The Watch - ‘Deadwood: The Movie’ and Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge | The Watch

Episode Date: June 3, 2019

‘Deadwood: The Movie’ made us nostalgic for ‘Deadwood’ the show (0:35) and failed to capture the magic of those first three seasons (16:04). Plus, an on-the-ground report from opening day of Disney’s new exhibit, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge (30:18). Host: Chris Ryan Guests: Alison Herman and Jason Gallagher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Stand up and walk. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at The Ringer.com. And joining me here in the Gem Saloon, it's Allison Fucking Herman. It is always an honor to be on this show, but it is especially an honor to be here

talking about this particular show, or rather made for TV movie. Yeah. Should I have said fucking Allison Herman? It's so hard to decide where to put the profanity when you're talking about dead weight. I'm sure David Milch would have like a very emphatic opinion about which expletive.

you should attach to my name in what order, but I'm impartial. Okay. Well, however you want to be known, Allison is here to talk to me today about Deadwood, colon, the movie, I guess, is what we're calling this? Yes. Apparently, the original title was Deadwood Colon statehood. Oh, was it really? Yeah, I was just reading a review that said Milch had, that was the provisional title he'd

attached to it, and then HBO was like, we need to go more literal-minded here, which seems like... It took a while for them to make this, so I bet there at some point it was like, Deadwood, Colin Fallout, and Deadwood, Col. and rise of Deadwood. Deadwood Ghost Protocol. Yeah, exactly. It is kind of a rogue nation.

All right, so let's set this scene a little bit here. Later on, Jason Gallagher is going to join me, and we are actually going to talk about Jason's visit to Star Wars Galaxy's Edge. So I'm excited for that. But I am very excited to talk to Allison about this because she wrote a great piece on the ringer, kind of outlying the legacy of Deadwood

and the current state of the players involved in Deadwood. If you're not familiar with Deadwood, obviously this will be a short podcast for you, but for those of you who need a little bit of a refresher course, this was a show that aired from 2004 to 2006. It, along with Sopranos, is one of those lighthouse shows that beamed out over the dark ocean of television. It was like, you can do this.

And change TV. It is the definition of a cult show, I think, in a lot of ways. A lot of people, basically most of the people I know who have ever seen this show hold it very near and dear to their heart and it is inimitable in a lot of ways, even though the format of it, I think, has been replicated, like the idea of, like, a bunch of rogues in a historically specific setting.

I don't think you could ever really capture what made this show so magical. And now, what, 19, 13 years later? Yeah, 2006 to 2019. 13 years later, they have tried. I will say, Deadwood is probably, the first season, Devwood, I think, is the best season of television I've ever seen.

This is one of my favorite shows. shows, and I was never one of these people who felt robbed by its disappearance. You know, I mean, this was a little bit more like you talk about in your piece, Allison, how things happened back then. These shows got canceled. Now, Deadwood's one of the only prestige, huge big-ticket shows to not get its ending. Right. It's one of those shows that is kind of the last remnant of a bygone era of television.

Weirdly, I think Lost is almost an interesting comparison, and that Lost was one of, like, the last shows ever made where they, did the network plotting thing of like, we don't know how long this is going to go on. So we're just going to make stuff up as we go because we have to because we don't know when this is going to end. But it was one of the first shows that people treated like it had a master plan in place. Right. Which obviously led to some misunderstandings between creator and audience.

But it's a really interesting, like, fixed moment in time where TV was changing and people's expectations of it were changing, but the work itself hadn't quite caught up. And yet, and now Deadwood is like one of the last shows that achieved its last. of critical and cult acclaim that got the classic cancellation narrative. It was always a tortured production. It was never that well watched. And it was just before a network like HBO would just be like, well, people like it. So we'll give it one more season to pat out its run.

And we'll feel good. And David Milch will feel good. And we'll be able to work with him on future projects. It was like a classic, just autocratic network meddling. The story that sort of emerged more and more clearly over the most, the last, it is. been talked about, I think a bunch Sep and Wall had talked about it. Maybe last summer or whenever he was doing like that

rewatch, I think. Was that on Brock Rocks? It's Deadwood Rewind and it was actually very helpful because I was rewatching in the lead up to this and I would just like pull up one of his requests. Yeah, and those were great pieces, but he alluded to it. I think W. Earl Brown is one of the actors on the show talked about it.

But basically the idea was in almost Deadwoodian fashion, there had been talks about not bringing it back for season four or if bringing it back in season four, bringing it back with a shortened episodic order, episode order, and Timothy Oliphant,

who had been renegotiating his contract and successfully have renegotiated his contract along with Ian McShane, those two are pretty much the leads of the show. They had renegotiated during the shooting of season three, got back pay and figured, okay, my new deal kicks in for season four. Oliphant went out and bought a house.

This is back in 2006 or whatever. He went out and bought a house that was probably a jump-up. The best time to buy a house was definitely in 2006 immediately before the subprime mortgage crisis. That's right. Honestly, if it wasn't going to be Deadwood, it would have been TARP. So don't worry about it. So Oliphon is about to buy this house or has bought this house and talks to Milch. And milk's like, milk is like not for nothing, but maybe don't buy that house because we're not even going to have a show.

Oliphant allegedly told his agents this and his agents leaked it to the trades. The trades published Deadwood canceled. and HBO then run by Chris Albrecht, I guess, either felt like their hand was force or like the cat was out of the bag or whatever, went through with cancellation. And a couple of years later, you know, Oliphant's Unjustified. And Ian McShane goes on to 10 years of wonderful, if somewhat handy. Ian McShane went on to Kings on NBC.

That's right. An incredible cult show of there ever was one. And so many actors and actresses from the show have gone on to do great character work and great starring roles. Molly Parker, Kim Dickens. I mean, John Hawks, Anna Gunn, wanted to Breaking Bad. This was literally the Hall of Fame of Character Actors

and also launched a dozen careers. Milch's story since the last episode of Deadwood in season, the last episode of Season 3 of Deadwood is a little bit more checkered. John from Cincinnati has to have, if you're a defender of John for Cincinnati, like say Rob Harvilla is, at least out of curiosity.

And Sean Fennessee, I believe. I mean, on the surface, everything about John from Cincinnati is fascinating except for actually watching John from Cincinnati. It's like, that's the chore, you know? Did you ever watch that? All-time San Diego show, I believe. Are you a- not really? I mean, you're totally right. It's just, it's fascinating to watch, like, David Miltz dialogue try to work in the region of the country, perhaps least likely to ever produce someone naturally speaking.

Not a lot of Shakespearean riffs going on in San Diego. No, no, no. If you, John Cincinnati, I'm not even sure if it's on HBO Go. Like, I don't know if it's one of those shows, which is somehow not available.

Yeah, but I would highly recommend any milch heads out there or like soon to be milch heads. Go on YouTube, there is a video. If you just write like, Milch John from Cincinnati explanation,

it's basically this like, I don't know, like pretty long, like maybe 20 minute video of David Milch standing in a parking lot in a motel, wherever they're shooting this thing, and the cast in various stages of being in costumes. So some people are like wearing ugs

and then others are like in full John from Cincinnati costume. And it's milch with these pages doing a long monologue about what the monologue means. So he'll read a line of dialogue and then it'll be like, and this guy, he's saying cave paintings. He's saying, I see an image, therefore I actualize my existence. And it's like this amazing New York riff about like, you know, the Plato cave myth or whatever. And it's incredible. So if you haven't seen Johnson's Haddy, why's that. I was going to

bring this up later, but something that the Deadwood movie and the whole saga around, it reminds me a lot of its Twin Peaks, another, you know, pre-Golden Age story of cancellation gets brought back in a different form. And a lot of it is about like the passage of time and how age is actually affected these people. But also, there is just an amazing trove of, Twin Peaks YouTube ephemera that's just like David Lynch being David Lynch. And this sounds like it's very much in the same school. There was recently, I don't know if it was like a just a couple of images or if there's actually a video, but it's Lynch directing kids like children on Twin Peaks the Return set.

And he's like, no, be more scared. And it's like, I don't even know what the scene was. Have you seen the one where he's like throwing a temper tantrum that they don't have enough shooting days? And he's like, I can't fucking work like this. Oh my God, he breaks, huh? Oh, yeah. Well, in real life, David Lynch swears a lot, but anyway, we're getting, like, heavily side-trial.

Okay, we'll save it for Lynch talk. So, John from Cincinnati, he does luck. I am a big luck fan, but luck was canceled because too many horses died while shooting the second season. Yeah, that's a pretty good reason. That's a Dustin Hoffman Nick Noltee show from like five, six years ago. It's 2011. 2011? Yeah.

So that came and went. He has a couple of other scripts out there. first of the ninth is one that I read on the dark web, which is like a cop show that I thought was really cool. That never got made. He wrote a script called The Money, which is suspiciously a lot like succession. And they actually shot the pilot. Yeah, it was produced. Yeah, they shot a pilot for that, but that's about a Murdoch's style media family. I feel like Milch's execution would be very, very different from a guy who's worked with Armando Yuducci, but I'm still curious. So the reason why I am sort of outlining all this history aside to just set the table is that David Milch has a very particular way of working.

And Deadwood had a very particular way of being made. A lot of it involved Milch arriving on set with, according to Ian McSheen, hot off the printer dialogue. You know, like warm pages. Not even arriving on set. Like there were stories where he would just cloister himself on set and just come out with a new monologue that actors then had to nail like immediately. And back when Deadwood was still going, Mark Singer of the New Yorker wrote a piece about how he writes, which is essentially lying on the ground because he has a really bad back with like a monitor over him and a group of people sitting around him as he talks out all the dialogue from all the parts in the script and does revisions and this amazing, I think Singer describes it as like watching a seance kind of process. It's like Miltonian. Like Milton would just speak out Paradise Lost apparently and his daughters would transcribe it.

And it led to some brilliant things. Like, obviously, I'm deeply affectionate about this show, but it also led to some confusing things, like plot points that didn't totally track or... Yeah, I did a rewatch recently, and Wyatt Earp just, like, shows up and then leaves. Does he? Yeah, in the third season, he shows up with his brother, and the brother is the dude who is John from Cincinnati. Oh, yeah.

And they literally show up and are like, we have a timber steak, and Bullock's like, I don't think you're up to any good. And Al is like, I don't think you're up to any good. And then they're like, you're right. And then they leave. And then that's it. So the reason why I'm just sort of outlining all this is that the narratives around the show and the meta-narrative, like the sort of meta-conversation about the show,

have almost overtaken the actual Dead with the movie. This movie that they made after years of false starts and false hope, they make a two-hour, basically, film to say goodbye to this project. And in the course of promoting this movie, it's reported that David Milch, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and that he has been fighting this, I think since 2015 is when he got there. Yeah, which is essentially when conversations started

about making the movie. Right. And you can't help but view the movie itself almost entirely through that lens. Well, I wrote about this in the piece, but Deadwood itself has always been very open to a meta reading. Another thing that came out in the,

through W. Earl Brown and other actors in the Rewind series that Sepinwald did was that Milch was pretty apparently transparent about the presence of George Hurst, who is this like Uber capitalist, just arch villain Dracula person. Yeah. Being kind of a proxy for HBO and his struggles with like the messy but well-meaning denizens of Deadwood as a scrappy collective was meant to be like HBO versus Deadwood the show. And Hurst, of course, was given Milch's back problems like within the actual like content of the show. And just Deadwood has always been.

a pretty meta narrative. And so it opens itself up to, you know, if we can just talk about the actual movie now, like Al Sweringen is ill. And the central figure who is arguably the soul of the show, Ian McShane gives like one of the best performances that has ever been on television, is kind of out of commission and diminished and not really able to do the finger on the pulse, finger in every pie kind of thing that he's always done as the de facto mayor of this, like, town. And it's, to me, at least, pretty clearly supposed to be Milch writing himself and his current state into this, you know, seminal work that's probably going to define his legacy. And I think that I would say two things.

One is that if you've only experienced Ian McShane somehow, and you're still listening to this, if you've only experienced him through, like, John Wick and American gods, you're missing out. Because even in this diminished, like, enforced diminished state that he's in, his swear engine has so. much more, like, sinewy, like, kind of energy, kind of pointing and grousing and leaning over and being jaundiced and being, like, coughing. And it's just sort of physical performance. Yeah. Whereas, like, a lot of the times in his more recent, like, I'm going to walk on stage and say, Jonathan, you know, to John Wick.

Yeah, he's pretty... Gravitous personified. Yeah. He's pretty glazed in those movies. Yeah. As far as the movie itself goes, I guess, when we talk about it now. I thought it was really I was so happy to be back in this place

with these characters, hearing these words. I definitely thought it was way more of a reunion than a resolution. Absolutely. Which was okay because I didn't need to know how they got off the island. You know what I mean? I didn't need to know who the Knight King really was. And Deadwood is not a plotty show. Like, first of all, it's based on real history.

Deadwood is a real place. Obviously, George Hurst is a real person. and so actually are Alan South Bullock, but you know, you can like look on Wikipedia of what happened to South Dakota. It is clearly still a part of the union. Yeah, they made it. It's just never been a show that is very much about

like what's going to happen to these people, nor is it a show, interestingly, I think, given to the compressed plotting of a movie. Like, Deadwood is a hangout. It's like I know all these people. I just want to kind of sit and watch them interact because David Milch writes them in such a compelling way and the interactions between them in such a compelling way.

And that's not really a like, let's squish this all into two hours. It's not a very compressed type of story. So I definitely think the movie is the most rewarding if you go in knowing the limitations of the form relative to what makes Deadwood, Deadwood. And also, you know, we talked about Milch's writing process. Apparently HBO insisted on a locked script for this. And I think you can sort of, and you alluded to this in your piece, and we've talked about this, like, you can kind of feel the handbrake on. there are some incredible one-liners, some beautiful speeches,

Sweringen sign-off is incredible, but it doesn't feel as much, like as much of a fever dream as the first three seasons, and especially the first two seasons, I think, do. It feels a little bit like the first version that he came up with and that they decided to say,

this is the best we got right now. it's so hard to schedule Molly Parker and Timothy Oliphant and Ian McShane for the time that we have them, we have to go. And you don't have the time to be like, I've written a new monologue for Trixie. You know, you just have Paula Malcmson for one day or six days or however much. So I think you can feel that. Would you say that if you didn't know that about the script being locked,

would you feel like there was a difference in execution? this time around. Yeah, I think the dialogue is noticeably plainer, for lack of a better word. It's just much more like how normal people communicate meaning to each other. There are also certain, like, structural devices that Old Dead would never use. For example, there are a lot of flashbacks that are edited, in my opinion, like pretty clumsily and choppy, just to tell you, like, where we left these people. And you include things like expository dialogue, like Hurst shows up and tells Al, you know, 10 years ago, you told me you killed the whore who shot me, which is the, like, really wrenching events of the actual finale.

And now I've realized that's not the case. It actually was Trixie and she's clearly alive and well and very pregnant. And that's just not the kind of, here's what's happening. Let me recap it for you. That obviously is very common in television as a whole, but never really was a part of Deadwood. And that's where you get into a little bit of the real life versus Deadwood life thing, because I don't necessarily think that the events of this movie really needed to happen 10 years after the end of Deadwood except to account for the aging of the actors. So, I mean, really, it's a retread of season

three with Charlie Utter being subbed in for Ellsworth. Yeah, a lot of the dynamics. It's like, Hearst comes in. He's this all-encompassing power that no one can really stand up against. He's also sort of synonymous with the onset of modernity and the incorporation of Deadwood into the union and the connection to the outside world with the trains. And so this, you know, very symbolic figure comes in and is like, my interests are directly at odds with a person who kind of symbolizes what makes the town special and unique. Yeah. Yeah. And he railroads over that person. And then Bullock responds in a way that is very impulsive and not necessarily all that's strategic. And then Al kind of rains him in, but Al also can't, you know, is unused to not being able to fix things.

Sure. And it just feels like this microcosm of Deadwood and the conflicts that defined especially it's later seasons in a way that I think is definitely intentional and is very interesting. but also does feel like, you know, it's not really moving all these characters into a new place. It's showing them in the same place 10 years later. Yeah, and I couldn't help. After you watch the movie,

if you go back and look and there's been a lot of really great interviews and great writing, Timothy Oliphon's been very articulate about his experience, both on the movie and on the show from before, you know, from 13 years ago. And it's interesting to kind of hear him talk. There was one quote that really jumped out at me,

which was, you know, he had been pretty, he gets asked about, he was getting asked about the Deadwood movie a lot or Deadwood reunion a lot, and he would always kind of be the most sort of cold water of all the cast, I think. He would sort of be like,

eh, you know, probably not. I wouldn't get my hopes up. And you can kind of start to see what he was talking about in watching the movie. Because one of the things, all the things that Olafont said was, after more time went by,

I became interested in doing Deadwood again, but I was more interested in doing more episodes than in doing a movie. You mean doing another season? Yeah, I was always like, if we're going to do it, let's do it. And I think he was saying that to Zolarsites. I mean, he said to Sepinwal, in an interview that they did apparently, like, on the set of

Deadwood the movie, literally says my attitude towards a movie of Deadwood would be, what's the fucking point? Right. Like, this is an episodic show. This is how David Milt writes. It doesn't make any sense to try to compress it. And it was really interesting to watch someone be that transparent about the limitations of what they're doing, even.

as they are literally doing it. And I don't think his performance as Bullock is any diminished or, you know, it doesn't feel like he's half-hassing it at all. It's a great performance. It's just interesting to watch someone be that open about the rest ofations. A little bit of Reallon Givens in his Bullock this time around. A little bit. Yeah.

Like, one of the cool things about Deadwood the first time around was Seth was not a sheriff with all the answers and was not, like, often what would have be so frustrating. I mean, I mean, I mean, frustrating on the part. like I felt frustration for the characters was the way in which their actions were often like checkmated by other people's plans. You know, so Bullock, it wasn't a traditional like a dirty guy trying to go straight or a lawman trying to leave behind the bad.

It was really, it was much more nuanced than that. But Bullock was often stymied by people like Hearst, by people like Al, even by people like Farnham who would get in his way in little ways. So watch him sort of be this. Clint Eastwood character in this movie was an interesting variation on where he had kind of come from. Totally, but you also get that same dynamic he's always had where he lets a mob get pretty close to killing Hearst

and then he sees all on his like... Which is a very good callback to the first episode ever where he basically hangs a guy in front of a lynch mob for justice so that they can't do it. I mean, there were nice echoes throughout, was there any particular plot line or moment in the movie that really jumped out at you as like, special outside of it

just being like, oh, cool. There's like so and so and so and so. I think Trixie's resolution is really satisfying to see. It's nice to see, you know, her and Sala and up together. And also, that was a plot line that really encapsulated.

This is more of a reunion than a movie. It literally single-handedly squishes together all these events that you associate with big TV events. Like, there's a marriage, there's a birth. There's a, you know,

passing away of, maybe, not confirmed of the father figure. But, you know, we have so much pent up in Trixie, and she's just such an amazing figure in the context of the show. Like, my friend and former colleague Judy Berman wrote an incredible piece for time about how Deadwood has always distinguished itself among the prestige series is it's a show about men in power, but it understands that to tell that story it also needs to have women and contrast them in really important ways. And one of those figures is Alma, who, you know, literally owns a band. but isn't invited to this important meeting of the town leaders that happens in season three. But Trixie is just, you know, she's so important to Al. She's so important to Saul and sort of, you know, also important to the books.

She's so important to Alma. She really ties all these people together. She's kind of the soul of the show. And just watching her, you know, get this conventional resolution in some ways, but she's also given away by her former pimp on her wedding day. Sure. You know, I let myself feel the like, oh, it's so great to just watch these people get a kind of quality. happy ending. Yeah, it was wild to watch Al essentially bestow the Swerengine crown onto Trixie, you know, and that she's going to get to run his saloon and turn it into a dance hall if she wants.

And, you know, we talk so much about intellectual property on this podcast in kind of flippant ways sometimes, but this was really the intellectual property of one person, you know, despite I might, I understand what kind of work it takes to make a show, but I don't think that there's any version of Deadwood that doesn't involve David Milch as its key voice. So it was wild to see even these feints towards Deadwood goes on, if only in our imagination where you're just like, no, I mean, this is really the goodbye letter

from the creator of this masterpiece. It was confrontational about reboot culture and reunion culture and feel-good culture, while also, I think, satisfying on a lot of levels. Yeah, I mean, bringing it back to Twin Peaks to Return, which is very similar to me, it's from a creator who at that point hadn't released anything like feature length or longer in 11 years. It felt like a summation of a career.

It also felt in a lot of ways like a swan song. Like, I feel pretty comfortable and guessing that we're not going to get a full-length project from either of these, you know, hallowed Prestige TV Davids ever again. And it's got that same feeling of, like, satisfaction but also melancholy. I don't know. I'm just, I'm so glad this finally happened. And we have a chance to reflect on this show that has always been like a weird hanging Chan. Yeah, I would really encourage people to rewatch it if they haven't because it's, it's one of the most rewatchable shows precisely because it doesn't matter what happens.

Watch it with the subtitles on. And you've watched it with the subtitles on and you can just live inside of it because that's the way I think it was meant to be enjoyed in the first place. As Oliphant has pointed out multiple times where he was like, this was never a show about plot. Like it was about hanging out with the characters. So you can go back and just kind of, it was also funny to see some characters and remember, oh yeah,

back in like 2004, if I wasn't interested in like a plotline, I would read a magazine while it was on or something. You know, like it was like a little less like now or you're trained, like I can't bear to look away, lest I miss like a key piece of canonical information. I was like,

oh yeah, that guy. I hate that guy. You know, I mean, I remember, I think it was from, season three, Steve, the guy, the disgusting guy who worked in the livery.

Steve the drunk. Steve the drunk. I would often just sort of skip Steve scenes. By the way, is Healy the prison guard from Orange is the New Black? Which I totally did not realize. But I mean, also, I don't know if I've ever told you this, but Deadwood is literally like my prestige TV origin story. Oh, really?

Yeah, my dad, you know, speaking of throwbacks to how he used to watch TV in 2004. And speaking of San Diego. Yes. My dad would get like physical DVDs from Netflix. and he's an academic, so he's like a weird, flexible job that would allow him to watch TV at like four in the afternoon on a weekday. And I would just kind of wander in because it was the living room and I could hear that something was on.

And I'd just like sit on the other side. And I would sit on the other side of the couch and I think I was like just old enough that my dad was like, the effort it would take to like chase this child out of the room is more than like the damage that would be done. Plus he could call it quote unquote Shakespearean. Exactly. So it was like the first TV show. I remember, like, prestige TV show, I remember watching with, like, that level of seriousness.

My dad, like, telling me why it was, like, good and interesting TV. And it became the gateway drug. How old were you? That's, like, 12. Wow. So, that was probably the first time you heard some of those words. I was a worldly 12-year-old. Allison from Cincinnati, you never know.

Right. Yeah, any other final notes on this movie itself? I'm glad I existed. I'm glad that they were able to get everybody together for this. I wish it had been either four or six episodes. I wish it had been 10. I wish they had just kept making this show. They didn't.

It's not that big of a deal. We have the first three. But it's so nice to wish that something went on for longer for once, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And it seems like it meant a lot to the people involved doing it. And obviously, if you get a chance, they are pretty, you know, they take a lot out of you to read these pieces.

But Matt Zolers cites his piece on the making of the show. And I believe that's where Milch first publicly talks about his Alzheimer's. and Mark Singer's piece in New Yorker, which is about, I don't know, like a 1,500-2000-word opener and then a back-and-forth with Milch, which is tough sledding at points because it's pretty in the shit with him. It's a man coming to terms with his own decline,

which is like the New Yorker does not run Q&As really as a practice, and you can see why they made an exception. Yes. So really a remarkable voice in the history of television, and if you don't know a lot about him, I would really highly recommend getting to know more. Alison, thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for having me.

Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by Acorn TV, the creator of the hit series Bodyguard. Once again has the UK's number one show of the year, Line of Duty. This thing is really good. I'm going to talk about it on the pod soon. It's got an all-s new season streaming exclusively on Acorn TV. Acorn TV streams British and international crime dramas, psychological thrillers, and mysteries for just $5.99 a month. Line of Duty is a cat and mouse thriller that takes a probing look. into modern police corruption with gripping storylines and breathtaking cliffhangers.

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Now it is my distinct pleasure to bring on one of my favorite people in the world. Wow. Emmy Award winning video producer and director. Kind of a, It kind of like the Sam S-mail of NBA videos for us, I think. That's a very niche market, but I'm happy to corner. This is Jason Gallagher.

Yeah. Gallagher, you know, I mention, I probably throw out Gallagher's name as much as anyone on this show. Gallagher and my wife. One of the issues that I have with Gallagher is that he believes in, he's a little bit of a child supremacy complex. I do. Where, you know, a movie or a TV show is good or bad based on his son's

appreciation of it. Right. Now, he's got very nuanced tastes. Jason and I share a lot of shared, like, shared passions. Yes. But sometimes with movies and stuff like that, like, Jason's son will be like, I'm into solo. And Jason will be like, because my son is into solo, it makes it a good movie.

And I'm just like, that's not how this works. And you're completely, completely baffled by the fact that, like, my son has a smile on his face. Right. And it affects me. And you're just like, yeah, but solo's mine. But the second act didn't make any sense. So Greenwald thinks I'm.

a monster for this take. I'm surprised you're still friends with me, but call this and Olive Bridge. Okay, great. But more so, I wanted to exploit your relationship with your son because you took your kid to Star Wars Galaxy's Edge. Opening day. Tell me a little

bit about like, okay, so you guys, I know it went through a very long ticket process to get into this amusement park. Star Wars Galaxy's Edge is the new Disneyland section dedicated to Star Wars. Yeah. At what point did your son, like, become sentient about the possibility of going to Galaxy's Edge?

Like, how long has he been, like, I heard from a kid in school? Yeah. What's the deal? Well, we are annual passholders to Disneyland, so we go. And they've been sort of, you know, keeping the new land. You get a newsletter. Yeah. Well, we get emails.

Sure. But also, it's all over the park. And there's, like, a specific section of the park. I remember the first time we ever went. there's a big painting that shows the land and it's like coming next year. I think this was like a year and a half ago. And my son saw it and was like,

what is that? Right. And so I explained it to him and then, yeah, we actually held back telling him that we were going to go when we went until only a few days before. Right.

Because the last thing you want to do is something pop up. And was he like, cool or was he like, I just got drafted number one? It took some explaining. I was like, we're going to Galaxy's Edge and he was like, sweet.

And then I was kind of like, and then I was like, no, no, but like you're gonna ride the millennium falcon. And then he was just like, wait,

wait, what? Like pause? Did his break? Yeah, he was like, what do you mean, ride it?

And then we just talk. And then he started to sort of make up things where he was just like telling my wife and I and his friends like, yep, and then I'm gonna go,

uh, probably fight Kylo Ren. Like, wait. He was just like making this stuff up. And I was like, I don't think that's gonna happen, but that's,

fine. That seems like it might be a higher age bracket to get into a saber fight with Kylo Red. Right. And then he had heard, we were kind of like reading material on it online and there's a place where it's like build your own droid. And this is kind of a funny story. He was like, there's a section where you can build a droid. It's like it's pretty expensive, but whatever.

And so he's really excited about the possibility of this. And then we walk in and it's very clearly not a real droid. It's still really cool. It's remote control. It's probably like two feet high, but he thought real droid. And when he saw that, he was like, the hell is this? This is a toy. I'm going to make your son a droid called the Downer Droid that just rolls into the room and it goes,

Do you know that there were second act problems with Solo? What is this character's main motivation? Okay, Friday rolls around. You guys go out to Anaheim. That's right. Give me a sense of, like, you've been to Disneyland a bunch. Right. What's the, like, crowd situation?

Like, what's the, is it pandemonium? Is it, like... It's really not terrible. Okay. We went in the reservation period. Because they're kind of doing it, like, they're only letting so many people in, right? Okay. So for the first month, you have to have a reservation.

And the reservations last for four hours. And they do a really good job managing it. And from what I can gather, it's basically because they overstaffed the hell out of it. Like, you literally can't walk anywhere. without an employee being like, hi, any questions or whatever. So the process of getting in was pretty smooth. And they let each reservation in every three hours. So just a pro tip for anyone who has reservations,

the first and last hour are like twice as many people are in the land. And it's really congested. Why the last hour? Because it's every three hours. Oh, okay. So like there's like basically an overlap period where people from the group prior and the group after. And the purpose of that is to make the. congestion going in and out of the land during a reservation a lot less hectic.

Okay. Yeah, but the middle two hours are litty. Okay. Because there's half the people in there, and you can just essentially just run around, and there's a lot less people. Okay, so you walk in. Yeah. Is there, like, a narrative to the experience, or is it, like, just like, here's a

death star, here's a Millennium Falcon. No. is the last scene of Rogue One where you get annihilated by a Death Star. Dog, this isn't Tomorrowland. This isn't your dad's playland. Okay, this is like immersive. This is a story.

It is technically Star Wars Canon, Star Wars Galaxy's Edge. And if you want to be up to date on that canon, you have to go to the land. It takes place between the Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker, so you're never really going to see any of those old characters you love

because it is set in time. Intervening years. Yeah, and it takes place... Isn't that when Mandalorian's supposed to take place? After Jedi? I thought so. You're the Mandalorian guy. I know.

When they open Mandalorian land, I'll be there. When it's just bounty hunters? I mean, so basically... And all the other four-year-old guys will be psyched. I did think a lot, like, will Chris Ryan enjoy this? Would Chris Ryan enjoy this? Because on the one hand, you love Star Wars. On the other hand, you dislike...

children and children-related things. I like kids plenty. I do like kids plenty. I just don't think that they should have a preponderance of influence on culture. That's all. We're well past that. It's happening. So anyways, it takes place

on a like a black spire outposts is what it's called and a planet called Batu. Yeah, right. Riches on the edge of the galaxy. It's been referenced in books and movies and things like that. But yeah, essentially, and the only ride there right now is Millennium Falcon

smugglers run. Yeah. And there, like, there's a whole story there where, like, Chewy after Last Jedi goes to Batu, parks the Millennium Falcon to get it, repaired and stuff. Yeah, and there's even, like, nice little Easter eggs. There's, like, little pork nests around it and stuff

like that, because obviously the Last Jedi just happened. And, yeah, the ride is, like, is this whole thing where, we're a character who's referenced, I believe, in the cartoons. His name's Hondo, but he wants to take the Millennium Falcon on a smuggler's run. Hondo.

Hondo. Yeah. But not. Not Han Zola. Yeah, I got it. My son was equally confused. You guys have that one thing in common. And so, yeah, it's really neat.

And all the cast members there, which is code for Disney employees, have a backstory. Did they tell you the backstory? If you want to know it, you can ask it. Did you? No, I didn't feel like it. Does you hear other people being like, so what's your, what's your MO, man? What's your resume? I overheard one thing about a guy talking about an experience he had in the marketplace,

which I couldn't tell. The humorous thing is it leads to sort of some funny situations. They can't really reference the place as a theme park. And so when you're like, hey, where's this ride? They have to be like, I don't know what ride you're talking about, but if you want to do blank, then that's where it is or whatever. And so at one point That guy is like a

He's just going on auditions, man He's just trying to get a job on On Animal Kingdom or something So we're Gotta do his shift where he's not allowed to be like Yeah, the bathroom's over there Well I mean that's what was funny It was we were

So we were trying to find the line The end of the line for the smugglers run The Millennium Falcon Ride Okay And there's lines everywhere To get into the canteena And to build a droid and blah blah And so we decide

to go up to a cast member and we're like, hey, what is this for? And he was like, well, this is where you can take your ship to, like, unload cargo and perhaps you can commandeer one of these ships and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay, so where's the Millennium Falcon Ride? And then he was like, oh, my God.

And I was like, oh, my God. You broke him on the first day. He looked at me like, dude, like, what is this for? You know what I mean? Was your son like, Dad, come on, don't be a dick? No, he wasn't really. I mean, it's such a distracting thing. I mean, there's something to look at everywhere.

Okay, so one of the things that, you know, that's been the lead up to this park opening, a lot of logs of like people getting sneak previews, a lot of like lifelong Star Wars fans breaking down in tears when they walk in, how emotional was it to like walk through the doors? And you don't, like, I'm being, I can imagine it is like somewhat disarming. I mean, it's, it's very, it's on the one, I'm going to be really real. Okay, we walked in the land.

And Isaac saw a fence and was like, fence, I'm climbing it. And I was like, what the hell, dude? Why? Because he can't help but climb on everything he sees. Oh, okay. And so that's just like a natural. He's like a greyhound when he sees a squirrel? Yeah, basically.

No, but when, but the thing that's emotional, I mean, the whole thing is just incredible. Like, there's a whole energy about it that's crazy. They kind of heightened like background noise. Interesting. Yeah, you don't notice it until you leave and you walk out and you're like, wow, it's really just quiet out here. But the first time you see the Millennium Falcon is genuinely moving, you know, and it's something that I think is, I don't know. I think that years would be moved. Did your son get jacked when he saw him?

Oh my God. He lost his mind. Like he, to the point where it was like, you know, I told you that first hour is twice as busy. The wait for it was like an hour and 50 minutes or something. Oh, my God. See, that's tough if it's a four hour thing. Yeah. So the wait for it was whatever talked to a cast member.

And he was like, I believe you can probably, you can probably, you. you know, commandeer this ship here in the next couple of hours when the lines die down. I'm like, okay, whatever. Classic smuggler talk. I was like, all right, great. When Obi-Wan and Luke were trying to get off Tatuie, they were like, what's the wait time to escape the empire? He's like, I believe I could get it up in a couple of hours.

I guess he did say that. So I had to then explain to Isaac that, like, we should walk around for a little bit, and all he wanted to do is stay near the Millennium Falcon. Like, there's a whole canteen. You can drink alcohol there. The only place in the park you can do the food and drink. Okay, all right. So sorry.

But anyways, he was like, he was pretty upset at the idea of, like, not being near the Millennium Falcon. All he wanted to do was be in it or near it. Well, that's understandable. And we wound up writing it twice because by that second and third hour, the weight had gone down to like 30 minutes.

So is the ride itself kind of like the other, because there's a Star Wars ride at Disney, right? Yeah. And it's basically like you're on a bench and you're looking at a screen and get shaken or a lot. Yeah, yeah. Is that what it is? That's exactly what it is.

I'm not going to be a dick. I'm just asking. But this is a... It's basically what it is. It's a lot more... I mean, it's a lot cooler. And essentially, you feel like you're in the Millennium Falcon. And you go into hyperspace, right?

And you go into hyperspace, and they give out... There's six people per, like, sort of cabin or whatever, and there's three jobs. So there's an engineer, a gunner, and a pilot. And, yeah, you get assigned a job. And so each time you do it... We did it twice, so we were engineers, and then we were pilots. Okay. The people who were with us when we were pilots were not very pleased with the fact that a child was a pilot because it really does affect the entire ride.

Does it? Does it really? Yeah. And so he's like crashing in this stuff. And I'm just like, I'm like sitting there trying to help him and people are yelling at him. Come on, push the button. And I'm just like five-year-old guys, like five-year-old. So there's no age requirement for flying a spaceship.

No. But we were not in this world. Not in this world. And then, but when we were engineers, you know, it's, it's, you sit in the back and you push a lot of buttons to try to fix it or whatever. It's kind of wild because, like, you can't watch the screen as much. I got to tell you something. When this, when this goes public. Yeah.

And I, if I go to this. Yeah. And I wait two hours to get on the Millennium Falcon. I have to be a fucking engineer. I'm not going to be very happy about that. And also, if I get sick because some five-year-old is like, it would be cool to fly into an asteroid, I'm definitely going up to a cast member and be like, Give me my right. Dude, but that's sincerely, like, the feeling you get.

We were engineers first, and Isaac can't, you know, it's all about the kids, and Isaac can't reach some of those buttons. I think it's going to be, like, a legitimate issue. I love the land. If you're listening, Disney, I love the land. But it is going to be an issue. People wait a long time for this, and if they have to beat engineers to the point where they're pushing buttons but not being able to watch the screen, it's pretty, you know. Yeah. And already, when.

went on our second pass, already you hear people going up to the people assigning it being like, I want to be a pilot. Already sort of making those demands. Like, I just waited, like, saw one woman, I waited here for blah, blah, blah. This is my second time around. I don't want to be sitting in the back. Wow. Is it sweet? Awesome.

I mean, I don't know. When it gets like real hot out there and people have been drinking and it's like, they're like, you have to get, they're going to, what do people blow chunks on the bullion because your kid flies into the side of something? I mean, it's a possibility, but Isaac had a great time

and just literally didn't... That's literally all that matters. Thank you, Chris. I'm just kidding. I'm really glad he had such a good time. I want to talk to you a little bit about the food and drink. Because Andy and I talked about this last week

and I was just kind of fascinated by how far they could deviate from your typical amusement park fair while still having like, yes, this is just a, you know, a Coke. Don't worry about it. You know? Right.

So what was the most, menu for you guys. Well, this is going to be a little underwhelming, but I had three glasses of blue milk. Holy shit. Are you in toxic shock right now? I'm still wearing off.

And I had a Coke because everything That's it. Wait, so you drank three blue milks, which you described in this wonderful vlog that you put up with your kid that people can find on YouTube.

you said you're like this blue milk tastes like candy and then you washed it down with a coke with a coke which I haven't had a Coke in over a year but like the bottles are special so I was like oh yeah because it's like the little droid bottles right yeah yeah yeah and you could see there I mean like quick side note there are definitely people there that day that are like there for the eBay that are just like one guy walked out with like bags of those coaks and stuff like that yeah yeah and so that was always kind of like you know I remember remember when I would go to spring training in Florida? Yeah.

And like, you know, you'd be waiting for, you know, Darren Dalton or somebody or Lenny Dykstra to sign like one baseball card or one ball. Yeah. And then there would be the dude there who had like seven binders full of like glossy eight by tens that he was like, can you sign this Mr. Dalton? So it's like that's kind of corny. It's like you're walking out of there with a bunch of merch that you're going to put on eBay.

It's super, super corny. But I, I, low key was kind of like, it psyched me into being like, well, I got I gotta get a Coke. So you brought the Coke bottle home? Yeah. Did you put it on eBay yet? No, it's on my son's shelf. We made a little shelf.

But yeah, I was just all about that blue milk. The lines were short for it. How's the blue milk? I mean, it's like, I texted you. It's liquid crack. It is like, it's not milky by any means. Which I don't know if that's disappointing for you. It's not disappointing, but I got the impression.

So like, is it the blue milk that they have that Luke drinks for breakfast when he's like, I can't even get out of here. If he drinks that for breakfast, holy shit. Yeah, so, like, I thought that was, like, celery and, like, protein powder. No. That's what, that's, like, in my mind. That's what it tasted. They try to, like, they try to lead off.

Because she's putting all that shit in the immersion blender or whatever. And they try to lead off the ingredients with, like, it's rice milk and blah, blah, blah, but then it's just also, like. Eight pounds of pure sugar. Yeah. Yeah. Blue dye. You know what I mean?

And, um, but it's, it's got sort of a, a tiny sort of, slushiness to it. Kind of like a virgin peanut colada kind of thing. It's very refreshing. And that's a big reason why I got it. But it was so good. Okay. It was really, really tasty.

What's the food like? I just told you. So you just had three blue milks and a coat for four hours while you were at Disneyland. Well, everything had a line and you got to be efficient with it. So you didn't have any Bantu wraps or any of that stuff? Unfortunately, no. I know. I remember thinking Chris is going to be so disappointed.

that I didn't eat in there. But time is, you know, time is my child's money. Okay. I'm trying to think of what else I had for you. Was anybody slammered? Like, did you see any, like, trashed, like, dude who had had six, like, band two beers? Or whatever. I don't think I saw anybody drunk by any means.

I'm trying to think if there's any other stories. Not, I mean, not really. I think one of the cool things they do with the character, is they have like Chewbacca and Ray and Kylo Ren sort of walking around, but there's not like a really meeting place for them. So you have to sort of like, you just sort of catch them. Yeah. You know, they kind of are going about their business.

So it's like immersive theater. It is immersive theater. And yeah, so the whole thing is. And are they all singing from the same hymn book about like, this is a specific time? The first order has arrived because they're looking for something. J.J. Abrams has rewritten the script from Michael Arndt, so we're not going to get the hand falling from space.

If they are trying to move on from Last Jedi, this world does nothing to help it because they really live in that world. Okay. They really do. Are there more rides coming? Is there like, is there expansion on the way? Yes. I believe it's called Rise of the Resistance, which is supposed to be its sort of flagship ride. Okay.

Not the Millennium Falcon. This one is supposed to be the one that people are really, really looking forward to. Do you think what's the vibe for that? Do you have any idea? I think it's like it's like Pirates of the Caribbean needs space. Yeah. And it's like, it's supposed to be their, like, I think it's like their most expensive ride ever. It's, it's, it's, I don't quote me on that.

I thought I read that. But anyways, it's really cool. I think it's okay, man. If you're wrong, no one's going to get that. I'm very sorry. I'm very sorry if that's it, correct. But from what I can tell, that's the one that everyone's looking forward to. And that's, like, three months away.

Did you witness anybody being like, like, salty at you for being able to go in? Like, were there other Disney people there? Like, Disneyland? attendees. We're like, oh, Galaxy's Edge, pretty cool, man. No, I didn't see that. A lot of people bought the T-shirts, because they had opening day T-shirts. A lot of people bought the T-shirts that definitely did not go in. Well, they were just going to put them on merch, right? On eBay, right?

I mean, I would think, but yeah, it was no one was really mad. And the check-in system was sort of, it was a process, but it was fine. It was really... Did you guys go to Disneyland after Galaxy's Edge as you go over to, like, another part of the park? Yeah, I mean, you make the drive to Anaheim. You got to make it happen. From the Valley. You gotta do it. And it was actually pretty chill.

I think it sort of cites some people out of going. Yeah, so it was very chill. Right. But yeah, I'm trying to think of what else with Galaxy's Edge. Oh, you know what I was going to ask? Yeah. Was it annoying that everybody was filming? Nah, because I was...

No, I know. I mean, like, everybody says that. Like, if you're at a concert and you're like, I want to take a picture of this. But then you're like, all these fucking people with phones. Like, was there just a lot of people making vlogs? A lot of people making vlogs. A lot of, like, grown... ass men.

Like and subscribe. Yeah, like, so what you can, you can find here is that if you download the Disney Play app, you can, which is a thing that apparently is supposed to be super fun, where if you have this app, there's these little stations and you can play like weird Star Wars games using it. Okay. If you're just hanging, I guess. I don't know why you would ever do that.

But, you know, they're just trying to make it, they're just trying to make it as, you know, make your, use your time as wisely as possible, I guess. But, but, like, so you never have a dead moment, I guess. Because every corner there's something to see or do or whatever. If you could pull from any part of Star Wars lore that you know about and create a ride experience to add into Galaxy's Edge, what would it be? Wow. Honestly, shout out Tate Frazier really quick.

Sure. Pod racing. Fuck, yeah. That would be cool. The pod racing ride would be pretty dangerous. Dope. Well, I guess you could do it with the screen and just like shape back and... dangerous.

Well, I mean, if you actually pod raced. Okay, yeah. Like, let's not actually... Like Ford versus Ferrari style. You get some Bolba out there just trying to like... Did you see the Ford versus Ferrari trailer?

Yeah, of course it is. Did you see the got Burnfall playing Lee Iacocca? What? Yeah. I missed that. Yeah. I watched it last night before bed.

Yeah, it's pretty sick. It looks incredible. I would probably do Trash Compactor World. From Star Wars New Hope. I'm really surprised to hear that. I would want to like fall into a shoot of trash

my sister girlfriend and Han Solo, and then have the walls start moving in and have like a weird thing that was drawing me down into a trash slop liquid, and then like have to like get CP3-P-ODA. Do you ever think about why they didn't just like, the stormtroopers just didn't start shooting down there? Well, because if they missed the,

they would bounce off the walls, right? If they just move out of the way. Did they know they were in there? I thought so. Maybe not. I don't know. I can't remember who does that? Like in Star Wars, how do they, How are they like, let's start compacting trash while we're having this prison break? Does somebody say, like, they must be in the trash compactor, crush them?

Or is it just like, this is a routine while all this is happening? I thought it was routine. Just routine maintenance. Leah shoots the hole in it, but I guess the stormtroopers are so, they didn't see the massive hole. Oh, yes, they did, because they were shooting in the hallway, so they must have been like, yeah, they jumped down there. Yeah, that's my whole, that was my whole issue with that scene. That was, you know, but you love it. Me?

I would do that. Isaac would see the holes in that one. I bet. I would do that and I would do try and lift an X-wing fighter out of the mud with your mind. But like, how do you do it? Basically,

it would be like you'd make somebody concentrate for 30 seconds and then it would move. Wow. And you just stand there? Yeah, and you'd be like you're psychic. Congratulations. That'll be $80.

That's pretty great. On 1 to 10, do you want to go? I would like to go, but I'm not going to go. Like, I don't want to drive to Anaheim to do this. And I think also, like, I really like Disney World. Do you really? I love Epcot.

That's so off-brand for you. But it's not, it's not like a bucket list thing for me anymore. So I'm going to let, first of all, got a way for Rise of the Resistance to open. You got to do that. Second of all, it doesn't sound like I'm in any luck with these reservations. Third of all, I've been banned from eBay, so it's no point me going just to get rid.

Is that real? Because I have. Have you really? Yeah, long story. I used to work for a computer refurbishing company and... You're still like empty computers to people? Yeah, something... I don't even remember what happened, but basically I banned from eBay. Long story short.

So you can't sell any of the things you got anyway. No, and they're really good about like if you like put another card on or like if they can find any connection to you, they're like, no. So the one place where like behavior is being policed on the internet is eBay. eBay.com. Great. Yeah. Glad we got that ticket there. Elizabeth Warren's going to be like, eBay's fine.

Everything else break it up. Everything else break up. eBay's got it. Break up Galaxy's Edge. I'm telling you. They're, to this day. It's been eight years. Glowing reviews from your child.

Yes, we loved it. Okay. Will you go back again, or are you going to wait for the rise of the resistance? We'll wait for rise of resistance. And I think that the reservation period was the way to do it. I think it's going to be pretty out of control otherwise. And they've got a whole, like a whole, other land opening next year, too.

What do you mean? Like, it's like Marvel land is opening next year. Really? Yeah. What's that going to be? California Adventure. I guess you go to like Asgard and stuff? I think.

And Tony's, Tony's Lab is a big thing. The Avengers sort of like epicenter, whatever the building is. Can you go to World War II land for Captain America? Dude, you would be about that. Yeah, we really would be like Dunkirk land for Chris Ryan. What's the land that you really want to have made? I would fucking really be into Dunkirkland. My land that I...

They could make Dunkirk land on like any beach. I think it's Europe, right? Yeah, I know. But like, not to disrespect what happened in Dunkirk, obviously. But I'm just saying like... Yeah. It would be pretty ill. I don't know.

My land would be like true detective land, Carcosa land. I'm just kidding. That's just our everyday life. Okay, I'll probably... Jason will probably be... coming on in the coming weeks to talk about the return of dark. Oh my God. Which is coming back to Netflix.

If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend seeing the first season. Also, I think you have to see the first season if you want to watch season two because I watched the first season religiously and forgot a lot of it in the trailer. All I know is the fits are with it. If you want to know why Jason and I dress the way we do, it's probably because of dark. So you'll hear him again if you have any Star Wars Galaxy's Edge stories. Send him to the watch Twitter. Send him to Chris Ryan.

Yeah. And thanks a lot for coming by, man. Thanks, man.