The Vergecast - Star Wars: The spoilers unleashed

Episode Date: December 18, 2015

This week on a very special Vergecast, we discuss all things Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Emily Yoshida and Ross Miller will be joined by Bryan Bishop and Tasha Robinson to have a critic's discussion of the new film. Kaitlyn Tiffany will be occupying the hypeseat and will likely interject Hamilton into the discussion. Be warned: there will be spoilers. This is an episode that should be listened to after you see the movie. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, everyone. It's a special edition, despecialized edition, Vergecast. We are talking about Star Wars and nothing but Star Wars for the next, I think we got 43 minutes. So you are strapped in, ready to journey to a galaxy far, far away. Hopefully you're listening to this after Star Wars of Force Awakens has come out, because we are going to be getting into some spoilers here. Three of us that are on this podcast have seen the movie. Two of us have not.

One could not give less of a shit. But let's do some intros with me here in New York. Ross Miller. Yes, and I'm the one who hasn't seen it, but does kind of give a shit. But also got so obsessed with spoilers that I pretty much just ruined the movie for me. Yeah, you really, I didn't even realize how much was out there that you could spoil yourself on until after I saw the film. And I was like, oh, this might not, none of this might have been a surprise to anybody.

Yeah. On Skype, we have in L.A., Brian Bishop, senior reporter, a veteran of the official premiere, the world premiere of Star Wars, The Force Awakens, a couple days ago. How changed are you? How changed am I? Yeah. It was weird. It was kind of like this moment.

If there was a center of hype for this movie, it was that premiere. Because it was like you had this one room. There's three theaters, right? Four blocks of Hollywood Boulevard blocked off for this thing. And in one room, you know, Abrams and Bob Lager from Disney are, you know, giving a standing ovation to Lucas, who was there, you know, acting like he was happy. And then it was, you know, taken over. And a new movie happened, and it's all not his from here on out.

So it was good. I mean, we'll talk a little later about how I felt after the movie, but the premiere was definitely interesting. If you ever want to spend, you know, several hours in a super cold tent in Hollywood, that was the place to be. Yeah, it looked like you were in hyperspace, like the weird kind of purply foil tunnel look. It was more strong than Star Wars actually, which a little bit strange.

But they try, so it's good. Nice. Also joining us on Skype is our film critic, Tasha Robinson, calling him from Chicago. also somebody who has seen Star Wars and we'll be writing about it very, very soon, or has already written about it, you will read her writing on it

very, very soon. Tell me about seeing it in Chicago. It's just a bunch of critics. I mean, mine was just a bunch of critics. Just a bunch of critics? I just said it's so demeaning. No, it was a bunch of critics. Oh, my God, critics!

But yeah, yeah, it was, George Lucas was not there. Nobody got a standing O. It was just a bunch of critics in a room. Which is usually a kind of a dour affair. Like, critics-only screenings, like everybody kind of tries to keep their reactions in because they don't want to give anything away to anybody else because we're all kind of in competition. But there was a lot of laughter in that room. Yeah.

There was a sense of tension and a sense of excitement that you really don't get very often with a critic screenings. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there was applause for almost any throwback of which there were many, and we'll get into that in a second, in my screening. A lot of laughs. It was a very participatory audience, which I think something like Star Wars is one of the few things that can bring that out of a room full of critics. Was it entirely critics, or is it like a mix of like PR and like families? Well, I was sitting next to a couple of college kids from Drew University. I'm not really sure where that is.

But they were really into e-sports. So they were talking a lot about e-sports. and their friends, their friend's dad works for Disney, so got them in. So cool for them. I didn't even want to ask. I was like,

were you even born yet when Phantom Menace came out? Do you even remember? It's not yet. So they would have been like 16 or something. Oh, yeah. So if you were born when Phantom Manus came out, you'd be 16 now. So they were probably like three.

They still wouldn't remember it. They wouldn't remember the entire, the angst of the, Phantom Menace, which I guess we can kind of get into now just as a way to roll into the film. There was a lot writing on this film, mostly by way of bad example from the prequels. I don't know how everybody feels individually about them, but I personally just watched episode three for the first time since theaters, I think. I think I only watched it once.

Oh, God, it's so bad, man. Like, I know you watched all of it, Brian. You watched all three, episode one, two, and three in preparation for the Fourth Awakens. How did that, did that inform your experience at all? I mean, it certainly set expectations that the Force Awakens had no problem, you know, exceeding. I mean, they are so painfully bad. It's, it is weird going back. Like, I think conventional wisdom was that Revenge of the Sith was the best of the prequels because it gave people what they finally wanted to see, which was Darth Vader.

But you watched them again. and it's kind of the worst. Like, number one, Phantom Menace is terrible, but at least you can tell like Lucas actually gave a shit. Right, feel like by Attack of the Clones or Revenge of the Sith,

he was just like, sure, lava fight, no. Like, he so didn't care. Nobody cared. I mean, it seemed like also, episode three was like,

oh, shit, I actually have to do the plot. I have to, like, connect this to four in some way. And like, yeah, because I just did the whole weekend watching one through six, all the,

you know, the new versions, all the altered versions. But it was still like, I didn't know enjoying attack of the clones more than the others? They all sucked. They all completely sucked.

I didn't even bother to look at attack at the client. I mean, they're all terrible, but the first one has the expectation of being the first, and the third one has to do plot. So the second one's like, it doesn't care. Yeah. It's okay being a bad movie. Yeah. But Ross, you're talking about a movie where Anakin and Natalie Porman roll around on the grass

as they fall in love. Like, that's kind of indefensible. But don't forget, I love you. No, I love you. Oh, and then love you. Whatever that freaking phrase was. Right. I don't like sand.

It's course. It's everywhere. That's, I mean, God bless that line. That line is one of the worst movie lines of all time. I think, like, not even just if you are Star Wars fan and you have an investment in Star Wars. It's just a play out. It's a bad line.

So, I don't know. I mean, it's interesting. I mean, it's really, really impossible to judge's movie in a vacuum, right? Like, duh, but also even just with the prequels, I mean, that, I was saying that J.J. Abrams for Force Awakens actually is hugely indebted to George Lucas, not just because he invented Star Wars, but because he did it so wrong that there was a really, really clear example of what not to do. So it's like, okay, don't take away all the things that we love about Star Wars. Like, keep film, keep this, like, warm feeling, keep this sort of, like,

romantic comedy banter with people. Like, that's the things that people liked. They actually, like, this sort of quasi-religious tone of these, and, like, super slow, tone of the prequels actually had nothing to do with the original trilogy as far as resembling them as films. And I think that was just a really, really good bellwether, at least for him to say, okay, I'm going to go the opposite direction. And for the most part, I think it pays off. And everything I've heard about the movie, like, that sounds weird to to say on the podcast about the movie, but it's like J.J. Abrams have been very good about nostalgia. Like, Star Trek was an homage to all Star Trek. Super 8 is an homage to a bunch of

other stuff. Like it plays to like these certain beats. Yeah. It just like he knows how to get people like wistful about their childhood. Well, I feel like we're on the edge of getting into spoiler land. So before we go to our first ad, Caitlin, uh, hype check Star Wars. Um, I mean, I don't know. Star Wars hype is not a number anymore. It's like a web that has been trapped everyone inside of it. Like, I don't care about Star Wars, and I've still spent probably four to five hours a day dealing with Star Wars on a daily basis for two months. So, like, it's not, it's not hype. It's just the ether. Is the web that has entrapped you, perhaps the web, the worldwide web? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the worldwide web of brands of people I work with and of, you know, just

the verge audience. It's pretty impossible to avoid if you have anything to do with online publishing. It's impossible to avoid Star Wars especially this week. But it's almost all over, right? We're about to be done with Star Wars, right?

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Check them out on iTunes or SoundCloud by searching ventured. It'll be worth the listen. All right. Let's get back into it. From here on out, you've been warned. Spoilers will abound. So I want to talk to you, Tasha, just because I've been editing your piece that is about this very thing that Ross is talking about, this nostalgia in the Force of

Weekends and how almost. almost carbon copy. I like to think it was Madlibs because it's like fill in the blank. There's a new person to put in each spot. The plot is of the Force Awakens. And I came out of the movie kind of being very mixed about it. I would go five minutes thinking it was great. It felt awesome and five minutes thinking it was very cynical. But I was wondering what you actually, first, whether you thought it worked or not. Well, it, I mean, it works as an experience. It works in the moment. I like, I walked out of the theater just feeling really a bullion, like really energized. Like that was, it felt almost like Star Wars did when I was a kid.

And there's not as much of a sense of discovery because you're watching the new hope again, a new hope. But in that sense, it felt like watching a new hope again when I was a kid. Like, I was cynical by the time of Return of the Jedi. Like, I was a little kid when the first one came out. And by the time of Return of the Jedi, I was like, this is all digital. Like, they're all of these weird effects and the puppets are starting to go away. And it's like all action beats. doesn't feel dignified anymore.

It doesn't feel serious. It doesn't have that weight that made the first Star Wars so creepy for a little kid. And a lot of that is back here. But there's also just, you know, seeing Han and Leah and Chewy again, seeing the Millennium Falcon again. There are all of these elements that keep getting brought up over and over that's like, remember everything you loved about Star Wars, here it is again. And we've kind of dusted it off and given it a new surface. But we actually cared about making that surface real this time.

it's not just, here's a digital version. It's not like when they replaced the Yoda puppet with a CGI Yoda. It's more like they went back and dug out the puppet Yoda and like cleaned it up and brought Frank Oz back and paid him a billion dollars to do the voice. It's like everything you loved about this, we want to do it right again. Yeah, yeah. I think, I think, I mean, there was a lot of, there was a lot made of Abrams shooting on film using practical effects. There are still some digital effects. There's one or two characters where I feel like they could have done practical, maybe.

Not characters. I'm talking about those dumb monsters in the corridor in like the one scene where I was like, you guys could have lost this. Like they could have lost 15 minutes, I feel like in the whole action sequence around Han, like when we first meet Han. I feel like I haven't talked about this specifically with either Brian or Tasha. but like that scene that was like the one

I feel like it was from a different movie Yeah yeah It felt like it was That felt was the only thing that felt like it was studio mandated Like we need another action beat here Because you could have taken it out And it wouldn't have affected the plot at all But I mean

And it also stuck out because of the look of it too I mean up until that point All the stuff on Jaku Why isn't it tattooing? Like why can't it just be tattooing? It is tattooing It's just tattooing with, like, they literally could have gone through with a copy of the script for New Hope and just crossed out tattooing right in Jacu. Crossed out Obi-1 Canobi and Rodin Luke Skywalker and Rodin, Ray. I mean, all of the elements are there.

Like, all of them piece by piece. And like the piece that I wrote is about like some of that works and some of it doesn't. And for me, it mostly worked until we got to yet another death star. Because this is the third time we've done that rather than the second. Yeah. And I was like, really, we're going to that exact same well in the exact same way. But it's bigger. I know. It's so much bigger. Like, we've done this before.

And they're like, no, no, no. You don't understand. It's bigger. They actually do the, you know, they have the hologram or holographic, like, display. Like, you know, they've always had in these, the rebel boardrooms where it's like, here's, here's the Death Star and here's the Star Killer Base. Or star, star killer base, that's what it's called, right? Right.

Yeah. And it's like the resistance guy saying, wait, we, we couldn't do better. And they were like, hush. He's like, I understand how sequels work. You made it bigger. But I don't see that. And they're like, shut up. We're sticking you in the closet.

We're doing it again. So I have a question. How self-aware is it that it's almost like a circuitous thing? Like, that like we like these are like empire fanboys who just try to make a better version of that or. Yeah. I don't know. Brian, what do you think?

Like, I mean, it's weird looking after having seen the movie. It's interesting to look back of the whole campaign. because while they were selling the movie, we were all talking about the nostalgia thing and the practical effects thing and like clearly they were trying to go and erase people's memories about the prequels. But I think they actually have been selling this movie

the entire time. It's a movie that they said, hey, you know, the other stuff was terrible. We're going to make something that has all those elements that you liked before. And the way it ends, which you can get to in a second, that's what it feels like when the real story begins, right? This movie feels like strictly a transitional piece.

It's an extraordinarily entertaining transitional piece and checks off all the boxes Star Wars fans want, right? Nobody's going to walk out of this and not say it doesn't feel like Star Wars, which is like the key thing I think they needed to accomplish. So in that sense, like they did what they needed to do. And it's fun, but it doesn't, it never, I don't think it was ever trying to actually be a great movie on its own, which is kind of weird.

Yeah, because it does feel, like, I mean, it's so, it just feels a very great quality that I don't know why they wouldn't try to add in some more original beats. I mean, that last scene that you're talking about that feels so dramatically different from the rest of the film, it feels like genuine new territory. Yeah.

And since we're assuming that you've watched the movie at this point, if you're listening to this, I'll say, it is when we find Luke again, when Ray goes to see Luke, yo, you okay over there? I know those names. Don't care about Star Wars?

I just got a fight with my boyfriend on Facebook Messenger because he found out I was going to hear the spoiler. Oh. Oh, my God. Oh, the Vergecast, ruining relationships, one relationship at a time. I mean, yeah, that happens at the end. But it's on this very, it's in an unusual location.

It just feels visually different. There's no dialogue, which a lot of the film has been very chatty up until then in a way that's very, very reminiscent of, like, Han and Leah bantering and stuff. I mean, that's very much how, like, Ray and Finn, sort of interact with each other. And then it gets very quiet and it gets very like ominous. And part of me now is like, is that really what I want now, even though it was exciting in the context of a movie?

Because I feel like that's too much of what the prequels was, was like overly precious about like how serious we had to be about this space story. But I don't know. I'm excited to see, well, we can talk more. Let's save moving forward for the end. Let's just talk about characters. I mean, for me, the leads, the three new leads, I guess. Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, and Daisy Ridley, they were all three really, really strong.

And I left thinking, oh, maybe also one of the biggest differences between this and the prequels is just that the actors feel like real people and they're allowed to feel like humans. That felt like such a huge change. but did anybody have a particular standout or? For me it's Finn because like as much as I love Ray and as much as I love the fact that the whole movie kind of teases you about is she going to stay a character in her own right or is she going to become another like maiden in distress and the film keeps teasing oh somebody's going to have to rescue her

oh no, no, she's got this over and over and over and I loved that. I love the character. But for me she's kind of a Luke Skywalk. Remicker remix. Like she's, she starts off as the hayseed on this desert planet and she wants to escape and she gets out of the world and soon she's got a, a lightsaber and the force and all this stuff. So she's a character that we haven't seen done before by a woman, but she's a character

we've seen done before. And then Po, I thought was a lot of fun, but he's new Han Solo. He's just, you know, the adventures of young Han Solo. For me, Finn, not just because he's an actor of color, but because of what he represents in the story, he's like a complete. new thing. And he's one of the very few completely new things we get. This idea of the Stormtrooper breaking ranks, this idea of him like wanting to escape and be part of something else, the little hero's journey that he goes on. I ended up a lot of questions about him. Oh yeah.

I want to see a lot more explaining who he is. But for me, he stood out just because he was the most, he was the strongest different element that we saw in this film. That was something we hadn't seen before at all. I want to clarify, because, It sort of struck me as familiar, but some people are saying that it's new information that stormtroopers are child soldiers. I mean, so people get confused because, like, you see the clones. You see, like, the Django Effect clones in the episode, too. But, like, since then, like, they did start recruiting real human beings after that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it seemed like, the way that Finn talks about his origin and the small way that he does is, like, you know, I was like any other stormtrooper. I was, like, they murdered everybody in my village and stole all the children and made a stormtroopers. I was like, that's, that's very, that's very dramatic. I mean, it's very interesting how we're also very conditioned to see, for so much more intense imagery and violence and, uh, I don't know,

edginess in stories like this or like, um, any franchise stuff, even Marvel stuff. Uh, and how, how Star Wars has like these horrific things in it, like entire villages being burned down and, uh, children being, lightsabered and stuff. And it's so gentle and delicate about all of it. Like, I can't believe how they treated that in episode three when I rewatched it last night. I also, like, I was watching the original Star Wars last night. And I, for some reason, in years and years, I've watched that movie.

I've never noticed, like, that one scene when Luke comes back to his home, like, see his family. And they're just too charred. Oh, they're too, yeah. No, that freaked me out when I was a kid. I didn't, I never noticed until last night. I just like, oh, it's, it's like a burning bush and some, like, furniture. And I was like, oh, no, that's a, no, that's a. No, it's Aunt Burrubri.

That's a fucking head. Oh, God. Yeah. No, it's, I mean, the way Star Wars deals with violence, I mean, it's very, very deliberate, you know, it's trying to be, you know, Star Wars is not there to do any really heavy commentary on the nature of violence or the nature of war or anything like that. I mean, they tried to, to a degree in the prequels, especially, like, around the Bush administration, but that all seemed really heavy-handed.

I mean, it's above all an adventure story. So when it gets to, like, actually gnarly stuff, it's, it's, you. sometimes feels ill-equipped to deal with it. But then I don't know how much I want it to deal with it also. Maybe I just want a space story. Did you really say that his whole village was killed, though? I mean, I remember that as he was stolen, he said he was stolen from his family. And it left me believing that he still maybe had family out there somewhere to return to,

which is not mentioned. Like, I'd have to go back and watch it again for that. But I definitely didn't walk away from that. I did walk away with the child soldier feel, but I thought he just said he was kidnapped, not like everyone was murdered. Right. And you brought up...

That was my take too. You brought up an interesting thing, Tasha, about how... I mean, he turns, he kind of has this crisis on the battlefield or like while they're doing a raid. But then, because of the... Brought on by a stormtrooper, one of his fellow stormtroopers getting killed. and then he turns around and kills a bunch of stormtroopers.

Like a ton of stormtroopers. I want to get deep into that because that's still something I want to write about. But I'm very curious if he has any fellow feeling at all for all these people behind the masks who, like that's basically who he was like five minutes ago. And I talked about this with Brian. And Brian was the one that pointed out to me that all of this is triggered by seeing one of his fellow stormtroopers die. So is that somebody he knew? Is that somebody he cared about? Or was he just like, oh, crap, this armor is useless.

This could be me a second. I'm out of here. Because his original fleeing seems to be driven by fear as much as by any sense of empathy or right or wrong. He doesn't like seeing people slaughtered. But he really seems pretty heavily motivated by saving his own skin for a while there. And then out of the blue, he's like, well, I kind of love this girl. So, you know, I'm brave.

And it's a great arc. It's just an arc that feels like, it's missing a few pieces going it in. So wait, was this his first outing as a stormtrooper? Like, is this his first time seeing action? He's supposed to be new, but you know what's funny? Is that then he says he worked as a janitor. So what was he doing right in a village?

Why did they send a janitor out into promotion? He got promoted. All right. In the real world, come on. In the real world, people get promoted from janitors to like front line infantry men slash executors of villages like all of them. I just realized that. later, they want to get more people.

Further to Tosh's point that I thought was really funny, when he rescues Po, by the way, he rescues Poe later, guys. He says, I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do. And it's like, so is killing a bunch of your friends you were hanging out with and working with, like, 10 minutes earlier? Yeah, but to be fair, like, Poe calls him on that instantly. Yeah, yeah. He's like, yeah, you just need a pilot.

And he's like, yeah, I just need a pilot. He really just wants to get the hell out of there. And he's pretty clear about it that he's just trying to save himself at first. It's really interesting. But then when he gets inspired, he, like, he just turns into, like, a one-man stormtrooper slaughtering machine. Also, like, part-time Jedi just picks up a lightsaber.

It's actually pretty good with it. Like, I think it's interesting what, the humanity of, how the humanity of stormtroopers has changed and been a subject of fascination and preoccupation, like, as a side story through all Star Wars movies or the clones. Like, I think it very much varies depending on, like, the current geopolitical climate,

not to go too deep here. I just think, I mean, you know, that's obviously, like, the big conversation in clerks, but, like, this is, this almost feels like it's playing into that whole discussion, like a Kevin Smith discussion of like, okay, let's go deep on one of these guys and, like, his relationship with his buddies and everything. Like, let's actually humanize the Stormtroopers or a Stormtrooper, which is very interesting. I mean, not all of them are, because now, then whenever he goes back and encounters any of them, they all just yell traitor at him like a bunch of robots.

So I don't know. I mean, I can't help but wonder if that's not partially a fan thing because fans figured out how to make those armor like suits pretty early on. And I don't think I've been to like a major convention since the mid 80s where there wasn't a battalion of stormtroopers walking around. Because as soon as people figured out how to make the suits, it was like me and all my friends are going as like an entire troop of stormtroopers. We want to be a faceless herd.

It became like a cool thing to do. Yeah. Well, are we good for time? Do we need to do another ad? The funny thing is, behind the scenes tech note on this podcast, the entire crew has walked out of the booth because they don't want to hear of spoilers. So we can do whatever we want right now in case anybody wants to switch topics. But I don't think we do.

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door if you run your business from home. It's scary. Now, I've checked out Earthclass mail, and I think it's a brilliant solution that's perfect for businesses and independent entrepreneurs of all type. Visit Earthclassmail.com slash vergecast, and you'll get your first month of service free when you sign up. That's earthclassmail.com slash. Furchcast. All right. I'm going to do some quick round table questions. These are mostly going to be geared at people who have seen the movie.

But if you have not, feel free to just like do a wild guess, like a prediction. Okay. Okay. So, okay, did JJ Abrams do a good job? Yes or no? Brian. Yeah. Okay.

Tasha. Did he do a good job at what? Did he do a good job at emitating a new hope? Yes. Did he do a good job at making an entertaining movie? Yes. Did he do a good job at creating something entirely new? No.

There are a lot of jobs here. He succeeded at some. Like Finn succeeded in his janitorial duties. He failed at others. Oh, I love the shade so much. J.J. Abrams. If you need a really expensive brand ambassador, he's your guy. Caitlin, did Taday Abrams do a good job?

Seems like it. I don't know. He seems all right. He seems all right. He seems better than Colin what's his face is definitely not going to be. Trevor? Yeah. I wonder Phil ever rethink that situation.

I mean, undoubtedly, Trevoro will have another. Is he going to do the next Jurassic Park movie? I would think so. Not directing. Oh, no? not directing it, but he's going to have another blockbuster that's not Star Wars in between now and episode nine. Like, I don't know why I have it in Friends so much.

I just do. Because Jurassic World's like offensively bad to the point where it's mean. Like if you know you're going to make a billion dollars on something, like you can't just try just to be polite. I mean, I'm not very polite right now because I haven't even seen it and I'm like just throwing all the shit. I haven't seen it either. So, yeah.

It's, uh, wow, you haven't seen anything? I never got around to it. Yeah, no, me neither. Yeah. I was like, okay, I'll see this this weekend. I didn't. And then I heard everybody thought it sucked. And then I was like, okay, maybe I don't need to add to its profits.

I'm a conscious consumer. All right. Did JJ Abrams do a good job for us? Yes, in the sense that I've had a lot of fun with the marketing campaign. And he's definitely the builder of the hype around that. We didn't even really talk about that. I mean, the amount, now that we're spoiling everything, it's like the idea of spoilers and secrecy is not really an issue anymore.

But, like, that is a huge part of what, makes it enjoyable to watch for the first time. But then at the same time, like we're saying, if you've seen the original trilogy, you're already spoiled for it. Like, you can make a very, very decent guess of what's going to happen just by filling in blanks from the original.

So, like, I guess that's sort of a surprise in and of itself. But, okay, next question. Who's the best character? The best new character. And you can choose a main character, like one of the people that is in every scene or almost every scene. or and and then one side character, one fun grab bag character.

Brian. For me, my favorite character was Ray. And I definitely agree with what Tasha said and that she's definitely like a remix on Luke. What I liked about her is that she has her shit together so much more than Luke ever did. Like Luke was whining about not getting to go to pick up power converters at the store. And like, you know, Ray would just fucking like build a power converter out of scratch. Ray would go to, like, she's going on solo. Ray would go like source one from.

a downed star destroyer. Like she's, yeah. Right. And she's like so self-assured and has her shit together, even though she kind of like hasn't really accepted her role. And Daisy really, I thought, just like killed it. And there's, like, that moment at the end when she, sorry, Ross, when she finally gets the lightsaber.

It's cool, bro. It was such a great, great crescendo moment. And everybody, I mean, obviously in the theater, Ray Lovedix, it was the premiere and yay. Yeah. But it's a great moment. I mean, that moment, like, delivers in it's so satisfying. Yeah.

No, that's a stand-up and cheer one. And then it's like, it's funny because, I don't know. The part where she kind of uses the force for the first time to escape, there's also another one where it's like, it's funny. It's like, I just spoiled that she has the force. It's funny. I mean, they're lighthearted about it, but it's also like you're rooting for it at the same time. It's not a total joke, which is nice.

Who's your minor character? Minor character, can it be like any character or just like the character I like second best? Like minor character probably like probably BBA because robot ball droids. You know, I mean, it's hard to argue. Totally. That's my favorite. The major character in almost every scene. Huge, huge part of the film.

Love him. Tasha, who is your favorite major character, new character? Finn, for reasons I think I've covered. But, you know, even outside the dynamic of him being new, I just, I really like seeing this world through his eyes. Like, Ray does have her. shit together and it's awesome. It's just, it's terrific to see that. But it's also fun to watch Finn go through the process of getting his shit together. Yeah. Like, he makes some hard decisions early on, but watching him kind of become a person instead of just like this, this fleeing ball

of terror is just so exciting. Yeah. And he has so much excitement for what he does. Like, Ray just kind of proceeds in this like, all right, we got to get it done. We got to, I'm pulling this thing out and repairing it with my teeth and sticking it back in and it's all. And it's all. And it's all. And I just, going to work. She's so confident. Whereas he's the one that's like, I blew up a ship. I blew up a ship. He gets so excited and it's so adorable. Yeah, he's definitely the audience that are getting that way. I mean, that's maybe why it's useful for him to feel like the most like whole cloth new characters because he is the audience in a lot of ways, which is cool. Oh, a minor character. Maz. Mos Canton. Yes. I think she's really pretty cool. And my big regret is that she's one of these

action movie characters, like Marion in the first Indiana Jones movie essentially where the story moves to her and then just destroys everything she's built. She's been running that place for a thousand years, Hansela says, and like within three minutes of the story showing up, the whole place is in rubble, and it's really depressing. But she just, she seems like a little, maybe a little too much yoga surrogate, but she also seems like a really pretty cool person who kind of knows, like, who she is and what she wants and how to work with other people. I would like to see more of her.

I would like her to develop a little more character and a little less like story point. Like she's kind of the exposition deliverer. Yeah. But she's too cool to waste. I think we'll see more of her. I was saying she seemed like a cross between Yoda and Edna Mode from the Incredible.

For sure. Which is just like, that's perfect. That's a great character. Sign me up. I mean, I also can't wait to read the fanfic about her and Chubacca. That was not spoiled for me. What? It's just like one line.

Caitlin, who's your favorite character in Star Wars? Lewin Davis. Obviously. Dude, yeah. He's going to be the best part I can already tell him. He was such a dream boat. He,

this movie really, really solidified my Oscar Isaac crush, which is just like kind of there, but not anything. I felt such a, I was just like, oh, yeah, I like Oscar Isaac and pretty much anything. He's great. And now I'm like, oh, Oscar Isaac. Hello. Even that terrible movie with Jessica Chastain where she was constantly putting out cigarettes in the snow.

You know the one where he's like a gangster? Oh, right. Whatever it's called. And he wears a camel. He wears a turtleneck. Yeah, he wears a turtleneck and a camel coat. Great look. I mean, he's also, the other thing that's interesting about him and like, this is what I thought when he first got castes.

He looks like an actor from the 70s. So he just, like, it helps with that whole, like, he looks like anybody else who could have been in the climactic battle and a new hope, like, just the 70s actor with sideburns, piloting a ship. Emily, Natasha, did either of you think after this movie that Oscar Isaac should be the guy that plays the new Indiana Jones? Because I felt like he was vibing, like, old Harrison Ford pretty hard. Oh, my God. He really was. I don't know. Let's see how he can handle a bullwhip, and then I'll tell you.

Stop! Yeah, he's, I mean, the only thing would be like, I like him and stuff like show me a hero and I like him in smaller stuff like Ex Machina. And I like that he has a smaller role in this. I mean, he's not, he's out of the film for a lot of it. And I'm okay with that. Like the times where he is there, he's used well. He makes a good impact. A little of him goes a long way and I wouldn't want it to be like, oh, like Oscar Isaac is the star of

Star Wars or Indiana Jones or any franchise. Like I want to, I like his whole separate life. I wouldn't like it to all get eaten up by a franchise. Well, he's also doing X-Men now also. Oh, God, wait, who's he in X-Men now? He's Apocalypse. He's like the main bad guy. Oh, boy.

Yeah, I'm sorry, guys. It's all over. Yeah. Why doesn't, I mean, also like the guy who directed Creed, Ryan, Ryan Coogh, Ryan Coogh. Yeah, right. Coogler or Coogun? Coogler, yeah.

I mean, him in Tegger. to do Black Panther. It's like, cool. Everybody's getting paid. Like, everybody's going to get a great job and, like, be rewarded for their talent. These are all talented people who are good at their jobs. It's like, I kind of felt this way when Ryan Johnson got the episode eight job. I was like, I was like, I love his movies.

I want another Ryan Johnson movie. Like, I also want episode eight, and I want to see his episode eight. But it's like, yeah, everything's going to live in Disney 48, man. 248, 2048. Who's the best character, Ross? BBA8 without question. I think only based on marketing materials and toys. Like that is the most adorable robot soccer ball and I just want to hug it and I had the little robot toy for a while.

I would literally just watch it and like I felt empathy for something I know was just an algorithm. And it just, like I'm so excited to see it. When you have empathy for the algorithm, that's when they've really got you. Yeah, I still, oh God, I was supposed to bring it in today. I've had it at my house. our BBA8 and it's not I wasn't actually trying to steal it I kept meaning to bring it back but then I was like I just love looking at it and I I don't know what are they going to do within the office like it's okay I think we do have a spare one too okay oh I'm gonna bring it back okay I am

maybe I'm trying to figure out what the Rolling Stones empathy for the algorithm would sound like that's just that's they're like the eight bit remix you know that's their update Can we just title this podcast? Empathy for the algorithm. Episode, whatever episode of the Vergecast this is. In case anybody cares, my favorite characters are, well, I mean, yeah, I mean, Ray and BB8. I mean, like, it's such a, it is such a fantasy fulfillment

to watch a Star Wars movie with, like, this plucky, scrappy girl character. Like, yeah, she's kind of flawless. She's not that complex, maybe, because she's just too perfect. But, like, she is every fanfic character that was written by a female Star Wars fan in the late 90s when there were really no female characters

in Star Wars at all other than Princess Leia. And I guess Mara Jade, if you've read the books, which I did not. I just know that name. And so, I mean, there was always this character that was like the Mary Jane character, is fanfic for the audience or a character who's new

was like a creation of the author and it was always this character that kind of looks like Ray and this idea of like living in the Star Wars universe being kind of kick ass and independent having an adorable little orb following you around is like my fantasy

like for life I would I would live in that world for this life so so I mean I kind of have to but I mean I liked all the new characters. We haven't even talked about Han and Luke and Leia that much, which Han, I thought, was, like, surprisingly not as, like, wedged in as, um, as I thought that the older characters were going to be. Um, I don't know. I don't know what you guys thought. I thought it was

really interesting how Leah's grown up and she's like, like, replaced Mon Mothma in a way. Like, she's become this elder statesman. And, Luke's grown up and he became Obi-Wan and he trained a bunch of people and then he was betrayed and he like has recapitulated all that stuff that happened before and he went into exile. And Han Solo, it was like, we just can't think of anything cooler for him to do than be Han Solo. So he is just reverted to where he was at the very beginning of New Hope. He's having like a three-quarter life crisis. He's just like he's doing exactly what he was doing and he seems to be in exactly as much trouble. He has no money.

like maybe he went out and blew it all on like a shiny new red coop and it got blown up, I don't know but I just think it's really interesting that the entire rest of the world has moved on and he's still Hansela. Yeah, yeah. He's the uncle who still goes

to like 400 concerts that lives in the basement. I mean, although I'll say, the one difference is it seems like he does believe in the force at least now. Like it's said the hokey religion thing. He is like the guy that convinces like everyone, you know, this is kind of a real thing guy.

He's seen some shit. Yeah. He's like... He's seen some shit. It seems like a believable arc though to me Because at the end of Jedi he becomes like this like really really nice guy Who's like joking and never felt true to the characters So it always seems like that guy who did shoot first right

Because yeah Pretent the special editions happened It seems it makes sense that he if he had a great thing with you know General Princess Leia he would fuck it up in some capacity And like he doesn't necessarily fuck it up the way they you know tell us it in this big like Single scene of exposition But it actually seems strangely true true that he would just end up doing that same thing because he's just not capable of growing.

Yeah. He gets that little line that he throws to Finn where he's like, he basically says, you know, that Finn should stop keeping secrets from Ray because women always figure out the truth, which like puts my hackles up a little because it's very like, men are from Mars, women are from Venus, stupid generalization kind of stuff. But to me it really speaks to like he fucked up. He did something. Yeah.

And we don't know what it is, but she figured it out. and they had to go their separate ways. And the sheepishness that hangs over him whenever he's around her is just like, I know I messed up. I wish we could get back together. I know we can't. Like you can read all of that in his face. I think it's really interesting.

Yeah, there's such a like exes like trading off the kids feel when they first meet. Like an ex-wife and husband like, okay, well, have a good weekend. Bye. Good to see you. You did something different with your hair. Like it was very, I mean, I think that that, I think that that's, That's actually very interesting because it is bold in a way to revert the whole, like, they fell in love and everything was cool after that, which is like just all we've known of those

characters forever is that like they ended up together. They probably got married and had a kid and that was it and everything was awesome in the universe. And like, I mean, that is just like the rest of the film is like that in a way too. It's just like, okay, like the rebels won, but like it wasn't that easy. And like, Han and Leah got together, but it wasn't that easy. And that's actually kind of like, if there's one kind of grim, dark aspect of the entire movie, which there's really not that much that's grim or dark about this movie, I think, like, at least compared to a lot of other things.

It would be that, just that kind of existential, like, it's never, there's no such thing as an ending. It's like, Into the Woods or something to bring it back to some territory that Caitlin's, like, happy with. I understand it now that we're talking about musicals. Yeah, okay, so who's who from Into the Woods and Stowe? Oh, no, don't spoil into the woods for me. I don't even know, actually. I made up that question without knowing if there was actually any clear-cut answer. Well, I'm trying to think if there's anything else we need to get to.

You're going to do the witch callbacks work. I'm really curious to hear that. Oh, yeah, real quick, because we don't have too much time left, but let's... So this, as we've been saying, over and over again, this movie... This movie has a ton of callbacks, and I think it's a diminishing returns thing. I think a lot more earlier in the film, work than later in the film, but I'm curious to see what you guys think. I'll just ask, as you've seen the movie, what do you think, what do you think Brian, which was your favorite? Good question.

I mean, literally in the film starts, it feels like every third shot is some sort of callbacker, like, reference. I think the one that I found just most, you know, on a gut level, entertaining was there's a joke made about Parsecs, which is, been a thing because, you know, Parsec being distance versus time. Like, you know, that line ever made sense. And they actually kind of like joke about it. And it's the first time they, they undercut the originals or they intercut themselves and it actually plays. They do it again later with the Death Star and other times. And it just is like, okay, we get it. It's a cop out. Good job, guys. But that one for me just play. But I could have been just been basking in the moment of like, hey, Hans Solo's back for the first time in like 30 years. Yeah. Yeah. What was your,

what was the thing that you were less thrilled with? There's a moment where you're following Pose X-Wing as it goes through, and I forget what the actual term was. They're blowing up something that will make something unstable, that will make Star Killer Base blow up. And it was just like the same kind of approach shot. I'm like, oh, yep, I don't the shot, seen the shot. I fell off in the same point too.

Yeah. And you could kind of feel it in the theater, I think, too. There was a lot of applause for a lot of callbacks in my theater, and that one, I don't know. It was, I think it just, at that point, it was just, like, just hitting that same part of your brain over and over and over again. Tasha, what worked for you as far as? I was so happy when the first Wilhelm scream came up. I just, I geeked out super hard. I'm like, it's a really obvious one, but I'm glad they did it.

you know, I laughed every time Finn ran across some piece of history, like in the Millennium Falcon when he comes up with like the little flying target thing or like the hologram game or the fact that they climb into the same smuggler like pods that Hans Solo built. Like all of that stuff worked for me. The only one that really didn't for me is when Kylo Ren is like, you know, I'm not that person anymore because I killed him. And it's like they're calling back to when Obi-Wan Kenobi told Luke, Darth Vader killed your father.

Right. And then later we'll find out that's not true. And he's like, ah, it sort of kind of is, I guess, is. And it's like, it's been a huge, like, fan sticking point forever. So when Kylo Ren is like, when I stopped being that person, I killed him. It's like they're still trying to make fetch happen. And that that fetch is not happening. Like, let it go.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, and it stands out as close. Plunky too. It's just like not very poetic or like trying to be poetic but not really. I don't know. I have to say, and I'm going to spoil one other big thing, but the Kylo Ren and Hahn confrontation did not work for me at all. I was, I could see it coming from, like, I mean, obviously they're telegraphing it. And I think, I mean, I think they want you to think that, oh, maybe it'll go another direction because there's such a long. pause. There's like an incredible fake out. They last like it feels like an hour. But you just know it's not this is Star Wars. There's like a there's a certain grammar that it has to follow and and somebody's going to die and it's going to be the older person because that's how heroes are born or or I don't know. It also feel like you we all know like Harrison Ford's not going to do

another like full franchise like that too. He just came to like finish like to scrap off a little. It's like, okay, you're going to kill me? Cool. I'm done. Yeah. He's been way too happy doing the promotional tour to have actually lived through the movie. I'm done. One last lap. The one thing I, I think probably the part where I actually did, despite myself, Klapp, is the first reveal of the Millennium Falcon. Like, because it's done in such a, it's done during it in the middle of an action sequence, everything is moving at a really, really lightning fast clip. And it's just a total swish pan side gag to reveal the Millennium Falcon, and it works so well. It's like so, it's just a callback to the Millennium

Falcon being a piece of shit and like that nobody would want to fly it. And they're talking about the shift that's off, off screen, and then you zoom over and there it is. There's the Millennium Falcon. And I don't know. It was just that whole scene, that whole action sequence that got applause in our theater just at the end of it because it's so, there's a lot of character information in it as well and as these callbacks that make you feel great. And it's also just like a really well shot scene. And in a way, in a more dynamic way than they were ever able to do in the originals

and that they opted not to do in the prequels. So, I mean, we could talk about, like, I feel like another half hour about cinematography and editing because that's another thing I noticed in watching episode three last night is the, like, how staid all that stuff is in those prequels, how it feels so stagey and unimaginative.

You never get up close to, to characters, they're always kind of like these cut out dolls in the screen. And this film, you really, really get in characters' faces and you move with them and you move behind them and alongside them. And it makes it feel a lot more real and, like, immersive, I think. But, yeah, we're about out of time, you guys. I need to, if there are no more further comments, maybe everybody could just sign off with the one thing that they,

the biggest question you have after watching the film. The biggest unsolved mystery that may or may not be solved in a future movie slash comic book, slash video games, slash Snapchat feed, slash any other platform. The one, when I walked out of the theater, the first thing we were talking about was, so are Ray and Kylo Ren, brother and sister or not?

But after thinking about the film, I realized pretty much every question I walked into the theater with, didn't get answered. Like, they don't talk about Jeku really in the movie. They don't talk about how Luke's, like, lightsaber showed up. Like, there are all these things that people have been, like, theorizing and teasing

and, like, deconstructing trailers about. And the movie actually answers next to none of it, which I thought was really interesting and kind of disappointing, but it leaves a lot of, like, fertile ground for comic books and books and hopefully future movies. Hot take, The Force Awakens

is just another trailer. Oh, guitar. You can drop your mic. Your mic is fixed to your table. Tasha, what was your biggest question upon leaving? You know my biggest question. My biggest question was, Emily, can I write a piece about all these mysteries that I'm not being in help with? Oh, we're going to address all of it.

Look for that sometime after the weekend, after everybody's had a chance to digest all this stuff. And we will immediately start to pick it apart to shred. There were a tiny little shreds. A lot of questions, but most of those questions were intended by the movie, and I think most of them will be answered either in the ancillary materials or in the next film. The only one that I think bugged me just in a why the hell are you doing this one was C3PO's Red Arm, which we know, like, it was never intended to be, like, answered in the film. It's the province of a comic book that hasn't even come out yet, and now it isn't going to come out until February.

Like, that's all going to be dealt with off screen. And my big question was, why did we make a big deal out of it in the film? Like, why is it there? It adds nothing to the movie. It's just a distraction. But it's a distraction that they make a point of calling your attention to. And they make a point of saying, and we're not going to deal with this right now because it's not important. It's like, why are you going to be able to.

Yeah. It was weird. I, yeah, and that's one of those things that like, I remember watching when I was obsessed with the original trilogy, there are so many things that, like, catch your attention. You're like, oh, I'm going to go look up, find out what this is about. find like read more on you know somebody's geo-city's home page and i don't know if i would feel away about some of these things some of these little loose ends like how intriguing they actually are um i would say my biggest question and also one of the things that we didn't even talk about that really doesn't work for me is is snoke uh i don't understand why who uh why does he look like

that where did he come from? I don't know. I just don't. That was one of the weakest links of the movie to me. Is this something like you care about in the moment or is it like it just doesn't matter? It's just like I don't know if he needed a master, honestly. Like I could see Kylo Ren just being bad on his own. Like it just feels like that's another indebted like echo of the old films.

Like Darth Vader kneeling down before the hologram of the emperor. Like, I don't know what role he plays in the story beyond being that guy that he can talk to. Okay. So, I don't know. Didn't work for me. And sort of a waste of Andy Circus, because he didn't, like, move. He was just, like, a really static character. I guess the voice was cool, but it was a really, it was an odd thing for me.

Yeah. And as a case of the effects didn't work either, I thought. The one thing I think it did add was that all the people in that organization are super young, like General Hux and like, you know, and Kyla Wren, they're all relatively young. So it made sense to be some sort of like older person, maybe some sort of leftover or somebody with story knowledge that could be kind of like leading the whole thing from behind the scenes. But I did not love the character work. Maybe it's like Google or like Larry and Sirkie weren't that old. So they brought Eric Schmidt along.

He's there Eric Schmidt. You know, I think Eric Schmidt. He kind of looks like a little bit. I don't think of it. He's like, no, I was going to make a Hull and Catch Fire reference that two people would get. All right. Well, we're going to wrap it up because we've already gone a little bit over. Thanks everybody for listening.

And let me tell you something about BrainTree real quick. Thanks for BrainTree for sponsoring today's episode of the Vergecast. BrainTreen gives you not brains on a tree, but a full stack payment solution. Support for all payment types your customers might want. Start accepting Android pay, Apple pay, PayPal, Bitcoin, Venmo, cards, and whatever's next, all with a single integration. Now you can take them all in over 130 currencies. As your company grows, Braintree will stay by your side from your first dollar to your billionth.

And all it takes is a couple lines of code to get started. To learn more, visit braintree payments.com slash vergecast. And real quick Twitter roll call. You can follow the Verge on Twitter at Verge. And Snapchat is the real Verge. Actually, no Snapchat is now just Verge. Oh, okay. Yeah.

All right, Bird, we got it. We got that, we got that rare name. I am Emily Yoshida on Twitter. Ross is Ono Roscoe on Twitter. Brian is Brian Bishop on Twitter. And Tasha, what? BC Bishop. B.C. Bishop.

I knew I was going to miss one. This is like, I was just testing myself. Who is Brian Bishop on Twitter? And Tasha is Tasha Robinson. Just Tasha Robinson, right? Just Tasha Robinson. Yeah. And Caitlin is K-A-I-T-U-Sk-K-A-I-T-Ur-T-N-N-N-N-SAR.

And we are all going to be talking about Star Wars probably all weekend. So, yeah. This is fun. This is great. Sorry to ruin it for everybody in the nearby vicinity. I'm literally leaving this now to go wait in line to go see my screening of Star Wars. Oh, man. Okay.

All right. Well, we better get out of it. of here then. Thanks all. We'll see you later. Bye. Thank you. Bye.