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Transcript

Issue 400: A Star Wars Celebration · Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the ned Palty. Hi. This is Nick and Astasu,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: story editor on Star Wars, The Clone Wars and Star
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Wars bad Batch, and you are listening to aggressive negotiations.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Well, hello, and welcome to aggressive negotiations. That slice of
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Star Wars Heaven that you just can't get enough of,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: like that your favorite piece of pecan pie or apple
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: pie or you know whatever. Float your boat. We're coming
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: at you live from the Jedi Temple as it's been
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: restored here lovely, and I'm so glad to be back
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: with my one and only friend. Yes, I've only got
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: one friend, just kidding, my one of my best friends
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: in the world, Jedi Master John Mills. My goodness, it
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: has been four hundred episodes, my friend. You know, how
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: should we celebrate.
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Four hundred episodes? Well, you know, usually something like that
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: calls for a party, some sort of celebration. And what
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: do you do with a celebration, Matt. You invite your friends,
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: your other friends on to help celebrate everything, and friends
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: who means something to you and to what you're talking
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: about and what you're celebrating. So let's go ahead and
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: open the council doors and drum roll please, welcome mister
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: Nick Anastasio. This is your first time on the show
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: in how how long was it, Matt.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Let's see, the last episode Nick was on was two
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: seventy five, and that's been seven thousand and one.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: So that is really has it been that long.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: It's been out long?
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: No, No, has it been that long? Well, Nick, welcome
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: to the Jedi Council Chamber once again, And just for
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: anybody who hasn't been with us for that long, why
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: don't you please introduce yourself to the crowd, let them
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: know who you are and what it is that you do.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Well, first, thank you so much to both of you
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: for having me on. It's a great, great honor to
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: be to have been chosen to be part of your
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: four hundredth episode celebration. That's it's such a milestone. It's huge,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and I'm really really grateful for that. I So I'm Nick.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: They know me as Nika At work, Nick and Astasio,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: and I'm the story editor, writer and story editor for
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Lucasfilm Animation, and I have worked on the Clone Wars,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: on Star Wars, The Bad Batch, on Tales of the Jedi,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Tales of the Empire, Tales of the Underworld.
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, Tales of the Underworld, which
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: and you know that that is I want to draw
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: a special attention to those Tales Of series really quick
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: before we dive into everything, because I think that these
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: are little slices of if you'll forgive the way I
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: put this, little slices of perfection that people overlook because
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: of the fact that it gets back to the roots
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: of that really granular short form storytelling that Lucas himself
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: was championing all the way back in the Gendy Tartakowski
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Clone Wars micro series that were going on, where it
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: was like, can you tell me a story in one minute? No,
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: I can't, mister Lucas, but I can tell you one
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: in three Can we do it in three? Fine? You
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: got three minutes to tell me that story and the
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: way that fans ate it up and in today's environment,
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, the first question I want to throw to you, Nick,
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: in the large body of work with this Tales of
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: was the impetus just to find a short form storytelling format.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Was that the entire driver for it to say, Hey,
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: we want to do short form and we want to
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: embrace this, you know, social media swiping environment, or was
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: there some other motivator for making these these brief episodes
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: that would serve as these these great arcs.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: That's a that's a really good question. Well, first, let
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: me like say that, as as the force would have it,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: we were recording this your four hundredth episode on what
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: is also the twentieth anniversary weekend of Lucasfilm Animation. So
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: that's a pretty pretty sweet combination here of things. And yeah,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: so I mean, you basically nailed it, you know, Dave
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: from day one, as far as I know, as far
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: as I'm aware in conversations that I'm that I was
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: part of, at the heart of the decision to tell
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: the tales of Stories was Dave's desire two, which is
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: always part of of the thinking that he hasn't that
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: he imparts on us to honor George's sensibilities, George's storytelling,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: the discipline and the craft that George taught us, and
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: the influences that weighed on George when he before he
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: made Star Wars and while he was making Star Wars,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: and so that was always really at the core of
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: what I saw, you know, being passed on to me
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: and to others as to why we were making those
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: those particular stories, telling them and how we were going
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: to tell them and why we were going to tell
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: them that way. There there Now I know because I
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: was I was fortunate enough to be there that one
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: of the first and again this is only from my sliver,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: you know, from my experience as far as that my
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: awareness goes, that was the first. This is the first
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: time that I became aware of something that later on
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: became part of the Tales canon. When we were working
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: on the final four episodes of the Clone Wars, and
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: one Dave and I would he would often time. He
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: had asked me if it would be okay because he
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: was so busy already he was doing season one of
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Mando I think at the time, finishing it up. He
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: had asked me if it was okay for him to
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: kind of stop buying for us to work like evenings
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: on on on on those episodes. And I said, of course.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: So we would often time like do sessions together, like
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: late into the evening after everyone had gone. And one
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: and one scene that we worked on a lot was
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the Order sixty sixth scene where has to defend herself
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: from the clones from from Rex and the other clones,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: and and we would like we would finesse that scene
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: over and over and over and over. We would kind
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: of butterfly around different things, but like there was like
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: a couple of scenes that we would always come back
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: on and say, Okay, let's make let's not just be content,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: let's just watch it again. Let's see what we can
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: do to make it better to you know, think about it.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: And I remember one evening, you know, as Dave does
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: sometimes when inspiration strikes him, he basically starts to write
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: by speaking out loud, and we're working on it, and
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: we're taking a break for one reason or another, and
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: he's kind of saying, you know, one thing we shouldn't.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: I don't like I don't like assumptions, and I don't
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: like assuming that Ahsoka is is just good enough that
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: she would survive. We've seen the clones. We know the
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: clones are really good, and we've seen them kill Jedi
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: that we know are very accomplished, very wise, very strong,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: you know, And so to just say that she's lucky
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: or that she's good enough, to just say you have
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: to buy that is does that doesn't sit with me,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: you know. And at the same time, I know that,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: but within the story we're telling now, there's no way
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: to kind of do anything else about it. It just
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: has to be like that. And he started to kind
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: of like riff, you know why in his mind, what
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: would satisfy him, what would make it okay? How I
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: would it would fit into the the the the Star
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Wars story, And it was all about her relationship with Anakin,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: And it was all about the unrecognized qualities that made
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: Anakin the chosen one, that made him, you know what
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: could have been the best Jedi of all, you know,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: and how he would have seen certain things that other
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Jedi might have missed, and he would have prepared her
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: for those things, you know, in a way that other
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Jedi might not have thought of, you know. And he
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: basically was kind of going over the story of what
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: became sort of loosely one of the episodes of Tales
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: of the Jedi. And and I remember him at some
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: point towards the end of that conversation and he said,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: you know, I have to make a couple of phone
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: calls and have some conversations. I wonder if there's a
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: way that that could actually be, you know, like maybe
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: something we do separately as like a short story, something
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: like a vignette, something that kind of like shows coda.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: And that was all I heard about that at the time.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: And you know, I know that this is in terms
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: of like explaining other things, you know, where that one
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: came from from. Again, from that moment, that was kind
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: of my exposure, you know, in terms of his ideas.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: But I know that like, fundamentally, the main thing was
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: that he wanted to have these codas and really kind
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: of like, you know, write a love letter another one.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: You know, they're all different love letters in their own way,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: but that this was a love letter to George and
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: to Star Wars, you know, in the choice of cinematography
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: and the choice of you know, being economic about dialogue
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: and the themes in the way we were going to
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: treat it, and and in a way it was kind
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: of interesting. What I loved about those particular ones was
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: it was about like telling the shortest stories we had
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: ever told, but actually being able to find a way
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: to make them the most complex, full cinematic stories we
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: had also ever told. So even though they are the
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: shortest ones, they should feel like they're the heaviest in
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: a good way, not not heaviest you know, dour and
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: you know, but just like dense, packed with with a
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: lot of meaning.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Hold on one second, Nick, that last part where you're
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: talking about the density and all that, can you repeat that?
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Your your recording kind of really broke up and so
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: we lost that, And yeah, where do you wanted to start? Yeah,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: just when you said, like about when you were talking
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: kind of about the depth, kind of just kind of
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: pick up from like talking about the depth there and
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: kind of finish your thought so that way the people
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: will actually get it.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Sure. One thing that you know, really always fascinated me
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: the most about the Tale story was how they were
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: always conceived and structured to be the challenge and the
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: exercise was to create stories that were going to be,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: at the same time, the shortest stories we were ever
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: going to tell in terms of length, but they were
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: supposed to be the most dense and cinematic and packed
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: with a sense of style and sophistication and themes that
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: would make them the most deft and heaviest in the
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: best ways possible, you know, the ones that really were
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: going to kind of sit with you. And I always
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: found that really amazing as a challenge as an artist
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: in as a storyteller and as a fan.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: I think that's something that really stuck with me, especially
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: about you know, when the original Tales of the Jedi
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: came out and the way in which you guys took
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: a character to which we had barely ever seen on screen.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: I don't think we ever saw ever talk right yaddle
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: and then bring her to life in a few short
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: episodes and make her one of the most compelling and
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: impactful characters in Star Wars. And to me, that was
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: like the proof of what these type of stories could do,
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: even within fifteen minutes, you know, ten minutes, twelve minutes,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: and because I'd never even really thought about that character,
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: and by the end of that she had become one
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: of my favorite characters and made me so sad that
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: we never you know, get to see her again because
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: of what happens to her. That I thought was just
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: the brilliance of this type of storytelling, because there are
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: so many characters like that, especially within the prequel.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Era, that.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Probably have great stories that could be told about them.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: And this was kind of mind blowing to me because
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: again I didn't care about the character before. By the
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: time it's over, I'm like, where's the black series figure
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: of this character. Where's that, you know, because because it
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: became somebody who was impactful as any of the other
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: major characters in Star Wars.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I loved I loved you know that.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: That's that particular episode and the episode with Ahska in
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: the village where she fights Crow. I think my two
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: favorites of the ones I worked on for for Tales
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: of the Jedi, and in particular the one with the
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: addl And and for me it is because of all
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: the of all the things you mentioned and how I
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: mean I remember reading the script. You know, they've they've
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: wrote wrote those stories, and I remember reading the script
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: for the story with the Addle, and I mean it
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: is such a textbook. It is such an amazingly written
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: script in every way, you know, like the story is
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: beautiful and beautifully you know, told emotionally, but like there's
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: also like such clear as a creative you know, like
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: you you you read it and you know exactly you
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: can see the shots. You can see how it needs
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: to be cut, how it wants to be you know, blocked,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: and you understand also the meaning of Dave as a
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: director what he wants to come out of it, and
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: so that's what's inspiring because you totally get You're like,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: oh man, there's so much. There's so much about the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: core kind of the basic Rubik's Cube elements of Star
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Wars at play there. And that's the thing is, like,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: you know, when you understand the rules of that world
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: and what it's about thematically, the characters, you can I mean,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: this is kind of you have all these great things playing.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: You have like you know, on the one end, you
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: have George who created a sandbox that already I mean
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: he winded it, widened it and created gave you, you know,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: a million a million toys in it with which you
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: can play, and you can play with the dynamics of
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: what Star Wars is about and the themes that Star
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Wars explores, and you can you can move them around.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: You can retail some of those those thematics with other characters.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: You can kind of switch the perspective. You know, as
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: long as you're informed and you have the right motivation
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: and so there's purpose to what you're doing, you can
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: really do. I mean, that becomes an infinite combination. And
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: that's where it's the best of both worlds because you
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: have Dave who provides that you have George at this point,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: you know, who left us this sandbox with all these
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: things that are already in there and things that we
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: can we can invent, right, he kind of left us
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: with that opening, and then you have Dave, who really
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: kind of sees and adds you know, his motivation, his
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: his direction, his sense of purpose, and that's where like
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the magic happens, and that particular story had all of that.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's this beautiful poetry about like and tragedy.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, Star Wars is a lot about tragedy. I mean,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: it's even in the script, you know, the tragedy of
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Darth Vegas, and it's very operatic that way. And there's
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: so much beautiful tragedy about both of these main characters
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: in that story, about Yeaddle and Dooku, you know, and
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Douku's story. I mean, obviously there's more background to Doku,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: but you could see a lot of the same things
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: about Dooku. You know, Douku is someone who George already
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: laid some of that background. He again, he kind of
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: gave us the tools to go where we went with
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: him in the prequels, but he gives you just enough
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: to inform you that There's it's not just a villain,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: just like Vader is not just a villain, but the
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: role that he plays in the prequels is still already
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: by then he's committed to to to a point which
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: makes him an antagonist. He's just a foe. He is
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: a villain, right, he is a betrayer, He's a there's
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: there's you can see these dimensions that are sort of
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: like under the surface, you know, like the depth of
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the iceberg. But it's what you're going to see is
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: what you need to see for the story. And by
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: by having that, you know, I mean going back, you know.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: I also loved the episode. The other episode I worked
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: on with Qui Gon was an amazing opportunity, you know,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: kind of explore again, kind of like being able to
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: like look at the themes of Star Wars but from
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: different points of view, you know, and which is what
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: Star Wars is also a lot about, and different different
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: truths from different point of views. And and I had
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: always I had always seen I remember talking with a
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: friend of mine about Doku as this was years before
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: working on these on these stories, and I remember having
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: conversations with a friend of mine telling him that Douku
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: was one of the characters I loved the most for
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: that because I always saw in him kind of the
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Lawrence of Arabia quality of a of a very noble
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: character who was sort of was who fell, you know,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: because but and it ended up doing the wrong things,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: but for the right reasons. He saw things he was
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: right about, and and he saw how like the quote
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: unquote good guys were wrong about how they went about
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: doing things, you know, and that sort of then burned
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: his visions his faith in the system. And I thought
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: that was fascinating as a character, you know. So, yeah,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: there is really a gift to have these stories, and
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: that Dave wanted to you know, that he saw that
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: in himself and kind of was really interested in Duku's character,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: which then led to yaddle.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: Also, I love the fact that time has been spent
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: not just in Clone Wars, but also Entails of the
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Jedi with Doku, because I agree Doku is a character
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: that's fascinating in a large sense, and it will always
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: be for this longtime fan. It's always been one of
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: those things where I've never understood the cut of Doku's
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: story from Attack of the clones where Obi Wan is
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: in front of his bust and Jocasta Nu relays a
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: little bit of information about Doku. You know, that's one
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: of those ones. I understand, I get it, I get
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: the process, I get all of those sorts of things.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: I'm not trying to reprosecute anything, but like that is
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: one of those cut scenes where I'm like, it's a minute, guy,
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: come on, how I you could have kept this in.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: So I'm really grateful to get the Dooku stuff. But
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: my question listening to you go through you know, how
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: much thought, how much process goes into this is when
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: you're approaching a series like Tales of the Empire or
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: Tales of the Jedi or Tales of the Underworld. What
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: is the the difference, for lack of a better word,
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: between working on a full scale, full blown bad Batch
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: season and a little micro season like this. Is this
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: something that is worked on as intensively, this is my
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: nine to five for six months, or is this done
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: in parallel to the other projects that are going on
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: you know, while things are.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: Happening logistically a little bit of both. We we do,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: we do commit to it. Like when we worked on
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: those seasons, we worked on them, you know, with the
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: same level of intensity and as a full time thing
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: as the full blown you know, core series like Bad
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: Batch or Colone Wars and so on. Now, the schedule
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: usually was shorter, so it was everything was the same,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: but kind of in a compressed, compressed way, you know,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: the cycles. You know, the if if I'm going to
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: have three or four weeks or five weeks of really
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: big crunch time on quote unquote like full length episode
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: of a series, that would be crunched to probably you know,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: eight or ten days on an episode of tales. And
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: so it's the same cycles, but kind of in a
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: in a smaller scale. And uh, and then there is
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: a little bit, like I said, when it's a little
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: bit both, there's a little bit of both in the
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: sense that like schedule wise, because they're a little shorter
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: at times, they they would be used as sort of
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: like they would kind of be slotted in periods of
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: in between where our schedule was a little more free
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: and so where they would not be done as overlapped
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: with another production. But I said a little bit of both,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: because that that did not always work out. We also
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: ended up you know, doing some some production on tails concurrent,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: for example, with Bad Match, and there were times where
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: I was working on it's a while back now, but
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: you know, at least one episode of each probably more
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: probably a couple of episodes of one and one or
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: the other and one or the other, or even two
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: and two something like that, and at different at different stages.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: So like the you were able to juggle it because
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: you know, you're kind of not always at the same stage,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: So you might be you might be you know, ramping
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: up and doing one thing with one episode, which is
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: you're already working on it, but it's not that time
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: consuming it, and you're in crunch mode for another one,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: and there's a third one which you're sort of like
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: on the tail end and almost on the verge of delivering.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of how you're able to ride those waves.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: But you do still have you know, at times overlaps.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: And then there's the process. I mean, I don't know
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: if you want me to speak to that or not.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: But also on the creative is different in terms of
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: how you approach working with those with those types of
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: episodes versus our full blown series, and that that mostly
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: has to do with the fact that even though Dave
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: wrote every episode of Tales of the Jedi, and after that,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: he wanted the format to be also a platform for
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: other creatives in the studio to be able to kind
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: of stretch their muscle and be able to kind of
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: he wanted to offer a voice for other other people
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: in the studio to kind of use use those stories
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: as a way to kind of like not necessarily step up,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: but kind of be able to to participate in their
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: own way. And I was fortunate to benefit from that.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: But it's still Tails is basically very much I mean,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: they're all Dave's babies, but that's that's like his that's
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: it's very close to him. So when you work on Tails,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: you know, it's it's uh goes. It's a lot more
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: like working on the Clone Wars with George. You know,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: it's like you deal with like a single voice, you know,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: and it's Dave. And Dave says, okay, we do this,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: we don't do that, we do this like this, we
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: do that like that, and there's a discussion, but like
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Dave will be like like you know, kind of he's there,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: and he's sort of like there every step of the way,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: you know, and and when he's there, on the other series.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: But on the other series, he's going to be there more,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: you know, in what has become the executive producer fashion,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: where he's going to oversee, he's going to have the
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: creative say at all the milestones, he's gonna he's gonna
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: okay all the things that need to be okay. But
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: you know, he also understands the trust factor of like, well,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: these are shows, like other shows that have to be produced,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: and I have to oversee all of them. So I'm
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: not going to be there every step of the way.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to put my faith in the
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: right people in this step to kind of like go
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: from A to B, and then I'm going to come
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: in and I'm going to say, yeah, that B is okay,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: we can now move on to C. Or no, you
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: got to go back and like work on work on
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: the A still until it gets to the right B.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: But he's not going to kind of oversee the whole,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: the whole, every step of the way from A to B.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: So there's there's that, And definitely, you know, when I
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: was writing on on Tales of the Empire, I saw
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the difference in the sense that, like, you know, my
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: experience writing just like it was when I edited, was
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: like really much like very much one on one with Dave,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: you know, directly. Okay. Uh.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: One last question about Tales from Me is of the
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: of the ones that have been released so far and
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: the ones we haven't seen yet, is there one in
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: particular where you view that as this is this is
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: my calling card in terms of what I put into this.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Is there something where you look at it and you say,
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: if there was one of these episodes that people looked
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: at for an example of my involvement, which is the
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: one that that to you, screams Nick, that says, this
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: is the one that that I was able to put
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: enough of myself into that My worldview, my philosophy, my
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: everything is in here. You can see that there.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Well, I will say first, and I really mean it.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: I'm not just saying that to be to be to
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: say the right thing. They're always I mean all of it.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: This is how I approach it, you know, I think
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: it is, and this is how I want to approach it. It's
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: first and foremost, especially the tails, you know, like I said,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: they're always like they're Dave's it's Dave's baby first and
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day. It's Georgia's baby. I mean,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: we're all, like Dave is the first one to say it.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: You know, it's not our sandbox. And we will only
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: do good Star Wars stories if we if we are
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: humble enough to always remind ourselves that it's not ours
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: to do to do what we will with we are stewards.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: And you know, and you have a responsibility, and I
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: expect you to also take ownership in the sense of
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: like you know, you got you got to put yourselves
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: into it. You can't remote control this, this is the car,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: but you know, remember that it's not your car. You know,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: you're you just get to drive it. So and and
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: and I honestly again, like reading the episode with with Yattle,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: I mean like it like it's a pleasure to have
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: like someone like Dave and the way you know, I
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: of course I love him and I respect him as
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: a friend, as a mentor. We've known each other for
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: almost twenty years. But like when I read a script
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: like that, you know, it's it's so it's so inspiring,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: you know that, like you want to do right, just
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: like I wanted to do right by George. You know,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: you do you want to do right by his story
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: because because like you're like, yeah, this, I want to
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: do my best as an artist to help him tell
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: this story because it's so worth telling. Now, I you
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: know that being said, I will say, you know, I
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: will put probably equal you know, the I'll the first
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: episode of Bariss' story. You know, Barr's the story like
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: meant a lot to me. She is she is. There's
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: two characters who have meant like enormously to me ever
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: since the Clone Wars. It's Ventris and Verisoftie. And this
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: is not I mean it's as a fan, but it's
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: as a storyteller. You know. The things that I like
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: the as a voice, as my voice, the things that
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: I think are meaningful to me in Star Wars, the
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: things that Star Wars speaks of, you know, in terms
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: of the human experience. I really live them through those
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: two characters very much, and I think that they're very
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: important for me in what Star Wars has to offer
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: to people as a story in terms of messaging. And
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: so you know, that was the reason why, you know,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: like I really wanted to tell Barris's story, and when
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Dave said, okay, let's do it, and then but he
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: gave me specific parameters and he said, you know, if
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: we're gonna do it, this is, this is, these are
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: some of the things that I want to have in
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: there the first story. In terms of those themes that
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: I that I talked about and what they mean to me,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: you know, in Star Wars, what what Star Wars you know,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: speaks of, they are fully represented. Like my personal view
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: on what Star Wars is about is really represented in
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: that first episode and the whole arc, But in that
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: first episode mostly in terms of shooting style, in terms
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: of cinematography, shot breakdown, blocking, staging. I was very, very fortunate.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: I cannot say enough times how lucky I was that,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: you know, to have the collaborators and friends that I
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: have at the studio and in approaching it from Dave,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: you know, all all all on down, you know, but
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: gave me the room. You know. I was able to
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: work with Sawyl Royce, who was the episodic director on
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: that episode, who welcomed me. You know, he could have said, okay,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: well this is your script and you're gonna cut it,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: but this is how I'm gonna shoot it, and he welcomed.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: He opened his arms to like go over like the
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: blocking and you know, how we were gonna approach shooting it,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: and then we talked about how we were gonna cut
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: it together and so like, in terms of a fully formed,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: fully fleshed representation of like what Star Wars meets to
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: me and how a Star Wars story looks like and
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: sounds like and talks and walks like to me, that
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: is probably the one that represents that the most, the
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: one that you know, represents the most what I like
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: to do. You know, when I work on Star Wars,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: you know, four Dave for George, it's probably the episode
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: with theattle from from Tales of the Jedi. That's the
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: one that I really poured in, you know, Like I said,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: from the moment I read the script, I was like,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: oh man, Like I mean Salwil and he also directed
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: that episode, and like I remember this is We've had
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: that conversation several times, but that was one of the
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: times because we've said, you know multiple times, like this
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: is one of those moments where we tell each other
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: and ourselves if this is the last thing I ever
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: do you know at this studio on this you know,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: for this show, on Star Wars, this has to be
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: my best work and so when when I remember when
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: when he and I wat the script, we were like, okay,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: this we have to we have to we have to
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: give Dave our best work for this is this has
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: to be like it has to be perfect.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: So cool in that, Nick, because one of the big
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: things about the Barriss arc is that the first episode
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: devoted you got to not only work on you know,
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: as a story editor, you actually got to write the story.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: And for somebody you know who started at ILM, helped
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: work on the prequels.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: You know, you've worked in rooms with George.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, what was it like to be given an
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: episode and say, hey, now you you get to write
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: the story.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: I think it was tremendous. It was a tremendous opportunity.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: I was. I was really grateful. I mean, I feel
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: like I worked to earn it, but at the same
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: time I was I was very very thankful again of
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: the of the room, the space that I was given
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: starting with Dave and working all the way you know
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: through even when we were later in lighting, and I remember,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: you know our art director and Joel Aaron, our director
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: of cinematography and visual effects supervisor, who because because I
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: know them, because they know me because we've been friends,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: because we're close collaborators creatively, and we respect each other.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: They they came to none of them had to do that,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: you know, Dave didn't have to, you know, And and
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: that I was given again the room voice to be asked,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: you know, what do you think of this? How would
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: you like? That? Was an amazing chance. I mean to
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: go back to the writing, you know, I I like
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: I said, I had this idea. I really, you know,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: I knew Dave had said. I want, you know, we're
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: going to do more tales, and I want this to
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: be an opportunity for people in the studio who want
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: to stretch themselves, who want to contribute to the studio,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: who want to bring their voice out. To do that,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have to earn it. And step one of
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: earning it is if you want to, you're gonna have
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: to speak up and you have to let it be known.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna I'm not going to go among the
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: ranks and kind of you know, it's I'm gonna as
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: your as you know, I'm going to do the dad
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: thing of like teaching you the lesson that you have
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: to kind of do the work to let it be
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: known what it is you want to do and how
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: you want to do it. And I had this idea,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: you know, like that had sat with me for Barras
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: for a while. That was very personal and and so
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: I pitched that story and I wanted to go through
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: the channels. So I, you know, put it out through
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the channels, you know, and let it work its way
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: up the ranks until it got to Dave and and
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: they said, okay, well you know this person said I
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: like it. That person said I like it, this group
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: said I like it. And they said, okay, well now
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: you know it's going to be with Dave and you know,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: we'll see what happens. And they you know, got back
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: and to to to us and said I like it.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Let's let's do let's do you know, let's do the arc.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: And like I said, he had like specific things. He
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: then sort of like rebroke the story and said, okay,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: we're going to do the arc. It's going to start there,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: it's going to end there. But you know, I want
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: you know, this is this is what I want to have.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: This is when I want to have it take place.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: These are the people that I want to have involved,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, And they told me before I
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: knew any of that. They they you know, they Josh Rymsho,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: who's one of our story executives, came back and said,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: we're you know, we're gonna do it. Dave likes it,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: he's gonna he's gonna rebreak the story, but we are
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: gonna We're gonna have you write one of the one
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: of the final production scripts, which was again a great,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: an amazing opportunity. I got to work with Matt mcnivitz,
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: who who is one of the head writers at the studio,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: who has the guy who a guy who he has
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: a huge body of experience going back. I mean, he's
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: worked on live action, He's worked on a ton of stuff.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: You know, he goes back to all the way to
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: twenty four and worked with us since the Clone Wars.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Same thing. You know, Like everyone involved in our studio
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: has so much experience. Knowledge of the way that George thinks,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: the knowledge of the way that Dave thinks, has himself
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: brings a ton of passion and energy. I mean, I
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: don't know what Matt is fueled by, but like the
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: dude is just like so much I mean so much energy.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: I mean I've seen him like I've seen him like
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: break down stories in in like like for five days
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: in a row, and like how he ends up at
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: six pm with as much energy as he started and
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: and that's like at a level that's ten times like
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: more than anybody is crazy. But anyway, I worked with him,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: you know, to kind of rebreak the story for all three,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: all three episodes, to include the elements that they wanted,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: you know. And then and then we went our separate ways,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: and he worked on on two and three and I
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: work on one. We would check with each other, you know,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: and I would because I was writing the first one,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: I would bounce him like my draft so that he
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: could see, you know, what I was doing. And then,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: you know, every step of the way, we had like
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: three milestone you know, Dave and I kind of get
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: togethers where he would go over my draft and he
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: would say, yep, yep, yep, change that, you know, and
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: he kind of explained because he knows that I want
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: to learn, so he would teach me, you know, we
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: got to have this like this and not like that,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: because if we do it like this, then it means that.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: And so we can get this and again, like he
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: had given me, which was great, He had given me
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: clear direction on like specific characters he wanted to have involved.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: You know, he wanted to have the Inquisitors, he wanted
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: to have the Fortress, he wanted to have Vader at
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: the end, and you know, I had to put them
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: in a frame work of like what made sense to
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: me based on the story that I had initially for Forbears,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: you know, I wanted it to be a love story
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: in the end, and I wanted her redemption to to
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: come through love, and it was always about like love
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: is what helps her get out, you know, And but
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: at the end there's still a journey where like she
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: has to that's the first step, but then she has
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: to like make the journey to like selfless action, and
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: that's sort of like the last step. And you know,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: like working having having kind of Dave's they wanted to
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: have the fortress. That's sort of like for me, like
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: was kind of the impetus of having it be like
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: that first part was kind of a descent into hell.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: You know, I wanted I wanted to be at the
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: same time as as it is already kind of it
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: is her ticket out right, So it is the first
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: step in her you know, her journey out. But at
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: that point it's it's like to use a to quote
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: a line from thirty Rockets, you have to climb down sometimes,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: so she is climbing her and and and so like
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: there's in the language, in the camera language and the
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: visual language. You know, there's very specific things that that
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: we worked in. I really, you know, so that you
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: get that idea that she is descending into hell, you know,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: all the way down, and and yeah, and then and
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: then and again. It was really, it was it was
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: such an amazing experience to have Dave teach me, you know,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: give me just enough room to be able to kind
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: of grow and you know, practice my voice, but also
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: you know, toute legit and direction that you know, I
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: to kind of I was just talking about that with
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: a friend yesterday. Like, it's the best kind of constraint
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: when you have, when you have like when you have
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: an amazing creative, an amazing director you know, who says
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: this is what I want and it's not just a mandate,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: they kind of like because there's there's a very specific
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: reason why they want it, so you know, it's good,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: right and it just comes out like it's just they
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: just say that this is this is the assignment. And
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: then as a creative you have to figure out a way.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Constraint is always the best motivator, right to kind of
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: have it be still something that is good. And like
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: I said, they will say, like you got to drive
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: the car. It's not your car, but I still expect
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: you to drive it. So he's not going to be
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: content with me just kind of parroting or or you know,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: sort of like remote controlling. And so I had to
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: like figure out, like in all these things that I'm
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: just describing to you guys, like Okay, what is the
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: fortress to me? How does this how does this like
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: figure into into her story, into the thematic you know,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: and then descend into hell. I wanted to then kind
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: of get all these sort of spiritual connotations and kind
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: of have it be more than just the base, you know.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: And and so that started to inform that was kind
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: of me going back even further to like the way
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: George taught us how to write, you know, and I
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: was like, then, you know, if the fortress is X,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: then it influences the story and that fits into the
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: journey of Barras and then you get to like to
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: the result that you want.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: One of the uh you talking about that in the
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: story for Barris, you know made me think of with know,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: the bad Batch, and you know, Dave was just talking
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: about this at Celebration Japan where he was speaking about,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: you know, the idea for the bad Batch actually came
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: you know, from working with George and and and that
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: that George's idea was, you know, we could continue the
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: story of the Clones and you know, past Revenge of
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: the Sith with this this group. And yet in many ways,
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: the real surprise in that show was the arc we
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: get with this kind of mystery character of Omega. And
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: I wanted to just ask you about her development throughout
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: the series. Did did y'all always know where you were
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: going to end up with her, that she was going
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: to be this you know character who was you know
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: for sensitive and like basically that the Mino ends had
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: finally done what you know, Palpatine had wanted and then
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: they hide that from her and from him. Because to me,
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: that the beauty of the story with Omega was that
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: it was never about the mystery box. It was always
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: about the character. First in her relationship with the Clones.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: The joy of that was just that there was always
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: this looming interesting thing, will we ever find out completely
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: about her? So I'd love to just hear about y'all's
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: thought process of developing the character of Omega, and then
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: of course like how you doled out the information just
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: about her, and then of course you know just where
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: she ends up.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I can speak to the part that
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I know, you know. I mean a lot of the
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: conversations that have to do with what you're asking about
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: have to do is for that particular project, conversations that
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: were between Dave, Brad brad Rau, our showrunner Jen Corbett,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: who was the head writer for The Bad Batch. These
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: three entities probably Matt also Matt Magnibus to a slightly
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: lesser degree, he wasn't the head writer on The Bad Batch,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: but he was definitely involved. And then the writer's room
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: when they would have the story conferences, which involved in
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: all all of the writers team, including Matt and Jen
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: and Brad would have been there. Dave would have been there, Dave,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: I think, I think for the writers' conferences for Bad Batch.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know if he was like there every day
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: all the time, the entire day, he might have been
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: too busy to be able to attend like continuously, but
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: he would definitely have been there at present. But anyway,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: like mostly these conversations would be probably like at the
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: at the top top level between Brad, Dave, and Jen
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: to the extent that I know, in conversations that had
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: with all of these parties. And that's I'm gonna answer
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: on a general level, but which applies to Omega. You know,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: what you do is generally speaking, you know, and this
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: applies to us. It applies to just development in general
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: for characters for television. For you, you want to you
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: get an idea, right, and you sort of like say,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: and it's kind of like you can say, well, on
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: a spectrum of one to nine, this character can be
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: as little as this or might be as much as that. Right,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: so you have you kind of defined something and it's coherent, right,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: it's not contradictory. It's not saying well, they might be
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: as short as five to one or they might be
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: as tall as as seven to three. No, it's like
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: either this character is tall. They might be as tall
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: as like a very tall average person, or they might
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: actually be a nine foot tall giant, right, and how
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: how tall we're going to end up defining they are
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: in the world of the story really depends what we
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: end up finding out matters the most in terms of X,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Y Z right. And the reason you want to do
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: that is not because you don't know, because that that
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: that that shows that you kind of have a pretty
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: well defined idea of like the meaning. It's because you
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: do want to leave yourself also the room too. There's
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: an organic there's an organic nature to character development and
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: story development, which you want to allow the room for.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: It's very important because at some point I I heard
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: I I was lucky enough to sit down at a
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Q and A with Quentin Tarantino when ah, I'm grateful
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: bastards came out. Wait was that yeah basterwards? Yeah, thanks
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: and and and I remember talking to him, like asking
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: him about the death of Hitler at the end of
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: the show, and I was like, you know, as a storyteller,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: I mean this is like one of the biggest points
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: of history that virtually everyone knows, right how Hitler died,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: and so what like, how do you deal as a writer,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: as a storyteller, as a director, how do you deal
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: with the commitment to make such a change in something
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: that everyone is going to know. And he said, well,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: if your story is really true, as in like Israe
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: is really earnest, he is really honest at some point,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if it's about real people or not
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: it's not. It doesn't matter whether it's about events in
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: the way they happen or not. The story, if it's
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: really earnest, will tell you what it needs to be.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: And and you have no other choice but to commit
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: to that because that the story needs to be what
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: it needs to be. And if you if you don't
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: listen to the story, then you're not going to do
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: a justice, not going to be the story that it
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: should be. And so you know the reason why you
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: leave to come back to us, you know you kind
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: of leave that room, is because you want to see
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: as you tell the stories and as you get to
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: know the characters and they start to they I know
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: it sounds weird, but they do start to speak to you.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: The story starts to speak to you to what it
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: needs to be. You might, as the writer, you might say, hey,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: you know what I really wanted this character to be.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: And I'm not specific talking about Omega you know, I
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: really wanted this character to be a Jedi, right. But
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: at some point, as you're like three months, six months,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: a year, two years into the story, the story will
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: tell you I know what you want to dude, but
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: it's not what I want to be. And it's kind
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: of like a father with their child. You have to
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: be able to say, Okay, well, I got to help
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: you be the best version of you what you need
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: to be, not what I want you to be, right,
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: and so you have to honor your character. They do
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: speak with their own voice. It's really weird to say it,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: but they do kind of like all of a sudden
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: come back and tell you what they want you to be.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: So leaving that room having kind of the idea, just
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: like having a child, you know, you're like, well I
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: hope I would love and then you sort of like
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: baby that every day kind of hand hold it. And
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: then you sort of like you have to redcon your
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: own expectations as that person becomes more and more of
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: a person and starts to say, well that's cool, but
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: I want that. And hopefully if you build enough faith
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: and enough earnesty, you know, in your rapport, you can
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: kind of have a vin diagram overlap of the two,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: and you have to be okay with that. And so
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: this is where you kind of leave that that flexibility
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: so that you don't get to a breaking point where
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: it only works if it's this way. Even though, but
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: like everything is screaming at me, that's not what matters anymore.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: It's not what matters. It might be, and a lot
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: of times it's really funny. It's actually, at least for me.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: I only speak for me personally, whether it's writing or editing.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: I'll get an idea when I read a script and
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, you know what, in this scene, I'm
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: going to use this piece of music and it's gonna
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: drive everything. It's going to drive the rhythm of the cut.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: It's going to drive like the way I'm gonna set
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: it up. You know, how long I'm gonna hold on
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: the establishing shot, et cetera. It's all gonna be because
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: I know like the way that this music builds or whatever.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: And I get the footage and I cut and I
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: cut it, you know, and I don't have the music yet,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: and I bail all of that, you know, and I
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: kind of like I will sort of like start to
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: craft the story a certain way, and I get to
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: a point where I've done it with that in mind, right,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: and it kind of like does that. But that's the
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: point where as it takes shape, it starts to kind
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: of emerge with its own identity. And then I grab
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: that piece of music and I start to edit it,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: and something bumps me and I go over it and
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what the heck? What is? And I and
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: I try different things, right because I'm like, well, what
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: the core, the bedrock of it is that be submitting
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: that's what started my whole idea for like the emotion,
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: for the way, for the point that it makes, and
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: so on and so forth. So I'll try to change.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, what if I hang out on this
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: lest What if I, you know, like ended this way
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: instead of that way? What if I make it shorter longer?
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: What if I And every time it's just like now
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: there's still And I guarantee you nine times out of ten,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: you're like, you know what doesn't work? It's the stinking music.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: M not that it doesn't work, like it's it works
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: as in like it's what motivated the whole thing, it's
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: what gave it life. But then by the time it
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: was the thing of its own. It basically tells you, yeah,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: that but that's the that's now. Now you have to
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: like now now, and now I've outgrown this, So now
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: you've got to give me something that actually that I
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: don't follow, but that follows me.
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: Right, So that that's fascinating in and of itself, because
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: I know you mentioned, you know, the Q and A
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: with Tarantino and everything, and it's it's well known that
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: like he'll have you know, and Lynch is the same way.
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: He'll have like a piece of music like in his
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: head when he's he's doing certain things. But like I
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: sort of bring it back to the silence that you're
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: working in. But then from that silence, have you ever
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: had a moment where you know, everybody is having their
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: meetings and you're you're trying to craft story and where
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: the characters are going, and then you have a real
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: world interaction, like you go out to dinner and you
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: know it's it's with you know, somebody from work or
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: a friend or or something like that, and you're sitting
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: there and you're having a moment. Do you have a
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: moment that you can point to where you were working
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: on the bad Batch and maybe there was a sticking point,
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: maybe there wasn't, but somebody said something in passing that
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: wasn't even necessarily working on the show, and you're like, aha,
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: that that, and like that unlocks it for you because
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: it was like sitting in the back of your brain.
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: Are there ever moments like that that you you bring
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: back in to the process.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: That that can happen. I will say, usually it's more
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: of an internal dialogue and and I'll have like things,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: and it can be it can be something that I
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: see or hear, but even when it's the case, it'll
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: be more like a time delay where it's sort of
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: like that I might in the moment, I won't say,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: oh oh, it'll be a thing that will kind of
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: like you know, have its own. It'll sink in for
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: what it for what it is, which is separate, and
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: then it'll add with something else and something else, and
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: then when I'm actually thinking back about the problem or
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: or sitting down to look at this cut or whatever,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I'm kind of adding to and
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: two and then that will kind of trigger like a
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: hole like tumbling of the of the blocks. Right. But
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: more often than not, it's it's more of a it
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: is not unlike that process, but it's more internal, like
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: I was saying, you know, with the example of the
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: piece of music, and it's kind of like it's almost
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: like looking for the solution to a mathematical problem, and
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: you or like a Rubik's cube, and you keep like
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: you're like you're trying to like you're trying to like
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: move the faces, move the faces, move the faces, and
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the pattern you're like, oh, wait,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: like when I did this, I had three here and
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: two there. When I did that, I had four and one.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: And then you're kind of like, I think, and you're
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: sort of like mentally going, I think that means that
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: if I go, if I go ACD A lead to this.
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: And then you try it, and then sometimes you're like yep,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: click click click click it works, or you're like, Okay,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: it's not quite there, but you can feel that you're
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: on the right track in terms of a thought. So
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: you're sort of like, all right, let's see why what
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: what worked worked, why that direction feels good, and that
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: might that will probably help me figure out what's still missing,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: you know, why it's not quite there. And then usually
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: in a you know, a couple of steps you get there. Now,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: the the incidences that I've had where like that, I
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: I think are more akin to what you're describing. That's
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: that's working with Georgia day. And that's because you know,
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: as teachers, like you come to them, whether whether it's
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: a problem on the page and the cut, with an
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: idea basically and you have that block right, and you're like, look,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: I feel like I have it, but like every time
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: I go I do the process of the rubik scube
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: that feels right, I still end up with like one
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: wrong color in the damn middle of the of the face.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: And you know, they'll go like, okay, show me, and
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: then you kind of go and then usually they'll be
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: like show me again, and then you do it like
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: two or three times and then and this is this
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: is their talent as storytellers, as filmmakers. They have the
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: ability to look at it from a macro and and
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: they're also great teachers, right, so they will say, okay, well,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: the reason why it's not working is because yes, you
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: have the right idea, but when you move it like that,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: you know, you put this in the wrong position, and
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: so you're you're only going to end up with that
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: splash of color. The right way to do it is,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: and they'll explain to you why and then it'll make sense.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: I'll give you an example so that it really kind
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: of like sinks in. You know, when we were working
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: on the Clone Wars, on the Malevolence arc, we had
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: and this is like you know, beginnings of times when
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: dinosaurs still roam the earth and we were baby storytellers.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: We had no clue what we were doing, but we
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: were like eager to learn. And George already could tell that, right,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: so we we we bring him two. We bring him
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: in to show him our latest and greatest version of
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: this is the last episode, the one where they do
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: the run at the Malevolence and they you know, end
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: up destroying it, and we tell him. You know, Dave
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: was always super good about that, you know, in the
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: spirit of like teaching us. He would always like frontload
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: and tell George, Okay, we have this, we like the
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: idea X, we really love it, but we also feel
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: like there's something that's not quite working right now. Oftentimes,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: if we knew what it was that wasn't working, he
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: would say, this is what we have a problem with here,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: We're going to show it to you. This is our
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: you know, best foot forward, tell us, tell us, teach us,
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: what is it? And so we come to like the
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: you know, and this this was one of our longest
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: review this one, like the started in the morning, I
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: think mid morning, I think around ten, and it went
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: until like one point thirty in the morning, and we
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: got to like the last act and the climax, and
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: and you know, Dave had already kind of told him
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: we love this idea of like the death Stark Trench run.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: You know, this is our death Stark Trench Run. Right,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: but something if something is not working about it, something
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: doesn't feel right, doesn't feel believable. It doesn't land, and
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: we can't you know, we've tried, we've tried a thousand
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: ways to like shoot it, cut it, and it still
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: doesn't land, and but we can't figure out what it is.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: And was like, okay, let's go over it. And we
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: went over it. He and George would always he would
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: always be like, all right, let's watch it, and then
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: we'd be like super quiet. He would just watch and
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: if you and if you looked at him, you could
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: see him like really kind of concentrate, and he would
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: like you could even see his eyes like like working
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: clockwise around the screen. It would end and and then
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: he would say, like play it again, and we wash
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: it a second time, sometimes three times, and he wouldn't
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: say anything. He would just watch and study and focus,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: and then he would he would say, Okay, you know
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: we're gonna break it. Don't be afraid. We can always
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: put it back together. We probably won't, but I'm gonna
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: show you how it's gonna get better. And in this
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: he actually explained to us before because because they've had
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: asked him, like, you know, you know, help us learn
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: why it's not working. And he said, I'll tell you
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: why it's not working because and this goes connect to
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: what I was saying earlier. He said, because your original
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: idea is to do a death Star trench run. And
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: he said, you know this is the Rubik's cube, right,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: And he said, so because you're binding yourself to that idea,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: you are trying to pace it like the way that
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: you would if you were shooting a death Star trench run.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: But there's a critical difference which paints you in a corner,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: which is the death Star is the size of a planet.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: The Malevolence is a very big ship, but it's still
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: just a ship. So by staging it and blocking it
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: the way that you would the death Star trench run,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: you break before you start the believability of your chain
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: of events, because these ships would fly thirty times around
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: the Malevolence in the amount of time that it takes
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: you to do a single run along the left of
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: the ship. Because you're trying to you're trying to build
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: it up. You're trying to have that nice sense of
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: crescendo with a death Star, but it can't happen with
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: the Malevolence at this piece that these ships travel at.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: They're even a ship as big as the Malevolence, it's
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: going to take them just a couple of seconds. So
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: you have to stage it in a different way so
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: that you can get you can we can get to
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: that to what you're trying to do, but don't approach
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: it like it's the death Star. You have to kind
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: of say, the idea is, but how do I make
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: it work telling the story with this ship?
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, that's really cool. It is it is in
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: terms of breaking you know, uh, beats like that down,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: Like I actually want to jump over to the Bad
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: Batch because the way that the uh arc with Mount
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: Tantis resolves itself, and you know that all the different
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: plot lines, the stories going on at that how how
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: tough was it to come to the resolution of that show,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: to come to the way you wanted to resolve things
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: and the way you wanted to pace things to get
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: there within that very that very arc you you're going in,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: you know this is it. You're You're You're coming on
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: the final loop. How are you a play final loop?
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: Final lap? You're coming in on that final lap? How
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: long does it take there too? With all that experience
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: you have beforehand, Like, does it get easier or is
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: it even harder? Because you know those patterns in the
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: Rubiks cube that you have to contend with.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: Well, in the case of the Bad Batch, it gets
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: a lot harder because you have so many more pieces
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: in play. And I was lucky enough that I didn't
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: have to deal with the hardest part of that of
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: that hard part juggling that was again that was mostly
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: you know, Brad and Dave and Jen and then them
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: working with sort of the greater forces, you know, including
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: even the continuity guys. Because you're dealing with pieces that
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: are on the board relative to other parts of the
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: Star Wars timeline. You know, things that have been in
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: other stories. You're connecting with events, you know, places and people,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: so you so that's where like a lot of things
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: come into play which you have to juggle. But you
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: also you don't want to do it in a way
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: which becomes mechanical, which means, okay, I have like the
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: mechanics of the Rubik's cube. The great thing about that
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: is that it's just a mechanical thing, right, There's no
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: creativity to solving the Rubik's Cube. It's just it's just
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: what are the mechanics here? There is the part that
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: Matt was talking about where the integrity of the human characters.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: You don't want to compromise that. And that's the really
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: hard juggling part is Okay, we want to tell this
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: story about these four guys. They don't give a damn
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: about like the role that tent To plays in other
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: parts of the franchise. Omega doesn't give a damn about
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: like who Tarkin is, like you know, but we have
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: that responsibility. We can't This is the thing of like
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: we have to be we have to listen to what
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: the characters want. But we also because we're stewards of
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: this sandbox that's not ours, we can't break that either,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: and so it becomes kind of like a really complex
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: game you know, to play to to make it work
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: in a way that honors both and you know, I
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: can speak I know, you know again, I was involved
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: as an editor. I mean, like especially like the last
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: the what we called the mau you know, it's what
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: we called our sort of like special It's an acronym
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: for a movie of the week, but we kind of
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: just like that name when we have like sort of
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: like a series premiere or a series finale that's sort
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: of like almost like a feature feature feature sort of scope.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: And for the last two episodes, you know, of Bad Bash,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: it was an incredibly I mean at the time is
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: when one of the hardest things I worked on because
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: it was so complex, the amount that had to to
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: all the things that we had. We were forced we
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: had painted ourselves in this corner where we had to
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: kind of like make sure that we checked all kinds
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: of boxes. For example, to give you a concrete example,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: there were specific characters that we we had to make
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: sure would not be around by the end of the
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: story because they cannot be around to tell other people
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: about Pabu, right, and and but we also didn't want
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: them to just disappear or die and have it show
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: up as like a mechanical thing. Well of course, because
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: they can't they can't be around later to tell people
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: about Pabu. Right. It had to really fit into the
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: story and fit in with what the characters needed to
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: and wanted to resolve for themselves, you know, I can
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: give you and that like editorially, you know, as a
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: story editor also like we were impacted a lot, you know,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: because that the story is still very much in flux
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: when when you work on it editorially. And it was
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: a there was so many pieces, you know, and we
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: had like the Zilabeast, which was which was our own
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: that we had introduced, and we had to kind of like,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: you know, like it had to play a role in
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: the mechanics of the story. But we didn't want it
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: to just have it come in and then just you know,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: that's it. We wanted to make sense, right, So we
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: had all these these pieces, and we had Omega's sister,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: you know, and how does she We wanted to conclude
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: her story, but we wanted it had to make sense,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: you know. I had to sort of like fit into
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: kind of something which kind of like checks all the boxes.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: But it also had to really kind of pay off
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: her as a character, and it had to pay pay
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: off as in her relationship with Echo, with Omega. And
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: I can give you an example, you know, because I
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: was involved writing and editing, you know, on to jump
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: back to tales for a second, you know, to mention
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: like the Fortress. That was kind of the thing, you know,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: like when when I knew that, I that we needed
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: to put the Fortress inquisitorious in the story. And I
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: wanted to find that sweet spot. I needed it to
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: I needed it for the story to make sense, for
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: the story to be earnest, if it was going to
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: be any good. It had it had to obviously give
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: Day what he wanted, but the story needed to have
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: but it also had to kind of fit the the
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: the with the character, with the character needed for their journey, right.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: I had to find that sweet spot, and so I
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: I to the best of my ability. Because I don't
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: have George, I can't go to him anymore and say, master,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: you know, teach me, like what it, so I have
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: to as much as possible as a grown up student.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: I have to channel like what would the master, you know, do,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: what would he tell me? And I kind of I
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: basically said, okay, well what is the fortress to me?
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: In in the George way of things? And I was like, well,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: if if it is you know, George always thought talked about,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: you know, the Jedi as as a religion, the Jedi
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: as you know, an inspired by the Knights Templar, and
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: I basically started to kind of like from there, I
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: sort of went, well, if that's if that's what they are,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: then this is what the Sith are, you know to me?
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: And then if the Sith are that, then it would
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: mean that something like the fortress would be this in
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: that particular cannon, you know. And if it is that,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: it's something that would that would predate, you know, the Empire,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: it would predate whatever they built on the surface of
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: the ocean later. That's more almost of a decoy and
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: all this other thing. It kind of has to do
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: with what the relationship between the Sith and the Jedi
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: was at those times, which is more like the times
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: of the Templars. And so then I kind of and
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: I was like, okay, and this works with Barris's journey,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: you know, and her descent into Hell. And so once
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: I had all these pieces first, I had to kind
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: of then go to our Connuity team and Matt Martin,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: who's one of the stories and one of the story groups,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: you know, Connuity executives, and I basically laid it all
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: out to him. I said, Okay, this is what this
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: is what you know I need to have. This is
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: what what works for me to you know, to make it,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: to make it work for the character, and to also
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: give Dave what he wants and what he needs for
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: the story. Does this work? Does how does this reconcile
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: or not? How am I breaking things? And then in
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: this case I was lucky for this particular thing. Matt
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: was like, no, actually, this doesn't You're good. This doesn't
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: break anything that we've already said or haven't said about
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: what it is. So you're cool. If Dave is okay
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: with it, that that that's clear for us. And so
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: then you know, when I met with Dave, I was like, well, okay,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: so what if it's this, what if it's that? And
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: so that means that it's structured like this and then
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: that would kind of allow us to have barriers to
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: X y Z, which would also give you the beats
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: that you that you need. And Dave was like, yeah,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: if that's cool. If Matt confirmed that it doesn't break anything,
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: you know, a greater canon, then we're good. And so
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: that was that. So, I know a lot of that,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: A lot of that went into you know, structuring and
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: kind of like connecting the pieces on an emotional character level,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: and also in the greater canon of all the characters involved,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: the places involved, the place in the timeline. You know,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: where are we since Order sixty six? Where are we
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: relative to you know, the Rebellion Rebels. Yeah, then all
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: these things you know, kind of really had to come
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: into play for for the end of Bad.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: Batch you mentioned and uh, you know, I just.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: Got to be.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: Aware of of our time. And I was thinking as
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: we've been talking through these things, you know, from the
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: Bad Batch to Tales of the Jedi, Tales of the Empire, uh,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: you know, and knowing that we've got you know, Tales
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: of the Underworld coming, and then there's a the Darth
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: mar the Darth Maul, Shadow.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: Hunt, Shadow lordow.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Darth Mall, Shadow Lord show coming out, and
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: so Star Wars anime is going to continue to be
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: a force to be reckoned with. And in all honesty,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: you know, and this is you know, John and I
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: have told you this many times in person, and we've
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: said this many times on the show. And it has
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: nothing to do with the fact that we're friends and
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: the fact that you know, podcast seeing actually brought us
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: all together, which is just an crazy, insane, you know,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: beauty of the force to do that. But you know,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: twenty years of Star Wars animation, and it has almost
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: always There have been exceptions, we we're not going to
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: talk about those here that but it is almost always,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: I would say, and I think John agrees, been the
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: pinnacle of Star Wars storytelling.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: Absolutely since it began.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: We agree, and and and and so because you've been
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: such a pivotal part of that. I mean, you've been
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: in almost every single aspect of Star Wars animation from
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: its beginning, not on again, not all because you haven't
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: worked on every single show that has been done. But
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: what do you feel twenty years and now continuing, what
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 2: do you feel has been the reason for so much
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: success and and and and so much love And I
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: was just thinking about this the other day in terms
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: of Star Wars animation, uh, and and just the the
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: love around it when you know, Clone Wars saved uh
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: and the emotion that it brought for fans, you know,
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: and even think about it just kind of can get
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: to me emotional because it meant so much to us.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 2: And and so twenty years in being a part of
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: almost every single part of this what what do you
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: think has has led to this being something that has
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: legitimately captured the hearts and minds of Star Wars fans
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: old new, and as John's youngest padawan is learning, Uh,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: you know, it's capturing yeah, next generation. And so what
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: do you think that has been and and why do
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: you think it continues to create a legacy that just
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: won't quit.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: That's a that's a beautiful question and a phenomenal question.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: And the answer is as I think, simple as it's
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: it's it's the people. It's the people. And yeah, it's
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: it's as simple and as profound is that. And you know,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: when when things are bad, you can you can almost
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: always say the fish stinks from the head, and it's
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: generally true. The opposite is true as well, and so
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: it's the people, and it starts with George and with Dave.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: When you are earnest and in your vision, in what
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: you want to do, in the your intent, it doesn't
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: necessarily mean that people are always going to like or
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: connect with what you do. But I think regardless, people
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: are going to connect with with that honesty and with
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: that that that there's there's profundity, you know, and depth
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: in that. And the Prequel Trilogy is a great example.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: You know, the Prequel Trilogy is controversial. You know, we
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: can be honest about it, like I love and I think,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: you know, I think, I mean, I love those movies.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: But not everyone liked them. Definitely, not when they came out,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: still not today. But what you see with time is
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: that what almost everyone regardless of whether they say I
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: was just listening to another podcast, you know, a couple
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: of weeks ago about two people who were discussing Revenge
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: of the Faith because of the movie's re release coming up.
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: And one loves the movie, the other one doesn't like
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: the movie, but they both agreed about the relevance of
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: the movie, the importance of the movie, and how earnest
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: the movie was, and they both respect the movie for
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: that right, And I think that so when you have that,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: you're going to have material which is recognized for that
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: honesty and respected for that, and that creates a connection
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: where even if someone doesn't like it, they're going to
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: have respect, which is a form of liking it. They
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: might say, well, yeah, it doesn't work for me, you know,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: in this way or that way, but damn yeah, I
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: recognized like this, this is this is the real deal, right,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: and in animation, i'd like to think, of course I'm biased,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: you know that George recognized how earnest we were. Again,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: I was, you know, the first one to say when
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: we started, we didn't know what we were doing, but
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: we wanted to learn. We had enough talent in our
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: craft that George was like, Okay, you're capable of learning.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: You don't know what you're doing yet, but I can
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: see and I'm going to teach you. And so and
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: he chose people, you know that, so that, like I said,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: you know, the opposite of the fish things from the
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: head is true too. He pollinated, he hired, he recruited,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: He brought to him a flock, you know, people who
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: were of the same the same mind set in sort
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: of like mind and had the same sort of passion
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: for the craft for storytelling for Star Wars, and and
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: then Dave in turn went and did the same thing.
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: And so that earnest desire to be the best filmmakers
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: we can be the best storytellers we can be to learn,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: to always be willing to learn to better ourselves, to
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: push ourselves. Our love for Star Wars, for George, for
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: Dave has been still in our DNA after twenty years,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: you know, has not really changed that much. If I
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: if I look at anybody, any one of the people
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: in the top tier of our studio, you know, it's there.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: If I can talk about Athena Portillo, who is our
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: you know, our VP and senior producer. I can talk about,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: you know, Alex Spotswood, who is the producer under her,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: who I knew when he was a PA, when when
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: he first started. I can talk about Joel Aaron, who's
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: our our director of cinematography, our visual efects supervisor. I
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: talked about Andre kirk O, our director, our animation director,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: Keith Kellogg. You know, I can talk about myself, you know,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: And and I mentioned them, not be not saying that
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: it stops them there you know there we're sort of
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: like we're now kind of we're now the old timers,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: you know, the gray beards, and and they have they
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: have kind of passed that on in turn, right, and
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: so it continues to be this pollination. You know, there's
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: this kid, Ryan, you know, who is a great, a
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: great storyteller in his own right, you know, super dedicated.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: He's one of our pas, and you know, he's an
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: amazing guy, really talented. You know, he was nine years
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: old when the episode of Brandon Vader's Air wo right,
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: but he has he has like all the passion and
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: he he came you know, he was recruited you know
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: in the last whatever two three years with that same
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: sort of like DNA in mind. You know that this
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: sort of like it's something that gets passed on. So
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: from George all the way all the way you know,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: through the ranks of our studio. It's something that's that's
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: still very much there and that desire to be true,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: to be faithful, to learn, to be humble, and at
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: the same time to take ownership when when you when
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: it's your time to do your thing, whatever that thing is,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: is there. Like Dave, you know, I was doing that
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: analogy of the car, you know, like, it's not your car.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: You didn't you didn't build it, so don't take it
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: for a joy ride. But when you're driving, you're expected
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: to drive. You also can't be in the passenger seat.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: So it's that you have to, you know, want to
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: do both and be able to do both. And that's
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: still something that very much no pun intended, animates all
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: of us. And and I think that fans, people in
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: gen will connect with that because you can sense that
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: like us, you know, to come back to what I
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: was saying about the prequels, whether you like a show
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: an episode or not, you will you might not even
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: really care about Star Wars, but I think I really
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: have faith that if you watch it, you'll you'll be
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: able to tell that this is done with that degree
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: of honesty and that earnest, earnest you know, passion. Well.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 3: One one last question from me is as somebody who
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: has spent so much time in animation going out to
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: a macro level outside of Lucas animation, when you look
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: at the animation industry as a whole and you read
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: the tea leaves, what is it you see as the
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 3: future for animation is it remaining in the the bespoke
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: character animation style. Do you see it remaining in or
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, moving to more of what says Zamechis was
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 3: trying to get to with Beowulf or something like that
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 3: where there's more mocap involved, or do you see just
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: basically a further refinement of the approaches and technology, Like
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 3: have we hit a point where the technology is going
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: to continue to grow or has it hit a point
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: where it's at a point of just constant refinement Just
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 3: looking at it the industry as a whole, I.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: Think the technology is always going to gore. I think
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: you're not. As long as there's humans, and as long
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: as there's a human who is has enough free time
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: on their hand to sit and look at a rock
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: and look at a twig, they're going to basically wonder
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: what can I do with that that I'm not already doing,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: And that's going to drive new technology, right, And so
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: I think that, like technology is always going to move,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: and we can't predict like when when you're out of
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: stage where you think, well that's about that's it, that's
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: that's the apex. That's because that's because the next thing
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: that's around the corner is so unlike anything you can
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: think of that you just you just haven't thought, Oh,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: I can if I take this rock and if I
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: just chisel enough, I can make it into a wheel.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: It just hasn't gone on in you know that it's
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: just gone into your brain yet. But I do think.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: You know, if you had asked me that question five
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: years ago, my answer would have been, from my perspective,
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: I would have still given you that answer, but it
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: would have I would have also said, but I think
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: it's wishful thinking more than anything. Today, I would say
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: that it's like forty percent wishful thinking, and I legitimately
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: think at least sixty percent. I think it actually is
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: going to happen. And I will be the first one
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: to say five or six years ago, I would not
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: have believed that there was a chance it could happen,
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: especially in the United States. But I do think it
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: will happen. I think there's actually I'm certain there's a
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: very good chance it will happen. And I think it
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: will happen. You know, I think that what certain projects
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: like I'll credit mostly in the Spider Verse films for
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: for opening for cracking that door, open finally, but other
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: projects in its wake have sort of like widened that door.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: I think there is finally, finally a shot in this
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: country in particular, and it's really a problem because it
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: is one that is proper to the United States to
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: stop seeing animation as animation. When you go see a
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: movie that's shot on Super eight, or that's in black
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: and white, or that doesn't have dialogue, if someone asks
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: you about the movie you saw, it's gonna come up
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: in the conversation, but it's not gonna be the first
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: thing you say. You're not gonna say I saw a
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: buck and white movie. You're gonna say, I saw a
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: film wir It takes place in World War two about whatever,
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and it's in black and white, and
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: you know, there is this really really be like very blunt, wrong,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: wrong thing about like animation that it becomes this sort
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: of like like a wall and it's like it's the
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: first thing it's animated. Yeah, I saw an animated right,
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: And we have to people have to get to a
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: point where the story is the story is the story right,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: And then again you have to be you have to
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: the story tells you what it needs to be. And
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: at some point, if you're a talented filmmaker, you're going
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: to figure out, among other things, the best way for
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: me to tell that stor story is to shoot it
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: in black and white. The best is to do it
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: without dialogue. The best way to do it is to
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: do it with animation. But that's it, And when you
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: walk out, you should you. Ideally, the best animated film
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: or story is one that is going to move you,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: invest you immerse you in a way where when you
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: walk out, you're not going to call your mom. You're
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: not gonna call your friend and say I saw the
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: best animated film. You're going to say, I saw this
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: amazing film about blah blah blah, and then in the
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: conversation at some point it's going to come out that
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: it was animated. But that's that's that's not the thing
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: that's going to sit with you, right, And I think
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: that from Spider Verse to something like Flow, you see
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: that door, then you see the and I use force
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: for forceful terms because it's something that I'm very passionate
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: about and I really want that to happen. The battering
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: ram is just like hitting stronger and stronger, and I'm
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: happy that like ever since the first crack, you see
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: now other creatives that are like now less hesitant about
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: saying no, We're gonna just keep knocking, which keep knocking
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: until like it just hits people, you know, from the
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: ones in studios who green light projects to the ones
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: you know at home in front of their TVs or
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: in theaters that that it's about telling the right story.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: I would recommend you know that people check out a
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: show called Common Side Effects if you have HBO Max,
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: you know, which is an amazing story. It's it's it's
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: masterfully told, which is about like it's about this crack
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: bought scientist who finds this like mushroom with incredible properties,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: and it's about like government conspiracies, and it's about like
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: big pharma and sort of extreme capitalism. It happens to
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: be animated. It's an amazing series. I would recommend people
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: check out Twilight of the Gods, which is which is
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: a project by one of your favorite filmmakers, mister Watchmen
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: and Justice League, Zack Snyder, which is, you know, a
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: completely different type of animated thing, you know, and but
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: uses it's a it's a show about Norse mythology. It
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: just happens to use animation because because it's about mythology
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: and so, you know, using animation for what it can
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: do visually lends itself to that. But the point of
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: it is not that it's animated. And I can, I can,
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: I can cite you know, two, three, four, five more
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: that are all in the last like two three years.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: And I think that like really where it's at is
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: like everyone's responsibility in our field, in our industry to
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: keep pushing, you know, as artists, as creative as people
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: in animation to say, you know, it's about the stories
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: telling you what they need to be. And for us,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: we choose to like look for stories that tell us
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: they want to be animated. But it's not animation for
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: animation's sake. It's just as filmmakers and storytellers, we're looking
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: for the best way to tell the story, and because
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: we're animation people, we're going to look for stories that
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: really demand that, you.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 2: Know, I mean, I'm not going to go on a
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: whole rant, but I could go on a whole rant
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: about remaking perfect animated films in live action as if
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: it makes them better or more legitimate.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: But that's a whole other show.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: But I had one last question for you, and it's this,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: So you you got to tell an incredibly important story
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: to you with with Barris uh and and and you know,
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: so my question then is what's another story then that
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: if you get the opportunity, you would love to be
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: able to tell uh in Star Wars animation, what what's
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: that story for you?
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: Oh man? In Star Wars specifically.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: Hey, we get paid nothing for this, but you know
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: we're we're We're still going to ask the tough questions.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's one which I can't talk about.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 2: You sound just like Dave right now. There's a story
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: I want to tell that I you know, I can't
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: talk about it.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: But let's see, let me think about one that I could.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: You know, Well, there's this one I don't want to
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: because I could, but I don't want to because I
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: don't want anybody. It has nothing to do with what
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: we're doing, has nothing to do with Shadow Lord. But
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: like some people could could think that maybe maybe he's
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: saying it doesn't that it doesn't do the game. Todstand right.
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: So I'm not even gonna go there, you know, I'm
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: just trying. That's the thing I'm trying to think of
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: one that like will be clear that it's just you know,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: in the vacuum of me, you know, I think you know,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: oh man, it's so I all right, well I'll give
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: you a real answer, and I'll give you one that's
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: kind of a cheat but still real. There is one thing,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: you know, like obviously you know, like I've been involved
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: with with animation since the beginning, and the story of
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: the Clone Wars matters to me hugely, and the story
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: of Ahsoka matters to me hugely. When Dave was starting
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: to work on on Ahsoka, he asked me if I
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: was interested in making the transition, you know, and working
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: with him in live action, and I said yes because
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: I told him what I still mean, and which is
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: if I if you think that I can help you
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: tell a story, I will always do that for you.
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: In the end, it ended up not working out for
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: reasons that had nothing to do with him or me,
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: but one thing that I would love to in any
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: shape or form for me. It's not about again, it's
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: not about like how how that where that story is told?
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: How it's told, you know, in terms of live action animation,
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: what series just as a story purely personally for me
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: being able to be involved with the story that tells
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: the end of Ahsoca's journey, you know, like literally by that,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: I mean like the very last story, Like that's what
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: I mean by the end of her journey, right, I
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: really am trying to make sure that none of my
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: words are misconstrued, you know, as the meaning anything would
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: like be obviously have a huge like it would mean tremendous,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: like a huge amount to me because because of like
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: where it all comes from, how it all started for me,
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: you know, in my journey with George, with Dave and
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: in Ahsoka is so important I you know, I can't
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: wait to be able to see to watch what Dave
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: does with her character, you know, however wherever that takes
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: her in terms of like series, movies, whatever. But like whenever,
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: whether that that story, that last Ahsoka story is told
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: two years, five years, ten years, twenty years, you know,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: whenever from now is something that would have a huge
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: meaning to me. That's sort of like my Chia answer
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: because it's not directly like in the vacuum of just
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: for me, for me personally, other than the one the
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: one that really matters that I can't I can't talk
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: about I think, I will say I've always and this
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: is not me pandering to you, Matt, Like, there's something
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: that's always fascinated me about the character of Obi Wan,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: like I have. I mean, this is such a no
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: no in terms of like it's such a big, big character, right,
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: but like where Obi Wan comes from, and I have
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: I have a story in mind, you know, which Again
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: it's it's not like a story in terms of like
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: this happen and then that happens, and this happens. It's
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: just like an idea more like a theme because of
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: who he is to me, what he means. This is
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: sort of like how I work in my head, you know,
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: as a storyteller. It's not like, Okay, we're on this
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: planet and then this happens, and it's more just like
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: this character represents that and this is kind of like
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: the story. And so because of what Obi Wan represents
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: to me in parallels with other characters outside of Star Wars,
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: you know, I have this idea in mine and I'll
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: be honest, like, this is I practice I do exercises
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: with with franchise like Star Wars and others, because it's
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: a good exercise as a writer. Again constraint like saying
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: something that's not mine. And it's like there's all these
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: like really important pieces in play that I have no
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: control over. So if I had to tell the story
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: of X, how would I do it? It's a really
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: good exercise to do. And when it comes to Obi Wan,
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: I've always been like, I don't, I don't. There's pieces
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: that are sort of like kind of blocks that I
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: haven't in the rubiksque figured out how to like move
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: so that don't have that wrong splash up color in
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: the middle. But I have sort of like this idea
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: which I really love about about what he is, what
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: he represents, where he comes from in that sense, And
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: and yeah, that would that would be like if if
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: I got the chance at some point in my life
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: to kind of explore that, it would be an amazing thing.
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: But in my head, it's more, like I said, just
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: an exercise that I run usually as a way to
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: kind of practice practice the craft of like being able
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: to tell stories. When you have these constraints, things that
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: are that are that you have to contend with, it's
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: a you know, working with with with constraints is always
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: the best, the best way to become better artists.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, uh, you know Star Wars Mini movie of
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: the Week, you know, uh, with animation. If you guys
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: just want to go back and tell the story that
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: about Setine and Obi Wan with Qui Gon when I'm
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: not there, they're on the run for a year. I
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 2: feel like that's a perfect four part episode right there.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 3: So there's possibilities there. I'll go ahead and make my
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 3: own pitch. I'd love to see the end of Watto's story.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 3: I'd love to visit back we see where his arc
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 3: is pointed an attack of the Clones, and I would
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 3: love to see something where Watto sort of has a
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 3: moment of enlightenment near the end where he suddenly realizes
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 3: how limiting his own worldview was of of everything, and
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 3: see him hit like an actual sweet moment where he's
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 3: like he just realizes, oh man, oh I participated in
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 3: some terror and like, you know, have that actual moment
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 3: where he realizes something worthwhile that he could have done
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 3: and it's all sparked by one act of kindness while
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 3: he's down and out. That sort of thing.
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean that's definitely you know, I mean.
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 3: Right Yeattle, Yeah, exactly exactly. If Yattle can have a
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 3: moment to shine, then I want Watto to have a
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 3: moment of shot, moment to shine. Please.
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, There's there's there's two characters you know that mean
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: a lot to me. Also the one who's a lesser character.
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: But I think there's a character that has I've always
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: found to have like tremendous potential in the sandbox of
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: Star Wars, and that's Fee, you know, that Batch. I
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: think I think she's a really fascinating character and one
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: of those you know that in essence you barely scratch
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: the surface of there's so much more that character can
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: represent in so many ways. And then one who is
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: pretty pretty explored already. But I think that he is
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: probably my third, you know, after the characters I've already mentioned.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: My third most important character personally is that that I've touched,
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: you know in my work is Cross Air, Yes, And
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: I think for me that probably would be you know,
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: the more I think about it, you know, realistically, like
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: one that because of the importance he has and connecting
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: it to barrass like what the themes of Star Wars
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: and how like I receive them and in terms of
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: like as if I to the extent that I can
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: be also kind of like preaching for the mentions of
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: Star Wars as a storyteller myself. That's a character who
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: I think I would personally in a room make a
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: pitch for. It would be very valid to have that
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: character have a complete journey. I mean he already has
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: a complete journey, and within the framework of the bad Batch,
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: but in his personal, singular journey. Because because obviously the
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: theme of redemption is one of the most important ones
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: in Star Wars, but different characters have different redemptions. You know,
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: Vader and Anakin don't have the same kind of way
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: of sinning in the same redemption as someone like Venturs,
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: as someone like Crossair. They come from different different angles,
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: their mistakes are different, and their ways of trying to
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: atone for their mistakes are different. And I think that
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: like to examine, you know, to me, like the character
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: of Crosser is someone who, in a sense has the
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: worst kind of punishment that a person who makes commits
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: graves mistakes can have, which is realizing one their mistakes
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: and be being told, guess what, no easy ticket out
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: for you, no Plan ninety nine. You're gonna have to
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: stick it out. You're gonna have to live a long,
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: long life, and you're gonna have to think about what
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: you did every single day of that long life, and
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: so exploring where that life goes and what that means,
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: I think is a really interesting idea.
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 2: Well, Nick, I couldn't think of, you know, as we're
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 2: recording this, it's actually Easter Sunday, So I can't think
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 2: of a better place to end than on Star Wars Redemption.
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 2: Uh and one ah, thank you for just making this
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 2: an incredibly special four hundredth episode for for John and
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 2: I And thank you for being a brother to both
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 2: of us. And we we appreciate you, man, And Uh,
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 2: it means a lot to us to to share uh,
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 2: not only Star Wars, but our lives together with you.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: And it's been a it's been a real privilege two
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 2: to just be able to call you friend. Uh and
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 2: so truly truly thankful that you know. Gosh, John, I
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 2: was I was doing the math. We've actually been at
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 2: this now over nine years with aggressive negotiations.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 3: And I can still remember walking by the piano that
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 3: never got played in the house that I lived in
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 3: at the time in a different state, hashing out how
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 3: the show was going to be and who who knew
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 3: it would go this? My goodness, all of the times
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 3: that have come nonsense.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well I will say likewise, guys, the feeling is
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent mutual, and I thank you from the
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: bottom of my heart. I mean, you know, like you said,
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: we we've become friends, and you came into my life
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: at a time you know that was that was that
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: was not easy necessarily all the time, and you were
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: always always there, you know, and so it means just
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: as much to me.
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: Well, if is there anywhere that anyone can follow you
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 2: if you they wanted to, just to catch up with
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: you and you know, see what you are up to
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 2: when you get a chance to post on the old
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: social media's.
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I will say the easiest is probably
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: on Facebook because you can find me under my name,
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: and I'll be upfront, I have like a virtually zero
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: social media presence because in today's times, I find that
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: it's the best way to keep my mental health smart
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: the most the most you will probably see, you know,
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: if you connect with me that way. Is like when
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: I go on vacation, I post, you know, vacation pictures basically,
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: but other than that, my my social media presence is
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: really down to like cat and dog videos, rescue farms
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: and sneakers.
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 3: That sounds like a beautifully curated timeline, and I will
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 3: always take the opportunity if you like cat videos, to
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 3: pay attention to Uncle Booboo out of China. It's a
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 3: magical account, one absolutely worth worth following.
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: Please will not kidding. I watched so many, so many animals.
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: I'll give you a recommendation then, like check out, check
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: out mustache farmer, farmer.
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 3: Okay, all right, well.
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 4: All right, he's a he's a German, a German dude
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 4: who basically runs a rescue farm, and all he posts
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 4: is just videos of him hugging, hugging his animals.
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 3: We could all use that, I think in our in
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 3: our social media profiles today.
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: Basically, you know, hugging his cow, hugging his turkey, his goat.
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 3: This sounds beautiful. I'm all thank you for that recommendation.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 3: I'm all about that, my goodness.
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 2: Well, John, when you're not hugging your dog Shelby, where
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: can people find you?
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 3: Well, the greatest dog in the universe rests as we speak,
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 3: but you can find me.
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: I'm out there.
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 3: There's Kessel junkie. I don't really maintain too much social
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 3: media myself, again for the same reasons that it keeps
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 3: you sane. But you can also find me here on
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 3: the network on a show called house Lights that I
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 3: co host with Tristian Merdell and Darren Moser, where we
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 3: go through the works of different directors and disagree an
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 3: awful lot, but in a very friendly way, which the
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 3: world could use more of as well. But Matt, where
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 3: can people find you?
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 2: You know, when I'm posting on social media, just look
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 2: under the name Matt Rushing zero two. You'll find me
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 2: if I'm on that platform. Of course, here on the network,
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 2: I had the show called Outpost talked about every single
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 2: chapter the Harry Potter series you can check out, and
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 2: then over on the TFM network a bunch of great
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 2: Star Trek talk with Chris Jones doing a lot of
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 2: the anniversary rewatches. Is a lot of those shows have
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 2: hit big anniversaries. Plus you can find me in the
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 2: six or two club talking about all of the franchises
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 2: we love outside of Star Trek. But John, you know, guys, uh,
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 2: it is nerf Nugget Night here at the Temple. So
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: I think it's time we head to the Commissary and
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 2: close these negotiations.
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 3: Naster rushing. That sounds terrible, but sure.
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: Negotiations sometimes join the revolution, join the Nerd Party.