These fake-ass Star Wars fans. Van, who got us into a Star Wars discussion? Me. But what are we talking about right now? Right now. Well, we didn't even get through the program in mind this. Wednesday. God damn.

Instant reaction to the final season of the boys. On today's show, the Midnight Boys are breaking down the Super Mario Brothers Galaxy movie

and the Supergirl trailer. I can't believe they made another Supergirl movie. Let her die. Jesus. Christ. You guys don't understand

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now streaming on Paramount Plus. That's when you listen to it. All right, this will be a spoiler-filled episode for the Super Mario Galaxy movie. To begin our reactions, we once again bring you the Midnight Manifest, that's Chuck Wagon, putting you in the know.

Chuck, take it away. This is your Midnight Manifest for Super Mario Galaxy. movie directed by Aaron Worvath and Michael Jelinek, written by Matthew Fogle, starring Chris Pratt, Annie Taylor Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan Michael Key, Benny Safty, Donald Glover, Glenn Powell, and Bree Larson. During a plumbing mission, Mario and Luigi discovered Yoshi residing in a desert town. The dinosaur and brothers become quick friends, and the trio decide to return the mushroom kingdom

to celebrate Princess Peach's birthday. The celebration is cut short when Peach answers the call to say Princess Rosalina from Bowser Jr. Unbeknownst to Peach, Rosalina, is her long-lost sister, and the younger Bowser wants to use the sister's cosmic powers to take over the galaxy.

Mario Luigi, Yoshi, and Bowser set off to help Peach. Along the way, they meet Star Fox. Bowser reunites with the sun, recommits to a life of crime. Ultimately, the good guys win with a lot of throwaway gags and Nintendo Easter eggs.

I will say, trying to come up with a coherent plot for that Midnight Manifest was very hard. I mean, you did just as a good job. Genuinely. I think you did a fucking great job. That was all NBA-level shit we just saw. But, uh,

I will start with Van. What did you think of the sequel to the Mario movie? I have fun. It's not a movie. Yeah. It's Super Mario Brothers experience. It's not an actual movie.

I have fun, though. Like, it's going to be so difficult. I've read reviews, and nobody's lying. So I just tell everybody. I feel like people are overdoing it. I don't think they're over there. Like, nobody's lying.

The Super Mario, the Super Mario Brothers movie. It's not, I'm not saying it's slop. That's what that's what I'm not saying I haven't read that Well like what I'm saying is The Super Mario Brothers movie just is I've never ever seen Maybe sucker punch By Zach Snyder

I haven't seen a movie less concerned with story Since sucker punch Went to sucker punch And I was like what the fuck is this music video Like what's happening here Suckpunch making sense Mario they land on the planet And you think okay

This is where they're gonna attempt To stringer And then somebody picks them up From the planet three minutes later and then they have an adventure, like on the ship. And then you think they're stuck on the ship, they're not stuck on the ship. Like, there's no... I was like, damn, we're getting Yoshi's backstory.

You're like, cool, cool, cool. Literally, it's a montage. Biggie's playing. They're like, all right, I was the next one. I was like, wait, what the fuck is that? That was funny, though. It was funny, but I was like, is that all we're going to get.

Actually, let's take that. That is indicative of the movie. I thought Yoshi's backstory with the hypnotized drop was delightful. I thought it was fun to watch, but at the end of the, end of the day, it was kind of meaningless. It was nothing. Yeah.

I feel it's funny that you thought Sucker Punch when you're like, the last movie you saw with this, without this much story, wasn't just the last Super Mario Brothers movie. Like, it's kind of the thing. That one had a little bit. That one was a little bit,

like that one at least was the origin story of how Mario and Luigi become who they are in this world. Which is business owners. You know, he wants his dad's approval. Like, there's actual stuff happening in that movie somehow. I mean, there's stuff happening in this movie.

He wants peace to like him. He's like, I want to be nice for this girl. I want to get her on umbrella. You know what I'm saying? You don't fucking care about that? What did they care about that? Like, Peach was going with Toad on the different, that didn't, they didn't do. By the way, the movie had several setups in terms of story.

I liked them. By the way, I had fun. I did not. I did not. But like, the movie had several opportunities where it could have leaned. It could have told a very emotional. story about Peach reconnecting with her family, she's just not concerned

with them. I think it tried to do that with Bowser and Bowser Jr. Yeah, but that was one of the moments that broke me. Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah, Rob, give us your experience. I mean, I think my problem is like, honestly, I was very bored. And with both of these movies, I had the same problem, which is like a third,

maybe half of the way through, my eyes just start completely glazing over. The first one, when we get to Mario Kart, I'm like, okay, I don't know. This one, I think it's something about the animation style. I think it's something about the pacing. It is not a movie. It is a series of references.

And the charms of those references are not lost on me. Like, I, the Mario Maker bit with the surveillance cam. Good. Monty Mole fucking wandering in the background. I'm here for it. Burdo, let's go. You're like, Ward? I still don't, like, entirely know who Ward is.

So we have to get to the bottom of that. But, like, what is this movie? And, like, if it is just going to be a fast-moving, pure entertainment, why are my eyes glazing over halfway through it? I will say the best review I got for this movie. I, like, I had to see it. I saw it at Landmark Pasadena. Middle of the day, a couple kids there.

This kid must have been seven or eight years old. Did not hear a lot of last anything. Credit start rolling. And all I hear is this little kid go, boring. And I was like, this is for you. Like, I was like, am I going to be the 34-year-old asshole sitting in here being like, damn Super Mario sequel didn't have enough story building, character development? And to be in a theater with kids where even I can see, I'm like, yo, they fidgeting.

They're not laughing. They kind of like, who gives a fuck? Yeah. I just, I think this was a failing on so many levels because it was, I was like, okay, we're going to get a story about the brothers and the relationship with Yoshi. Oh, wait, no, that's not a story. Maybe Mario and Princess Peach's love story. Maybe the sister thing.

And, like, you get none. They just keep going to planet to planet. And I was like, by the time I got to the end of it, I was like, I don't even know if I could describe to you what I just watched for two hours. I do think the closest part to a story is Bowser being a deadbeat dad. That is literally the only narrative through life. You left a dead. Well, I broke inside.

As soon as they floated the premise that Bowser hasn't been around for Bowser Jr's life, who is Bowser? Who's his mom? Oh, Mrs. Bowser. But, but, so to me, I'm starting to realize something. like just my bar for entertainment is like very low it just is the movie is not like my my i'm realizing that and i'm i'm i'm leaning into that that's okay i go into a movie or a show wanting to like it so much everything if you show me some shit i want to like it right and so it takes a lot for me

not to like it now it happens don't get me wrong like it happens um and the more it's hyped the higher the bar goes but like man they put star for you in the movie. As soon as I saw Star Fox, I like freaked out in the theater. I was like yo, is that fucking Star Fox? Put Star Fox in the fucking movie. That's a fun sequence. It's one of the best parts of the movie. They introduce Star Fox and do like the flashback stuff

with the 80s animation. But like but you said, but people were saying they didn't like the animation. I was blown away. You had a specific take. Yeah. You had a specific take after the movie. Revisit the take I was blown. I can't remember what I say. You said that the animation in this movie is better

than the Spider-Verse movies. All right. Well, yeah, it is. It's not. Well, I mean, this is... This is the way I feel, okay? Tell us. I'm not a big fan of the animation style of the Spireverse movie. That's fine.

That's what I'm saying. So, like, to me, like, when I looked at the animation here, and by the way, there's several really inventive things that they do. Absolutely. There's a sequence. The movie is not without imagination. The imagination just doesn't go into the story. So there's legitimately a sequence in the movie. spoilers here

where Mario and Peach are going through one of the Castle Boss levels from the Mario movie with the Spinning Fire and Bowser Jr. is actually trying to kill them.

He's playing the game. This is the Mario Maker thing. Yeah, that like that right there, that's like something that's actually really inventive. That's a really inventive way to marry the game and the experience

of watching the movie. But there's no story leading up to it that makes it hit more. It's just like a cool thing to look at. And then you're like, okay, what's happening? And it's like, no. I get it. That's the point.

The point is it was cool to look at. It was inventive. But from a story, I agree with you guys with the story thing. Yeah. As far as the animation part of it, I just thought the movie looked really, really fucking cool.

And when I watched the Spider-Verse movies, those movies, and this might just be something with my eyes, those movies to me, like, it's particularly the second one. When you talk about busy, movie is so busy to me in different parts. Like, that's not the type of animation style that I like. I don't like that type of animation style.

I'm not a big animated guy in the first place. You guys know that. Chris Ryan over here. But when I watch animation, I like cleaner animation. Like animation. But this is not clean. It is. Oh, I thought this was actually very busy.

So it's very smooth, over-polished maybe. You can tell, like, a lot of people put a lot of work into this. To try to make Mario look like Mario and feel like Mario. The problem is there's no life. in it. And so when you're talking about, like, animation is not just, does the art look good? Does it look clean? Are there mistakes? There's no, like, animating force behind anything that's happening. I think about, with animation weirdly, I think about things like the Muppets where if you see those clips of like a celebrity going on Sesame Street, the first two minutes, they're like talking to the

kids in the crowd. I'm Timothy Shalame. I'm here to teach Cookie Monster how to play ping pong. Here's how you hit the ball. Here's how you keep score. Like three minutes in, he's talking to Cookie monster like he's a fucking person because the puppeteer has turned this like pile of cloth into something that has like a real spark to it. This movie has zero spark. It has no life. It is dead behind the eyes

in a way that like Spiderverse is busy but you can always feel like a beating heart in there somewhere and there's that's just not here. Well, that's story. But that's what that's what drives animation. But what I'm saying is you're talking so even like What makes you believe the movement on screen?

said, right? Yeah. So the minute you start saying that I start thinking a million things. Number one, Timothy Shalame gets there and the first thing he starts to think is, like, I have to teach these kids how to play. Then he sees, then he

gets there, he sees Cookie Monster, the energy of the kids is there. He knows Cookie Monster. He starts having fun. Yeah. Right. That's part of a feeling. I agree with you that this movie can't create that feeling. The The reason why the movie can't create the feeling is because the movie does not have any story to it.

You don't, you see Yoshi, Yoshi's cute. Yoshi's never really in peril, so you never really feel sad for Yoshi. You never feel anything for Yoshi. You never feel anything for any of the characters or anything like that. You never even feel Mario's actual longing for Peach. They say that Mario likes Peach, he gives her the umbrella, and then for the rest of the movie, it's kind of just dangled around there. All of that stuff is the story. When I'm talking about how the movie looks,

I'm just talking about when they're in space, the fucking shit looks cool to me. It looks, it's dazzling visually to me. It, other, when I look, like,

there's stuff that, like, there's a Batman anime. And when it comes on, I can't watch it. I can't watch it. Don't feel. It's just,

it's not, it's not that I don't feel. It's just there's certain types of animation that I don't like as many. I'm not an animation snob. Right. I like high class computer generated animation. Look, the more artistic you get with your animation, the more I'm kind of like, I don't, I'm not into it.

You guys are saying all these things. But have you ever thought it'd be cool to see a Yoshi's Island reference in the movie? No? They didn't move you? I honestly did want one. But this is the other problem with this movie. Almost everyone in this movie is a fucking minion. Like, the Lumas are minions.

The Coupas are minions. The Toads are minions. Yoshi is a minion. Baby Mario and Baby Luigi are just minions. That's tough. And so if that, if that, you can lock into that, go with your big yellow God and I support you. It's just like a lot of this movie is just little, little guys going around doing minion humor. So, boy, he's not wrong.

It's overwhelming. The reality is if, like, this movie is made really for people who have slightly undeveloped brains like kids. He can't really see it, right? Slightly undeveloped. Kids don't have slightly undeveloped brains. they'll be able to bring. I mean, I think that's so,

the brains are, the brains. That is such a reductive way to talk about, I think, like, children's entertainment when we're just like,

I do think there will be a lot of children who sit down to this movie and are just like, so what? Like, it, to me, like, the craving part of this movie is,

this is the type of thing that, like, you think kids want because they just are on their iPads all day. Yeah. Just playing with slop, looking at slop. And I'm like,

no, no, a kid can tell the difference between a Mia's, movie and a classic Walt Disney movie and this. Well, not even that. Like, K-pop demon hunters, zootopia, like Transformers 1 or whatever. You can tell the different story-telling.

Transformers 1. Special. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. In theater, transforms? Yeah. I'm just saying. Transformers 1 is way better than this movie.

That has a narrative. I know. It has a narrative, but first of all, that wasn't a diss to kids. That was saying that that's what it was made for. Now, if the kids rejected, then the kids rejected. But the reality of it is like, A lot of these movies that we're talking about,

Mario does something different here. The trick of an animated movie now is that the movie itself has to figure out how to appeal to children and then some adults. And the way that they normally do this is to give kids all the stuff that kids need in a movie, which is also a good story. I'm not saying that it's not. But then also give adults something that they can latch on to. So any movie that's about any kid's movie, or animated movie that's about

The Search for Destiny, which The Incredibles is essentially about somebody knowing who they are and then having to re-figure it out when family and all that stuff takes a way. It's really a movie for adults. There's really things in The Incredibles

that kids can't even really like understand, right? This movie tries to do that for the adult stuff, strictly through nostalgia, strictly through your relationship with the Mario Bros game. They're not trying to tell any story about Mario's ex-examination.

Dread. The father and son's stuff is played a little bit but it's like, hey, remember the water world that you played in 1991? Look, here it is on screen. And I'm gonna be honest with you.

I thought it was cool. Some of that stuff works. Like, I thought it was cool. I thought it was cool to see somebody in the fucking the toad suit, the frog suit. I thought for the most part it was cool.

I think honestly, I think a lot of it, a lot of that stuff works in regards of, hey man, remember that. thing you remember, here it is, and they do it really well. They integrate into the movie really well.

I think the thing, and maybe this is the harshest critique I have of the movie, is we talked about this with Avatar the Way of Water. Steve, he was like, yo. Steve isn't dead. He's in Chicago. My homie, man. We miss you, bro. It was like I can hear your voice.

He mentioned that he felt that Avatar the Way of Water was like a money grab was here to make money and sell you, whatever. And that's why I feel about this movie. Oh, it's going to make so much money. It's going to make so much money. But it feels like, hey, remember that thing that go buy that merch right now? Remember that video game? You can buy it out on the Nintendo E-shop right now.

It just feels like a 90-minute commercial for all the stuff that Mario did in it. You can go to, we talked about after the movie. We should go to Universal. We should go to Super Mario World. They got you. That's the point of the movie. But here's the thing. there were moments in the movie, I'm like, if you guys just, like, paused for five minutes and just luxuriating in the fact that I love Yoshi.

I want to know so much about Yoshi. He's so cute. I love the sounds. Show me baby Yoshi. Show me the baby Mario and Luigi. Just have a little story. But instead of that, like, even the Star Fox moment, I'm like, damn, Star Fox is on screen. This is so cool.

Different animation. Damn, we're locking in immediately on to the next thing. Yeah. And I'm literally like, hey, guys, just concentrate. Just slow down. I promise we all have enough of attention span. You can stay here for 10 minutes. It will be interesting to see

because this movie is going to make a shit ton of money and there'll be a sequel. It'll be interesting to see how they approach the sequel. A lot of the problems that people are saying that they have with this movie, they're saying they have with the first one. This is way more cynical. Yeah.

It's not even close. And we could go. back and talk about the story, Jack Black's performance in the first movie was so unexpected, so funny. The songs, they don't really even let him cook in this one that much as Bowser. So that was a big difference between this one and the last one. It'll be interesting to see if they course correct in terms of what happens, despite the fact with the sequel, despite the fact that this movie is going to make so much money.

I'm about saying, yeah, if it makes a whole bunch of money, people don't like it. No, but like there's there's a type of film that is successful but also people go, all right now. Yeah. We're not, you can't do this again.

They just did. I know, but like there is a type but it depends on how robust the conversation because the conversation around the shortcomings of the first movie just weren't as dense as, as this. Do you think it's because this movie, you know, it's the Super Mario Galaxy movie

and it's not really. No, I think because people are expected. more. Right. They expect to learn them less. I just think. I think we graded the first one on a curve because there was, damn, they, at least they made a Super Mario movie that's not bad.

That we didn't hate. It was better than it had to be. And the nostalgia and the everything, it was new. Like hearing these sounds, all the Easter eggs, you're like, but damn, the kid in me. And then they tried to do it again. And I'm like, hey, bruh, Django keys. Come on.

Like, hey, some of the shit did work on me. The Star Fox scene. Yes. Dude. I was like, it really plays. It was unexpected. Yeah.

I'm like, I'm, man, fuck y'all. I'm like, I'm in the movie theater and I'm sitting down and you,

and Star Fox is well-timed. And I'll tell you why. Because Star Fox is just about the point why I was like, yeah. Nah, no. What's going on with this shit?

I was like, I was like, go. Because Calico's like, Calico's like, is this just okay? I don't know. This might just be okay.

And so at the time, I'm like, oh shit, is that fucking Star Fox? And then I'm like, oh, okay, so it gives you a little joke. I thought the Bowser stuff with this kid where they actually use, this is one of the, one times, it's two times in the movie that the movie uses story. Other than that, it really doesn't use any story at all. It uses story to explain why Bowser's kid feels this way about taking over the galaxy. The puppet show was good. The puppet show stuff, because you go, man, what the fuck is this little nigga mean for no reason?

And, like, it shows that his existence and his identity is held in his story that his father used to teach him. And the father might have forgotten it, but the son never did. That worked for me. It also worked that Peach is sort of an orphan with the Toad People. That could have been the whole fucking movie. Like, this movie could have been so much simpler, yet so much better if it's legitimately a story of Mario Hellie. helping Peach go rescue Rosalia and reconnect with her family with Bowser in between. And you still could have Star Fox and you still could have, but they just don't, they're not

interested in that. The funny thing is, is like, to your point, they had it all in the story where it's like you started with Yoshi who an egg lost. We don't see any other Yoshis. I'm like, oh, so orphan. We're going to figure something out about that. And then Peach, orphan. Like, she's like looking for her family.

And literally none of that emotionally is anything. At one point, there's even a joke. like, oh, another dinosaur. And I'm like, you motherfuckers haven't even described Yoshi yet. Hey, I thought in that scene that Yoshi, I thought it would have been really interesting if the dinosaur would have woke up and saw Yoshi and then they would have been like Homeboy. Yeah. Yeah.

What's up, man? Hey, what's up, man? You another dinosaur? And then Yoshi goes, hey, I haven't seen another of my kind for a long time or whatever. But they don't do that. They do the regular Jurassic Park fucking thing. They turn into babies. You know the universal property, by the one.

Yeah. And so, like, and then I don't know, the dinosaurs is in there for no reason. Should we see Falco in this? Nah, I think you got to say Falco. Yeah, do you do Dhabba? Yeah, you got to say Falco, bro. Come on, man. You can't see Falaf.

That was my super Super Smash Bros. I love before I became a Yoshi guy, I was a Falco guy. Is that the third movie? Are we getting a Super Smash Bros.? Absolutely. Feels like it. Apparently, we're going to get a Daisy movie? Well, no, Daisy's going to be in the sequel.

But what's I'm saying? You think there's going to be a mainline Super Mario movie and then a separate Super Smash movie. Oh, yeah. I have a question. Because they're doing, wait, that Zelda movie is live action. That Zelda is live action.

We'll fit that up. They'll Roger Rabbit that shit at some point. Don't even worry about it. I mean, you mentioned some of the new characters we see, Yoshi, Rosalia, Star Fox. What did you guys think of those new characters in this movie? So I thought they were, I mean, they don't really do shit. Star Fox doesn't have anything to do.

Glenn Pummers on a downturn. I disagree. I disagree. That was not my Star Fox, nothing against Glenn Powell? Nah, comply. That's a plumber show. to Glenn Plumber, by the way. Showgirls.

There was, we are getting too far in the, these celebrities should not be doing this much voice acting. Shout up Donald Glover. Good, Yoshi got the check. But I'm like, damn, Donald Glover was like, no, I can do a classic Yoshi. That could have been anybody. Yeah, I didn't even know it was him.

Yoshi was cute, though. Yo-she was cute. You don't think Donald Glover should get the Yoshi check? I mean, that's what I'm saying. Get the Yoshi's too. I went Donald Glover getting all checks. I thought, honestly, this is best, Brie Larson has been in a minute.

That's a tough standard. See, man, y'all, I love y'all, man. Y'all some real haters, bro. What? First of all, Glenn Powell, shout out. Hey, Glenn, I love you. Don't listen to them. All right, you demand.

He's good at Star Fox. Agreed. We can argue about some of the movie choices he's picked in the cast couple months in the last couple years. He's good in this role. I can't remember anything about Star Fox, though. I'm tripping. I remember seeing Star Fox and being

excited. And then I remember Star Fox trying to fix the plane. That's it. Yeah. Well, this is where the bar is for this movie. He has personality more than backstory. Sure. And as far as like voice acting with personalities, yeah, they're celebrities. They're normal actors, not voice actors. I would say Glenn Powell. I would say Charlie Day is Luigi. Jack Black, obviously, is Bowser. That's kind of it. I guess, I guess Benny Safty is Bowser Jr. kind of. Oh, he had a shit ton of personality. Does a good job. To me, he does a good job. He was a little plucky. Bowser Jr., he was a little, But it was part of the character that he was plucky. The pluckiness was the whole thing.

But Bowser, to me, Bowser shouldn't have been in the movie. Really? How could you not? Well, no, this is what I think actually happened. It was so funny that Jack Black did such a good job in this one. They're like, we're going to make Bowser buddies with everybody. And I'm like, wait, what?

And then it happens for like 10 minutes so you could get some scream time with him. And then he's basically out of the movie. And it's like, what is going on? Is Bowser a cuck? Is Bowser a cuck? He's the number one cuck. I mean, he's constantly cucked in the Princess Beach situation. But is he also cucked by becoming Mario and Luigi?

He volunteers for a lifetime of servitude in the bee minds. For these dudes, the Bowser and LaCol- Shout out. Shout out Issa Ray, man. By the way, getting the checks. By the way, doesn't make any fucking sense. I think that's actually, I'm glad you bring that up. I think that's actually the point to where I was like, oh, they're not trying to this bitch.

I swear to God. I think that's the point where I was like, oh, they're not trying. They don't give a fuck. Like, because, like, they get to the B-Mind. The whole thing is, I was like, why would you sacrifice to be in the B-Mind? Why?

He doesn't even stay there. No. Like, he doesn't even stay there. And then they get them. It's like, why would you, like, what the fuck? Oh, these niggas don't care. Why would he go to the B-Mind? I was like, oh, they're going to do b-linson like this after everything.

And they're like, okay, I guess he's a B-guy now. And then he's in the B-mines for literally 30-6. Sad Basil Tuduja just comes back. He's like, dad. And I'm like, all right, man. But that continues happens. They get to Peach and Toad, get to the, the fucking airport to look for a pilot. Bro, Mario Luigi and Yoshi get there like three minutes after.

I know. You think that they're going to have to get on a plane with Star Fox and then go find Mario and Luigi. And then everybody comes back in the third act. No, they get there right after. they run the same robot bit back, which was funny. Not only did they run it back, they also stole it from Tutopia.

Let's be honest. Oh, yeah, that was. That was a straight. Come on, man. Right. So the movie is just not concerned at all with building any tension and then paying that tension off

with some type of resolution. But that's literal, just like, that's how you tell a story. Yeah. And if there's no friction, there's no story. And it does replicate that, like, I just scrolled on my phone for an hour

and I deeply regret it kind of feeling. Like, that is how you come out of this movie. Yeah. I mean, look, I will say this. I know it doesn't, I have to keep it real with the writers and the mom. It doesn't feel like it. I still left like, hey, I'll have some fun time with Mario and stuff like that.

That's just because your Uncle Van is a whore for nostalgia. He misses his childhood. He misses the 80s. He likes Mario. He likes to hang out with Mario. He, for the most part, liked the movie. I'm going to say this straight up. Don't do this again.

I'm begging. No, I'm begging, man. Seriously, all jokes aside, I'm begging. Man, go get Jonathan Nolan if you have to. Bro. Oh, my God. I'm telling you, bro, I'm begging. I'm begging, don't do it like this again.

The first one, cool. This one, to Illumination, the Illuminati, whoever, do not do another one like this. Me and Robert talking before we started recording, and I was, kind of like, what does like an elevated, not even like

like a, what I even like a special like, we don't need no prestige TV Mario Luigi, we need all of that. Yeah. But what is like, if they actually try to take this seriously what does that look like? And at first coming out the movie, I thought it would be difficult because we have 40 years with these characters. It's hard to show like

a different side of Mario, different side of Luigi. I did a whole bit where Luigi was gambling, you know, and he had to go ask Mario. He got in deep. He got in deep with the She races, oh my God. You know what I'm saying? But the more I think about it, all you have to do is slow the movie down. Let those guys have a conversation about their feelings or emotions.

Hey, man, I really like Peach. I want this to work out. How do I go about being? Mario's a plumber from Brooklyn. She's a princess of a planet. There is so much built-in angst and longing in that. It's not a whole thing to do. There's built-in angst and longing?

Yeah. Do plumbers historically long for interplanetary princesses? Yes. I mean, they have four years. If you do, if you do decide that you love one, there is going to be angst and longing. Okay. You're going to be like, yo, can I, you ever see the Princess Diaries? I have seen the Princess Diaries.

I have you read the books? I'm not that deep in the lore. The legends canon for Princess Diaries, I'm not there. I'm there. But also, there is something like, even when I was a kid playing the original games, the magic of being like, oh shit, Mario got a fucking dog, but it's a dinosaur, and you can ride on it, there's not really like much you have to do

to add on top of the, like the magic of that. Just tell me like, what is it like raising a fucking dinosaur? They don't do, like literally Toad has a joke with like, he's part of the crew now. No, they're talking to us. Yes. Like they're literally talking to us. They're going, oh, so

because they know that that kind of doesn't make any sense, but they don't have any time to be concerned with it, right? So it's like, oh, so you just met this dinosaur and he's part of the crew now. Like, and legitimately he is, but I got to be real with you. You're right. All of that's fucked up.

But, you know, Mario Luigi and Yoshi about to go to a party, and Yoshi puts his sunglasses on, and I'm having fun, I'm sorry. See, I got my sunglasses on. I got my Yoshi jersey on. They're cool. I'm having fun.

Everything that we're saying about the movie is correct, but I still was able to leave there going, oh, I got to spend a little time with my childhood. Yeah. Wait, is it time for the midnight meter? Yeah We don't have anything positive to say about the movie

This is what I liked about the movie You guys are Higher quality I am wrong about animation So before you guys even get mad Don't look at me No, but what about your Demon Slayer takes? I think it was fucking amazing

What'd you like better? This one or Demaslay? No, nothing can be Demon Slay It's the greatest animation ever I don't know what y'all talk about I've never seen that shit like that before my life Fucked out That's fair Never seen that shit like that before my life

And by the way, it's clean There's a lot happening but that's clean animation. That's clean. Yeah. It is clean. Is that not true? I mean, it's clean.

That's ethical animation. That's what it is. It's Spiterverse, not ethical animation. I don't know. It's spiders, but this has a little bit of that Shay off arm happening in this movie. Oh, a little,

little cheat. I'm just saying it. They're drawing contact in a way that you feel a little manipulated. This is Jay-J. This is why we need to. This is J.J. Berea manipulation. This is manipulative.

This right here. Who, what's the? This is Hardin. This is Bride. This is Brian. This is. This is. Brian James Hart.

So where you come out and James got like 55 is the third quarter and you go, I'm not having fun. Like I should be having more fun. This is, this is Bam. Out of bio. This is Bam out of bio. No. Ban is more ethical than this.

Like when we start getting the music cues, just like the first like, da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. And like I just feel my arm being hooked by James Hart. This is before we go into midnight meter, I have to say this. I don't mean to kick him while he's down, but we already know who he voted for, but, oh, shit.

I saw Chris Pratt was not the right choice. Like, Chris Pratt. You know what? You're right. At the same time, you know, I'm starting to notice something about Chris Pratt, which is?

Chris Pratt, like, you know, I came into the room when I saw Kalika, she was watching Mercy. She was like, this isn't bad. Came into the room before Kalika was watching the Tomorrow War.

Is she just mainlining Chris Pratt? It's like Chris Pratt has found or is trying to find his Sunday night, his Sunday afternoon on T&T career. His Sunday night on T&T career, his The Magnificentiful 7 fucking the Tomorrow War, Mercy, he's trying to find. The Jurassic's trying to find this. It's between two and five. You want T&T right now. There's T&T. You put the Chris Pratt movie on.

that's what he's leaning into. I don't know if he should be doing that. But this movie, at least for me, I wasn't taken out of it by Chris Pratt because now when I see him in these Sunday night, Sunday afternoon movies, I'm taken out of the movie. There was no heart to like Mario to me.

Oh no. It's like when you see Charlie Day as Luigi, like damn, that's Luigi. Jack Black Bowser. Dog, he does the weakest. Mama Mia. And I'm like, let's go. January 6th.

Oh, God. Turning point. Maga. Maga. Seapack. Look, I bring Mario into this. Mario wasn't there on January 6th. No, he definitely was Mario on January 6th.

He was working. He's a working man. Mario wouldn't have gone. Mario's not there. Which Mario character would have been there on January 6? Berto. Oh. Berto's there.

Burdo broke some windows. I would say Waluigi definitely up in there. Wow Luigi and Wario for short. I think he's a libertarian. Okay. I think there's... Walloigi's off the grid. Nah.

He's out of the wilderness somewhere. What about Wario? Pure anarchist. He's there throwing Molotov cocktails. Yes, I could see Wario. Did we expect to see Wario pop up in a prison or something like that? When is Wario coming around? That's a great question.

Honestly, that was all... Yeah, that was my other question. Because last time, they were like, damn, y'all going to get Yoshi in the next one. This one, they was just like Bowser. is a bunch of bones, Bowser Jr. We didn't get no Wario. We didn't get Waluigi.

We didn't get no Super Smash it. You got to dole it out. Daisy. People were excited about Daisy. Nah, man. Just was excited about Daisy. People weren't really excited, man. Let me say something right now.

People were excited about Daisy. So we're not going to talk about, we haven't talked about the superior movie-going franchise for video games, which is Sonic. Right? Unwatchable. Unwatchable?

You're smoking crack. It's the drugs. It's the drugs. The live action movies? Go get some help. Go hotline. It's okay. You don't,

We don't need to talk about it right now. When Daisy came up, I think we had like a, oh, cool reaction. I'm sure Jess was really excited. I went to see we were covering Mario on Minchin's at the time. I went to go see Sonic 2, not early, but like, you know, on a Thursday at like, what, like 6, 6 or 7? I watched the movie. And credits come up, right? This is the Sonic 2 with Tales.

Sorry. think we have to eject you after the six, seven. I think I'm a child. I think you forfeited your chair. I'm a child. I'm sorry. It was bad enough when during the movie you leaned over to me and you're like, this is too woke, Princess Pete should have stayed in the castle.

She should be allowed out. I do think Princess should be allowed to be. That's what I said. That's what I said. I said, Princess, no, Princess Daisy showed up. And she was, she's a little dark skin. And I was like, that's not my Princess Daisy. Whoa.

No, Jomi said this. Whoa. Joe doesn't want Princess Daisy to be black. That's not my, it's not my Daisy. Why is she black? This is the woke agenda. Wait, Luigi, I will say, Luigi definitely loves the sisters.

Luigi definitely loves the sisters. Well, guys, Princess Daisy can be black. It's the other people that are going to be mad. No, but to get back to my point, Daisy showed up, we're like, okay, smattering applause, whatever. Brother, Sonic 2, when the credits rolled and Shadow came out the ground,

place went crazy. It's different levels. Respect Sonic. This is nasty work coming from you. And I know you're a hater. I know that's your professional title. Charles Holmes professional hater. Brother, let's not lie about the son of movie.

We can do this right now. I got out of time to go over the son of movies. The sonic movies? Let's do this. Yes. That's cinema. I haven't missed yet. We can argue like Mario.

This is Pluck Corner. This is not Pluck Corner. It's not Mrs. Steve. What are you talking about? These movies actually have, you only saw the first one? I liked it. They get better every single time. No, no.

I saw the second one. at the beginning of the second one, Isn't he like, they go to Hawaii? Yeah, yeah, I saw the second one too. I like them. They get better every single time. The third one is legitimately an, I'm like this incredible film. Let's calm down.

Shout to Sammy and Neil. Fun film. Over original film. They have fun. They take those. They don't do the thing where this movie does where it's like, here's what we're going to do, nostalgia, nostalgia, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They dose it in ways that make it feel earned.

And when you're sitting in the theater at the end of three and they're playing the riff from Sonic 2 and you're like, Like, yo, man, this is what it means. Not my Sonic. And Sonic, too, is one of the greatest games of all times. You're not being real. No, you see, you know what I'm saying? And this is why I couldn't have discussion with you

because you're not going to be serious. It's okay. You're not locked in, and that's fine. I still love you because we're brothers. You know what I'm saying? All right. That's enough. That's enough.

No, I'm mad though. I'm not. Sonic is great, brother. And he's hate. No, no, no, no. Why does he got to be like this, though? Why does he got to be like this though? I know.

I know. I'm with you. Why don't he want me, man? All right, Charles. Y'all know what it is? Midnight meter. One to 12. One is the worst.

12, 11, reserve for game changers. Letting our guests start us off. Yeah, go for it. First midnight meter. What are you giving this, Rob? I'd say four. Okay. It's not unforgivable.

There are redeeming qualities. I do actually appreciate it in the vein of things we like. This is a movie that doesn't try to hide that it's a video game movie. All of the action set pieces are. are like platforming. And I appreciate that they're trying to stay true to the spirit of the thing. It's a little much.

Yeah. But it's not the worst, worst animated movie. It's not the worst IP grab. Like, there are worse things out in the world. So I'm going to say at four. Jummy? Four is good.

I'm going to go, I'm going to go with six. I think there is, uh, there's, there's fun to be having this movie. If you, I don't want to,

I don't want to do the turn your brain off. But legitimately, if you go in there and like, I'm going to go watch this Mara movie. Let's see what it's got for me. It's a bunch of fun. They do inventive things integrating the games, like you mentioned. I had a good time.

Is it perfect? Obviously not. It's got messes. By I have fun the theater. It's a six for me. It's a bad fun movie. Six. Six.

It's a six. Like, once again, everything that they tried probably worked on me more than it's going to work on other people. But, like, I had a fun time with the movie. It was a six. I'm so glad you said that, Van, because I have to say, as a listener of this podcast, I have a personal policy. I have a van curf.

Whatever you say, I'm minus two on the midnight meter. And I think that's like, I believe that I have a zest for life, but clearly you're just a more open-hearted person than I. You're like Boba, book of Boba-Fet, 10. Well, you have to understand, like. He was lying there also.

He was definitely lying. Well, I wasn't. But like, you have to understand as like, this particular, if we're in a different, if I'm with like, if I'm with Sean and Amanda, if I'm with Sean and Amanda, I'm trying to have conversations based upon, the technical and artistic marriage of a film.

This stuff for me is stuff that I always wanted. Most of the content that we cover it, they're presence to me. Like, they're not, it's not actually content. It's not, they're presence. I look at the stuff that we're covering here. This is directors, when directors and filmmakers are trying to do stuff

and they're trying to like get you to understand a narrative or a serious thing. All of this stuff, this is like how, I accept a Christmas gift from someone. It's Mario, it's Batman, it's Marvel. You're giving me a gift of something that I wanted. How do I accept the gift? Now, a gift can be bad.

Like, I've gotten gifts from my aunts and stuff like that. But even when your aunt gives you the sweater and, like, you don't really want the sweater for Christmas, it's almost you, I've, it's, even if the sweater is a little ugly, it's not as ugly as it normally would be because she gave it to me. So all it, that is how I look at this stuff. If we somewhere else is different because those directors have serious things to say and you have to, yeah, but this stuff is different. But anyway, I'll go too far.

That's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, this is a three. Do better, y'all. Just do better. Yeah. Sorry. So, um, so actually, that's actually better.

I thought you would be like, this is a fucking zero. No. You're softening up in your old age. Wow. They're just all just, I saw Star Fox. Like, at a certain point, man. That's worth three points. Yeah.

Hey. I agree. I agree. You know what? How about this? How about take the animation that was in the Star Fox thing? Now we're cooking. And then make, I said this after the movie. And then make a Star Fox movie. That would be interesting because you could go crazy with that. Well, they would have to tell a story. Yeah. Well, you're going to have to tell a story. With Star Fox. I wanted the, like, when that happened in the movie, I was like, damn, I wish I was in a Star Fox movie. Star Fox is a bad motherfucker, bro. You can't show people that and then take us back. Like, I, I just wanted to stay. I just wanted to stay in the

Landmaster in there. But even that though, even that Star Fox gave us a little fucking five-cent explanation as to how he's in his universe. Nobody fucking cares. Take Star Fox. Nobody...

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Was Marsless, like, wait, wait, wait, excuse me. Hold on, let's stop the movie for a second. What do you mean you had an accident and you got here? No, no one cares. It's a fucking video game movie. Why are you wasting time

telling us how Star Fox got to this? He just there? Spend more time or going and trying to find I want to know How is she the mother of those stars? Same.

Did she Immaculate conception? Did she adopt the stars or did the stars come from her body? I'm going to assume she adopted the stars out. I think she's popping stars out. I think she actually might be popping stars out

because he got miss school fucking like special gaffly powers Yeah. Yeah. And she didn't have who were their fault Where's their father? Where's it? I feel like she got shafted too.

Well, how could Chris Pratt do this movie? How could Chris Pratt do the movie of essentially Rosalie, who in this film... Rosalina. Rosalina. Excuse me. Rosaliyah Pril. I watched the Sopranos this morning. How could Chris Pratt

be in this movie that celebrates a single mother... Yeah. And a single father, we should say. With no job who has at least 100 kids, which is what Rosalia is. How could he do this? I think Super Mario Galaxy, the movie, is anti-nuclear family.

It definitely is. Nobody's married. Peach. Like no one married. Nobody's getting together. This is not turning point. We don't have to do that. No, no. I'm just saying, I do you have to ask single mother single fucker.

I think it raises the idea of like, what if your legacy as a man, as a turtle, is not how many princesses you've captured? It's the idea that you have created a monster that has all of your appetites, but also all of your most irredeemable qualities. Exactly. How are you supposed to reckon with that? None. Basically, you raised himself. I want to ask you guys this, because we love Starkey. Fox so much.

Who is like the most underutilized Nintendo character that if they made a movie about them you'd be like, we meant money. That's not Star Fox. That's not Star Fox. Like Metro? Have they done a Metroid junk? Metro to be sick. Metro. That could be actually. Actually, oh, dude,

just get Brie Larson back as as the shamans. Like live action or ass. Brother, I think like can do. We were having this conversation earlier. The contra could have been tough. So they announced an animorphs. they're making an animal show

Vancouver's company is making it it has to be animated like it has to be I can't do another live action animorphs brother I'm not woke enough I can't go through the struggle again I'm sorry

a Sammis Metroid like movie thing about like Castlevania right the show on on Netflix looks good like you could do that and have a bangor see I'm gonna raise you one

a live action set like live action Metroid brother come on man you know how that goes bad that Netflix like cyberpunk show. That's the animation style I want for a Metroid movie.

I think that would honestly go pretty hard. You guys would want live action Metroid? I'm open to it. Yeah. I saw the Halo show. You know what I'm saying? But the reality with the Halo show is if they would have taken

a Paradise approach to the Halo show to where they were like, we're just going to be something lower than Prestige. Paradise is probably my favorite show on right now. Yeah. Paradise understand. You want the network version of...

Sci-fi's tough to do that way, though. But the Halo show took itself too seriously. Absolutely. It wanted to be Game of Thrones. It's not... You don't have that, okay? The Halo show took itself too seriously. That's a show that would be easy to enjoy

if they would have taken it a scosh less seriously. Because I was the name was good as Master Chief. Why have we seen Kirby in these movies? I will fuck with Kirby. I watch a Kirby. Captain with King D.D. Yeah. I love King D-D-D-D.

also shout out to Mr. Game & Watch popping up in this thing that was a No we got to like We saw Donkey Kong But no Seth Rogen No

He's too busy Oh I need a Donkey Kong Country movie I need a Donkey Kong That's the fucking one That is To me My

That is my most favorite of all that That's one of That's my most favorite video game of all time Doggown country That one in Mario 3 Yeah

Like Donkey Kong Country Used to have me In a fucking Figure 4 Leg like I love that fucking game.

One of the great soundtracks of all time, too. Rob, this was fun. This is a blast. We want you guys to hold on in case we put it at the end of the pot. We will put it at the end of the podcast. We want you guys to hold on because we actually, oh, we have to get the Supergirl.

This is a good Supergirl, yeah. All right, really quick. Nerd News, full trailer for Supergirl just dropped. I'm going to start with Rob because you just watched it. I did. Before we started recording. Give us your takes.

First, before you give us your takes on Supergirl, can you give us your larger takes on how James Gunn is doing with his new DC universe? I mean, I enjoyed the new Superman. Okay. I thought it hit enough of the right notes, thematically. Real quick. Probably like a 7, 7.5. Okay.

Again, not changing the world, but solid strike down the middle. Okay. I think we could do a lot worse than that. James Gunn overall, fine, but everything seems to be like, kind of... Here's the thing. The things I'm interested in are coming along quite slowly, and the things I'm not interested in are just, like, flying down the pike, including the Supergirl movie, which I would like...

like to be excited about. My only question is, does James Gunn have literally a person in his life to tell him, do you have to be the way you are at all times? Like, do you have to do this exact one thing? Does she have to be wearing basically a Star Lord trench coat? Do you have to have the same music cues? Like, it just feels, it feels tired. I'm tired. Interesting. Could not agree. Once I saw the iPod. You're getting dominated as far as the hating situation in this episode. You need to step your shit up. No. You're getting down.

He spent like 20 minutes hate on Sonic. You need to go. Oh, actually. He's still to go. Yeah. He's still to go. He's still to go. I was trying to.

You were trying to. This is Charles's corner. The Sonic shit went crazy. Nobody doesn't like it. Nobody doesn't like Chuck. Nobody does it like Chuck. The Sonic shit. That's why he the best.

His eyes got dead. He was looking at me like I was crazy. I was funny. I actually was a little uncomfortable. I was like, whoa, shit. Charles is fucking talking about Sonic. It made me feel like it was a hate crime or something. Like, you know, it was something.

It's something personally with headshaws with speed. Go ahead. Halo Supergirl? This trailer is not good. It's not a good trailer. I'm very worried for this movie because it's like, I think I've already said this.

Especially in a year where Dune Messiah is coming out. This is like, I'm like, yo. No, no, no. He's right. He's right. No, no, this is in the year about a Dune Messiah. You are the man behind D.C. Studios, brother.

have every single what the most why does it all look like in your roller desert planet like just like CGI gloop and I'm like I read the original comic

very colorful yeah supergirl is popping around going up like there's plants and water and this and that and in this movie you're just like okay we're doing the Guardians of the Galaxy thing over again we are doing the

oh we have music cues and oh crypto as a little pup oh crypto is dying we have to save him I'm like, this is quite literally the plot of Guardians of the Galaxy, volume three, all over again. What are we fucking doing? I also thought we agreed we're not doing babysitting anymore. And she's like babysitting for a good portion of this movie, it looks like? The crypto thing is actually offensive to me.

Like in the movie or are complaining about it? No, no, no, no. The, we are, crypto is dying. We have to save them. That's actually offensive to me. Like, I said before these movies are like presents to me. I get it the entire deal. This, though, is, this is even more,

if this ends up what the movie is oriented around. This is in the comic, to be fair. Oh. The whole story of the comic is essentially that they're hunting down this genocidal bounty hunter that shoots crypto. They have three days to save crypto. Then guess what?

I'm completely wrong. You're back. I'm not back. Because someone wrote it in a comic book, it's good now? No. Rob. I'm trying to understand.

What I'm saying is that if, in fact, he had recycled, if he had recycled the story of Guardians of the Galaxy, three, for this one and done the same thing, then I would have a problem with it, not because I don't have a, I don't know how that's going to work. Like, my problem would be in the intention there. But if this is off the source material, I can't. I know, but the difference to me is you already pulled this trick once in Super Bowl. man a year ago. That's what he shouldn't have done it. Like, I can't get mad at it in this movie if this is based off of the source material. I can get mad at it. I can say that maybe he

stole that for Gardens of the Galaxy 3. But if it's based off the source material, I'm not mad at that actually being what happened. Now, he, that changes. You could take different source material. You're right. So I could be mad at that, but I can't be, what I was, what I was really starting to get upset about is the manipulation. Sure. That was coming from him. I don't even, Did he write this? He did? I was like he didn't write it. He didn't direct it.

But it's still very much in the James Gunn vein. Yeah. The thing about other source material, I don't know how well-versed you are on the Supergirl comics. There's not a ton of-hap-hny. There's not a lot of work. There's not a lot of work there. If you're going to do a Supergirl movie,

you do a Woman of Tomorrow. I can't be mad that that's what this movie is about if it's based on the book. I do think, though, that I'm going to be honest with you. I did not know that. I have not read that. I was insanely disappointed at the trailer when I saw that. Yeah. Like to all you guys.

To both of you guys. I know. I was just like that is almost obscene to go back to that well after that's Guards of Galaxy 3 and then Superman. Really, he shouldn't have done it with Superman. He shouldn't have done it in Superman because it's like the dog is not the whole thing, but the dog in peril is a part of it. He shouldn't have done it there. It's his. It's this calling card, which when we see a lot of your stuff, like, over the years, brother, you got to, you got to, you got to, you got to shoot it too.

Wait a minute. If you are the writer-director of Supergirl, and that's what crypto is about, how do you feel about James Gunn? He's making all these decisions. Taking crypto who would be, crypto would have been, this would have been much better received. Absolutely. If this was the first time we saw crypto. Definitely. But I, and this is, I think, the James Gunn of it all.

I think James Gunn has started to use this as a crutch where he's like, oh, I'm introducing a new character. Let me put a glup shito in here. Let me put a baby grew, a baby Yoda into this. Right. Just to like Gilda Lilly and make sure that y'all are fucking with it. And I'm just like, hey, yo, stand by your shit. Stop putting little fucking dumbass baby animals in it.

Like, how many times are you going to do the same shit? All the time. Rocket Raccoon, Eagley, Crypto, brother, that's life now. It just didn't used to be like this. He was making like slither, you know, he's making like weird, crawly horror movies. And this is where we are now. He's not making, like, he's producing the movie. I understand, but the influence on the world.

Influence on the world is important. Again, my old thing, oh, it always goes back to your point. We got a year where Dune's coming out. Odyssey's coming out. Brother, you lock it in with Supergirl and Playface? All right, dog. You're not being serious. How do we feel about Mamoa as Lobo?

Hate it. I hate it. In theory, it should be perfect. From what I saw in that film, tragic. I don't love him. Yeah, I got to see more. It wasn't enough. I got to see more.

It wasn't enough. Interesting year from Moa, Street Fighter, Supergirl, Dune 2. Dune 3. Back from the dead. I think Lobo is the type of character that people are like dog. I can't wait until we get Lobo on screen and then you see them on screen you're like damn that's a combo character

we need to get it out of it. Like we just got to get him out of it. Oh, a space bike and a whip? Like I can see his thing because we're like no, no, that's like their DC's version of Deadpool. I'm like, no, Deadpool looks cool. In whatever decade you put him, you're like oh, Deadpool, I can see that.

Lobo looks like the 90s in a way that I think we should all be free. It could be fun. I think Jason Momoa I don't want to say a little bit unappreciated as regards to like I feel like he can be a fun presence. We watched Fast 10 or it was a Fast 9 at the crib. Oh, he's good at that movie.

Best part of the movie. He brings some of that energy to this movie. I'm with it. I would like to see more. I don't think the footage we got kind of like showed the best. He's looking a little, it's looking a little weak. It's a little CW? Come on.

That's tough. Look, I don't know. I didn't see enough about it. I know that whatever connection I've had to Lobo, it wasn't enough to make me get like super excited. that Lobo's in the movie. I'm more curious about Lobo than I am. I can't wait to get Lobo.

Yeah, I think that's where I'm at. I was really, like, not like shocked, but I was like, people were like, oh, man, I think it's Jason and what was casting as Lobo that people are excited about, really. Because I can't imagine people like, man, line up for Lobo. Let's go watch the Lobo movie, man. We're here to see Lobo. I don't think it's moving like that.

All right, so we hate everything. It all sucks. And that's two weeks in a row. Damn. What, Daredevil in this? I don't say it's about Daredevil. The screeners put me off the Daredevil. The Daredevil show I had a better relationship with

when I saw the version that was on Disney Plus. Okay. What? Because, like, I could see it better. Like, that first scene that had me super confused, like when it was rendered on Disney Plus, I could see that a little bit better. It was a little bit better the second time I watched it.

Still not that great, though, guys. I got to keep it all with fucking real. Episode two and three was cool. I liked them. Yeah, let's, I like them. I like them. It's not bad. doing our thing.

Okay, look, guys, a special treat for you guys. The post-creas of this show, we've actually been podcasting since about 10 o'clock. The post-craying this show, we did legitimately. Damn. 40 minutes? It was a 40-minute, three-on-one. I was defending Star Wars and the rest of these guys were saying. It's like a Mario Party, you know what I'm saying?

We all landed on the Green Square. 3-1, and you landed on the Red Square. Or a different type of party. Hey, man, thanks you guys for watching. You know, we out the mud Well, YouTube, comment, like, subscribe, share Do all that stuff right there That's very important for you guys

We gotta get out of here right now though Wait Van, hold on, can I say one thing before we go? Sure. The four of y'all Yeah, you make a great fucking show Thank you. This is an incredible podcast I listen to it all the time I have to say especially On a shit day

This is, I don't know I have a better prescription than listening to this show What do you have a shit day? All the time This is not true I'm but a human being. I don't know, Sonny Mahoney. Come on. Rob, you're always down for the...

Rob, we had like an hour conversation yesterday. What would be you and Joe talking about? I've never seen you in a bad mood. Talking about Kurt Russell. I mean, any day is a good day to talk about Kurt Russell. I mean, I got home. I was like, hey, man. I like my coworkers, man.

I had the same feeling. I was like, we had a great conversation about Kurt Russell movies. This is what I'm talking about. This is why I'm not in a bad mood. I'm listening to this show. Thank you, my man. This is a guy.

This week on the feed. Tuesday, the House of our Deep Dyes are the first episodes of mall, Shadow Lord. That is what spurred that whole COOLO social. It's Wednesday. The Midnight Boys will return and give their instant reactions to the final season of the boys. Our producers today are ladies and theirs. Devin Brody, Jamie Yukich,

Jacob Cornett. Jomi A Dinner on on social. Hashtag Jomi Cleans the Streets. Is that from last week? It's got to be from last week. Yeah, we'll keep it there. Well, Jomey cleans the sheets. What? Ew. No. Additional production from Arjuna, Wamauga Powell. Chuck takes us out. Super Mario Bros. sucks.

Robahoney is our guy. Star Wars is in the mud, and Darth Mall needs to die. Hang on, there's a lot more after this guy. I had a conversation with some big Star Wars people this past Wednesday. Okay. We had this conversation and big people in Star Wars land. Question before we move past this.

Is Mall the most underrated character in Star Wars history? Man, no. Come on. I would argue that Mall is everything that has been bad about Star Wars.

I would disagree with that. I don't think he's... A lot of great moments, but it is a perfect example of us not being able to get past a certain part in Star Wars history so every single time they need to add

a little spice to like bring them all back. What if it's mall? It's like mall dies. You're like actually didn't. Actually got robot. Actually got robot legs now. Okay. Actually we're going to show him fighting Obi-Wan Kenobi for the 5,000 time. And I'm just like, damn, y'all got any new ideas? When he was a spider, a robot spider on a trash planet,

come on. We were doing too much. Come on. Why is this guy talking. Like, honestly, I really like episode one mall animalistic, caught behind the barrier, like, there's a ferocity to that character that's interesting. Black Planoly Texas High School Mall.

Is Marr? Is Maugh? Is Maugh Black? Is he black? No. I don't think he's black. Because me and Robert having this conversation earlier about, like, we were talking, you know, we're here to talk about my arm, we're talking about video game movies. Nuckles is black. Who? Knuckles. From Sonic.

Knuckles? I thought he was like Jamaican. Black, black. Well, no, but like, specifically, like, oh, wait, so what you're saying is that if you are Jamaican, you say Jamaican before you say,

black, want to get to it? You want to get to it? That's exactly what you did, though. That's what you just did. So Charles, either you believe in diasporic unity or you're fucking don't. Wait,

can we be real? You don't. Okay. We got to talk about. We got to talk about. We got to talk about. Let's say, so we're talking about. Can I say,

so what? from the mall thing, and we'll have this conversation, a long conversation about the mall later on. Mall, Shadow Lars, they're doing it. But do we hold Star Wars in this regard to a standard that we don't hold, like, other lores to? How do you mean?

Because people come back in everything. Well, I think, sure. People come back and everything. They don't die and everything. Maynino dies. Maynino comes back. Colossus dies. Colossus come back. Death of Wolverine. Wolverine's alive. Like, I can go,

lore by lore, thing by thing, and people bring these characters back or continue the stories of these characters, it seems to really, really, and even me, it seems to really hit different when Star Wars does it, though. It would be one, because there's just a smaller sandbox to play in, right? How many guys can you bring back? In Marvel and DC, you have so many, they have so many toys to play with, ultimately, like, you're always going to want to go back to your big hitters. But for Star Wars, it's Anarchy, it's Anarchy, is Obi-Wan, it's Asoka, and it's mall. Those guys just, like, if you want to, like, jangle the keys for us, boom, that's who. It's also just one story. In comic folks, that's it.

It's multiple stories. In Star Wars, it's kind of just one story. And if you bring one character back over and over and over again, you're a little bit like, does anything matter in this? Especially when the appeal is the scarcity, right? It's like, there are two Sith at a time. They're supposed to be two Sith. That makes them cool.

When all of a sudden, one falls into a pit, comes back as a half robot, all of a sudden he's alive and talking in a totally different character. Now he got a little Sith homie with them. Savagio, Presti. Here's the thing, though. But you guys, hold on.

You guys are, this thing is pissing me off. They're not Sith. This is what I'm saying, though. But they're not Sith. Maul, this is the whole thing. Maul thinks he's a Sith. He's not really a Sith. The whole...

All right. I... Hold on, you know what? You know, wait, wait. No, no. It's not that I'm not wrong. Is that I'm 100% right. And people...

So, Maul is not a Sith. Sure. Maul is not a Sith. Maul is a Sith assassin. He's a dark side assassin. He thought that he was a Sith. That's the whole thing with the character. The whole thing with the character is,

the Palpatine couldn't take an apprentice because when Palpatine started with Mal, Palpatine was an apprentice. But he lied and used Maul anyway. Maul's entire art is actually propelled by the fact that he thought that he was a Sith and thought that he was this close to the emperor

and it ended up not being true. So like the scarcity of the rule of two, which Papatine does not believe in. Obviously. Right. The scarcity of the rule of two, he completely, like it doesn't even apply to him.

He's actually breaking the rule, which is why he has a crisis of character and conscious. Do you feel Dave Faloni inhabiting your body as you say this stuff? Like, he's clearly possessing you? No, I don't worry. No, the reality is that like what I do, the only thing that I actually have a problem with

is us not, if we are in the story, then be in the story. Like, my thing is, don't rewrite the story. Yeah. Like, there's, there's a story first explanation as to why Maul is our orphaned, as to why Maul goes out and, like, does what it. There's a story first explanation for that.

Now, if you don't like it, if you think he should have been left cut and a half by Canobi, cool. But, like, he, he, there's a, it's in there. I, and I, that's why I think for me, the issue is, mall it's asoka and i love asoka i like i really i really do but her like she served a purpose in uh being there in the clone wars to be like an avatar for us for the people she's not

revenge to the sift now why is that she could have been got you know what i'm saying but now like clone wars um rebels the whole like post uh um like day philone universe is On Assoca shoulders, right? We could have moved past that Arrow Star Wars, but we're never going to. Everything revolves around Asoka. It's fan fiction shit to me at this point. In a way that like, not that Asoka's not cool or interesting,

but like Maul had one scene, movie that was the coolest thing ever. That's the character you bring back, if you can, to be like, hey man, like, it is a bit of jangling keys. But in regards to like, we're just going to tell this one story over and over and over again, that's the Asoka part. And that's the thing where I'm like, yo, we have to, we have to move on.

See, I think they turned Asoka into honestly, one of my favorite characters in all of Star Wars. I love the character. I love Asoka because they kind of built her from the ground up. I think the mall problem,

the same as the Boba Fett problem, which is like you have an objectively cool thing and you made it incredibly uncool by burdening it with all this lore and backstory and like removing all the mystery involved in a character like that. The more you explain about the character, the more you're like,

I don't want to know where a mall came from. I don't want to know what happened to Boba Fett, how he got out of it. out of the Sarlack pit. I just want to think about it and think that it could be possible and I want to like stew in that gray area and they removed all the gray area

with these guys. The reason why I brought up like and compared other lore is because I hear what you guys are saying. It was a nice little pod before the Super Mario Galaxy podcast. It's probably be post-credits. Yeah. But the reason why I'm saying is because this is what they do with everyone.

They took Batman and gave Batman an entire League of Shadows, League of Assassin's backstory to make us understand why Batman looks at the world this way, why he's so adept as a fighter. This is what happens. Like when Superman first comes out, then what happens?

The fortress of solitude happens. Krypton happens. The yellow and red sun happens. Different types of kryptonite happens. You got to expand the law a little bit. Because as things get bigger and as stuff goes longer, there's going to be more investigation into characters, into rules. That is how you build a lasting lore,

especially if it's not based upon a 1,000-page fan book with all of this different stuff and genealogies and all that stuff. It's based upon comic books, different writers take different interpretations of characters, and they make these characters bigger, they change these characters, they give them different motivations. We don't want people to do that for Star Wars. And it's interesting. Like to me, when I read the Vader comics and I read what was going on,

Vader is another character that Kevin Smith and other people have said, and rightly so, works perfectly a new hope because he's only in the movie 15 minutes. I get that. But to me, I am interested in what happened between like the Sith and a New Hope. We got it. It was Obi-Wan. Everybody loved it. I know.

well not that but like the the comic book stuff where Vader has to go out and get his get a lightsaber where it's Vader versus the emperor the pull of the light before he actually hardens into

Darth Vader the relationship between him and Palpatine where it's kind of like by the time you see him in the movies he's a whipped dog until Jedi but really that entire time he sees Luke as his ticket to overthrow Palpatine who actually hurts. All of that stuff is

expansive, but like for some reason, Star Wars plays by a different set of rules. I would you say in live action, I think that they've tried to do what you've asked, which is tell us a little bit more about BobaFed. Tell us a little bit more about what Solo was up to. And each time

we're all like, yeah, that sucked, put it back, we didn't want to see it. Well, if they do it poorly, then that's one thing. But to say that they shouldn't do it. I just haven't seen them do it well ever. In live action. In live action, which I think is what I want to see from Star Wars. Comic shit is cool.

TV shows are cool. Star Wars are movies to me. And like every single time they kind of dip their tone to like, we're taking this legendary canonical character and we're telling you everything. I'm always like, damn. So you're saying that Star Wars has never expanded a story well in live action? I'm saying when, if you take Book of Boba, if you take solo, I would say the Asoka series,

when they try to do it in live action and do a big budget, normally you're just like, oh, this is why less is more in this universe. Especially with existing characters. Because, yeah, and or in Rogue One are the exception, but those are new characters. Right. But at the same time, though, like, that to me, once again, is a storytelling problem.

So if Gilroy would have done Asoka, would it have been fantastic? If Gilroy would have done Boba Fett, like, we're... But I actually don't think it would have been because I think what was good about Andor was, he was like, Andor, to me as a story, would have worked if it was Star Wars or if it was just any sci-fi

because you're like, oh, he wants to tell a story about, like, fascism and how it takes hold and spycraft and all this shit where it's like with Asoka, sometimes it feels like this is a man playing with his action figures and you're like, this is cool to you and very, very boring to me. I think the Obi-Wi-Wi-Wing

show is another perfect example. Obi-Wan works very, very well when he is like the cool samurai that you don't know that much about, the minute you saddle him with a small princess Leah, you're like, that's cool. But understand, though, once again, and we can move off this because I'm not going to relent. You guys are talking about storytelling choices that didn't work. You're talking, so you're saying I don't want more Obi-Wan Kenobi and the, the evidence is that the Obi-Wan Kenobi show was bad.

I don't want more... Like, I don't want more Asoka. And the evidence is that the, well, okay, if you don't like the prequels, if you say, I'll just be honest, if you say you don't want to see on screen the story of how

Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, then you're not that big of a Star Wars fan. Now, that's just a fucking fact. But now, if you say you want to see it done better, then I can understand that. But if you're saying right now, I have no interest in watching

how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, that would be like saying, I don't want Batman begins. I think I would make the argument. It's not that I don't want to see it. It's that, like, they tried over and over again. And each time I'm like, oh, this does make Darth Vader

just less perfect. Where it's like, if you take that original trilogy, you're like, this is a perfect villain. a perfect villain arc. I love this. And then when you start explaining too much, you're just like, damn, there is a little bit of magic that just gets scrubbed. This is, this is fundamental.

Because I read all of this shit. Like, I got into, I could not get enough. Like, I, like, I read all of this. This is just a fundamental difference. Like, I read all of that shit. Star Wars is not just movies to me. All the legends. Like, I read as much as, like, there's a lot of books.

But, like, it, it's not just movies to me. It's like a whole galaxy with, endless possibilities and all like just different type of shit. Plants where the force don't work around the plants, right? Where you lay next to the plant, Luke can't use the force. Like Mara Jade, all of that stuff. Like I read all of that stuff and there was never enough. And this is actually what Star Wars is fundamentally dealing with.

What Star Wars is fundamentally dealing with are people who want more and people who don't know how much it is that they want. Yeah. Now, I could agree that perhaps, Han solo prequel story is stretch, it would have to be fucking perfect, right? It's stretching the limits. Like, you might want to see the Kessel Run fine. It's stretching the limits of it.

But some of these things are so fundamental to that. Like, they're so fundamental to your understanding of Star Wars. They're fundamental to understanding the rules of Star Wars. Fundamental to understanding, like, how the galaxy got to where it is. And I think, like, Andor is nothing but it's a, it's an origin story for the empire. But the difference between Andor. in other Star Wars stories we've gotten is that it's not, I think,

it's, here's what it is. The real thing is Andors is actually not Star Wars. Right, exactly. It's kind of the Simpsons thing, where people, the people who started, like Matt Groening and all those people who started The Simpsons were watching, like, the Batman anime series,

or watching other stuff, and all that came together to make, like, the first Bats of the Simpsons. Now the people make of The Simpsons are people who grew up watching the Simpsons. Yeah, right? Where George Lucas was inspired by Curisawa and,

Flash Gordon and all the things he was watching at the time, now the people making Star Wars or are just people who are fans of Star Wars. Yeah, it's a snake eating its own family. Exactly, right? Where, like, Andor is the reason, like, we enjoy Ander so much, it's because it's not about Star Wars. It's about other stuff. It has an actual reference point.

I am actually not that big of a fan of Star Wars. So he's coming to it with a more objective lens of, like, hey, actually, what do these stories mean and what do I want to tell in this world versus this is how I always thought Star Wars should have been? I get my action figures now. I'm telling my own story and you're like, well damn, I don't want to see that. I mean, even the original trilogy,

it's like you're playing in this universe with the force and light sabers and all that stuff. But they've said it. It's like it's guerrilla warfare. We're talking about Vietnam. We have stuff to say about other things. Now, what is Star Wars, what is Star Wars saying?

What is it speaking to? Andor has something explicit to say. I'm not saying that every Star Wars movie needs to have a big message about the world we live in and whatever, but it's got to be, Like, what are your inspiration outside of Star Wars? What other story are you trying to tell?

And it's just all about, it's just really all about the space war. And it's, like, not as interesting. Well, it also has, like, I think the power in that perspective, when you're not just a fan of Star Wars iterating on the stuff you love, it's easier to come with restraint, which is to me, like, the most important part of world building, right? Like, I'm with you. I want to know how Anakin became Vader.

I kind of want to be in the space where I'm thinking about it, where I'm the dog chasing the mail truck, but I don't want to catch the mail truck. I just want to think about how it might happen. I want to look at the edges of the frame of this world that's been built and wonder how it got there and make my own theories how it got there.

But when you get definitive answers to those things, I think it's going to leave a lot of people cold. It's just really, really hard to get right. When you understand, when the force is no longer religion, when it's like, hey, they're mid-chlorians and this and that, I'm like, you took something that was perfect and magical and then just kind of took the... But it's, once again, that's a storytelling choice.

If somebody made the, for example, the prequels, right? I wanted to see the story. The question is, was it done right? The question is, at that point, did George Lucas still have his fastball? Was the dialogue good? Could he direct actors well enough to get performances out of the characters in these stories that forget about the original trilogy that made scenes compelling to watch? Did he cast the wrong kid to play Anakin Skywalker?

did he do that? So storytelling choice is execution of these things. But the existence of those stories is a storytelling choice. Like endeavoring to make the prequels, to make Clone Wars, to make live action Obi-1 and Osoka. Like that is a storytelling choice in and of itself. Well, that's a, to me, that's a, it's not necessarily a, when I say storytelling choice, I mean actually inside of, like, how you do what you do.

Like, to endeavor into doing something, that's more of a. of a vision choice to me. Is this a story worth telling? So let me be more concise. Is this a story worth telling? That's the first thing. Now, if we're saying no, then there's going to be a clear line in any lore.

Like, you say you want Robbers' Rebellion. Why? Like, why would you want Robbers' Rebellion? If you want Robbers' Rebellion, what you essentially want is you want Tywin Lannister, back, younger, you want... Rob, you want... Rob, you want Ned.

why do you want it? You know what the fuck happened. They fucking lost. Like, it's like, the battle of the try didn't happen. You can read as much of it as you want. You want Robbers' Rebellion. Why would you want Robbers' Rebellion?

It's perfect in the way that it's rendered now because you see Rob, he's old, he's fat, he's fucked up, and then you get the first four or five perfect seasons of Game of Thrones until they start making bad storytelling choices and end what it was that they started. Because it would have been

fine to have Game of Thrones do the same thing that it would have done if it would have been better towards the end. It's not that you didn't want to see who won. Of course you wanted to see who won. She just wanted them to do it right. But I think the one to one is different because to me, Game of Thrones and Star Trek, those are both like TV. Those are both like TV where it's like with Star Wars, I think the thing that's always been hard is because not only is it a cinematic choice, these are like, if you ask people like,

10 most important movies other, Star Wars is going to be there. I think the bar creatively is just so high. When you add something new to it, it's just going to be a different. It's going to be kind of like a different nonsense. Challenge.

What you guys are talking about is taking like a legitimately 40 to 50 year old lore that has way, way expanded past any cinematic experience. If Star Wars is just movies, for people, I can understand that.

But those people aren't Star Wars fans. And that's cool, too. That's a stretch. I think there's a version of a fandom. If Star Wars is just movies to you, if Star Wars is just movies to you, then you like Star Wars. If Star Wars is, and that's with anything, by the way.

Like, that is legitimately if you are a fan of anything. If you are a fan of Star Trek, you did not bitch and moan when Star Trek movies came out, right? As long as the movies were good. If you're a fan of Star Trek. You don't, you watch a fucking Star Trek cartoon. Lower Decks, right? You what I'm saying? So, like, if you're a fan of Star Trek, you're not going to, if it's executed

well, and it deepens your appreciation for the thing that you love, it just, it's odd. But like I said, like, it's just, they're just telling Star Wars stories. They're not telling, like, actual stories. It's all about the, it's literally all about the lore and this character in, like, what? We're speaking to the top 1% of the fan base. and that's when I think Star Wars is at its worse when it is trying to make like the most rabid fans happy because I'm like they're never going to be happy. Like to me

Star Wars is at its best when it's like, okay, we are trying to make a story that anyone can enjoy. And when you get to like the 10th time Darth Maul resurrects, it's the same MCU problem. It's like once you start telling too much and revealing too much, people are like, this is homework. And Star Wars at this point feels like homework.

It doesn't feel like enjoyment. Van wants a purity test though. Like if you can't, if you're not with Prince Zizor, get the fuck out of here. No, no, no, no. If you wasn't reading legends, you were not reading. What's your favorite TV, John, no. Wait, right now. No, no, no, seriously, this actually is a distinction to me because, like, I think there are a couple of things that are happening.

Number one, there are people who watched Clone Wars and when Mall popped up, they were really, really happy to see Mall. And then there were people that watched Clone Wars that were so young. when Phantom Menace came out, that they didn't even know that it was the same character, right? And so, like, there are people that have no relationship to Christopher Reeve's Superman.

Not like I do, right? Like, I am of an age where I have every cinematic Superman ever. But there's a whole group of people that... Cavill is their Superman. And now it's a whole group of people... What's the guy's name?

Course what? But cornsweat will be that Superman. The question is not whether or not that's real because it is. The question is whether or not we need new Superman. Whether or not that story of Superman deserves to be reinterpreted, deserves to be retold to new people, whether or not the story itself is worth it. And whether or not that story can get bigger,

whether or not there are people that can come in and with that character, with the character of Calell from the planet Krypton, tell a different, slightly altered version of the story for a contemporary audience. And if that dies, then so does Superman. If you can't do it, then Superman can't. And maybe, maybe Superman is dead. The question is, is Star Wars dead?

And if you cannot tell a story right now about beloved characters, it has nothing to do with the characters and more to do with the storytelling, like to me. Well, that is a perfect pivot because if we're talking about things that might be dead.

Just kidding. Yo, I got to go to the bathroom. I'm going to say, that's got to be post-credit. So we have to, because we can't, like, start the episode with 30 minutes Star Wars. We're like, we're just breaking out

to a separate episode. I mean, separate episode, put two episodes out. What a spirited defense of a lot of bad Star Wars, you know? It's not all bad, but I think. What was the last good Star Wars? thing that was not Andor

or Rogue one. Mandelorian, season one. That's a long time ago. That's like 20, yeah, it's 20, 20, 20. But think about this, though. We've had like eight Star Wars properties since then. But think about this, though.

Like, you're, the whole, you could say that about any of this stuff. What was the last Marvel thing? What was the last whatever? And. Yeah, a lot of it's bad. Right. Because it's snake eating its own tails.

Like, they're all doing the same thing. I think the problem with the Superman thing is like, what they're doing now with Star Wars is not Corn Sweat Superman. They're doing Brandon Routh Superman Returns. They're like same version, same character. Don't you love this. Let's do a little bit more with it and not a new interpretation of the same character.

But that's the, what I'm saying is that right there, that might be the wrong way to go about it, right? Because also, like, take, this is just the way you do. Take, for example, okay, so you have Ralph Superman. Well, then you have Snyder Superman. Yeah. Snyder Superman was colorless. It was hopeless. It was dower.

I respect it more. because that's at least something. I know, but that's you. Yeah. So what I'm saying is, what we're doing, though, is we're not talking about whether or not a singer was wrong or whether or not Snyder was wrong or whether or not Gun is wrong. We're talking about whether or not Superman is wrong.

Yeah. That is what I'm trying to bifurcate. I'm saying, yeah, sure. Lucas might have been wrong with the prequels. But like if you're saying, I don't want Sky. Guy Walker, I don't want Mall, I don't want Asoka, I don't want this, then you don't want Star Wars. Then you did, and that's okay. I want, I want Star Wars to matter.

And the shows and like the way it's been filtered down through all these properties makes it matter less. Like to me, the scarcity of the movies is part of what makes them stand the way they do. And as soon as like- If that is true, then it is the only lore that it's true about. Because that's never, that's just not how it goes. I think most lore works that way. Like, I think... So Batman works that way. Batman, here's the difference.

Like, Star Wars, even with Faloni, thrives on the idea. And I think this is where you come at it from a very different perspective with, like, the EU legend stuff. To me, it's like Star Wars is a one-voice property. And it was George Lucas for a long time. And the whole appeal of Dave Faloni is like, this is the guy who has been knighted by George to carry on the legacy of Star Wars. Yeah. And so it's supposed to have authorial intent, right? It's supposed to have a narrow framing based on one point of time.

of you. It's not there are six different Batman comics running at one time and an animated series and two movies in development about different Batman. It's like there's one Luke Skywalker and it's supposed to be carried through this story. That's only a time thing because Seagull and Schuster and Vince Superman and then they write it for years. Yeah. Then different people write Superman. But this is why Star Wars is different. But it's not different. I disagree. But it's not it's it's it's different if you only engage in one part of it. If you only engaged in Lucas way before the

prequels, Lucas himself way before the prequels. The legend stuff was all Lucas saying you can go do what you want. For sure. Right. And so the characters that are in, like when we're talking about like, this is where I get into it because like actuality

defeats your narrative. The characters that are in the prequels, mall, these other characters. These are characters that Lucas didn't create. These are characters that Lucas took from what other people did. Who created Mall? Well, what I'm saying is like some of these characters, some of this stuff,

some of this stuff is coming from Legends. Ball didn't come from Legends. Ball didn't come from Legends. But some of this stuff is coming. Some of this stuff is coming from legend. Especially now. Right. And so what I'm saying is like,

Lucas is gave people permission to expand on what he did. Yeah. Yeah. He, like he said, I created this lore. I wanted to continue to grow. I know the way that it will continue to grow is to give other people an opportunity. Well, like, none of this will be in. We can.

I mean, we don't. We can't. Why not? But like, but none of this, I'll give other people the opportunity to use their imagination and tell their version of it, right? Right. So, which is another reason why the whole, you know, whatever, all this shit was decanized. Like, we, you know, we waste a lot of time. But, like, but, but, but what I am saying is.

there's a for whatever reason there's a limiting that goes along with Star Wars specifically that I think has to do with the fact

that people let me reorient one last time and we can move on the hopefulness that exists in the original trilogy is impossible to do now

this is the problem Star Wars essentially has a Superman problem that's the real issue to me the real issue to me is that it's difficult to tell a story about family love and redemption overcoming like it used to be. And when you get deeper, like the...

I think that's a storytelling problem. Because like even the schmaltziest parts of Rogue One, the rebellions are built on hope stuff. Like, that stuff kind of works within the context of what it's trying to be. And Project Hell Mary pulled it off. There you go. Where it's like, I did not like the hokey parts of that movie, but it is connecting with... You got a lot. I think there's just...

If you want to tell us... If you want to tell a Luke story, you want to tell a story about Luke. You guys, Ted Lassau work. You can't. But, like, but the, I mean, it did until it didn't. It did. It did. It did.

But you have to have a story. It can't just be what was Luke up to in between, uh, whatever movie, whatever movie. That's a Wikipedia article. Right. What was like, what's Luke's journey? Right. Yeah. Like, come up with something to like tell us.

It's the whole thing of story. The whole thing is storytelling. Right. To come up with if there are things that you could do. Like, I'll go back to use the Batman Begins like situation. It's done right, right? Yeah. The Batman Begins, right?

It's good. It's a story of how Bruce Wayne became Batman, right? Sure. Like, now, let's go back to the framing that you guys used earlier. Well, we don't need that. Somebody killed, just look. It's not a one-to-one. It's not a one-to-one.

I'm not using the one-to-one. Just don't fight the hypo. Okay, all right. So, like, you have Batman. Okay. Batman exists. If his parents get killed, he becomes a superhero. That's all you need to know.

How? Now, if you tell it right, it's compelling. How? How did he become a superhero? How? How did Batman become a superhero? Now, eventually, in the comic books, to keep Batman going, they had to tell you how. Because the how then creates new villains.

It creates new experiences. It creates a new perspective. It creates actually a new world that exists within Batman. How? Now, if you do it wrong, if Batman goes and joins a traveling circus, and then he takes everything that he learns from the traveling circus, and then brings it back to Gotham and becomes Batman, you might go, that's fucking stupid, that doesn't make any sense.

But if you bring lore to it, if Raz al-Gul is a part of it, if he goes somewhere else and fights, if he learns the limits of the vision of the League of Shadows, he becomes an excommunicated member of the League of Shadows that comes back and marries the technology that he has access to from Wayne Enterprise with the more ancient tradition of ninjitsu warfare that he learned from them.

Now you've got something interesting. But what you're describing is a growth of a character, right? Somebody who started from wherever he came from and then learned throughout his processes, oh, this, like whatever League Shadows doesn't work, I have to take justice to my own hands. I have to do it the right way. I can't kill people like they're doing it.

Right. Like, that's part of the story. Right. Do you know what I'm saying? And so when we talk about, like, Star Wars specifically, I don't think they're, I don't think those characters are growing. I don't, when I watched. But I also think the difference is Luke Skywalker is Mark Hamill.

Batman is Batman. Like, and that's what I think is harder with those, because those characters, we saw them on screen first. We were like, no, Harrison Ford is Han Solo. And we don't want another guy. All that Aaron Reich as Hans Solo. don't, we don't want it. That is fine, okay?

But I want you to know that that's not what we were talking about. But no, no, but that's what I'm saying. It's one of the problems. But wait a second, though, hold on. That is fine. If people cannot, point taken, if people cannot deal with seeing Luke Skywalker as anyone else, then Mark Hamill, then Luke Skywalker has to die. But we were talking about Asoka, we were talking about Boba Fett,

we were talking about the prequels. These are characters that you can, expand on that are not attached to any acts or as a matter of fact these are characters that are established with actors the prequels themselves like the story of anakin skywalker he had to be cast and then grow into that that's a completely different argument if you're saying that the character of luke skywalker dies with mark hamill because no one else can play mark hamill then i would say hey what you have to what you have to figure out is how to james bond that situation What you have to figure out, because James Bond, when you first see him on screen,

is Sean Connery. And a lot of people were like, Sean Connery is my James Bond. But what you have to do is actually make a James Bond movie that is so compelling that you forget that Roger Moore is your James Bond, that you forget that George Lazanby is your James Bond, that Timothy Dalton is your James Bond. But that's story, right? Because when you go and you watch these movies and you get into these movies,

you're getting into not just James Bond, but you're getting into the man. with the golden gun and you get into our job and you're getting into all and you're getting into all you're getting into what happened with more you're getting into the larger story around James Bond and you're less connected to any one actor's

portrayal. That's hard to do with Star Wars I'm not denying it but that's a problem that's solved with how good your fucking movie is. Now if we go back if we go back and we talk about like where we started with this we started with saying don't want Asoka, don't want Boba Fett don't want the prequel

What you don't want is bad story because if they made an awesome Boba Fett movie, if they made an awesome Assook a movie or show, if they made, if the prequels were awesome, it would be fine. They just didn't do it right. But like to me, the limiting part of it and the part of it that baffles me,

particularly about this particular lore discussion, the limiting part of it is, it's better when we get less of it. That just, that's not, no really loved lore exists in that way. Like, it just, it doesn't. It doesn't. I think you're discounting, like, the importance of imagination with those kinds of stories.

Like, there is being fed answers, and there's, like, wondering about the universe. I think those two things can kind of be at odds. And I don't think it's an accident that the most successful Star Wars properties in terms of that lore expansion are all original stories, right? Like, even Mando, that's an original character. And Orr and Rogue One, those are original characters. Every time they try to go back to the well, I would say the only mostly successful version of that is prequels Obi-1

specifically. Like, he is the most successful part of those movies. I think the through line that runs through them actually works because Ewan is so good. But other than that, every time it's an origin story of a character, an expansion of a character, why do you work? Because Ewan McGregor is good. And he is thriving

in spite of the material. Rob, that is why it worked. Exactly. If your point is good storytelling makes good stories, I agree with you. I think what I'm saying, and maybe what we're saying, is that if you've had 12 consecutive attempts to write a good story backgrounding Star Wars and failed

every single time using existing characters, the formula may be flawed in that way. There's something that people are allergic to. Yeah. So, I think the well's poison. We'll move on. But before I say this, are 7, 8, 9 original stories. I would

8, 8 tries. 7 is just a new host. But their new kids. characters, right? Well, beyond solo, Leo, beyond Solo, Leah and Luke, they're new characters, right? Yes. In terms of Ray and Kylo and them.

Right, so they're new characters. They're character archetypes, but even the Mandalorian is a character archetypes. But the thing about it was archetypes. But the thing about episode seven specifically is the same thing that I mentioned earlier, where it's just a re-skin of a new hope. Right. Right. Right. So, here,

let's take this. So those, so those are original stories, right, that actually do kind of the thing that you guys said that you wanted them to do. They don't really explain to you what the first order is. They don't really tell you. The first order to exist, it's here.

We got to fight it. They don't really tell you what it is. Kylo Ren comes into the situation. Get a little backstory. You just get cool shit. He's kind of cool, right? He gets, to me, more, because we live in a different time.

He doesn't become the sort of almost mindless, Hunter killer that Darth Vader is, he has more emotional dynamic than that, right? Because you almost kind of have to in the way we are right now. It still doesn't work. The reason why it still doesn't work is the thing that's holding Star Wars back is actually this entire conversation to me. It's actually expectation.

The expectation of what's going on. The reason why some of these other characters work that you've never seen before is because the audience is open. And so even when the mistakes are made with these characters, even when you don't go, that's not my, I do this. You did it with Luke. I did it with Luke. You don't go, that's not my Skywalker.

You don't go, that's not my, the expectation for these characters. And that is a gigantic bar to leap over. But every traditional beloved character has it. Every single character. Daniel Craig's interpretation for James Bond, at first where people were like, whoa, wait a minute. Like, what's happening? here. Like, like, Snyder's Superman,

burdens Batman, whatever it is, like Batfleck, like whatever it is. Every character that's beloved in that way has to jump over people's expectations of them. That just actually raised, the reason why I'm really done after this, but the reason why... No one is fighting with you that these movies and shows need to be good. But the reason why, we're in agreement. But the reason why Nolan this wanted to do Batman, was very savage.

removed by him is because he thought he could do something different with the character that we all know. That's what has to happen. Not more Batman, not less Batman. Someone has to come along and say, I can do Batman in a different way. Where this started was, these characters just don't need to be in this stuff anymore. Like, and that is, I think you got it, though. I think you got there.

No, I never, no, no, no. We need to see these characters do something else. That's a storytelling issue, though. That's what I've been saying that's a storytelling problem, not a problem that's centered around the portrayal of the character.

The portrayal saying that we don't need any more, Maul. Because he's doing the same thing. We don't need any more, Asoka. Like, that's what I've been saying to you. What I'm saying is you don't want more that's bad or more than the way.

I do agree we don't want more that's bad. I would like not more that's bad. Yeah. And by the way, to me, like once again, The Asoka show. The Asoka show is not, it wasn't a great show, but one of the reasons why people, look,

one of the reasons why people were as down on the show as they were is because of what they expected from the show because it's Asoka and they've been waiting for it. So either you can jump that, either you have the expertise in storytelling to jump that or you can't. But what I don't want as a Star Wars fan is for people to go,

I never want to see Skywalker on screen again. would love to see Skywalker on screen again. I would love to see Vader on screen again. I would love to see somebody be able to do these characters in a way that, like, inspires people. But like to say that we don't need them around anymore or that they should go away, that to me, I don't agree with that. I don't think they should go away, but you have to figure out something new to do

with them. We can't just be running the same offense. We run a triangle offense in 2025. I'm, I'm even willing to lower the bar from something new. something to say, period. Like, my problem with the Asoka show, I was thrilled that it was in development. I was thrilled

this is happening. It's a character that means a lot to me. My bump against it, and I think that show is like actively bad, is not this isn't my Asoka. It's this show has nothing to say about Asoka the character. It's not even a remotely interested in her or her story. And frankly, like, the execution,

to your point, of all the characters across the board, I think is very poor. I just want a property, if you're going to iterate, have something to say about that property. just literally anything, and I'm open-minded about what that can be. I agree. Perfect. Storytelling issue.

Not a character issue. Not, you don't want, it's not that you don't want more Asoka. It's not that you don't want more mall. See, this is where I think there are certain characters I don't want more of. I don't want more Boba Fett. I don't want more Moll. I want mystery around certain, like, let a cool fringe character be a cool fringe character. That, that's fine.

I can, like, I can, like, I guess I can agree with that. But to me, overall, the questions that we have about Star Wars, that we limit Star Wars in a way that we just don't limit other properties. Man, you like Star Trek, Deep Space Nine, Star Trek, DSLR one. Voyager. These are all different ships, different crews, different characters. Can we get to Mario? All of that stuff. Star Trek, all in this stuff.

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