Upgrade - 172: My Brain Was Slowly Expanding

Episode Date: December 18, 2017

Has Disney changed the future of streaming TV with its purchase of Fox? Has Jason bought himself an iMac Pro? Have Myke and Jason watched “The Last Jedi”? Yes to all of the above. (Don’t worry if you haven’t seen the movie, we’ll save that until the end and fire off the Spoiler Horn before we start talking details.)

from relay fm this is upgrade episode 172 today's show is brought to you by fresh books balance open and encapsular my name is mike hurley i'm joined by jason snell and jason snell our hashtag snell talk question this week comes from richard and richard wants to know jason oasis or Blur? Is there a Kindle Blur? Yay! Thanks for listening, everybody. We're done. Can't get any better than that. That's very good. Very good.

Come on in. Oasis or Blur, which is yours. I could not tell you a blur song and i have sung numerous oasis songs during dungeons and dragons sessions every time uh that somebody casts a spell with like wind wall you know you can figure out what happens then one member of my party did that and then the wind the wonderwall uh covers come out uh oasis yeah not even a question because blur like i don't even did what what is a song from blur but os oasis i could tell you 15 songs so you would know some blur songs i'm very confident uh probably someur songs. But I think that's telling, right? Like literally, I had to look at this and think, oh, they probably mean a band that I don't know. And a band I do know.

I love Blur. But I love Oasis even more. They're one of my favorite bands of all time. I would actually at this point like to do some super out of date follow out. There is an episode of Inquisitive where Federico Vatici came on and we did his favourite album which was

What's the Story Morning Glory by Oasis and it's a great episode because we both adore the album and grew up with it so I think the conversation is really good and I guess while we're doing this, me and Jason also did one too,

and it was Crowded House, right? Yep, that's right. When I met Federico for the first time, when he came out for that Apple event, sort of at the spur of the moment, that we went out to lunch and we walked into the restaurant, him and I, and sat down at a table

and Oasis began playing in the background. And we both looked at each other like, no, really? It was meant to be. It was meant to be. Blur had an album picked on the Incomparable Album Draft. I think Steve Lutz picked Modern Life is Rubbish,

but I don't know anything about Blur. So there you go. Oasis it is then by default. I would like to give my thanks to Richard for his great question. If you would like to send in a question to open the show, just send a tweet with the hashtag SnellTalk. It goes into a document and we'll pick it out for later use. But we have quite a lot to get through today, Jason Snell.

I think maybe actually in case people read the description, I'm just going to say this right now. Okay, at the very end to get through today, Jason Snell. I think maybe, actually, in case people read the description, I'm just going to say this right now. Okay, at the very end of the show today, we're going to be doing a special Mike at the Movies where we will be talking about Star Wars The Last Jedi. Spoilers will happen immediately from when you hear the spoiler horn. It's going to be the last thing we talk about today,

but I just want to let you know up front, you can still listen to the rest of this episode. We won't talk about it at all, but we get there at the end of the episode we're going to talk about star wars the last jedi so you can look out for this today so whilst we're talking about some media stuff uh we heard from a few people about we were talking last time about 4k and and if we'd ever see like over the air 4k and stuff like that there were a bunch of people that wrote in to say that they are that they do get 4k service from cable or satellite providers in various countries some in canada some in the uk yeah i think like rogers or something has a 4k channel and uh it sounds

like it actually reminds me the early days of hd i had direct tv the satellite service here in the us when hd was uh starting and i got an hd tv and an hd receiver and the early days of hd there would be like the hd channel yeah yeah i remember having that yeah right and like there was in the u.s we ended up with like hd net and there was like some other hd channel like that was the one that hd net was the one that literally they had a show every morning that was hd picture of a sunrise from a pretty location for half an hour. Yep. Actual show. And the Olympics, I want to say the 2004 Olympics. I remember they had a channel for that where everything was delayed a day, but it was in HD. And I thought, oh my God,

HD is going to change sports forever, which it totally did because watching sports is way better now. And watching swimmers in the Olympics in HD, where you can see the swimmers in the pool, you used hd where you can see the swimmers in the pool you used to not be able to see the swimmers in the pool they'd just be like you're watching a bunch of blobs going down the pool and now you can actually like see the swimmers in the water and all of that and that was so those were great this reminds me of that where it's sort of like there are some places that are tentatively like we have a 4k channel somewhere um which is cool but i think our larger point stands which is is this is this going to be embraced or are you going to see regular mainstream kind of broadcast and cable channels uh just make no effort to go to 4k anywhere but on an internet

stream and uh i i mentioned game of thrones last week which I think is not available on 4K in any format. But a better example would have been Westworld on HBO, which was just released in a 4K Blu-ray version. So they have a 4K version of that show. But HBO Go, I believe, does not support 4K. So, you know, you have to buy the 4K Blu-ray to get the 4k, which is not a particularly big format. And I just wonder at some point, does HBO say, Oh, no, you can watch 4k Westworld when it comes out, but only on our app, like it's not available on your channel, because your channel is just 1080. But the app will be 4k. And I think it's going to happen. I think that's inevitable

that it'll happen probably soon. I'm actually surprised they didn't do it already but um one of these major show launches somebody like hbo is going to say yep now it's in 4k so enjoy yeah so there's also in the uk um it's called sky q it allows you to watch like ultra hd it's 4k my belief i could be wrong fine if i am i think you have to have an internet connection to watch that, and Sky is a satellite provider, so I think there's some stuff being provided over the internet as well. But I think the point that we

were trying to make still stands, that it is incredibly unlikely there will ever be a transition to 4K over the air, because Rogers is cable, Sky is satellite, I just don't think it's going to happen yeah over the over the air i don't think it's going to happen but even even on cable and satellite i think it's going to be hard um it might happen eventually but you're talking about

like a huge hauling of channels uh up to a new format and the 720 1080 the hd transition was a big deal it sold a lot of tvs it is a dramatic picture improvement 4k hdr is really nice but is it enough to drive the entire infrastructure and that includes people with their tvs and their cable boxes and things to upgrade um you know and and like i said last week my cable company company still has all the SD channels and then the HD channels. So they're still not through the HD transition. At some point, surely those channels just need to go away and they need to say, look, if you want to watch an SD channel, get our box that converts it into an SD picture for your SD TV. Do you have an SD? Who even has that? But still those channels remain, right?

So they aren't even done with that, let alone a 4K transition. And right, as the internet video streaming technology is advancing, it is a hard thing to imagine that any traditional broadcast infrastructure could withstand an upgrade at this point because it feels like it's more likely to go away than it'd be upgraded to 4k we were also talking last week about face id

attention detection and people who only have the use of one eye this is an ask upgrade question we've heard from both andre and eric to confirm that even if you only have the use of one eye face id works as normal, which is amazing, right? I think that's great. I didn't expect that, so I think that's fantastic news. So I'll pass that along. I think it's just a general interesting tidbit of information, but also to answer

Lossy's question. In our media follow-up segment, which I think is going to continue for quite a while, Apple have ordered another TV series. It is a sci-fi drama from Ronald D. Moore, who is the current showrunner of Outlander. He's also worked on a host of Star Trek series as well, and I think he has an Amazon series.

He's doing Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams. I think he was the showrunner or writer on that as well. You can correct me if I'm wrong, Jason. This new show that is being ordered for Apple is set to take place in a world in which the space race never ended i am immediately interested in this i love that premise because it's like kind of modern day history type stuff which which i do enjoy um this apparently according to deadline is the first series order from Van Amberg and Ehrlich to the two

Sony executives that joined Apple. So this is their first series order. All the other stuff had been ordered by the other people that had worked on it. And these three, more Van Amberg and Ehrlich, have worked together in the past, other Sony projects. So, this is an interesting pairing, and I think a very

interesting conceit for a series. In my research in this, I couldn't find out if it was how many seasons Apple had ordered, which makes me assume it's one. Yeah, it sounds like it's a no pilot. So it's direct to series, which is still a big jump. But the idea there is that it takes a lot less time than if you shoot a pilot and edit a pilot. And then everybody watches it and says, oh, this is pretty good. Let's go to series. And then you order the series. And they everybody watches it and says, oh, this is pretty good. Let's go to series.

And then you order the series. And they're trying to cut some corners here to get this thing out. And so they go to Ron Moore and they say, we'll make you a deal where you don't have to make us a pilot. And probably that idea was being shopped around by his agents, right? And people were bidding on it. And Apple came in and said, we'll just give you an order for it. We're not going to even make you. And maybe somebody else also did that and

didn't say we want a pilot we'll we'll pay for a pilot probably amazon i would expect considering they're already working with him i mean who knows it's possible but um but what for whatever reason perhaps money apple won the day on this well or just to work with people he's worked with before right like there's there's probably quite a lot of incentive there. Sure. And I think this is Apple doing what we said they would do, which is find creators who have a track record. And the show that I think you didn't mention is Outlander. Did you mention Outlander? I think so.

That's the show that he's currently running. And, oh yeah, you did mention it. It's like Battlestar Galactica, Outlander, and of course he worked on Star Trek, Next Generation and Deep Space Nine for years. He's got a good track record. Battlestar Galactica, a real high level, you know, critically acclaimed.

Well, everybody was impressed with his work on that show. And Outlander has actually done pretty well for stars here in the US. So yeah, so he's doing a, obviously a space show of some sort or other alt history kind of thing um really interesting idea and again what apple gets from that is right out of the gate they've got a high concept with a well-known creator that's the kind of stuff that they want to in order to um make it clear that they're serious about what whatever it

is they're doing i see this this one, you could get some, I would expect actually some really interesting names to be eventually attached to this, like a modern history piece playing a world leader. Like I think you could probably entice quite a lot of interesting actors and actresses into these roles. So I reckon this is going to be a pretty interesting one for them, especially with it only being a one season commitment initially, right? It makes it easier, I guess guess for people to jump on well i mean it depends because if if it's uh if you're committing to a series unless they're planning on killing off

your character they're probably going to make you sign a deal with options for for many years and uh you know and we we don't know the details it's possible that my guess is that unless any of these things bombs that that apple's going to be like amazon was in the early days where it literally didn't cancel anything because they just want to keep the ball rolling and keep building their catalog rather than replacing. And Netflix is canceling shows now, but for years they didn't do that. So yeah,

it's a really, it's another really interesting wrinkle in this Apple video service thing. It's going to continue. There'll be more creators. And as you pointed out more actors like that, that's the next part is they'll start casting like we know reese witherspoon and jennifer aniston are in that other show because they're producing it and they're going to be in it but like this show will have presumably you know we would not be surprised if they had some fairly recognizable names as performers in it too and that gives them another little publicity burst

names as performers in it too and that gives them another little publicity burst yeah i think with the with the frequency at which we are talking about this i am expecting whether it's next year 18 months or whenever it is this service launches that apple is planning to launch it with multiple brand new shows would be my expectation because they are signing a lot in a close period of time so i mean i don't know what their production schedules are but i would expect that they're not looking to like launch this service with just one original show it probably be a small handful would be my expectation it's got to be a collection of them because they want to have uh well plus one of the theories is that perhaps it will launch for everyone that they'll do like they did with Apple Music, where they're going to launch it and make it available for anyone to watch for a free period. And then you'll pay.

And if that's true, then they're going to want stuff that's impressive in the free period. They're going to want stuff that rolls into the not free period. None of these shows is going to do even 22 episodes, right? They're all going to do short seasons, which means you're going to need multiple shows at any given time. And then they're going to have to come in waves throughout the year. They can't just show all the shows for three months and then say, well, no more shows for another six months. Come back later, right?

It's going to be rolling thunder throughout the year, which means you need a lot, like HBO has, like whatever 20 original series that HBO is rolling out over time. There may only be two or three at a time, but they're rolling out the whole year. Apple's going to have to do that if this service is going to be valuable. Hey, Apple, if you're looking for a TV adaptation of a great podcast, just give us a call. I hear that everybody wants to adapt podcasts into TV shows. You could be at the head of the line here.

We're ready. Just give us a call. Summer of fun. Summer of fun starring Jason and Mike. We could go on a road trip. That could be it. It could be a road trip podcast called The Summer of Fun. There we go.

That's the pitch. Just give us a call. Okay. Amazon is selling the Chromecast and the Apple TV again. Listings for both products have appeared. The Apple TV was expected. This came with the, I think, with the news that the Prime app would be arriving, that Amazon would begin to sell the Apple TV again. But we've been talking about the last couple of weeks, the very tumultuous situation between Google and Amazon. And one of the things that Google was looking for was Amazon to be selling the Chromecast

as their way to try and patch over the bad blood that has risen between them. And it looks like something's happening because Google is going to be selling the Chromecast again. So maybe this could be the start of some kind of reconciliation to stop YouTube being ripped off the Fire TVs. Who knows? Yeah'll we'll see i i know when i go there to those links so the verge reported this when i go to those links now it says currently unavailable yeah they said that okay so this is the thing they are

currently unavailable but they never were available but these listings weren't there before so like these currently unavailable listings have been let us know when when it becomes available so yeah that is it is suspicious right yeah and the apple tv the same way apple tv currently unavailable and we know those are going to be available so maybe this is the start of putting that stuff together um i hope so i was having some good conversations with this my uncle's very interested in technology a big family thing over the weekend we were talking about it like because he he noted to me that the echo show was a heavy discount and i was like well no surprise right like they don't have any video services on it in a few weeks yeah but it was it was just interesting like to because he gets it right he understands this stuff

but we're just talking about like if you own products, it's just so frustrating to wake up one day and one of the biggest reasons you own it just doesn't exist anymore. I really hope that they find a way to sort this out rather than making their users suffer. And just before we finish follow-up today, thank you so much if you voted in the upgradies. We are very confident that this is going to be one of the best upgradies yet. And we had

way more submissions than I expected. It was a significant amount of people of the upgradians, Jason, that voted. I'm actually going to bring up the list now to give you the final count of submissions that we had. The Google Sheet is loading incredibly

slowly. We had 745 upgradians. of submissions that we had. The Google Sheet is loading incredibly slowly. Oh, no. We had 745 upgradings submitted, folks, in the upgradies, which is about three times more than I expected. So thank you so much. If you were one of those people, your voice has been heard, the results have been tallied, and the upgradies, the fourth annual upgradies will be

coming to you on January 1st. So thank you for that. Isn't that an incredible number? 745 people. That's great. So thank you. Thank you for taking the time. Yes. All right. Today's show is brought to you by FreshBooks. Hey, freelancer, you know how important it is to make smart decisions for your business, right? Sure you do. Our friends at FreshBooks can save you 192 hours with their cloud accounting software because it's so easy to use. By simplifying tasks like invoicing, tracking expenses, and getting paid online, FreshBooks has hugely reduced, drastically reduced, the time it takes for their over 10 million customers to deal with their paperwork.

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of this show. Disney have bought 21st Century Fox. Wow. I heard about this and thought about it and over the space of a day like i felt like my brain was slowly expanding trying to understand the ramifications of this huge so let's just assume for the sake of this conversation that this deal will go through right because there there are many stumbling blocks for something like this including legal ones let's just assume that it's going through i think it makes the

conversation more interesting that way sure um and i want to try and clarify and you can probably help me exactly what it is that they've bought so it seems like disney is just buying most of the entertainment stuff right that like fox news and the sports stuff is not going to be theirs and that's not entirely that's not entirely quite right it's fox broadcast so all the channels the tv channels that they own and the network that they own in the U S is going to remain with the Murdoch family as is their national sports and news channels. So FS one, FS two Fox news channel, Fox business channel,

those all are going to remain. And there are some competitive reasons for that. Like this would not ever be approved if the owner of espn also owned fox sports one okay like that's not gonna or the owner of abc owned the fox television network right like those are those are um lined up too perfectly and would get knocked down in an antitrust uh ruling is so they're not gonna even try plus i think the murdodochs want uh that they view that as being kind of more in line with their traditional kind of newspaper background of like then they've got these you know the news channels and the broadcast channels although there's real open questions

one of the ramifications of this uh is uh what that means for a fox tv network that no longer has a studio attached to it because the whole way modern tv networks are built is that they're all owned by the same companies that own tv studios that make programming and so you know they one hand pays the other hand right it's all integrated and uh this fox network's not going to have that at least at the start and that's um that's weird so so yeah so anyway those are we can get into more of the details in a little bit, but those are the pieces that are staying. But the Fox studio and a bunch of other stuff, including their regional sports networks,

which is why we have to make a distinction between that. There are a bunch of channels in local markets in the US that show baseball or basketball or something that are owned by fox that that disney wants so i guess but like most of the stuff that you see on tv if it's news and sports is going to become its own entity that's not owned by disney right it's going to become fox broadcasting yeah and still be controlled by the murdoch's yeah and the tv network there's an interesting tidbit that I saw in the Variety article on this. 21st Century Fox is currently trying to...

They own a large stake in Sky TV. It was previously Murdoch's thing. It spun out and now they're trying to get it back again. If 21st Century Fox succeed in taking over Sky, Disney would then take it. Which is

wild. Because in this country, you have terrestrial television which is free, which is paid for by the TV license. That includes a bunch of over-the-air channels, which you don't need a TV license for, but everybody can get those. It's the way that our digital works. We used to have five channels,

then it got expanded when we went from analog to digital. Outside of that, we have like two and a half providers of television. One of those is Sky. I say half because one of our telephone networks, BT, has some channels,

but it's nothing really. They just have some sports stuff that people like to watch and a couple of original shows, but they're not a player. We have Sky and we have Virgin. And even then, when it comes to television

pretty much the only one that anybody goes for is sky tv because they have everything right disney would own a huge portion of television in this country like that's right that is wild to me that they would own that um again it's like i don't know if the european union have to okay this but like for as long as the european union are in control which would still be at the point that this is happening most likely maybe i would be very interested to see what they have to say about this because it's like it's weird but anyway let's get into some of the more interesting parts i want to talk about some of the properties uh that disney will now own right they get a huge stake in hulu their stake in hulu goes up to 60 at the same time

that they are also launching their own streaming service so i guess all the streaming services for disney uh national geographic and fx and all the programming that they produce and then from just an idea of properties fantastic four deadpool and x-men all come back to marvel avatar yep and all of the upcoming avatar movies the simpsons which is the one that blows my mind the most mickey mouse and the simpsons that's right i saw somebody joking about his online like but it's i guess it's kind of true that march becomes a disney princess i guess like how is that gonna work um sure the vampire slayer yep futurama x files too yeah the x files family guy disney owned all this right if they if they buy fox that's that's exactly what happens it's

a huge it's a huge library of content um including pieces of the marvel thing i mean again the comic book nerd part of me is excited by the idea that the fantastic four could appear in the marvel cinematic universe but let's let's be honest because i've seen people are like oh you should never talk about that this is more serious than that it's like it is a super serious story with huge ramifications for how entertainment is consumed in the 21st century yep but i will reserve a small amount of my um of my brain excited about this for for thinking what would it be like if the fantastic if galactus showed up in in avengers 4 like that's uh anyway i i just i put it out there as a consumer of content you can be excited about some of the ramifications of this i think right where like x-men and the

avengers can come together right like there is something exciting about that is something that we wanted to happen but yes at the same time you can also fear the fact that one company owns everything you care about a huge amount of a huge amount of stuff now um yeah and there's a question this is something that we actually talked about with apple when we had that conversation about um apple supposedly wanting uh you know family friendly material it should be able to be played apple tv shows should be able to be played on the big wall at the apple store so you know no nudity no grotesque violence things like that and and there's a question of like what's apple's media brand well disney is a good example of this too that disney is going to need disney we think of disney and we think of mickey mouse right we think of disneyland and

mickey mouse and family friendly and squeaky clean the fact is disney is a an enormous entertainment conglomerate that is not just walt disney and animation and pixar but it's marvel and it's espn and abc right like there's more there and abc and and all of these things and if they buy this this they're going to be you know basically 20th Century Fox as well. And there's a question of the branding there. But I would imagine that to a certain extent, they'll probably keep it because they're going to want to create brands or use existing brands for different purposes. And this is the important thing, is that I don't think FX and FXX, the cable channels in the US that have much more adult fare on them,

are going to suddenly be held to the standard of a Disney brand for family-friendly entertainment. Because that would be a colossal waste of their money to buy these things if they can't use them because they don't want them you know let's make it's always sunny in philadelphia squeaky clean it's like it's not gonna happen it's not gonna happen you're the worst always sunny yes owns you're the worst one of my favorite shows which is not family friendly at all so it's like 20th century fox like that brand is what it is like i don't even attach it to fox

in my brain like it's not in my brain they are like a wholly separate things yeah so so this this is the beauty of the branding right is that fox fox content will be fox content and disney content will be disney content they'll be owned by the same company but that gives them the freedom to say and this is where it comes into streaming too so you mentioned hulu they're gonna own 60 of hulu there's a real question about whether comcast which owns 30 of hulu is the way hulu is structured all the principles have on the board have to agree before there are major decisions made so if they wanted to just turn hulu into a completely their own thing um comcast would

either have to go along for the ride or would have to sell out because if they if they put their foot down and say no no no we don't want hulu to become another disney streaming service comcast can stop them um and then 10 is owned by time warner cable which is or by time warner which is at&t now or something like that it's it's yeah anyway it's they don't get to vote they just have 10 so um there's hulu uh they also bought bam tech which is major league baseball's advanced media uh streaming tech which is the most advanced like video streaming platform around and streams hbo go and streams all the sports in the u.s and just all this stuff. And Disney owns a majority of that now. They bought that out from Major League Baseball. So they have huge streaming

infrastructure investments, both Hulu and BamTech. They've already announced that they're doing two streaming services. They're going to do an ESPN branded sports streaming service, and they're going to do another streaming service. espn branded sports streaming service and they're going to do a uh another streaming service i'm not sure if they've said what what exactly it'll be branded but the implication there is that like marvel and disney and pixar might end up there i think you look at this and think well they will probably do another streaming service or or they'll they'll for for for fx or for fox content or something that's more adult um oriented and less sort of family entertainment action adventure kind of stuff and and why and

you and you say to yourself for streaming services sounds ridiculous it's like yeah but for tv channels doesn't and this is where television is going right television is going to break down all the old broadcast channels are going to be for an increasingly older audience who's using traditional means of accessing TV. And everybody else is going to cut the cord and just subscribe to video services over the top, at which point you're just going to pick and choose what three video services or four video services do you want to subscribe to? Andney's going to be out there and say we got a sports thing for you we got this we got this uh family thing for you we got the the fox package for you take your pick or bundle them together and save money and like they're i really believe that that is what they're doing here is they are planning this is

a huge move that is planning for the future of Of streaming video. Because they want. Not only all the channels. They want all the content. And they have this huge library of content. That we've talked about. That they're going to own. And they're going to be able to. Not only put it on their own services.

But pull it off of everyone else's services. Which is why. When I look at this deal. I start to feel for Netflix. And Amazon to a certain extent. Although it's hard to feel too much for amazon because they've got so much money but um i start to feel for netflix but netflix knew this is coming this is why netflix spends so billions and billions of dollars on original content every year they knew they were eventually going to lose this netflix knows they need to build up a library of stuff that they own because they're going to

lose everything else and Netflix is going to stop being it already is starting this down this path it used to be everything on Netflix was made by somebody else and then it was sort of rerun on Netflix and some of that will still happen but in large part Netflix is planning for the day where they're like HBO they've got a they've got their own content that they make and you subscribe to Netflix for that they just raise their price like that's where they make, and you subscribe to Netflix for that. They just raise their price. Like, that's where they're going. They're going to be a premium content channel, basically, like HBO, where you buy Netflix for Netflix originals, not because there's old episodes of The Flash on it, right?

And that's The Flash not owned by. That's the Warner Brothers. It's the other entertainment conglomerate giant out there that is not owned by that's the warner brothers it's not the other entertainment conglomerate giant out there that is not uh owned by disney so yeah that's the that's the interesting thing here is you get to the situation where um disney's saying we don't want netflix or amazon between us and the customer i'm bob eiger the uh the chairman and ceo of disney said this in the press release and in the conversations afterward when they announced this deal who is sticking around now like he's going to be what is, 2020, 2021, something like that? Yeah, my understanding is that one of the conditions of the deal, it sounds like, from Rupert Murdoch was that he wanted Bob Iger to not retire and see this deal through. And Bob

Iger had been saying he was going to retire, and everybody was skeptical of that. But now he's just, he's agreed he's not going to retire for a while. But anyway, one of his statements was, you know, our goal is to reach the customer directly like that's it period so they're going to have a huge entertainment library they're going to find ways to connect people to it where you will give disney money for their content directly they will no more um no more middlemen basically they want they want the whole relationship I got to say, that's going to happen everywhere. I'm actually a little surprised that nobody has just bought Netflix yet, or that Netflix hasn't bought anyone yet, because I feel like this is, and I'm not saying that this is good, but this is where it's going. Disney is now going to be potentially a huge huge player in this market

it's going to be very hard for um some of these other uh channels to compete and and and then who knows about hulu hulu may remain this weird kind of uh neutral zone where stuff gets dumped or it might just get repurposed into being that you know that brand that they use for a bunch of the Fox content. I don't know. But the world of streaming is about to completely change. These little feints with CBS All Access as CBS trying to do the same thing, right? We want to go direct to our customers. That is just the first little hint of what's about to happen, which is all these studios are just going to build their own services and go direct and leave Netflix out in the cold. What else? What else is left? And do you think they're going to buy anything else uh i'm i'm not sure after if they make this deal i'm not sure what else they can buy

in terms of uh in terms of big things because they will be so who owns dc that's warner that's the other one they straight up own dc yes yeah d, DC Comics. DC Entertainment is a wholly owned and has been for years, for decades, like 40 years, owned by Time Warner, Warner Communication, back when it was just Warner.

So they're owned by AT&T? I'm very confused. No, not yet. Okay, okay. Not yet. So the other thing I wanted to mention here is sports stuff, which is, like I mentioned, ABC is out there, the broadcast channel, but Disney owns ESPN.

By buying ABC, they also bought ESPN. ESPN, huge sports brand in the U.S. They also now are going to have Fox's regional sports network. you start to see a sports streaming service, which they've already announced, kind of shape up where they acquire rights to various sporting events and leagues and things, and they package them together. And the idea here is you may be able to buy your favorite team's games over the top via some way or other.

But in theory, if you like sports, you probably like more sports than just the one. And a package of sports is going to be valuable to you. And they're building that too. And one of the funny things about sports is sports isn't for everyone, especially when we talk like we do now to a very tech audience. There's definitely a big portion of the audience who's like, oh, sports. I hate sports.

There's a lot of tech people who don't like sports, but there's some of us like me who do. But sports, live sports is a big deal because it is super exclusive and you want to watch it live. You don't want to wait and watch it later. You want to watch it right then. It's got a lot of power and value and the people who want to see it will pay for it and so sports is going to go in an interesting direction where a lot of stuff is going to go into a package like this and they're making a play there they they figure they've got this espn brand that's really powerful and so what if they use that to build like the default if you want to watch sports in america you buy espn streaming and that's that's it period that

seems to be another thing that they're they're after here so i don't know i don't know whether it'll all work and it's a it's complicated and they've got competitors um but but this is a deal that happens because i think more than anything else because of the future of streaming and for the content library i'm actually a little surprised that they're buying the studio i mean i guess they have to buy the studio but i think disney is less interested in the studio because they have their own studios although it gives them capacity to to make more stuff i mean star wars has done very well for them right like marvel has done very well for them right more properties disney owns and if they handle them correctly the better it seems to be yeah and that and one of the criticisms of this deal is similar which is disney is very focused on

a smaller number of releases and they're all big franchise releases whereas fox actually has fox searchlight they do some things that are lower budget and that are not huge franchises. Disney may stop doing that or they may continue and say that is also a market we want to serve. to marvel studios and they take avatar or some of their other franchise stuff and set up a a part of fox that is just like this franchise incorporated or do they go to lucasfilm and say we want you to expand and and uh and also start making avatar movies or something i don't know i mean probably not but like those are the options on the table for them is do they structure this business when they take it over as being more siloed like Disney and Pixar and Marvel and Lucasfilm and create like other little story centers which focus on a particular set of brands and that's all they do? Or do they say, and we'll have this big bucket that's Fox that'll do some Foxy stuff, right? I don't know. It's a huge problem.

It will be a very complicated thing. A lot of people are going to lose their to generate out of the Fox side of the business for other studios to step up and create more content. I'm also, as I said earlier, kind of baffled about what's going to happen to the Fox network, because the whole game now, if you're NBC, you buy your shows from Universal because that's the same company. Universal produces most of the shows on NBC, not all, but most. And you're double dipping there. It's profits because you're paying yourself. You have the interest in the long-term success of the show plus the short-term on the network. It's like this vertical integration. It is the way

everybody does it. And that's why your favorite show, if your favorite show on your favorite TV network is owned by the network and produced by the network, it is far more likely to survive. But if you've got like a Fox show on ABC and they're looking at canceling shows, they're going to be more likely to cancel the Fox show because what do they care? They don't own it. They only broadcast it. So Fox Network now has no studio if this goes through. Are they going to set up a studio?

Are they just going to buy? What channel do they have left? Well, Fox Broadcast. I mean, this is the thing is they are a primetime network in the United States. They have ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and CW. So they've got a network to program. And a lot of the shows on their network

are existing shows that will go to Disney, like The Simpsons and Family Guy and The X-Files. And the list goes on and on and on, right? Over time, are they going to keep paying Disney to make those shows for them? Will Disney even let them? Well, I mean, they're going to keep paying disney to make those shows for them will disney even let them well um i mean they're going to be really attached with a fox brand and disney's still going to own them and you know it probably uh to a certain extent because they're they're going to want the fox to pay them money for these shows that they used to own that's pretty good well

i mean until the point that disney is selling them to you directly right like through their app well yeah it's possible although my guess is that there are contracts that say like they that they have the right to keep renewing um the simpsons forever and if they keep picking up that option the simpsons will go on forever and disney will just have to keep making it for fox but for a lot of money that fox will be writing checks like back to disney to pay them to pay them back for for having bought their stuff from them it's weird yeah that's so unfortunate so i've seen some speculation this is the fox network in the u.s could end up being like sports and reality shows and new specials and just like no entertainment anymore which seems extreme but it's not extreme to think that it might be way reduced from what it is now stuff that's cheap because they won't have a network yeah well and and that doesn't require a studio development

right and like doing more reality tv shows is um is something you can just contract out for and and put it on your network and i don don't know, it's a big thing. This is going to change a lot of things in a lot of ways if it's approved, because it is such a wide ranging deal. And it's going to have impact on all of us, especially in the US. But I think, as you pointed out, this is also a way for Disney to expand its tendrils overseas. And Disney fancies itself a worldwide brand, and it's going to have all this content. overseas and disney is it fancies itself a worldwide brand and it's going to have all this content and so you know they're going to be crafting packages of content that they're going

to want to sell directly to us and that's all going to be you know they'll they'll still make things available on cable and satellite and stuff for traditional tv but this is about building new products for this next century for us to pay them for instead of or in addition to amazon or netflix there there are like in my mind just huge implications if disney are able to buy sky here right like yeah imagine disney owning your television provider like yeah that is i don't have i don't have to mike because nbc owns my television provider well there you go comcast what that's like then yeah i guess uh it's it's wild it's really wild and yeah so this whole thing it means why i knew i needed to talk to someone about it and you were the person uh and

and i think that like this stuff becomes so much more applicable to technology as it goes in as it goes along because it's all about technology now right like these companies are doing this because they want to be on the internet and they want to own it themselves and it's it is this one was just it's absolutely wild it is this big this is bigger than when they bought marvel and star wars right like this is bigger than that yes oh yeah oh yeah by far because if they said like we're buying the simpsons that probably would have been on a similar level to we're buying marvel or we're buying stuff like just the simpsons right because like that is huge it's probably the most successful television show of all time that's a few billion dollars but this

is 52 billion so yeah lucasfilm was like yeah yeah, yeah, a few billion. Pixar, a few billion. This is all the money. How much money you got? All the money. All right. Today's show is also brought to you by Balance Open. Balance Open is a free open source Mac app for checking Coinbase. Now, why would you want to check Coinbase? Well, Coinbase is a popular marketplace for cryptocurrencies.

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right like very different again they also had an event in new york which a bunch of people went to and were able to talk about their like hands-on experiences so kind of like the iphone right like it's different yeah it's uh youtube and uh and developers and other pro-level people, video editors. And so what they wanted to do is they wanted to go with some testimonials. And I would say why YouTubers this time is different. Why YouTubers this time is because YouTubers care about video. And I think not only are they capable of making good videos about the iMac Pro,

but they also care because they are the customers for the iMac Pro in large part because they have to deal with video. But also developers and other professional level people. And they got seeded with units with an embargo. And then were encouraged to talk about it. But like literally like Cable Sasser just did a Twitter thread. That was it. He did like seven tweets. That was the whole thing.

And it was great. And they also had this a pr event my understanding is they had pr events in new york and in cupertino although nobody talked about the one in cupertino but i believe they had one there i didn't go i i didn't get invited to this one um and it's again they had like had people talk about the product and you could look at the product but i don't believe most of those people if any of those people got it, right. They just,

they got to see it and talk to people who had used it. And then they left. Like Renee Ritchie didn't check an iMac pro into his flight back to Montreal and Roman Loyola at Mac world got to go see the, the dog and pony show. But like he, he, he doesn't have an iMac pro either.

So, and some of that is, I think severe product constraints, it's still coming out and, um, yeah, it's just different. So, so we end up at, we're in this weird situation where kind of all we have even now is a very select group of people who were in that seed. And even the press coverage that followed weren't really reviews right they were like hands-on yeah um not much different than i mean we didn't get to do hands-on at wwdc because the product wasn't really real it was kind of running a loop and we could walk around it but

that's about all we could do and this was like the equivalent of okay well now you've got your hands-on area you can look at it and poke it and poke it and ask it questions and stuff like that. Hello, computer. But that's it. That's all. I mean, I may argue that this one doesn't need a lot, right? People that want this machine are going to get it. They just want to know the specs and the Geekbench scores now, right? is that one thing that Apple didn't do, as far as I can tell, is cede this to a bunch of people who are going to give it the...

Well, let me rephrase this. I think Apple struggles sometimes with how to reach a pro audience, which is funny because Apple used to be all about that. But Apple is totally not about that now. And the pro audience is not the consumer audience. And I think that there is sometimes a struggle within Apple about how do you, they've gotten so good at reaching a consumer audience and then you get a pro product

and sometimes they want to market it as a consumer product. Like even though they know it's a pro product, they use their tools of marketing consumer products to market a pro product they use their tools of marketing consumer products to market a pro product and uh so how do you reach the people who want to use this product um getting people who are like them to try it out and talk about it is one way and they did that which i think is really interesting i am i guess a little surprised that they didn't make an effort to find a handful of people like like shouldn't

i'm going to use gruber as an example like if there's anybody who's got like the hardest core people who use apple products and the hardest core like um not the consumer market but people who really really really care somebody like john grber is a good example of that. Like, wouldn't you want him to write about the experience and show some Geekbench scores and other stuff? The counter argument would be that there's nothing in his workflow that requires an iMac Pro. And so he's qualified to talk about it from an audience perspective, but not necessarily the kind of person who would actually use

the features of the product and be able to talk about them. And this is the challenge in general. Who do you find who has an audience that is the right audience and also has the experience? And that's why I think they go to some of these video editors and scientists who were able to write these amazing things about this. So I get it. I get the strategy, but it's a hard one. Like it's, it's actually a hard one. There used to be whole media organizations that specialized in covering high-end creative hardware, right? But they don't exist anymore. The fact is they don't really exist anymore. Not, not, not that many of them, if, if any. And mostly it's just like a person somewhere. So this was, yeah, I get why they did it this way.

It's a little bit different and a little bit weird, but I get it. I'm intrigued by it myself because I am now, and Stephen Hackett and I talked about this last week, just not on a podcast, just personally. Wait, what? I know, right? How do you talk and not record it and release it as a podcast, just personally. Wait, what? I know, right? How do you talk and not record it and release it as a podcast? Because he does a lot of video for his YouTube channel and he and I and you,

a lot of people we know do a lot of audio stuff. And so we actually do have the opportunity to use this stuff. And so I'm intrigued by what kind of a difference this new hardware would make versus like I've got a three-year-old 5K iMac and it's great, but this thing is going to be um you know not these these are not the usual like next year's model is is five percent faster next year's model is four percent faster next year's

model after that is three percent five five percent six percent faster this is like 40 to 60 faster on some stuff like it's it's a big jump like it's not cheap but it's a big jump too from like a high-end iMac let's talk about the product a bit um um what can you buy right now right because it's not all available right now you can't buy every configuration can you I I don't you know I don't know the details of it i can tell you that it sounds like there are some that are shipping now and there's some that are not shipping now because you can't get the 18 right yeah the 10s and the 8s you can't get the 18 right now so there's for whatever reason that's coming next year yeah i mean and and some of them you order them and it's for

four to six weeks out it's fine yeah so you know and then there's a bunch of different options right you got like so what is the upgradeability like in your opinion like if you've looked at this stuff they have a vast array of things i mean you can get one up to like 13 grand you know you can play that fun game i love to play that game right where you just like tick every box right include every accessory and get it up to like000. But in there are a bunch of different configurations. Kind of what has been your take on what's available and the pricing for all of these? Well, the pricing seems, you know, it's all about perspective. It's a computer that starts at $5,000.

So like right there, 95% of people are out because you don't need a computer that... My father-in-law asked me last week, he said, I need to buy a new iMac. Should I buy the iMac Pro? I was like, oh God, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Right? I mean, nobody needs this thing.

There's a very small group of people who need this. And that's where it starts. And then it goes up rapidly from there. I've heard, like Mark Arment was saying, that he's really enamored of the 10 core model. Cause it sounds like the 10 core model has a really good single core performance. It seems like a, and, and of course 10 cores, um, that it's a good balance, but of course that's a, you gotta, you gotta pay that much more in order to, um, in order to get there. So, um, it, it sounds like, you know, this is an expensive computer that uses expensive parts. And it is every single one of these steps is going to ascend you further and

further into the stratosphere of price from, you know, it's like climbing Mount Everest, you're already starting at a pretty high altitude at $5,000. And then it goes up from there. So I don't know, I i mean for me personally like if i was going to get one of these which i probably am um i did order one um the base model like i can't justify i think any more than just give me the base model because the base model is probably a little too much for me but it's so much more than the than just buying a new imac that i think it might be worth doing to to pay the extra and get that much more power. So in regards to upgradability,

it's basically none, right? Like it's after the fact. Once this thing has arrived in your home, the most you can do, I believe, is get RAM changed at an authorized service center, right? Either an Apple store or a service provider. But that service center, right? Either an Apple store or a service provider, but that's it, right? Who knows, right? I mean, a lot of Apple products come out and then it turns out, well, that's a custom SSD module, but we can reverse engineer it and build new SSDs and

pop it out and put a new one in. Some of that happens, but it sounds like right out of the box, there's no RAM slot. And everybody's like, like oh no the ramp's not upgradable and apple said well it actually is it's not user replaceable we didn't bother to build in a door but anybody who does service can basically it sounds like take off the back and put a new ram like it's not there's a slot it's not it's not soldered on or anything there's a there's a slot and it's allowed and you can do it and they said it's not even like apple only it's apple authorized service basically or avoids i guess avoids your warranty or something like that but basically yes any tech who is authorized can pop it open and put in new ram it's just not meant to be user upgradable where

you you know get out your screwdriver and pop open the door and stick in ram modules yourself and once people were able to well once people got these things right the people that did it was discovered that there is a processor inside of these called the t2 what is that well i mean we don't know but the t1 was on the touch bar and that was the arm processor that everybody said was basically an Apple watch processor. And it sounds like the T2 is basically an A10, although, because the rumors were there was an A10 in it and that's not quite right. Um, so I guess, you know, this is, this is the hybrid Mac like phase two. And there's a real question about where they're going from here, but this is a, this is a Mac with an arm processor and the arm processor is doing a lot of stuff it's doing security stuff it's controlling the webcam um it is replacing a lot of uh like the the startup uh hardware

firmware um all of that stuff is being rolled into this so when you start up it's verifying you can you can set encryption on a system level at startup um you know it's a lot of stuff that they are building into this processor to do a lot of the load that used to be done by custom components or by the system itself as it boots and uh that's really interesting right because now you've got a Mac that has this, the Mac architecture is now starting to deviate from the norm a little bit further of like a PC, an Intel PC,

by having this custom Apple Silicon that's doing all these things. And for me, the question is, is this going to end up being an outlier or is this the future of the Mac? And my gut feeling is this is the future of the Mac. My gut feeling is that Apple would like to start using its ability to custom design processors, ARM processors that it's very good at, to start changing the Mac experience in order to use the

features of the ARM processors that are superior to what's in the existing Mac hardware, like security and having a secure enclave and running the webcam through there. One of the ideas there is that that provides more security because you've actually got to be unauthenticated, something or other, in order to turn the camera on and see the pictures. And that that's better, like that's more secure

if you're running it through unauthenticated, something or other. In your article... It's technical, an authenticated something or other. In your article... It's technical term. Thing-a-ma-bob-a-jigger. In your article where you wrote about the iMac Pro on six colors, you

made reference to the fact that the iMac that both me and you use, the 5K iMac, has received lots of updates through its life. Multiple revisions, multiple speed bumps. Do you think that the iMac has received lots of updates through its life right multiple revisions multiple speed bumps do you think that the iMac pro will follow this life cycle well this is the so just as we have this question of like does the t2 auger a future where most Macs become these hybrid machines that have a lot of their subsystems and security and all that offloaded to one of these custom Apple processors. We have to ask our question,

will this get updated? That's the other big question here. We can't tell right now whether this is the start of a glorious future or whether this is going to be another one-off like the Trashcan Mac Pro. Now, Apple didn't want the Trashcan Mac Pro to be a one-off like the trash can Mac Pro. Now, Apple didn't want the trash can Mac Pro to be a one-off. It sounds like they made some mistakes and realized they painted themselves in a corner. But we won't know it until we see it. This is one of the big questions about the Mac in general is, okay, they did speed bumps to the MacBook Pros in less than a year after they were released. in less than a year after they were released. Great.

Step one, like, what's next? Like, keep showing us that. In 2018, well, I mean, iMac Pro is sort of shipping at the very beginning of 2018. So like in 2018 or early 2019, iMac Pro needs to get updated. That Mac Pro, whenever they release it, a year out-ish, it needs to get updated with the latest and greatest that is coming from intel and from

the you know the maker of the gpu like the macbook pro needs to keep up being updated the mac mini needs to come back to life all of the all of the macs need to be on a refresher cycle especially the pro max that there isn't like way superior part parts out there from Intel and other companies that we all know are out there. And that Apple's like, we're still selling this for full price, even though it's last year's part. That is the big question mark. I think Apple has made moves in the direction of recognizing that that's a problem and addressing it. But until they actually do it, it doesn't, you know, words are one thing, deeds are the other. So we need to see them actually walk the walk and do that. So it will be a crushing disappointment if the iMac Pro lingers for two years unupdated.

It's just, you know, because its audience is paying to be on the cutting edge. And once the cutting edge moves, the product needs to move to match it. And, you know, I, I hope they do that. I don't see why you would put,

I mean, why are you putting all the effort into something like this and then letting it sit? You gotta, you gotta keep it updated. So it's been about four years, four years since the trash can Mac pro, the last new pro desktop.

That's four years to the week, four years to the Trashcan Mac Pro, the last new Pro desktop. Yeah, it's four years to the week. Four years to the week. But the iMac is just the first of the two, right? The Mac Pro is still coming. Yeah, this is what I wrote about on Six Colors was that this is the first shoe dropping, right? Somebody asked me, like, what's the deal with the metaphor of shoes dropping? It's like, well, there's always two. Yeah.

So if a shoe drops and you hear it, you can hear that there will be a second shoe to drop. You just have to wait for it. And it's like, well, there's always two. So if a shoe drops and you hear it, you can hear that there will be a second shoe to drop. You just have to wait for it. And that's the Mac Pro. Like the way we read the iMac Pro is totally different, I think, than we would have read it if we had known that it was the replacement for the Mac Pro and there was never going to be a Mac Pro.

Like then all the burden of professional Mac line falls on the iMac Pro. And I think the criticism of the iMac Pro for being like not expandable and all these things, which it's an iMac, it's a pro iMac, it is iMacs in the name, it's not going to be super expandable with like graphics cards, you can pull out and stuff was never going to be the case. But if it was the only pro Mac pro desktop Mac, it you'd be a little more justified in saying, well, why does Apple not have anything more modular in its product lineup? But they shifted gears and announced they were going to do a Mac Pro and it was going to be modular.

And so that's coming, presumably in 2018. And that's interesting because how does the market break, the pro high-end market break down for Mac products? And I saw somebody somewhere, I can't even remember where, it was on Twitter or in Slack or something. I actually saw one person ask, if the Mac Pro is coming out, how are they going to sell any iMac Pros? What's the market for this? And somebody else said, with the iMac Pro, how can they sell any Mac Pros? Because what's the market for that? I think that's the answer is that there's a market for both. They're different. For every

person who says, I would never buy an iMac if I could buy a Mac Pro, there's somebody else who says, I would never buy a Mac Pro if I can buy a Pro iMac. I think that they're both legitimate. The question is, how well are they going to sell? Apple needs to remain committed. It's a small market, although it's profitable, but it's a small market. Can Apple remain committed to them? Because it's good for the platform if they are. So you're getting one, right? You ordered one? I ordered one. My credit card actually kicked it back and said, $5,000 charge. That seems large. No, no, no. And I had to call them and say, no, that's right. Please authorize that and then go back to Apple. And Apple actually

obviously has experience with this because they have a form. I've never experienced this before. They have a little form that basically says you can put in a new credit card number or there's a radio button for like, just reauthorize this. This is the, you've called your credit card company. It says, if you've already called your credit card company and told them to authorize this just select this and press and we'll reauthorize it and your transaction will continue because this must happen with a huge percentage of their of their customers right it's yeah all of a sudden there's a four thousand dollar purchase or an eight thousand dollar purchase for apple stuff one thousand dollar right like a thousand dollars is you know that's

for most pretty much most people that is an incredible amount of money right like when i bought my iphone it kicked off a fraud charge yeah all these credit card have to have these little bots that are in there going oh no fraud alert fraud alert let's flag this this is too much um so anyway yes i did i bought the baseline configuration. I have heard rumors that they are in, they might be in stores this week. So I may call or drift on over to my, um, local Apple store and see if they've got one in stock. And, uh, because that would be better than having, uh, I I'd like to just get it and bring it home.

Of course, could I, can I charge it? Will any of my credit cards work? It's an open question. No, no more apple charges no but uh yeah that's that's the plan and i've gone back and forth on it and i'm still you know i could save a lot of money and buy a high-end imac uh of the 2017 variety a three years newer than mine imac and i would get a better screen. I would get faster SSD. I would get a faster processor if I did that for a couple thousand dollars less than the iMac Pro. And so I thought about that.

But to me, the reason I'm really interested in the iMac Pro is that I will get all of those benefits and I'll get more cores, more processor cores, and a faster graphics card, which is not as important to me. But the processor cores and fast storage are important to me. And it's because of video and especially audio work that I do. Like, I do so much, you know, especially with incomparable stuff where you've got a lot of people who are not professional podcasters, like you and me, and the audio quality of their setups varies widely. where you've got a lot of people who are not professional podcasters, like you and me.

And the audio quality of their setups varies widely. I mean, there are a lot of ones with like, there's loud hums in the background and buzzing and background noise. And I have some crazy expensive and really great plugins that remove all that stuff. But they're so slow. They use all the cores that you can throw at them. so slow. They use all the cores that you can throw at them. And I had that moment where I thought, imagine taking an hour of denoising four hour long audio files for seven people and turning it into 30 minutes or 20 minutes. Like every time I do it, just shaving all of those sessions in half. That's pretty good. I'm kind of up for that because, you know, I'm essentially spending money to save myself a lot of time in those situations. Plus, you know, video encoding is another good

example of that. And so right now, that combined with the fact that I do write about Apple stuff for a living and nobody is getting iMac pros right now except for that small group that also makes me kind of tips me over the edge and wanting to get one so that I can actually dig in and write about it I'm not getting one no I don't want any one it's uh it's extreme it's extreme and most of the stuff you do you're not um you're not doing those three, four-hour, seven people on a panel with lots of buzzing in the background sessions like I am. Most of the people you talk to— If I have to open iZotope, which is the noise processor that we use, if I have to open iZotope, something bad has happened. Yeah, something is really, really wrong.

Right, because I work with people that have mostly controlled environments. So needing to open iZotope RX 6, which is what we use, I'm in for a bad time, typically, when I open that. That means something has gone wrong. And I get that it would be faster for bouncing and stuff like that,

but honestly, my workflow is set up in such a way that I'm never sitting and waiting. If I'm bouncing, I'm doing something else in another window that's part of the podcast publishing process, which has to occur. Sure. You're doing the show notes. Exactly. The iMac 5K is way more computer than I need already. I can't see myself upgrading this one for a couple of years, honestly. So I get why a lot of people want it.

If you're dealing with 4K video, if you're doing really heavy processor intensive stuff like you are, like developers are, this machine seems amazing for you. I have no interest in it. I'm honestly casting my eye towards what the Mac Pro might be. It could be a more interesting thing for me if I can like custom build it to the way that I want it and it not cost five grand. Who knows? It could be cheaper, could start cheaper. We don't know anything about it, right? So I'm kind of more interested in that as a potential future computer for me, but we have no way of knowing right now what it's even going to be. So the iMac Pro, I'm not going to jump into this if I can't see what else is coming. I'm not going to jump into this one if I don't know what else is going to happen.

So yeah. Okay, so we are going to talk about Star Wars The Last Jedi in a moment. But just before we do, let's just talk about scheduling for the rest of the year. Oh, yes. Hashtag AskUpgrade is going to be taking a break for a few weeks because we have special segments and shows replacing regular scheduled programming. So keep sending in, please, your hashtag AskUpgrade questions over the next few weeks. We'd love to hear about them all of your

questions we love them please continue to send those in i'll say this now because today we're not doing it we're not doing it next week or the week after so i'll say it now so you remember to keep sending them in because we're going to need them in january right so hashtag ask upgrade for any questions that you have for us because once we come back from our break we're going to be talking about star wars the last jedi there will be spoilers you have been our break, we're going to be talking about Star Wars The Last Jedi. There will be spoilers, you have been warned. Next week, we're going to be doing an upgrade holiday special. We have some fun segments and some special guests. And potentially, possibly, who knows, a mic at the movies.

We'll see. You'll see. That's going to be coming out on Christmas Day, on the 25th of December. The first ever upgrade holiday special. The week after that, on January 1st, as we mentioned earlier, is going to be the Upgradees. So you can look out for that one.

It's the most glitzy night of the year. And then the week after that, back to regularly scheduled programming, which will be on January 8th. Well, okay. We're actually going to be releasing on January 9th, but that week, things are back to normal again. We actually going to be releasing on january 9th but like that week uh things are

back to normal again um we're gonna be we're gonna be releasing on tuesday for the first couple of weeks of january but that shouldn't affect you except for the fact that the day is going to change but the shows will be normal we've got that at least yes yeah oh man but if you're looking for a normal show released on a normal day it will not be until january you got a month yeah you got you got a month for that. But the show will be returning to regular content programming in the middle of January. But we have some excellent shows

for you over the next couple of weeks, which we've both been working very hard on, and we think that you're going to love them. But without further ado, let's take our final break of the episode and talk about Encapsular. Encapsular will help you delight visitors to your site while frustrating attackers all because of their bulletproof security options

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Give Encapsular a try. You're not going to regret it. Thank you so much to Encapsular for their support of this show and RelayFM. So Jason, what is the sound we play at this time? It's the spoiler horn, which is also the sound of John Syracuse humming while he holds his fingers in his ears in order to prevent spoilers from playing during movie trailers that he's watching.

Turns out. Turns out. So here we are then. Another Star Wars movie. It is. It is episode eight. The ninth Star Wars movie. Who knows? Lost Jedii so i will say um i

only saw the first trailer for this movie and then stayed away from the rest um so i didn't know what a porg was but i knew people were talking about it beforehand but i didn't know what it was i hadn't seen them because I'd never seen any trailers. And it's mostly accidental. I saw the first one because it came out and I wanted to watch it. And somehow, for some reason, I missed the debut of the second trailer. And then multiple weeks later, when I realized this had occurred, I just figured I'll avoid it.

And I didn't go to great lengths. I just didn't watch it. And all of the movies that I went to see didn't show it they just showed the original one so i stayed away so i think i went into this movie uh mostly mostly free of practically any spoilers um there were obviously a couple of scenes that i saw but i didn't think that they told much of the movie the original trailer to my eyes made it kind of seem like luke was a bad guy um and so that was kind of where i was going into the into the because the jed the jedis will be no more right like that's kind of all i really knew going into this and uh i like this movie a lot i really did um for me personally i felt more during the force awakens and this was how i expected to feel uh you know the force awakens showed to me and to many others that a good star wars movie

could still be made and that in and of itself was an incredibly emotional experience that this movie was never going to be able to provide me because i went into this expecting nothing less than a great movie right and that was what i got so i'm happy about it but i'm not going crazy for it yeah the force awakens job was to reassure everybody was to re-establish the franchise i, I think the criticism I see of it is mostly that it plays so many of the original trilogy notes, but that was the whole reason. I mean, this is my argument from two years ago, so you can go back and listen to it then too. Of course it plays the original trilogy notes. That's why it exists. It exists to reassure people and reestablish like that Star Wars is back and all those things that you love from the original trilogy. Those kind of concepts.

We get it. You know, the prequels were very different. And but this is like, no, no, we're going back to kind of the original recipe in Force Awakens. We're going to make you feel happy and warm. And, you know, it's just going to be a good feeling about the star Wars that you remember. The last Jedi's job is to, and I really wondered going in, it's like, are they going to take steps away from what,

um, what they've done before? Because I would have been really disappointed if the last Jedi was just a riff on empire Strikes Back. Like literally, we're just going to keep riffing on those first three movies forever. And The Last Jedi is absolutely not that. It's aware that it's the second movie and it's aware of Empire Strikes Back. At several points, references it kind of backward, which I think is really interesting.

But it does things that you don't expect. several points references it kind of backward, which I think is really interesting, but it, it does things that you don't expect. It does things that don't happen in the original trilogy until much later or not at all. It's got, yeah, it's got nice references to, to the original trilogy into the empire strikes back in particular,

but it's doing different stuff. And it is, it is trying to, as much as a force awakens was about reassuring you that it was Star Wars, this is a movie saying, and it's going to change. And Star Wars is more than you thought it was. And you need to question some of the fundamental assumptions of Star Wars while you're watching this movie. And for me, that's the richest thing in it. I think that this movie has a lot of flaws.

And for me, that's the richest thing in it. I think that this movie has a lot of flaws. And there are parts of it that I wouldn't say I don't like, but feel inessential. And in a two and a half hour movie, they probably should have not done them. was the attempt to kind of like steer your thoughts about like and your assumptions about what Star Wars is into some new places and question some of those assumptions and if if I had a one line I don't know if this is one line but if I had one takeaway from The Last Jedi it would probably be what Luke says which is this is not going to go the way you think. And that's on purpose. Like, on purpose, that's what this movie does. And I really like that because I like being challenged a little bit. I think more thought went into the philosophy

and the themes of this movie than we probably deserve from a big budget um a big budget action blockbuster right i mean in a way that like um the winter soldier i felt the same way about that the winter soldier was actually about something while there were explosions and superheroes and the last jedi is kind of like that where i really like the intelligence behind it even though you know yeah so i'm going to grade it up on that even though that there are parts of it that where i really like the intelligence behind it even though you know yeah so i'm going to grade it up on that even though that there are parts of it that that i thought were kind of um uh you know extraneous or there were some bad decisions that were made there was an awful lot of world building right like a lot of the logic for the future of this franchise was put together in this

movie i could i could do a, I may actually at some point do a whole podcast about the Jedi because one of the things that happens in this movie is that Luke says, and it's also the first direct reference to the prequels in these new movies. Luke basically says,

don't talk about how great the Jedi were. At the height of their power, they allowed essentially the emperor, Darth Sidious, Palpatine, to take over and create the empire. So the Jedi blew it and they ruined it for everyone. And keeping in mind that Luke never met any Jedi at their height. He only met the last vestiges of them who were Ben and Yoda.

Luke has lost his faith in the Force. He's closed himself off off from the force but he's especially lost his belief in the jedi and that scene with yoda which is my favorite scene in the movie i think non-action scene my favorite thinking scene um not only is it incredibly nostalgic and references empire strikes back but that's luke and yoda saying burn it to the ground like The Jedi Order was kind of past its time and it failed. And what this movie says is, hey, all of you people who love Star Wars, you've been thinking about the Force wrong the whole time. That's amazing that a Star Wars movie would just essentially come out and say yeah all of that light and dark split um and how great the jedi are and how the light is going to save us from the dark

that's probably wrong good luck ray yeah that's amazing but that's what that's what this movie does it's amazing um one of my favorite parts was i i honestly feel like was a nod towards the heavy fans like the people that really think about this a lot you know like we do when kylo ren was like your parents are nobody why do you think that they would have to be somebody and it's like to all of the theories about who ray's parents were and like he's just like why do they have to be anyone they're nobody and they don't matter isn't that great this is a saga about the star the the about the skywalker family and who is going to save the day in the end who's going to save the universe assuming that that's what happens in episode nine it's going to be a girl from nowhere who is no one yep and a storm

trooper who was just you know again taken away from his family and trained as a stormtrooper he's no he's a nobody i mean these are these are these are nobodies and the fate of the jedi is in the hands of this girl from nowhere who is nobody and i think that's great that's like that that the the skywalker clan has a lot going against it right between between ben solo and anakin skywalker they have done a lot of bad and and luke couldn't really kind of count all of the effort that they put in in the rebellion and here they are with the first order still kind of reigning supreme it's it's the the themes in this are are so strong like where where the movie falls down is in is in some of the plot mechanics um and

the set pieces actually the set pieces are all strong too it's in some of the plot mechanics um and the set pieces actually the set pieces are all strong too it's just some of the plot mechanics are wonky but um the themes are really strong like i love this movie as much for the themes of um you know questioning the jedi and the fact that she's not from anywhere um and the you know all of that is just, that's the richness of it that I thought that I really liked. I cried a lot. Basically. Anytime Leia was on screen, I started crying.

It's hard. And of course, it totally changes the way when she's in space. And I'm like, this is it. Yeah. This is when they kill her. And it's just,

that was it, man. I was, I was basically bawling in the cinema um then based and every time she appears i'm like this is it this is where i'm gonna because i didn't know turns out that they've already filmed all of her stuff for episode nine right i had no idea about any of that no no no that's not true is that not true no that's not true no they they filmed they filmed her to survive and then she was going to be in episode nine and now she's died uh carrie fisher died so they will have to write her out off screen oh

okay but what they didn't what they didn't do what they could have done is reshot the movie to have her just die there right now now that we know that she gets blown out of the ship with admiral akbar r.i.p admiral akbar it was a trap um the he was right in the end it was a trap so um the the fact that uh they didn't they wanted to save her performance right this is her last performance um to be seen and they could have reshot to have her just be dead and have the rest of that happen you know have have somebody else stay behind or have laura durn still stay behind but have one of the other characters lead them off and talk to poe they could have reshot that stuff and just had her be dead and and they didn't because they want they wanted to keep carrie fisher's performance and they they should have and that that's the right thing to do they should keep

her performance it's a it's great to see her she gets that scene with luke couldn't couldn't have had that scene if they'd killed her off earlier um it it is too bad that she doesn't get like a bigger send-off that but you know to your point the movie cannot be seen as it you know it wasn't written for this to be the last time we saw carrie fisher but that's what it is so it changes all of those scenes and seeing carrie fisher knowing that this is the last we'll see of her. Every, every one of those scenes is heightened because of that. It makes it hard to watch in places,

but it, it was great. Like everything that she did in the movie was, was great. Yeah. Apparently she, she did a lot of the, um,

the dialogue with Ryan Johnson. She did a lot of the script doctoring and worked did a lot of the um the dialogue with ryan johnson she did a lot of the script doctoring and worked on a lot of her dialogue so that was what she did is she was a script doctor so um yeah so apparently a lot of her a lot of her uh the leia lines and and some of the dialogue with other characters was uh was carrie fisher working on that with ryan johnson so that's kind of fun too i was confused a lot by the end of this movie i it really took me a while to understand what had happened i didn't i mean i got the idea that luke could somehow teleport himself even though like well project himself project himself i guess but that that still frustrated me to a point

because it was like this is a type of this you've never seen this before right the way he was doing it because you sort of saw it right yes you sort of saw it with i think the movie is using the conversations between Ray and Kylo Ren to establish that the force can project people across distances to a certain degree. And then I think Yoda whacking him with his stick is meant to imply that you can interact with objects, potentially even if you're a a ghost or a phantom or whatever but yeah it's not it's not heavily set up i think they didn't want to lean into it too much because they wanted it to be a reveal and like half the people i talked to were didn't realize that that was the solution and half the people did i didn't i was surprised even then it's like there have been so many star wars movies and movies, and no one had ever done this before. And then, so it turns out everyone can do this and has been doing it, but they just never thought to show us it.

Well, I don't know. Right? Like, Snoke was powerful enough that he could bridge their two minds, but it was obviously like it took that amount of power. And the implication at the end of the movie, right, Is that it took everything that Luke had to do that. Yeah. Well, that was, that was basically killed him.

So let's just assume that like, that's the case. It was like, it was kind of strange to me that it was just like, he used his force so hard. He died. It like, that was like,

I don't, I don't fully, I mean, okay. Like I can see that it's happened, but like, that just seems kind of weird to me in a way like i i yeah it didn't bother me um at the same time when i was watching it i was like oh okay

all right i could i could buy that but i had i did have that moment of um does he i mean obi-wan in in the original star wars basically reaches that moment where he lets Darth Vader hit him, but at that point he's already gone, right? So I think Luke intended this to be his last act to set the generation off and to sacrifice himself. But like, did it kill him or was the plan that he would become a ghost when this was done? I don't know. What did he, you know, either way.

Um, I liked it again, not set up great. I like the twist because it was not set up great. There was a nice twist that surprised me. Um, and I like it. I like it kind of thematically that,

that this is his last act. Yeah. Um, but I, I see, but I see your point where it could be confusing. I wasn't confused by it, i can see you my only problem with all of this was the fact that i watched the movie ended and i didn't fully understand what had happened like that's not

great not a great uh outcome like after going through it all like talking like talking about yeah it's like okay i get all of that makes sense right that he would sacrifice himself he knows he's not needed anymore like he knows there's other people he knows they're powerful etc etc believes that maybe he is not he's like a harm to it right because he knows he's not perfect because he was he had a moment where he wanted to kill like his nephew right you know all that stuff so he's like he knows he's not great and he knows that ray is good and that she's strong and she's powerful etc etc it's like he can see his place isn't there anymore and also that everything like you know yoda burns down the tree like yeah also the theme here is burn it all down like he needs to he i think he feels he needs to be out of the picture

and let and and then one of the other themes of this movie is the movie you're expecting to see is that the rebels what you saw in the first trilogy which is the rebels okay they had a setback but they're going to be on their way and they're going to see is that the rebels, what you saw in the first trilogy, which is the rebels. Okay. They had a setback, but they're going to be on their way and they're going to finally win in the end. And what this movie says is no, this is the low point.

They're gone. All that they can hope. They can't hope to win right now. All that they can hope to do is spark a new rebellion. As Luke says, the new rebellion starts today. And, uh, and, and I'm not the last Jedi. That's Rey. And this is the handoff. This is saying the old generation has taken you to this point. We can't take you any further. As Yoda says, you know, the thing we have in common is that they

outgrow us, basically. They don't need us anymore. They need to be their own people. And that's what this is all about is there's going to be a new rebellion now. And they're the ones who are going to have to take it the rest of the way. And so thematically, it all works in there. Like, Luke is part of the old system that even Kylo Ren says it all needs to get wiped away.

The Jedi, the light side, the dark side, all that stuff, we just need to burn it all down and start again. Of course, his next step is as the first order and it's like what if we burn down the first order kylo ren what about then but he doesn't no no no no we're gonna i'm gonna keep my stormtroopers right and that's his problem it's like i have all this infrastructure come on yeah i'm in charge i've got hawks doing what i want because i force choked him so we could just do this and and and that's I think that's his flaw, right? Is that I think he's right, that the right thing to do is sort of like stop repeating the old

things and do something new, but he isn't willing to do that. So anyway, Luke, thematically, it makes a lot of sense for me that Luke is saying, I'll pop in as a ghost with Yoda from time to time, but you need to do this yourself. I'm done. And obviously Luke said at the top of the movie, he says, I came here to die. I don't want to go anywhere else. I don't want to do anything else.

I came here to die. And he does, but he does it in a constructive way and not just, you know, wallowing with his, with his, his, cause you get the sense that he's been closed to the force for years, right? Like ever since he failed with Ben, he just went to

an Island, became a smelly hermit, uh, with a beard and a robe and, uh, stopped using the force at all. And of course he reopens his mind to the force and he does this incredible, powerful thing with it as his last act. I like all of that, but I also get how it's confusing. I'm not saying it wasn't confusing. I think your feelings are valid about it. I, this of that, but I also get how it's confusing. I'm not saying it wasn't confusing. I think your feelings are valid about it. I, this is, this is my theme with this movie. I also have a theme,

which is I like, I like the, I like thinking about it and I like the themes. I like being able to critically read it. Those are my, it's rich enough to let you do all of that, even though some of the execution is wanting. So my favorite part of this execution is wanting so my favorite

part of this movie is the whole scene um with ray and ren in snook's chamber yes the red chamber oh my god so everything that happens in that room is incredible like the altercation the way that uh ren tricks snook right like he's turning the lightsaber in his hand because he's thinking the thoughts so they're pure but what he's actually doing is turning it on him um also it's it's exactly how he killed han solo right which is which is you know i don't know what to do like he says the same stuff and it's the i think you think i'm doing one thing but i'm actually doing another and boom i ran you through with a lightsaber it's he kills his dad and now he kills his force dad the same way but one of my favorite things what and what a shocker right this is literally what darth this is literally what darth vader wanted luke to do right i will kill the

emperor and then we'll rule together and that's what kylo ren is he does it he does it he kills the emperor and takes his throne basically he killed by killing snoke it's a great twist i think ryan johnson didn't like snoke very much which is fine because i thought he was a pointless character anyway i like him in this movie in the first movie he was just like a hologram i like him in this movie he's he's well done as this kind of creepy evil evil dude evil jedi dude or sith dude or whatever he is but um is. But I love that the act that they both see in the future and that they fight together.

And this is when it happens and he kills Snoke and then they save each other. It's amazing. I like the fights. I like the varied weapons of those Red Guards. I always liked the Red Guards when they were the Emperor's Guards in Return of the Jedi. They looked really cool and i wonder what they did because they're like

stormtroopers but not and they're right red and and they've got the they got the axes and that there are swords or whips um and they die in very interesting ways as the whole thing is on fire too in the background the second time i watched it because i watched it twice the second time i watched it i watched the march of like it catches on fire the red drape catches on fire and it's burning down in the background revealing the the ship and space behind as it goes it's amazing yeah when when kylo ren just blast the guy in the head oh yeah basic my my my my theater was full and basically everyone went oh yeah oh yeah yeah yeah that also when um when when uh ray um is stuck and she just drops her lightsaber

and then picks it up again it lets it fall through the air and then just picks it up and and knocks the guy out of the way it's it's it's and and nobody going into this movie nobody would have predicted that one of the most if not the most rousing fight scene is kylo ren and ray fighting together yeah but like yeah i love the direction and the fight direction of both of these characters because neither of them are traditional but in different ways like ray has found this new jedi elegance that nobody has had before like the way that she wields the lightsaber is different but beautiful but my favorite is the way that kylo ren does because he is sloppy he's a mess he always holds his sword down which which nobody does, right? Like in fighting stance, he holds it down.

And my favorite thing is he lets the laser drag along the ground a lot. And I just love the way it looks because it also mimics the fact that his lightsaber is sloppy, right? Like all of it works together. Oh yeah, with spitting out the sides and all of that. Basically, nobody trained trained him is what it

looks like in anything and he kind of just worked it all out himself and i also like that he had one another moment in this movie which was some of my favorite stuff from the force awakens where he smashes something to pieces and people find him uh which he does with the with a helmet right like he smashes it up on the elevator doors open he's like get my ship ready and then off he goes um but yeah that whole scene is just fantastic i love the way that it ends all of it's great i like all their scenes together honestly i think the quiet scenes where they're kind of telepathically bridged and they're talking to each other and he's saying did you ask luke about this and you know you're a monster he says yeah i am a monster and all that i think adam driver is really good in this movie all the way through and And I think those scenes that they have together

are unexpected and great. I did not expect that this movie was going to be kind of this connection between Kylo Ren and Rey. And to this extent, and I think it's all really good and really interesting in that they had them where they touch

and Luke obviously sees him there and of course you know they have their history and it's um yeah i think that's all it's all really good all the all the uh kylo rey and ren stuff is great or color ren and ray stuff is great ben solo i just want to call him ben solo yeah ben ben i want to lighten around a few things with you, Jason. Okay. All right. The boy that feels the force at the end, who has the force at the end, which is incredible direction, by the way. Such a subtle thing, grabbing the broomstick, but everybody knows. Is it genius? Yep.

Will that boy appear, or is it just to show there is more Jedi? Part of me wants to believe that Episode IX is set like 10 years or 15 years later. Yeah, me too. And they've built up a new rebellion. And Rey has a little group of young Jedi that she's training. And Kylo Ren is basically the emperor and has made all sorts of horrible decisions. And yeah, I doubt that will happen. But I don't know.

I mean, this movie is saying, regardless of what happens in episode nine, this movie is saying the rebellion is born again because all these children are, you know, the children believe and the downtrodden in the empire believe. And this is from this, a rebellion begins. And that there are other kids who are nobodies who are out there who have the force and they will be found and they will be part of the rebellion

and they will rebuild a you know a new resistance to the first order like that's what the movie says now what happens in the next installment in the franchise you know who knows what decisions they will make but um that's the implication here strongly right that is like this continues and this is the low point and we build from here and they're all throughout the galaxy are the people who will be joining in this fight in in the years to come um i doubt we will see like oh it's that boy again although it wouldn't shock me if there's like a boy whether it's this boy or a different boy where it's like oh yeah and there are junior you know younglings or whatever um i'm not sure what they're going to do with episode nine but part of me wants them to give it some time so we can see everybody settling in i'm also expecting that episode nine will resolve itself very differently

than the original trilogy i'm still not entirely convinced that there isn't going to be like an important moment for Ben Solo realizing sort of like his grandfather, you know, right? That what he's done is wrong. And I don't think he can be redeemed, but I also don't think he's going to be killed and that's going to be the end. I kind of feel like with Darth Vader, there's going to be that kind of that, that, that mixed moment where he realizes he can either do something horribly evil or he can stop and let it be, you know, let it, let it not happen. And that he will make that decision to sort of like sacrifice himself or whatever in order to resolve things like in that last moment. But who knows? Who knows? But I hope there's a little bit of a time jump i

think that would be kind of fun because these movies essentially take black take place back to back and i'm not quite sure how you get from where they are at the end of this movie to resolving episode nine with presumably the end of the story without a time jump and we've also just not the same movie right like right like i don't really want to see scrappy rebellion of 10 people again um i would prefer it to be a bit more bit more bigger rebellion right like a bit more original trilogy larger rebellion because we're left with an even smaller one than before and or a very different kind of rebellion potentially that's not at all like the one in the original trilogy, which is using different methods to win people over and overthrow the First Order. I don't know, but I'm interested to see where they go from here. But back to your original question, I still love the way this ends. I love the way this ends with kids pretending to be Luke Skywalker standing in front of all of those, all of those at-ats. Yeah, they're telling the stories, right?

They're telling the stories of what happens. It's nice. And the kid goes outside, and he's this kid in the stables or whatever, and he uses the force to grab the broom and hold it up like a lightsaber. It's like, what a great ending that is. It's great.

Love it. Not doing a very good job of the lightning round, but so be it. This next movie goes back to jj right jj's next jj abrams is going to direct it and um he's writing it with a collaborator i think but um but he's the director so he's taking it back to where it was in episode seven ryan johnson is working on developing a trilogy of new star wars movies to be released later what do you think about that about ryan johnson i i think i think it could be really good because i'm impressed with his um to be released later. What do you think about that? About Ryan Johnson?

I think it could be really good because I'm impressed with his, I'm impressed with a lot of his work here. Again, I feel like some of the plot stuff, especially the whole Finn, Rose heist to go somewhere in hyperspace and go to a casino and then go somewhere and find a random guy and bring him back and all that was kind of like a misstep in terms of the plotting but

so you know he's not perfect but i think he's i think he's shown obviously they've got a great confidence in him and i i think he's shown a great capability to have a to have a young creative uh director writer director as a force to make new star wars movies i i i get why they would want to do that just like marvel is done with the russo brothers right where they're like these guys are great they did winter soldier and they're like you get to do civil war you get to do infinity war you get to do avengers 4 like you find some people who really work well in your system and you say um yes let's get into business with them and that's basically what they're doing with ryan johnson i think especially if it's going to be a

long-running thing it does help to have one person like always there i mean and they've had that a little bit of jj right like jj's kind of been always around there for these ones and like ryan johnson will take that on from him all right last two things very quickly yoda happy having him back oh so happy yeah i was i squealed when he was on this i was just i didn't expect it honestly um and i didn't expect it at all i knew it was possible right but i didn't think they would do it neither did i porgs i was so so i did watch the trailer once and then all the memes about porgs and i i was really worried that they were going to be and i talked to a lot of people who felt this way,

like Ewoks, where they'd be like little warriors that we have to befriend and all of that stuff. And they're not. They're just birds who live in that island that are cute and funny. They're comic relief, right? It's comic relief. Yeah, and they nest in the Millennium Falcon

and Chewie roasts a couple of them. And then they're like floating around in the Falcon. And yeah, it's silly, but I thought it was funny because that's all they are. They're just then they're like floating around in the falcon and yeah it's silly but i i thought it was i thought it was funny because that's all they are is they're just they're like tribbles they're cute and silly and that's all they are is they're they're and that's the with we have the trio of fantastic animals too because they're the crystal foxes which were also pretty cool and those horse things where the blue milk comes from pretty cool Where the blue milk comes from. That were also pretty cool. Where the blue milk comes from, those big things. Well, no, the blue milk come from like those sea lion things.

Yeah, yeah. I thought you were saying about something else, but that's another one though, right? We haven't seen those before. No, the race horses. Yeah, the race horses and then the blue milk cow thing, sea lions. Sea cow. Yeah.

Most of that stuff was comic relief and I enjoyed it. I liked the porgs. I thought it was funny. I thought that they were funny. sea cow yeah that was i most of that stuff was comic relief and i enjoyed it right like i like the porgs i thought it was funny right like i thought that they were funny um and i liked every part that they were in i laughed every day they made me laugh i like that i like the um the frog fish people who are the caretakers who are really mad at ray and luke says i can't imagine as she destroys things on the island i thought those guys were great too again again very very kind of muppet muppety feel but that's a star wars thing right like the aliens that feel kind of like muppets is actually that's consistent that's a star wars thing the good ones anyway all right so overall i would say we're

pretty pretty similar on this of course you can go listen to the incomparable as well well there's more and there's going to be more and more and more incomparable stuff well next everybody yeah we've got the one with me and John Syracuse and Dan Warren and three other people. It's a big panel. And then there are at least two other

incomparable episodes coming this week. Plus, Defocused and Phil and Lisa Rue in the movies is already up, actually. Defocused is coming. So we'll have like five...

On the network, on the incomparable, we'll have like five or six episodes about The Last Jedi. So yeah, there's a lot out there. And and my expectation knowing about how great you are at this stuff is all of that will be collected under the last jedi page on the incomparable right and indeed you can and you can also subscribe if you want to the star wars feed which is also up at the

incomparable if you click on the star wars link on any episode that's about star wars there's a there's a feed you can subscribe to with all the star wars episodes in it if you want to do that so that's all there so i'll put that i'll put the last jedi page and you grab the feed from there too but i think we're pretty similar on that we both really like this movie and it was a good we consider it a good star wars movie but we both maybe felt more strongly about um about force awakens yeah i think this is a more complex movie and i like i like that it's complex and it has lots of interesting themes and is playing with the universe in a way that that force awakens couldn't do i would argue and shouldn't have done. But I think that Force Awakens is a very

straightforward, clearly plotted movie. And this, for all of its beauty and a whole bunch of really great scenes, I feel like there is a chunk in the middle that is just a ramshackle mess with the spaceship chase and the casino planet and all of that and it's only sort of right at the beginning and then in the last 45 minutes where it really kind of takes flight in the middle I think it's a little bit messy so I don't think you know as a cohesive

film of the force awakens I think is a better movie but in terms of richness and also like commenting on and opening up new directions for the franchise this is uh this is so rich and deep and i love it for that and so i would say actually this is exactly the kind of movie that needed to be the second one of these movies out of the gate the first one is for comfort

and the second one really puts thing puts a spin on things and and uh i think it's fundamentally i think it's a good movie flawed Flawed, but really good. If you want to find our show notes for this week, relay.fm upgrade 172. Thanks again to our fine sponsors, the folk at Encapsular, FreshBooks, and Balance Open. If you want to find Jason online,

he's at sixcolors.com and theincomparable.com and he's at jsnell on Twitter. And Jason is the host of many shows at RelayFM. As am Iason is the host of many shows at relay fm as am i you can go to relay.fm slash shows to find about about all of our shows and then if you're if you're going to listen to this or maybe one other relay fm show go take a look there i'm sure there'll be something else uh that you would enjoy as well i am at i mike i am yke on twitter we'll be back next time with the very first upgrade holiday Holiday Special. Until then, take a bite just as now.

See you on Christmas, Mike.