The Watch - ‘The Mandalorian’ Gave Us Everything We Wanted | The Watch

Episode Date: January 3, 2020

We break down the finale of ‘The Mandalorian’ and reflect on why this piece of ‘Star Wars’ content worked where others failed (1:39). Plus: a special shoutout to the show's score (26:47) and what the success of the Disney+ product means for streaming networks like Netflix and Amazon (43:14). Host: Chris Ryan Guest: Sean Fennessey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly and welcome to The Ringer Podcast Network. We've published some great episodes in the month of December, including a rewatchables with Quentin Tarrantino on Dunkirk. Sean Fennessey set down with Greta Gerwig to talk about her new film Little Women on The Big Picture. And Adam Sandler and Kevin Garnett appeared on the Bill Simmons podcast to talk about their newest film on Cut Jems. Happy New Year from The Ringer. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Now.

Hello, and welcome to The Watch. name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com and joining me in the studio of my foundling. It's Sean Fennessee. Yes. Hello, Chris. Fresh out the gate 2020. What's up, Sean. Thank you for having me here, Chris. Sean and I are here to talk about The Mandalorian. We'll be chatting about that for a little while. And then my exclusive three-hour interview with Baby Yoda after that. Of course, baby Yoda doesn't speak. You know, would it be funny, though, if we did like a WTF with Baby Yoda? Like, who are your guys? Who'd you come up with at the store at the improv.

Do we know is his... If Joe Rogan did a YouTube video that was him and Baby Yoda in front of a

microphone and Joe Rogan's just like scrolling through the internet being like this guy, this guy in Australia can see into the minds of sheep

and Baby Yoda's just like you just gave me an idea. I feel like Baby Yoda should get super an MMA in season two of the Mandalorian because imagine

how good he would be at MMA. He would do the arm bar with no... Just with his hand. His hand. Think about it. As you can tell, Sean and I are delighted by The Mandalorian.

It's a great show. I really wanted him to come on because he and I both have come out the other side of the rise of Skywalker here, changed men. Yeah, the birth canal. I think so. I think the ambiotic fluid is still there. That's a vivid image. And, you know, Sean and I both, we've potted about it. I pot it with Andy.

Sean talked to Mallory and Amanda. Both highly recommend each of those episodes. Not if you like the movie. that I would not recommend. You know what, though? It doesn't really matter. It's not like Chris Terrio like the movie. Yeah, you know what I mean?

He seemed to have some problems. It doesn't seem like anybody involved with the movie makes maybe John Boyega, who's clearly like just hold tight for the plush show. My favorite thing on the internet in the last couple weeks has been the super cuts of people who were completely bummed out on the press tour. Yeah. Who were just done with this. Oscar Isaac one you were telling me about was classic.

First and foremost, my favorite. My number, I always loved Oscar Isaac, but he is my number one boy right now. Yeah. To tell people what he did? Well, he was just being interviewed by somebody, I think, a woman from Collider, and she asked him if he would be interested in continuing the story of Poe Damarin on a Disney Plus series. And he very quickly and succinctly said, nope. And to put that in perspective, Jessica Chastain is teasing the further adventures of a most violent year characters. Which I'm in.

In, too, but, like, Oscar Isaac will, like, revisit, like, J.C. Chandor movies that made $11 million. Oh, yeah. He's not above recirculating new IP. Sure. He's just not interested in going back to Alderon, which I respect. I respected to. But, you know, I think that it's obviously planned this way. I wonder if Disney could have a redo if they would have separated these two pieces of content.

Well, why do you say that? Well, because I think that the Mandalorian makes the rise of Skywalker look even worse. But is that actually better? For which? For everybody involved? Because in a way, we're here having a conversation about the Mandalorian and our positivity, and it came at the end of a bad rise of Skywalker press run. So is it possible that this was actually ideal for them?

Because I think that the conversation that we're going to have, and far be it for me to drive your show, but we're feeling pretty buoyant. This car has two steering wheels. We are feeling really buoyant. I think we're feeling really void. You want to know what this feeling is? And it's actually, I think the older you get and I'm, also the more stuff you see, it is a rare and rare feeling, which is like almost complete satisfaction.

Not necessarily elation. I'm not going around being like, wow, this is the new Aguirre wrath of God. That's right. I'll show this in temples. It's just like you guys did it. You just really had a great season of television. You introduced me to a lot of cool new characters, even though I kind of know who these characters are. You created straight up a fucking phenomenon in pop culture, which is very rare. to have something that just like crosses over like that, where you have somebody like my wife who did not watch the Mandalorian buying Black Market Baby Yoda Christmas Tree ornaments on Etsy.

Well, okay, so I think one of the signature aspects of this show that you and Andy do is you guys talk about shows that hold the belt that are meaningful to the culture. So that show might be Atlanta or the leftovers or whatever, Watchman. That is one version of TV. And then there's the other version of TV, which I think you guys are also really good. about spotlighting.

So for Andy, that's chopped. For you, that's something like justified. This just makes me happy and it gets me through, I'm having a tough day and I just want to relax. Or I like to get inside of a universe and be sort of overwhelmed by the fun of the storytelling. The Mandalorian is that kind of show for me. I don't need to have a philosophical

or intellectual relationship to the show. I just like being in this world. Yes. And with these characters. And that is actually the opposite of the feeling that I had with the Rise of Skywalker, which is information overload, a sense of a weightiness, a heaviness in the storytelling

because there was this finality to it. And so not having to deal with that or cope with any of that stuff and just kind of getting a cool eight-episode season was intoxicating for me. And I feel like it signals the way forward here. It is. This is the way. You know, you mean, like, this is the way

for this whole franchise, I think. And now whether or not they learn the lessons of that, I think it will be really interesting. Let's talk about this from a bunch of different angles. So just like, obviously, I'm not going to recap the entire Mandalorian season, but I think what's worth mentioning is that this was actually a couple of little seasons within one.

And the thing that I maybe am most impressed with aside from the story itself is they seem to have almost algorithmically found the perfect way to tell it. It was the perfect length of a season. The episodes were the perfect length, whether they were 35 minutes or 42 minutes, they always felt appropriately appropriate in that fashion.

and he basically had a three-episode arc that starts out with like finding baby Yoda and protecting him and then absconding with him. Then it turns into Star Trek for the middle part of the season where you have an adventure of the week. And I thought that that was a really excellent way to get over what is sometimes the hardest part

about the streaming shows, which is this mid-season lag where you've started the story, you're going to end the story, but what are we going to do in the middle to kind of keep things going? And I thought they did a really nice job, although those were not my favorite episodes,

but the Bryce Dallas Howard episode Sanctuary, The Prisoner and Gunslinger, I think, which was the Tatooine, and I know that's not the order they were in, but still. And then the last two episodes, I think if you combine those two episodes, the Debra Chow and Tycho Waititi episodes at the end of the season,

is like a top three or four Star Wars movie. So the thing oddly that those middle episodes you're describing reminded me of were the best parts of solo. You know, the sort of the train heist aspect of it where one big set piece or one big mission, and you get a little bit closer and a little bit more intimate and the tone is a little bit zippier.

I would say that this, part of the appeal of the Mandalorian is it's just kind of weird and a little funny. Yeah. Even though the actual, the Mandalorian, the lead is for Pedro Vascoq figure

is quite grave. Baby Yoda is clever and cute. You've certainly had your fair share of fun with... Mando! Yes, there he is. Mando, did you watch the Sugar Bowl? Baylor, we're making a comeback, sir.

Yeah, so I think But the But the quarterback had to go into Concussion Protocol, Mando! Are you still going Or should I continue? Part of the funniness

is like when you think it's over? They had a lot of fun with the characters. You know, it does not feel over-wrought in any way and even the Nick Noltee, what's his name, Queal? Yeah, I don't know. It was an Ugnot, right? Sure, yeah.

It doesn't actually matter. It doesn't. That's the thing is that a lot of this stuff that I think they found the perfect balance of all the nerd stuff in it is like true. Like I watched rebels or I watch Clone Wars. And that seems like Dave Filoni's role on the show in a lot of ways was to create, was to support the lore. They didn't fuck with the major, they didn't mess with the starting lineup. They weren't like, yeah, we're going to change how you feel about Empire Strikes Back by revealing that, you know, this guy was actually like. a force sensitive

you know, Jawa. You know, it's, there's no, like, messing with the actual canon. It's all stuff

that's like, hey, if you're really into this, you will get something completely different out of the last scene where John Carl Esposito comes out with this

lightsaber that apparently is incredibly important, you know? Yes, that's cool. I can go read about that afterwards. That's my favorite part. You know what did that? Thrones.

Thrones was like, man, this is a fucking great story. I love it. And then if you wanted to Google, why are people freaking out about X it would just be like here's Jason Concepcion

explaining to you why this matters And that's right And I think most people don't Didn't have the relationship to Game of Thrones That somebody like Jason Concepcion Or Mallory Rubin on binge mode do Where they're exploring not just the depths of the mythology but also the sort of

philosophical and emotional meaning behind the show A lot of people Let's say my dad My sister were just like I didn't see that shit coming That was cool right What a cool show I had a fun time.

I can't wait to watch next Sunday. I had a very similar. I can't wait to watch next Friday relationship to the Mandalorian. And it did still somehow, and if you read Ben Lindberg's recaps of the show on The Ringer, which I would highly recommend. It did give me that same feeling that you're describing it with Jason writing about Game of Thrones because Ben simultaneously was writing essentially deep plot synopsis while integrating thoughts about the way that they told the story.

And then at the end of the piece, he would say, like, here's where the canon lies. What the Darkseber is. And here's why it matters. And if you're interested in this stuff, you'll get more of it next year. But if you don't care about that stuff, it's okay to just see Gene Carlis-Spozito holding a sick sword. That's all that we really got out of that. I mean, the entire Mandelor thing. And like their whole, is it a race or a creed?

But that whole group of people is like very, very, very deep in Star Wars canon. But for me, I'm just watching it based on what I'm seeing in the Mandalorian. Like all the information I have on that is just from the show. So I tend to think that you're a really strong prognosticator of these things, and you, the same way you were very ahead on succession. I felt like you were basically carving out space in the consciousness here at the Ringer. Okay. For the Mandalorian a long time ago. Well, Andy and I have always just been like, ever since I think, I remember starting to think about this when Battlestar was on and just, as TV changed over the years, I was just like, this is stupid.

They should just make a show. Now, in my mind, I think that I thought it was going to be, we will have a third. driving and prolific movie business going of Star Wars so that the TV show would almost be like Deadpool. It would almost be like, where's the playground that no one will bother these guys on? But that was why I was so bullish on this. And that's what I'm bringing it up because I wanted to know how much the show ultimately resembled what you were projecting. Well, okay, so I never really imagined that this show would have to also be the flagship

of a very expensive streaming service for the biggest media company in the world. So that obviously brought on a lot more expectations. Didn't that work, though? It worked completely. Like, ultimately, even the things that I didn't love about this show, whether it was that episodic nature sometimes, or I was just like, come on. Like, I want to know what's up with Baby Yoda, like, get back to this.

It's still, like, in the grand scheme of things, wound up being note perfect throughout. And I thought that the fact that I'm not, like, over the moon about it, but I still noticed, like, oh, yeah, you guys just did an homage to the Wild Bunch on a Disney Plus show. That's pretty cool. Or like the train thing in Sanctuary is right out of the professionals. Or clearly the score, which we're going to talk about,

Logan Vigornson's score, is this incredible, like, sort of Trent resonerization of Sergio Lee, of Ennio Marconi, like in his spaghetti Western scores. Like, there are so many ultra-cool parts of this for, like, Sam Fuller stands. But, like, you don't need to know any of that to enjoy it. No. I mean, I love it. it personally. I feel like there should almost be a

synephilic version of breaking down this show too because there's so much influence going on in it. And it also underlines John Favreau the movie fan, which is something that I was always kind of confounded by Favreau's decision to make the Lion King. I wonder if he did that as a sort of quid pro quo to get to do something like this. I wouldn't be surprised if ultimately this is the long game. And you know,

we were kind of joking. over the weekend about the Michael Eisner tweet about basically like I didn't particularly love Rise of Skywalker but I guess some people might have liked it it doesn't matter they have Favreau he's the next George Lucas yeah which is so funny because

one he's just not at all who I thought he was going to be when Swingers came out I was like oh cool we have like our Paul Mazurski that's who I thought he was going to end up being a kind of like talky chatty I'll put myself in the movie sometimes kind of guy who makes these really sophisticated dramas about like going through stages of your life. And he is the opposite

of that. He is way more like a big top fantasy, the wonder of entertainment and much more like Spielberg than like Lucas to me. Lucas had a lot of creativity, but I wouldn't say that heart is necessarily something that he gets at. John Favreau actually gets at the heart. And that's part of what makes this show so affecting is you're connected to the characters, specifically Baby Yoda. But in general, even IG-11, you build a relationship with this fucking weird, violent I think it's actually worth going back to chef because chef is something where if you watch his movie chef, you can see that this is a guy who has a few things in his life that he truly deeply cares about and food is one of those things. And chef is essentially like for as much as

it's a pretty predictable story or whatever. It is very much a love letter to John Favro's love of the culinary arts, but also simple, satisfying things like a Cubano sandwich or a grilled cheese or whatever. And to me, I know this is kind of like a leap. There's something very simple and satisfying about the way that they told the Star Wars movie where he was like, got back to not necessarily, let's go back to Lucas or let's go back to this, but he was like, what do I love about Star Wars? What is the thing that it makes me happiest about this franchise? What is this resonance of this story to me? And everything about it clicked in a way that the movies have had a really hard time clicking into place. When you think about how they pretty seamlessly

integrated, a team of directors who all got to have, like, individual flourishes, and essentially, like, I, to me, made Deborah Chow, like, give Deborah Chow whatever she wants. And they're going to give her her own show. And she gets to direct the O'Bor's, yeah.

Right. But they had four or five different directors working all scripts at Favra wrote, but you were never like, oh, man, this person fucked up. They dropped the ball. They're going to have to come back and fix it in the next one. The Debruchot of Tika Waititi handoff, I don't know if they blocked shot that because I know they did

Faloni and Debra Chow did block shoot one. I was like this is fantastic shit. I get to feel like there is Tyca's stuff or Debra Chow stuff in here while not getting in the way. Well part of the appeal to me specifically of the finale was the

big top aspect of it. And that's something that Tyca brought to it which I thought he also brought so well to Thor Ragnarok, which is a kind of grandeur while not losing a sense of humor. You know, everything that is happening with that Giancarlo Esposito character and the Thai fighter and the big showdown with the Mandalorian was like, was movie great action? You know,

and you never felt like you were watching a quote unquote TV show. It was very high level. But the sense of humor in the IG-11 character and everything that we got from sort of like the Mando mask reveal and everything that they showed us specifically in that episode felt like much more grounded TV stuff. Yeah. And getting someone like Tyka to make a show like this too is pretty powerful. Like he is a big time director now. Hell yes.

And that's obviously a testament to Favro's weight and it's a testament to probably Disney's checkbook in some respects. But if the show can continue to kind of simultaneously discover people, put people like work Famayua in the spotlight, and also get kind of big name people like Tyca to make, their own little Star Wars sandbox. I feel like it's a recipe for success every time. Yeah, and, you know, this season actually wound up having a really nice arc to it. That Taika kind of like, I thought that the set pieces in the final episode actually felt like a dramatic, like, denouement.

Like the river sticks scene where IG is kind of like, I'm going to take these guys on, like, I'll sacrifice myself. It felt like appropriately like a step above and a step above and a step above from the last ones. You know, and that kind of like goes to one of the things I wanted to talk about, which is in TV a lot, you see, you know, honestly, like I feel like I thought, I've been thinking about this a lot because a lot of what Damon Lindeloff had to say about Watchman where it's like, we didn't leave any, anything in the writer's room for season two. Every idea we had, everything we wanted to say with Watchman is in season one. I got the feeling like, and obviously season two of Mandelaeran's already been is up and running and they're going to, it's going to be out next fall. they had a plan for this. They were like, there will be another season. John Clarka L. Spinez does need to show up

until the very end of the first season. The Dark Sabre doesn't need to show up until the end of the last episode. Like, they have like a long-term plan, which again, not to be a dick, but juxtaposes pretty clearly with what happened with the movies. Yeah, and I think, you know I'm a stickler for a plan.

Yeah. And that's actually one of the things I struggle with with some of Damon Lindelof's work is I never feel like there is a conclusion in mind. And so without the conclusion in mind, I have a harder time getting invested in the long-term storytelling.

Shows like this, I don't have the same relationship to because it's not a mystery box show to me. We're not waiting to kind of reveal anything. And in fact, we got a lot of information in that final episode. We got a lot of clarity about the backstory of the main character. We got a broader sense of the universe.

We got a sense of where this story fits into some of the Star Wars lore and the fact that they're hitting on things like the Dark Sabre means that it is very much in concert with a lot of that nerdery that you either can or cannot subscribe to depending on your interests. But I don't actually...

I think if they had said to us we're going to have five seasons and the fifth season is leading towards this grand day mon. I'd be like, okay. But in fact, I prefer it to be more along the lines of what I originally saw it as, which was justified, or gun smoke,

or any number of shows that are essentially parodied in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, these sort of like episodic, semi-serialized mission tales. It's such a great zag. You just be like, you know what, man? what if we just had a 35-minute episode

where he has to get off this ship? Yep. I love how you compared it to Star Trek because that is really probably the closest comp that you can make on a regular basis. And I was never a Star Trek person, but at this stage of my life, I'm actually ready for something

that more closely approximates that. You mentioned the main character. I thought we should talk a little bit about the fact that this was a show without a star, but maybe was a show with something more than a star. So we can talk a little bit about the... And the biggest star of 2019.

Yeah. Maybe Yoda is the biggest... He's on the cover of the Hollywood Reporter. Is that true? Yeah, apparently. Okay. I mean... Did they get the interview?

No, just excerpts. They're just doing it. It's me and Baby Yoda at UFC 215. Oh, nice. Yeah. Gotta watch out for that arm bar. Yeah. Did you care that Patriot Pascal

may or may not have been in the show? I don't care. People who are like, oh my God, was it a body double the whole time? Who cares? Fine. No, I completely agree with you. I just watched a fucking Avengers End game, loved it.

Thanos, purple, made of computer. computer animation. Like, who cares? What's the difference? What are we worried about? Did it matter to you that... Is it almost a statement of the accomplishment of the show that they were able to pull this off with a star

that spends the entire time with a helmet on except for one shot? I mean, it's the same thing as being in love with Gary Cooper. You know, Gary Cooper is not an actor with extraordinary range. He has a very defined acting style. Steve McQueen, very similar. There's a certain kind of archetype for your kind of quiet killer, essentially, or quiet hero. depending on the film,

that doesn't need to express a lot to communicate where the story is going. The Mandalorian is in that tradition of storytelling. All these Western references are not a mistake. You know, it's the man with no name. Oh, yeah. Clint Eastwood is a very singular but also single-ish kind of actor.

You know, he only has a couple of moves. And so the fact that we couldn't see Pedro's voice is fine. It doesn't bother me. You're exactly right. And one of the things that actually I felt so warm towards the show, it made me actually love Kurosawa and Spaghetti Westerns even more. Because I was like, oh, you know what? These themes and these archetypes still matter, and they're still pretty cool.

Like they aren't going to be put in a box and then forgotten about. And in 20 years, people would be like, why would anybody watch a samurai movie or a cowboy movie? Well, one thing that I think would be interesting for this show is to introduce a kind of Toshiro-Mafuni-style actor, though. Somebody who is like really hot-blooded. Yes. Because we don't have that now. What we have is a lot of coolness on a lot of. A lot of calm.

They played around a little bit with that in the gunfight, the gunslinger one with the kid who's on Tadouin, Bobby Connolly's son that, right? Right. Yes. And he's kind of like the Han Solo, young Han Solo guy. And I was just like, and I was like, for a second,

I was like, oh, is he going to have to bring this guy along with him and train him in the way and all that? Obviously not. But yeah, I thought that ultimately it didn't bother me that, obviously we don't have like the same connection with this character that maybe we do with like a Luke or a Han. or even an Alden-Earonreich or something, as you can see his face. And part of that was because the star power was taken over by a puppet.

And a lot of very talented, long time, basically TV actors slash film actors on the back half. Yes, Mingna Nguyen, and Amy Sedaris and Gina Carrano and Nick Nolte and Werner Herzog, like all these people who, you know, Clancy Brown. like Richard Iowade, like all these people who are so good at just being on camera and being entertaining in their own specific charismatic way does a lot of work for you. And if you surround that stoic figure with a lot of great character actors, which every Humphrey Bogart movie did.

You know, like the history of movies is real with this. You don't have to worry, if you put Bill Burr in a scene with this guy, it doesn't matter that he's got a helmet on. There was a point during the run of this season where I was like, is Baby Yoda too big to fail? I know Concepcians talked about this too, where it's like, did you make something too cute to endanger? Because obviously he's a very powerful figure,

but it's like, you can't. Like when Sudecas's character is like punching the bag, I was like, we're going to have a fucking riot. It's an interesting question. My guess would be, I could be wrong about this, because there's a lot of money on the line here. My guess would be that Baby Yoda ages up a little bit

when we come back. Oh, yeah. It's kind of like Millie Bobby Brown style. I was thinking more like Groot. You know when Groot is like baby Groot. And then it's like Teenage Groot. Yeah, you got to watch. Watch out. Like Finn Wolfhard hit those late teens hard. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And this, this Yoda, this teenage anguished Yoda. When he's drinking monster. And he's like, I'm trying to, I'm trying to be on Twitch 23 hours in a day. I was just going to say, crushing Fortnite. Yeah. I saw my 10-year-old nephew over the break. And he just got a TV in his room. And he was really excited. And I was like, what are you watching TV? And he was like, I don't watch TV. And I was like, why do you have a TV in your room? He's like, I don't know, I just play Fortnite. Like, that's, he doesn't even care. He doesn't even know baby Yoda is.

Seriously. Yeah, he's like, it doesn't matter to me. Half of, like, isn't there like a huge Star Wars thing in Fortnite, though? Yes, that might be his only relationship to Star Wars at this point. No, that's not true. He saw the Rise of Skywalker and he liked it. Oh. So.

Well, his brain has been trained by Fortnite. That's what narrative is. It's very true. But, you know, I think where they take Baby Yoda is a tricky thing. Because if you make him too old, people are going to be like, bring back this thing that I love more than Jesus Christ. Yes. Right. And if you keep him the same, you run the risk of it getting stale quickly.

What's the worst thing they could do? with him as a speaking character. Maybe have him voiced by Janice from Friends. I think that would be... Chandler! They should bring back Ahmed Best and have him do Jar Jar Jar's voice. That's right.

For Baby Yoda. No, they can't go wrong. They can't go wrong. I'd like to see Frank Oz do it, though. What if Baby Yoda breaks bad anti-hero? Sounds dope. Peak TV. That's great.

Yeah, that would be tough. Breaking Yoda. Tough from my wife and her ornaments. We're going to take a quick break, and we come back. We're going to go over a couple more things that we loved about this show. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by the Real Real

Own iconic luxury items at Unreal Value with the Real Real, the leading reseller of authenticated luxury consignment from top designers like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Rolex, Cardier, and hundreds more at up to 90% off retail. Shop and consign women's and men's luxury fashion and streetwear, as well as fine jewelry, watches, art, and home. New arrivals come in daily, and every item undergoes the Real Reel's meticulous authentication process. In fact, the Real Real employees over 100 brand specialists, gemologists, orologists, and art curators from around the globe who inspect thousands of items each day to ensure that every item is authenticated.

Shop luxury, the sustainable way. Go online, download the app, or visit one of their stores in Soho or West Hollywood, or the newest location, at 870 Madison Avenue in New York. Consigners, try out the Real Reels White Glove service for free in-home pickup today. Shop in-store online or download the app and get 20% off select. items with the promo code reel. That's the realreelreel.com promo code real for 20% off select items. All right, we are back.

Let's do special shoutouts. Okay. I thought that there were a couple of things I really wanted. I really wanted to just mention that Ludwig Gorensen score. I think it might be the best TV score ever. We're in an interesting time now where TV scores matter. Is Atticus Ross and Trent Rezner? Trent Rezner and Atticus Ross are in the mix now.

And then all of a sudden, now now, now, everything that was filmic, entirely driven by cinema, is moving deeper and deeper into television. This is like one more example of Little bit of Cairanson, like, could have done the score for any movie in the world if he wanted to. He just did Black Panther, and people were like, this guy is a genius. But let's not underestimate the accomplishment here. We're talking about he's getting in the John Williams cage, the octagon.

Yes. You know, Boston Pops Octagon. And he came out on the other side being like, I have a signature piece of music that now, Now I think about this when I think about Star Wars, which is, you know, Amanda talked a lot about the sort of the narcotic hit of John Williams' music over Star Wars visuals on your pod. This is like, I listened to this score outside of the show.

It's like a dope driving around the music. Do you imagine yourself as a, as the Mandalorian? No, I'm an ugnot. I'm just out there putting blogs together. Young Queal. Like I've spoken. I agree. I love the score.

I think it's amazing what they did with it. I'll be curious to see how he charts the course of his career. Does he try to be a John Williams type and secure a kind of like a Disney bag ongoing? Or does he go explore other things? Right. Just get that to splat money. Sure. I'm not sure how much money there is in Alexander Despot, but there's a lot of statues.

There's a lot of Oscars. That's right. Oh, I wanted to mention this too. You kind of touched on this, but the rogues gallery of folks that they had in it. But especially Carano, who you and I are both big haywire guys. Yeah. But I would necessarily imagine the. Gina Carrano was going to be, like, carrying

relatively dramatic scenes? I'm just going to say she's asked to do a lot of acting. Yeah. Which is not really something she's doing in Haywire. She's performing. Yes. But that was like, she was like fresh out of the ring. UFC, big part of this pod. She was fresh out of the ring in Haywire, right? I don't know how I didn't put this together, but Baby Yoda

versus Gina Carrano in the Octagon. That's right. Who you got? I got Donald Gleason, because that's his origin story. He reps that. I thought, I really did want to mention, though, Pally and Sudakis as the stormtroopers on the indoor speeder bikes and just bullshitting when that starts and you're like, what is this going on?

You're like, oh, this is fucking amazing. They're doing clerks. It was clerks. That was what I thought too. It was clerks. It's phenomenal. It was really funny. What's Pally been up to?

Friend of the Watch? He was in a couple of indie movies. I think he's been in and out of some pilots. I don't know. Do you think he should be like full-time stormtrooper? If they, like, why not? Yeah. I mean, those guys obviously would be laid up

if you're going to stick to their characters. Mandalorian broke their arms. We need like a Superstore-esque Star Wars show just about Stormtroopers. Andy and I've been calling for that. Yeah, it's a great idea. Just like the office, but for Stormtroopers? That would be good.

What were some of your favorite moments of the season that didn't involve explicitly Baby Yoda? Because I think Baby Yoda has like the top five, probably. On the serious side, I thought that the whole Werner-Hertzog thing was great. And every time the Mandalorian and the client were having a conversation, I could feel the little hairs on my neck standing up. Not just because I love Werner Herzog, which I do, but because that gave the show some gravitas that I felt like it needed,

and it created a structure for that mission of the week style thing. It was almost like Charlie's Angels a little bit where you would like get a new assignment. That's what I thought was going to happen, you know, yeah. Yeah, and between that and the Carl Weathers character, You felt like there was some of, there was an authoritarian quality that was overseeing everything, which is really what Star Wars is defined by. You know, it's really a story about fascist leadership versus individuated rebellion. And this felt like it was still a part of that. I also liked the sort of light exploration of this is the way and, you know, where this ancient order comes from and all of that stuff, which I felt like was not too difficult to understand.

You know, it did not. it reminded me a little bit of the sort of Valerian steel aspect of Game of Thrones, which like any person could just kind of follow as long as you were just paying attention to the dialogue on the show. Yes. So I dug that stuff. My favorite moment is probably, I think you were alluding to this when you mentioned the Wild Bunch, but just that in the first episode, the IG-11 shootout and seeing sort of the 360 spinning droid, you know, I'm very, as you know, very open to violence.

movies and TV shows. And the more creative, the better. And I just thought that was a really visually creative way of telling that story. They did such a good job of, you know, I sometimes get a little bit annoyed by Chekhov's gun stuff because I think people can become a little bit too cowed by it where it's like, well, we, you know, this guy had this in the first scenes. We've got to finish that beat. This was an example of maybe how Rise of Skywalker could have learned a little bit more from that stuff

where the robot comes back. at the end. And even when they're telling the robot story and you're like, I don't care that you put this thing back together. Like, what are you talking about? And then you're like, oh, like, you're deprogramming this thing, but it still has certain things that it remembers and what's the soul and is it alive?

And is it just matter how much you love something? It was like such elegantly simple storytelling. Yeah, I think it's not just about having a roadmap. It's not just about knowing where you're going. It's not just about writing with purpose. I really

think it's about having like one and or two people doing everything the whole time. A lot of times, a lot of the conversation around JJ, Chris Terrio, Ryan Johnson, JJ before that, Lawrence Kasden. Was it Arndt? Michael Arndt was an album that first script. He wrote the first Force Awakens before JJ came in. Right. That was Luke's lightsaber falling through the sky. There was just a lot of confusion, you know, Colin Travaro being a part of this and then not being a part of it. and all of the ideas at going back and forth and so much corporate storytelling is driven by a too many cooks in the kitchen

kind of problem. This just feels like a couple people who knew exactly what they wanted. Herzog's anecdote about being on set and because they were shooting with these LED screens in the background with these kind of like really fascinating technology, honestly,

where they were able to project what they were shooting against without actually having to be there. So they did, you know, as like Faloni, Herzog, Fabro are on set. They're shooting a scene with Herzog and the puppet

version of Baby Yoda. And they're like, great take. We're going to take the puppet out and shoot a clean slate so that you are interacting with nothing in case we want to put it in with CGI. And he was like, where's the puppet? And they're like, well, we're going to try something out. He's like, bring the puppet back, cowards.

And I love the idea that Favreau, Faloni, and Werner fucking Herzog are all there. But like, they had a laugh about it and it wound up being like Herzog was right but like Favreau's retelling of that story

he's like that was just great shit which is like the opposite of we made a movie to cancel out the past movie but we wish our movie was two parts long but who made this decision we have no idea like was Bob Eiger just in an editing room somewhere or what? I don't think so

I don't know that they fully fully fully knew what they had on their hands with Baby Yoda I don't know that anyone could have predicted and it is Star Wars so it has the potential to get as big as anything in the world, but I'm not totally sure they could have seen this coming. Yeah.

Unfortunately, they didn't capitalize on it at the Christmas season because of all that bootleg. I like it, though. If they had, if Baby Yoda had been in the trailer, if the day after the first episode, we had been inundated with

Baby Yoda T-shirts, Baby Yoda, like, golf towels, I think it would have been annoying. I like the black market nature of it. It feels kind of weirdly organic that way. Enjoy it while you can because it's about to be over. I know.

Because season two is on the way, and they're going to be churning out a lot of shit. When the doors of Galaxy's Edge are actually just giant Baby Yoda eyes. Oh my God. Kaya. Yeah. Baby Yoda approval rating from the McMullen household, one to ten. I think I'm the only person in my family who has watched Mandalorian, but it's a 10 rating from me. 10, right?

Like, rewatch his scenes. So I went to Galaxy's Edge a few weeks ago, and had a nice time. I wish there were a few more rides there. I don't know why they opened it with one ride, which is the same as Star Tours. But I enjoyed myself, but one thing that was most fascinating about it, and I know other people have commented on this before,

but there is essentially a first-order area where the Millennium Falcon is parked. And a Kylo Ren proxy stand-in, like a guy, dressed as Kylo Ren with the mask and everything, walked by us, and like 35, adult men who were just visiting the park

were following him, just following him around. Like doing vlogs? Just, like, fascinated by where he was going next. The Kylo Ren guy? Yeah. Did you look anything like Adam Driver? No, he had the mask on, so you couldn't tell. So we had the cloak, you know, very Vader-esque.

And people were just enraptured by Kylo. Now, this was pre-Rise of Skywalker. Similarly, when I went over to the Jaku area of Galaxy's Edge. Is that where they sell the blue milk? No, they sell the blue milk by the first order. Which is strange. I highly recommend the blue milk.

I know people have been raving about it on this show for months. There was a Daisy Ridley-esque young woman, and there were like 40 people there, desperate to take a photo with her. Which was like a real underlining of the fact that these two characters are like, they just crushed it with us too. They're the ones that popped, yeah. They really just did a great job. But imagine if you put a baby Yoda just walking around

or being pushed around in that hover carriage in Galaxy's Edge. People would riot. People are having a little bit of a hard time understanding whether or not Baby Yoda is real. And I think that speaks to the power of the character and the power of like the puppetry and everything. Are you saying Baby Yoda is not real?

My wife said, I don't ask you for much. It's not true. And she said, she basically was like, if Bill has baby Yoda on the pod, if there's any kind of like baby Yoda appearance at the ringer, like I have to be there for it. And even when I was like,

I'm going to the premiere, I was like, I kind of was just like, this is really cool, I'm going to a star, and she was like, is baby Yoda going to be there? Have you since explained to her what's going on there?

No, I think she gets it, but I think she thinks that like some version of it can be around. You know, I mean, the puppet technically could pop up anywhere. You know what I mean? I know your wife well. I love your wife. Does she have to go to the doctor?

She just loves this character. You know what I mean? She just really wants it to be a thing. My favorite moment's non-baby Yoda. I'm just going to go, the night speeder assault on Tatooim in Gunslinger. I love that. That was great. The Stroblight fight and the prisoner. Oh, I forgot about that. That was sick. That was in the prison? Yeah, that was when

Bill Burr's walking up the hallway. Was that Deborah Chow? I think that one might have. Rick Famia. Okay, I love the way that was directed, that whole episode. And that episode was Star Trek. That was absolutely Star Trek. That was like, there's six Star Trek episode. Why am I on this planet? What's happening? I have a mission. I have to get off. And then the Alamo standoff in Reckoning in Reckoning and Redemption, it started at the end of the seventh episode beginning of the eighth. Yep. And again, Rick Famuioia, like the second episode, which is practically a silent movie,

which I thought was very disorienting the first time I watch it. And now in retrospect, I'm like, this is fucking cool. Yeah, I guess, I guess we forgot to mention maybe the, the best moment in the whole season, which is the mudhorn and the first time baby, Yota, and then falls. And then falls. He uses the force and then falls. That was awesome filmmaking. Any complaints about this show? It's okay, because we, constructive criticism here.

Well, I've certainly read some of the criticism of the show. I don't have such... Have you? Yeah, yeah. Like, what are the many people are saying? That there was like kind of an aimlessness to it, that a mission show in the age of peak TV doesn't make as much sense. You know, the things that I appreciated about it,

I think a lot of people have been trained not to like as much, or to feel like maybe this was like a waste of time somehow. Also, Star Wars being so lower dependent, people feeling like it needs to contribute long term to the grander story of the Star Wars saga. I was not bothered by any of that stuff. You can only do the end of Rogue One once. No. One other thing, I guess, that is not a moment,

but just a highlight is, and you've mentioned it a couple of times, the length of episodes, I feel like is a real innovation. I feel like 36 minutes is so exactly what I've always wanted from a kind of like a light drama. You know, too many shows, obviously we have so much length creep with TV in the last few years. So you either get something that's like 67 minutes or you get something that's like 23 minutes on network television.

36 minutes, for whatever reason, my brain chemistry, really responded to that. Really a not-a-lot of wasted filler. Like, if you watch like an hour-long crime drama or something, I'm thinking of a couple of examples. But think about how many, like, kind of useless overhead drone of a city there are or like day turning to night time lapse photography or whatever, you know, where I'm like, I know that that doesn't account for making something 42 minutes to 59 minutes,

but it's that kind of shit that people put in shows because they, for some reason, are filling out that 60 minutes of time spent watching. This show did not have any of that. There's like a couple of like, hey, here's the new planet he's arriving at. But usually it's because he's arriving or leaving. It's not just like a random like, hey, here's an overhead. shot at this village, just FYI. So I thought that was great.

The only thing I was like, I could ask for more on is the dialogue. Pretty wooden. I guess I understand why. I mean, that's how the Manilaurean speak. But next season could just do it a lot more more Sadacus and Pali. Or just even just like a little bit more action to the dialogue.

I think it needs a little more Elmore Leonard. I think it needs a little more ryeness and its humor. I think that would go a long way. Because when it's Nick Nolte and Pedro Pascal and they're both speaking and in fortune cookies you're kind of like all right you know yeah I had a I had a tough time with the Nick Belty stuff that was not fun

the queal stuff I was just like this is like bad the bad version of regular Yoda it was like all axiomatic aphoristic phrasing spoken with a bad syntax but not funny right here's one thing I wanted to

and I think we've already answered this in a way but after you've seen the Mandalorian what Star Wars story would have been better as a show now that we've gotten to the end of these, what is it, 11 movies with Rogue One and Solo, right? Is there of any of these movies that you're like, shit, I wish we could have treated this like Mandalorian? Well, again, I don't watch this show, but people have said that Clone Wars actually kind of corrects, I guess, some of the problems of the middle trilogy, you know, the prequels, which obviously wasn't a film in the first place. but I've kind of gotten compelled to maybe check out Clone Wars. I feel like I might like it, actually.

It's animated, so you won't be watching it. Is that the one that's like supercomputer animated too? Yeah, well, what does that mean? I mean, like, it looks like very like the way, you know how like on sometimes you could get those videos where you like program the character to say what you want on YouTube? Have you been doing those with Baby Yoda? No, but there was a really funny one, a bunch of years back where,

do you remember Miracle at the Meadowlands 2 when Deshawn Jackson ran that punt back? Yes, I do. remember that. There was one of those somebody made with Tom Coughlin and the punter for the Giants. Uh-huh. And he was like, Jeff, why the fuck did you punt it to Deshawn Jackson? There was no time left on the clock. All you had to do was kick it out of bounds.

Let me assure you that that is not what Clone Wars looks or sounds like. Uh, okay. Just a thought, Favro, you know? No, I mean, as far as movies goes, I think obviously the prequels make more sense as a TV show because that's a show about process and it's like let's better call Saul the prequels. Right. You know, let's show us how the empire actually rises and begins to work. Right. You know, and if you're

so interested in the tax code of the galaxy, which is what those movies are interested in, there's a way to kind of make that interesting. There's a way to make it more like House of Cards. Yes. You know, like how to make the politics of an intergalactic union makes sense. Right.

Maybe that's not the most exciting show in the world, but we have like our Western show here. I think probably a kind of law and order style show with the Jedi council I think

would be pretty cool you know something that shows us like who are the right doers and the wrongdoers in the galaxy that might be interesting

I don't know there's all kinds of Star Wars shows I wish they could just have a do-over on Solo yeah I really

I mean because obviously I think that there are certain elements of solo that are the blueprint for the Mandalorian

the elements of the Western genre the kind of international cartels or interplanetary cartels that are operating

and And I think that that was a movie. I don't think you could get Donald Glover on another show. No. But that was a movie where I was like, man, this would have been a lot better if you had built up Paul Bettany's character over five episodes. Or what about more of a prequel style story with that Woody Harrelson character? Sure. You know, he's another version of, he seems like a genuine influence on Han Solo who Han Solo becomes.

Any lessons that you would take from this show going forward for Star Wars or for, actually for, for other franchises. This show says more to me about where I'm at with TV. Okay. And less about what shows should do. I don't really know how to be prescriptive with television because my relationship to it has changed a lot. Because as you watch more and more movies

as your job TV needs to be more and more of like, it better be good or otherwise. Exactly. I shed things within 12 minutes of the first episode at this point, which I know is not necessarily the best way to do it. And the stick with it through three to five episodes is the new way to think about things. but this show caught me instantaneously,

so that was helpful. But in general, it just gave me something that I know that I love, but I had forgotten I wanted. And there hasn't been a show like this for me for a little while. And so I just love genre storytelling. And I love it when it's done very, very confidently.

Yes. Which sounds kind of abstract. No, that's exactly what I was going to say. I was going to say my lesson is, you guys should make your choices and don't apologize for them. Yeah. I mean, it would be very easy.

And obviously they had already done the series, so I don't think they could have been like, oh, we've got to fix season one because people don't like the way that this is going. But I think part of the reason why I'm so positive about it is in its totality. At episode four or five, I think I was like, this is pretty good.

It's going to be strange if this is just like an adventure of the week and they don't do anything like Star Warsy with it. Right. But this is pretty cool. And in the totality, I'm like, man, I actually feel pretty close to these characters. because I've went on these little trips with them. Yeah, and by the time we got into a jetpack tiefighter duel at the end,

I was like, this is Star Wars. Yes. This is Star Wars, which, you know, it kind of gave me all of the things that I wanted from it, even though it felt like it might have been a little bit aimless in the middle of the season. I really, as you can tell, I just loved it. Okay. I want to ask you about something non-Star Wars really quick before we let you go. So it's obviously award season, Golden Gloves are this Sunday.

And last night I was watching The Report. I think I texted you. You did. And I was like, watching report. There's nothing wrong with it. I was mad because I was like, why isn't this Michael Clayton? You got Adam Driver. You got like peak Adam Driver.

And this is a really interesting and relevant story to America. And they just kind of did the Wikipedia version of it. And they have a lot of cool actors in this movie. And I was just kind of frustrated by it. And I wanted to ask you a little bit as we head into award season about kind of the state of Amazon as a TV company, a movie company. And Netflix is a TV company and a movie company because I was thinking about this. It seems like they're in an interesting, almost bizarre world from one another.

Because Netflix has had a very successful movie year, I think, generally, especially the last couple of months. As you've spoken about in the big picture, you had Irishman marriage story, six underground. It feels like... The two popes. The two popes. The two popes. The two popes.

It feels like every 14 days they have another movie that people are talking about. people are catching up on those movies because they're so readily available, and they're going to probably win some awards. And I would be really interested to know what Six Underground did, but I imagine a lot of people checked it out. Then you got their TV offerings, which there are some really good stuff on Netflix this year when they see us, unbelievable. There was a lot of returning Netflix product that was really good,

like glow in the crown, Stranger Things. But I don't necessarily know that there was a TV show that they made that like popped the way Stranger Things did a few years ago or the Crown did a few years ago. On the other hand, Amazon, very solid TV offerings. You know, catastrophe, fleabag was basically like one of the unanimous shows of the year.

Jack Ryan does very, very well. Undone. It was very interesting. I know you loved it. I discovered it over the weekend or over the holiday and I was blown away by it. But their movie offerings, I think, fell pretty flat. The choices that they made, and especially the splashes that they made

when they went and bought Brittany runs a marathon or late night. This is the whole story that would. You've just underlined it. Amazon acquires, Netflix develops. Okay. Netflix had a very purposeful strategy on the film front, which is we will overpay for the best talent.

We will overpay for Steven Soderberg. We will overpay for Martin Scorsese. We will overpay for Noah Baumbach. Noah Baumack, who, from a business perspective, Alfonso Corrin, from a business perspective, Noah Boundback, his movies have never made more than $20 million at the box office. He's not a draw like that. but he has always been a draw in the press.

He always drives conversation, and he was due for a moment. Yeah. That was a very savvy move on their part. Now, they acquired a Meyer with stories that wasn't developed by Netflix, and then they wanted to continue their relationship with him. And so that movie, and the way it was cast,

and the way that it was marketed over a long period of time, the way that was rolled out of festivals, was expert. It was like you could see that the people that are working there are really smart. Sure.

And they made marriage story into a meme and a cultural moment. The Irishman was always going to be a cultural moment because Martin Scorsese is a great showman and because they put together one of the sort of most historically useful casts in recent memory. And they let him make the movie

the way he wanted to make it for as long as it took him to make it for as much money as it cost. They gave him a lot of money to do it. But the difference is when you buy something, it's done. You know, Amazon went to Sundance and they bought these movies.

Now, I think I like the report more than you do, but I also saw the report at a film festival on a big screen. And I was a truly captive audience. I wasn't looking at my phone. I was locked in, ready to watch it. And it is very Wikipedia, and I don't mean that as an insult. It's just very comprehensive. And that is what I think is its success is its comprehensiveness. Now, whether that makes for great filmmaking is debatable. I just think that the difference here is that specifically on the Netflix movie side, and I can't speak to the TV side as much, there was a lot of intentionality that went into the last 24 months of what they did.

They really, really sought to take over the space and they're really gunning hard for awards. And I don't even know if they're going to win this year. It's weird. I feel like there's a much better chance that like once upon a time in Hollywood or Joker wins best picture at this point now or even Parasite for that matter. Really? It's completely plausible that they get shut out of those categories, despite Martin Scorsese continuing a very strong press run over the last three months today in the New York Times.

But you can just tell when you have all that money and all those smart people working together and then the ability to get, essentially to get the talent to do the work, because Netflix, all they do is just make this stuff. Amazon does 100 other things. You guys talk about it all the time. The purpose of Amazon Prime Video is to get you inside of an ecosystem. Yeah, buy a mop. Yeah.

Come in and buy a mop and pay $100 a month. If I told you that in five years, most of what we think about in terms of Netflix's original programming will be movies, whereas Amazon's are expanse, Lord of the Rings, of Times-style blockbuster shows, and they have essentially that the movie business kind of ceded that. I think Amazon will see the movie business, but I don't think Netflix will make movies their primary focus. Because they need the shows for hours. Yeah. I think that churn is key, and they're fearful of churn at both companies. Yeah. They don't want to lose

subscriptions. And so what I think you'll see more specifically in light of the Mandalorian and in light of Watchmen is the continuing experimentation. with rollout. When shows come, when movies come, and being very targeted about everything. Will there be a time when Stranger Things season 5 is a weekly show? It's possible. It's possible.

Even the people that we know at Netflix, we've communicated to them. This is hard. It's hard for us to gin conversation up five weeks after Stranger Things premieres or two weeks after when they see us premieres because people consumed it and they moved on. For whatever reason, that hasn't been the case,

for the movies, I think because there's a stronger apparatus around movie media culture. Yeah. That continues to talk about things, and it's easier to revisit. You and I just revisited the Irishman together a few nights ago. Yes. We were just sitting together and we just put on the Irishman.

And I was like, man, this movie fucking rules. Yes. And you wouldn't do that with Stranger Things Season 2. No. So they'll continue to make movies, but I... Do you think that Six Underground... Six Underground did not seem to get that slow burn of like accumulation of memes. Now, that might be because of six underground.

Who did you talk to? You? All your fancy friends in Los Angeles and New York. Okay. So like, In Trump's America, is there a diner where they're just watching Six Underground for the fifth time? Probably. Why did Netflix spend all that money on it? Why'd they roll it out right in that prime window in December?

I just want to know what I just can't tell if it's successful. What does that even mean? It's a question that's impossible to answer. I think you and I have been winging about it for. three years now, like what is good. Two years ago, I wrote a pretty nasty column about how bad Netflix movies were. Yes.

Is this back when the rom-coms were coming out? It was right before the sort of the wave of successful rom-coms started to come out. Right. And they released a torrent of them. Oh, Cloverfield, the Cloverfield movie, right after Cloverfield Paradox. It was in that spring. And I was like, man, they're making, like,

They are the most significant producer of films in this country right now. They produce five, sometimes as many as ten times as many movies as major studios. And most of them are immensely forgetable. They're not marketed at all. And they're kind of bad. They really just changed things. They started to spend more money. They brought in studio executives.

They brought in Scott Stuber to be like, hold on everybody. We're going to go to premium talent. That's how we're going to do this. Ted Sarandos now has this identity. in the business as like the godfather of movies. It's like a Louis mayor. Yes. Yes.

And they did that pretty quickly. They hired incredibly smart award strategists. They found ways to work with other companies. You'll notice that like Adam Sandler is in uncut gems, even though he has an exclusive deal with Netflix. How does that work? Is that because Adam Sandler is that powerful? Because it's because Netflix is a good citizen.

It's good for business. It's good for business for Netflix not to be seen as like, we paid through the nose for exclusive Adam Sandler. He's never going to make another good movie. Exactly. And that is smart strategy. And they're just smarter right now. They are smarter.

And they gave Marty whatever, $150 million, $250 million, who knows? And then he fucking pissed on the Joker's grave in the New York Times. Well, he just said he hadn't seen it. And then he got it. Yeah, I got it. Well, what do you think? What do you think it's going to be? Do you think that, see, to me, I don't even think Amazon and Netflix are necessarily the prime players long term.

To me, it's HBO Max and Disney Plus. Yes. Those are the places that have the most IP. out of anybody. And when HBO Max opens up the Warner Brothers vault and when

Disney Plus Blackout ends on Friends and everybody's like that's gonna be an interesting thing is like the amount of time people spend

watching catalog stuff on Netflix once those shows go away and once people are like I guess I'm gonna get the peacock because I want to keep watching office or I guess I'm going to get friends

I'm going to get Max because I want to keep watching friends and by proxy get to watch all the I want to rewatch the Sopranos now I want to rewatch the Wire

now. or whatever. And then I just think that the thing that I found very daunting was the volume that HBO Max was promoting because I was like, I don't know if we could do another

this place also does 150 original pieces of content a year. Like that just seems like at what point can you not get a market share on that stuff? So I think there's a distinction that we should make here because we're not,

this isn't Peter Kafka and Lucas Shaw. No. We're not prognosticating stock price. No, I'm talking about like from a personal emotional fan experience. Exactly. And from the things that we like to watch that we want to talk about, because that's what we do on our shows, on our site, we evangelize the things that we think work really well, and we try to identify things in the culture that are successful. And even if we don't like them, try to understand why. That's not the same as will Netflix win the battle for the streaming services. They're all going to kind of win. They're all corporations. They're going to find a way to work it out. To me, it's more like who's going to have the best stuff long term. The Mandalorian is an indication that they have a good system to make good stuff. Now, most of that stuff will not be a adult-oriented. So we won't be focusing on most of the stuff they make. But when they make a Star Wars show... It's for their base, but their base is big. And I would guess that unlike previous Marvel TV shows

before this, Wanda Vision and... Wanda Vision and Falcon and Winter Soldier, I think, are probably going to end up being really good. And the fact that it was made clear over the weekend that Wanda Vision ties significantly into, I think it sounds like Eternals and then ultimately the Doctor Strange sequel. They're fucking serious about this now. Yeah. We've joked about this on the on the pod before about how, and Sean went through these same wars where you were working at a dot com for a magazine and they'd be like, yeah, sure, you can have five minutes extra with this person

when we're done the photo shoot and you'd be like, this is never going to work. Yeah. Now it would be the equivalent of this person's going to be a dot-com thing that the magazine also gets to do. You will see major developments in these stories taking place on Disney Plus.

You have to watch Wanda Vision, which it sounds like is a mock 1950s sitcom. Yes. It sounds psychedelic. Set in the mind of the Scarlet Witch, who may or may not be losing her mind. That's what people are saying this show is about,

which is one, really high concept. So, kudos to them for trying some weird stuff. And that is also one of the great things about comic books and adaptations of comics. They're fucking strange.

They're so weird. Yes, they're so weird and so you can take more chances. And two, you have to watch every episode of this show to be able to understand the next Dr. Strange movie. I bet you won't, though.

I mean, I'm sure that you, it'll, it'll enrich your experience of the next phase of Marvel movies, but if Mandelorian taught us anything, and we can wrap, you know, like, it's that you can have a very surface level appreciation of something and still get a lot out of it, or you can watch Clone Wars and be like, that is the Dark Saber.

I will now tell you exactly what that means. Let me ask you one question before we go. Yeah. Did you watch The Witcher? No. I didn't. Will you? I'll check it out, I guess, but I don't think I'm going to watch it.

When I saw a couple of reviews being like, man, the Witcher, it's episode three and they haven't introduced the villain. I was like, I don't have three hours to get to the villain. What about Cavill, though? You're not pro-Cabble? I like Cavill and Uncle. Okay. You know, I like Caval when he's just, like, beating up Tom Cruise and falling off a mountain.

Yeah, where's that Disney Plus show? The extended adventures of the guy with the mustache from Fallout. We've got to get a Paramount. We've got to get a Paramount show for that. Sean, thanks so much for coming on the watchman. Chris, I love to be here. All right. Talk to you guys next week.