Latest / Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast / Issue 329: Too Much Star Wars?

Transcript

Issue 329: Too Much Star Wars? · Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast

0:00
Hello, then, welcome to the Nerd Polity. Hi. This is Nick
0:08
Nastasu, story editor on Star Wars, The Clone Wars and Star Wars bad
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Batch, and you are listening to aggressive negotiations. That's right, it's aggressive
0:24
negotiations, your little slice of Star Wars Heaven here on the Nerd Party Network.
0:29
I am one of your hosts, Jedi Master John Mills and joining me
0:33
after some really interesting hyperspace lane navigation that we had to get through, which
0:39
is why this transmission took a little bit of time to get to y'all.
0:44
Is my dear friend, Jedi Master Matthew Rushing. Matt are you happy to
0:48
be back in the co pilot's chair here with me? As Baby Yoda once
0:52
again figures out how to accelerate and break without killing us all? Well,
0:58
you know it, deafly has reminded me just the dangers of light speed skipping,
1:03
So be very careful when you're doing that, y'all, because you just
1:07
never know where you're going to end up. And you know, when you
1:11
end up in Chiss space, you know, transmissions don't reach out, so
1:15
that's that's where we ended up. I gotta say, though, I had
1:19
some wonderful Chiss steak, So I gotta say I'm glad we visited there.
1:26
Well, we had a great time at Ruth's Chiss Steakhouse. And of course
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I want to say that light light speed skipping did not happen. It's just
1:34
that Matt had so much whiskey with his Chiss steak that he just blacked out
1:40
from time to time. It was a very trying that was okay, okay.
1:44
So of course you can reach out to us on Twitter at the Jedi
1:49
Masters or is it X now, I don't know, is it X?
1:52
Is it Twitter? Who knows? It's the same map you were using.
1:53
Who cares? And you can of course find the network at Joint nerd Party,
1:59
and you can find the nerd Party on Facebook and Instagram where all the
2:02
cool kids are. Anyway, all that aside, you know, we come
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back to the chair here, Matt. We've been talking about different things that
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are going on, you know, different news is breaking as we record this.
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Asoka is still in our future, and we're all excited about the possibilities
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and all of those sorts of things. But Bob Eiger Bobbies I like to
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call him, he made some interesting comments recently and Bobby was basically saying that,
2:31
along with Marvel, he felt there was too much content being served.
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Now, you and I we've talked over on the six o two Club about
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Marvel specifically Phase four and how the content does seem to have gotten a little
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out of control. But I'm gonna throw the question to you right here,
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do you actually agree with that sentiment about Star Wars? Is the problem that
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there's too much content? You know? It's when it comes to idea of
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there being too much content, you know. I think that that was something
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that was applicable to Disney buying Star Wars and immediately rushing into production seven,
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eight and nine and not necessarily, you know, taking the time. And
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I think we've talked about that many times on this shows as we've looked back
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at this Equal Trilogy, and I think whether you like this Equal Trilogy or
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didn't like it, I think everybody can admit that there were some ups and
3:34
downs with that trilogy and that that trilogy could have most likely just benefited from
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there being more time between each of the films to truly allow all of the
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creatives behind the scene to not only finish their film, but then see kind
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of what the audience reaction was, and then kind of go into the next
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film, which is you know, exactly what George did with with the prequels
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specifically, you know, and there were you know, documented changes that kind
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of happened because of that, specifically between episode one and two and different you
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know, characters that weren't as you know, abundantly on screen like Gear Dr
4:21
Binks. So, I mean, I think that was definitely the case.
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And then of course, because of that jumbled mess behind the scenes, you
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know, the movie that they were working on first, even before you know,
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Disney bought lucasfilm, which was the solo film, ends up getting pushed
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back, which then hurts that film, I think as well in its production
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and everything. So you know, I do think that there's some legitimacy to
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that. Now as we've moved throughout the rest of the year years, especially
5:00
after the sequel trilogy finished, I wouldn't necessarily say that, you know,
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Star Wars has really rushed things out. I think we have had some issues
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with quality. I think of work in the sense that because there's so much
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going on it effects houses these days, and there's so few effects houses anymore
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because they've all put each out of that business. You know, things aren't
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necessarily the quality standards look wise that we're used to. But I don't personally
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feel as those Star Wars has suffered as much as say Marvel has when it
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comes to the idea of just too much content too quickly, except for you
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know, really the beginning. Obviously, I agree those five movies. It
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was it was too much, too quick, and they did not allow for
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proper development of everything I would consider. You know, we both know that
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Solo. I'm absolutely over the moon for You're over the moon for Rogue one,
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and I like it well enough. Those are the two that for some
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reason we're successful. I mean, even with behind the scenes shenanigans going on.
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I mean, it's not like either of those films didn't have some you
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know, serious things happen behind the scenes. But once we go past that,
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I mean, you have the Mandalorian coming out and sort of saving Star
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Wars as a cultural phenomen before Rise of Skywalker even comes out. And then
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basically it's been Mandalorian the most in the public eye and the bad Batch,
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which is a love letter for the fans so far as I'm concerned, and
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we've had a couple of things come out, Tales of the Jedi and Visions
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both seasons one and two, final season of The Clone Wars, final season
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the Clone Wars. You're right, and I wouldn't think none of those feel
7:00
like too much. None of them have been so tightly packed together that when
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Tales of the Jedi came out, I was like, oh, another Star
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Wars show. I was like, yeah, another Star Wars show. Excellent.
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When season two of The Mandalorian was coming up, and when the hype
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for season three was coming, it was like, Okay, good, this
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is coming back. I'm looking forward to it. And I think the key
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word that you've hit on here is and people might roll their eyes, but
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it is. It's quality. Because with the things that I'm citing to you,
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Tales of the Jedi, the Bad Batch, the final season of The
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Clone Wars, the first two seasons of The Mandalorian, and to an extent,
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the third, there's quality to those. You could have released those back
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to back and each one I would have looked at and said, this is
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great, this is fantastic stuff. So long is what you're delivering to me
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is consistently of a certain quality, I'm not going to complain about the frequency.
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The reason I complain about Marvel in Phase four is I haven't liked a
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lot of it, and a lot of it has looked and felt like it
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was just sort of slap dash. Like you look at Moon Night and the
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premise is all fine, But I'm sitting there and I watched the series and
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I think this really could have been a movie. They're really like stretching this
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and you and I finally recently saw Thanks to Assembling Avengers over on six or
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two club right, doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and I was
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like, what what happened here? Like? There are things here where it
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feels like I'm watching a Sam Raimi movie, and then there are parts where
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it doesn't. Basically, the question becomes, do you think Iger is throwing
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me there's too much stuff out there as sort of a smokescreen topic so that
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we're not focusing on the quality. We're saying, oh good, this means
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they're going to slow down. We know immediately that that means that's a code
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signal for we're going to focus on quality. Quote unquote, Yeah, I
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mean, I think the question is interesting, and I don't know exactly.
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Again, I think, you know, even in the articles, it feels
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like he's throwing you Marvel into the bus more than Star Wars, because in
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all honesty, like you said, this is not really a Star Wars problem
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in the sense that, you know, over the last few years, we've
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just had an outrageous amount of Star Wars content coming, you know. I
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mean, I think and you brought up a good example of the ways in
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which Marvel, you know, especially last year we're Phase four, just had
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so much content coming at you and it felt like every month there was something
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new and Marvel, whether it was on Disney Plus or whether it was a
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film. You know. That I think is absolutely where it becomes just so
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hard to catch up and to keep current with, you know, Star Wars.
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On the other side of that, you know, we had to wait
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so long between seasons two and three for the Mandalorian, you know, and
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so by the time that we got the season three, people were clamoring for
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it. And I think that's kind of the place that Star Wars wants to
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be in, where you know, maybe you just have a couple of live
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action things come out, whether it's a film or TV. Uh, you
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know, Disney Plus and then animated work and that's it, you know,
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and maybe they've kind of hit on that where you know, we kind of
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had that I think last year where it was the Bad Batch and I guess
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this year Bad Batch Mandalorian, uh, and you know, we're going to
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get a Soca and then we know sometime I think it maybe closer to the
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end of the year. I think Skeleton Crew is supposed to come out,
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and so and you know those are all building towards something as well. I
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mean, these are all connected two this time period of the New Republic,
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and so they're they're you know, working to build something specific because we also
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know that this is kind of all going to culminate, it seems like,
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is what they announced with the Felony film, and so they maybe learn some
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mistakes from the from some of the mistakes of the past of trying to go
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too fast and not necessarily planning as well as they could have, and this
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seems to have more of a plan to it to get us to a certain
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point. And then you have these other two films we know that are you
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know, supposedly going to be happening, and so it feels like, you
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know, in some areas of Star Wars, we have kind of a pretty
11:43
solid plan, and then other places, you know, it still feels almost
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as like we're we're kind of throwing darts at a you know, a Star
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Wars dart board and kind of like seeing where that's stuck and like, oh,
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okay, we're gonna do it, you know, Getting of the Jedi,
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Dawn of the Jedi, and then you know, so it's again,
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I don't feel like it's too much. I think really just what it comes
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down to, and I think you kind of nailed it on the head just
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a few minutes ago when when you're just saying it's about quality, right,
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you know, if things are of quality as they're coming out, that's really
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all anybody cares about. Very true, Very true. And this is where
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where I really want to throw the challenge flag because you mentioned the movies.
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I haven't had a movie in years, and we're not going to have another
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movie for years, so like saying that there's too much content is absurd.
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I want to ask you a question. Have you watched any of Young Jedi
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Adventures? I haven't seen that. You know, it just it's been one
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of those things that's exactly that's exactly my point. I turn on Disney Plus
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one day and Young Jedi Adventures was there, and I said, the hell
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is this? I didn't even know it was coming out and now and now
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he comes up and it's it's seas in two, and I'm like, my
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kid actually enjoys it well enough. And I'm sitting there but I'm I'm floored
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because I'm like, number one, I contest the idea that there's too much
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content, and number two, you're not even promoting the content you have adequately.
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Bad Batch is not getting enough promotion at all. No Young Jedi Adventures,
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not enough promotion visions. I could walk out to my family right now
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and be like, hey, Star Wars Visions, and they would look at
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me and they would say, how much whiskey have you had? So so
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my question becomes, isn't the problem really the fact that they're just there's no
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sense of hype about Star Wars right now? Yeah, who's in charge of
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the hype machine? Back back when it was Howard Rothman, like, it
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was a near religious fervor every time something new Star Wars came out, whether
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it was a game or a book or a toy line or something like that.
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I was like, oh, oh my gosh, they knew how to
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push my buttons. Why is it that Disney can't figure out how to promote
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Star Wars. The stuff promotes itself pretty much, and they can't they can't
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generate excitement about it outside of Baby Yoda. Yeah, I mean, I
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think it's a it's a very weird thing. Like you said, you know,
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and I heartily agree that bad Batch does not get the promotion it should,
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you know, I think, you know, and maybe let me pause
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it this to you. Do you think maybe it's that, you know,
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one of the things about Star Wars that helped the hype was always when you
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could buy the latest thing on home video, and that kind of reignited that,
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right, and you were adding and because you know, Star Wars fans
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are collectors as well, so the fact that we can't buy the Mandalorian on
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four K, we can't buy the last season of the Clone Wars on four
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K, can't get Bad Batch on four K, you know, all of
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these things to which Star Wars fans are big fans of, right is owning
15:07
the physical media, you know, I think that might be one of the
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ways in which you are actually hurting yourself rather than helping yourself, because you
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know, and this is the thing. I have the physical media of things,
15:24
right, and there are still times when I just flip on the streaming
15:28
thing because it's just easier. I don't I'm lazy enough that I don't want
15:31
to go upstairs, you know, or maybe I'm traveling or whatever, and
15:35
so like right, having physical media doesn't hurt me using the streaming service,
15:43
and sometimes it maybe even helps it. And so I don't know, am
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I crazy here? No? And let me I'm going to try to hit
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on every point that like you've you've dredged up in my brain here. One
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No, owning physical media and being able to stream it at the same time,
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I still have my Doors albums, and I still have Sammy Hagar CDs
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and I keep them and I play them sometimes. But yeah, you know,
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sometimes I'll pull up Spotify or I'll go to Amazon Prime and I'm like,
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I'm going to watch or listen to this here, right because I'm out
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and about whatever. And it's just I don't have anywhere to play a DVD
16:18
or something. Additionally, when you have a Blu ray, when you have
16:22
a or a four K or whatever, and it's a physical release, you
16:26
get supplementary materials. And I will go ahead and say to you that I
16:32
think, in addition to being collectors, Star Wars fans were spoiled by the
16:36
idea that we got. And we've talked about this on however many previous episodes
16:41
that George Lucas, if he hadn't been a filmmaker, would have been the
16:45
best teacher you ever had in your life, because I feel like, whether
16:48
it's true or not, I know how to make a film because he showed
16:53
all of that stuff, warts and all. He showed the moments of doubt,
16:57
he showed the things that went wrong, he showed the thing he had
17:00
to change his mind about. And it wasn't just him him. I'm you
17:03
know, he's obviously the central figure in the whole story, but you would
17:07
see John Knowles struggle with decisions and lighting and placement and stuff like that.
17:11
You'd see, you know, all these different department heads sitting there and saying,
17:17
I don't know really what I want to do. And the design process
17:19
for General Grievous leading up to episode three was like, we don't know which
17:23
one is gonna it's gonna work, and you see the guy running around and
17:26
he's like, I'm looking for inspiration. What is my guy going to look
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like? I don't know. I only have an hour, right, And
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I think that is a very big thing, because if you even look at
17:37
Light and Magic, the documentary about ILM, all of us are sitting there
17:42
saying the one part of history that isn't very well documented. You guys didn't
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give to me. All you did was just regurgitate stuff I already knew.
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And with each new release, just of the Star Wars films, new documentaries,
17:56
new behind the scenes, new clips, new easter eggs, every single
18:00
darn time. So yeah, I think you're right. The fiscal media thing,
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you hold on to that because you want the archival library of stuff,
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and then the streaming is just supposed to be a supplement. I'm gonna I'm
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not gonna throw away Disney Plus because I've got Star Wars on four K,
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Like you said, I'm gonna turn it on every so often. And on
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top of that, you know, just to make certain segments of the audience
18:27
cheer. Maybe I want to watch an earlier version and not just the four
18:33
K version. Maybe I want to be reminded of what it was like in
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nineteen seventy seven or eighty one or eighty seven or ninety one or ninety five
18:41
or ninety seven or two thousand and four or two eleven. Right, maybe
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I do. I don't know, Yeah, I mean, so I'm thinking
18:51
about that as being a thing that kind of I think hurts that And I
18:56
also think too, you know, and this is a whole other side of
19:00
things when we think of you know, they're too much Star Wars. And
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I also think that we are in a place where more and more and more
19:11
the literature side of things, whether that's books or comics, has become such
19:18
a niche market at this point that people just really it's not capturing people's imaginations
19:26
and the way that it used to. I mean, I think, you
19:29
know, except for I know that timothy's On's Thrawn novels are the ones that
19:36
have you know, really kind of hit the ground and and made a dent
19:41
in any way, shape or form. And part of that, I think
19:42
is that you know, they were more accessible to more fans, right because
19:49
the you know, so many of us are familiar with the character, and
19:55
of course, you know, rebels had made them even more familiar to people,
19:59
and so I think all of that is to me, it seems like
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that's something to which has also not been helping the the Star Wars market in
20:11
the way that it could. And a big part of that is because,
20:17
you know, the thing that fans loved got taken away from them in the
20:22
sense of what was happening in the EU. And I don't feel like they've
20:25
ever truly been able to find a way to make books cannon and make them
20:32
feel important enough where people felt like I have to read this or else,
20:37
like I don't know what's happening. And I think that's that's a really hard
20:41
place to be, uh. And I just don't know if they've really Again,
20:47
I think some of the books have been phenomenal. We've talked about them,
20:49
you know. You know, we both loved, you know, Claudia
20:53
Gray's first couple of books, We've lost Stars and Bloodline. We both really
20:57
loved the Throwness and See trilogy. You know, there's been some other things
21:02
like that. Yes, Yeah, Master and Apprentice was solid. Yeah.
21:07
But the thing is that goes right into the point I was going to throw
21:10
back at you. That's going to be the controversial one. Do you know
21:11
why the books aren't capturing people as much. I know, I don't really
21:15
read them because they're not talking about characters that I care about. Yeah,
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I think that's a big part of it. Yeah. I mean, look,
21:23
the fire's gone out of anyone, not anyone, not everyone, but
21:29
a lot of people like myself. I've got enough distance. I don't really
21:33
care what happened between Ben Solo and Luke Skywalker anymore. And if the if
21:41
they had struck when the iron was appropriately hot, I would have cared and
21:48
I would have devoured it because I would have said, give me something I
21:52
can work with here. I wanted it. I wanted to know, and
21:56
they just waited too long. And then by the time they came out with
22:00
anything that hinted at it, I was like, Okay, that's fine whatever.
22:04
And it was a comic series, and I was like, who's even
22:07
going to read this? And so the thing is, like all of these
22:12
things. The reason that EU was so beloved before Disney was if you were
22:18
a prequel fan, you loved reading the Republic Commando stuff. You loved learning
22:23
about Mace Window and Deep Deep a Ballaba, you loved learning about all of
22:27
these different things going on with Anakin. Between episode one and episode two,
22:30
there's this ten year gap. You have a lot of room to play in
22:33
there and do world building. And then with the other EU you're talking about
22:37
Luke, Con and Lea, the big the big Original three. Of course
22:41
you care about them. Yeah, So again, I don't think that it's
22:47
too much content. I think it's just it's content that's not resonating with as
22:52
many people as I would would have liked it too, and or it's not
22:56
resonating with as many people as it would have in the past. Well,
23:02
and I think, you know, when I look at this Asoka series coming
23:06
out and the way in which it is, you know, one of the
23:11
one of the beauties of what George did, with the help of Dave Floni
23:15
of course, in the Clone Wars series, was to bring in things that
23:19
fans loved from the EU because they respected it. You know, George was
23:23
always willing to see something he liked and be like, that's a good idea,
23:29
we're using that. I mean, that's how Ali Sakia became a Jedi.
23:32
He saw the cover of the comic and was like, that's super cool.
23:34
We need a bunch of Jedi anyway for you know, episode two,
23:38
let's put her in the background. That's awesome, right, But then as
23:42
the Clone Wars came out, there were all of these places in which George
23:47
could begin to just kind of play with ideas that people would introduced into Star
23:51
Wars, but in his way. And so, you know, I think
23:56
that's the thing that you know, this Asoka series seems to be doing too.
24:00
Dave is taking something that we absolutely love with the thron trilogy from Zon
24:07
and he's basically now doing his version of that with all of the characters that
24:12
exist for him to be able to play with genius. You know, you
24:18
take something people already love and you just give them that with your spin on
24:22
it, which is what actually made Marvel so successful when it started. It
24:26
was taking things that people kind of loved and doing it with their spin on
24:32
it and presenting it to a mass audience. And so you know, that's
24:37
you know, one of the things where if I think, if Star Wars
24:41
does want to continue to be relevant, you have to find ways to do
24:48
those type of things, or you're doing what the Mandalorian did right where you're
24:56
sitting down and you're thinking about Star Wars and what makes it successful as a
25:02
storytelling medium, and then you're using those principles to be able to introduce us
25:07
to new characters that feel as though they fit seamlessly into the world that you've
25:14
created already. And you know, I think that's why everybody loved that show,
25:18
because you watched it and it immediately just kind of felt like Star Wars
25:23
because it followed all of the main principles of the series and yet gave us
25:30
kind of a new fun twist on Well, now we're going to follow the
25:33
lone gun Slinger and watch him slowly find himself into a family. You know,
25:38
like that's a great story, you know, because it feels familiar and
25:45
different all at the same time, and then every so often pin it to
25:49
a familiar characters that you have a reference point, so you know what's going
25:55
on exactly how it relates to the larger story. But I'll tell you we're
26:00
not going to solve it in a single show. But I know, I
26:03
just know, Matt, that there is somebody out there dying to tell you
26:08
what you got wrong in your estimation of what's going on with the world of
26:12
Star Wars. Right now? Where can they find you online? To set
26:17
your record? Straight. Well, you know, isn't that just why we
26:21
invented social media? And you could find me all over social media under the
26:25
name Matt Rushing zero two. Of course I'm here on the network with a
26:29
completed show. It's Ray Kaufman talking about every single chapter of the Harry Potter
26:33
series, one chapter time. You'll also find me over on the TFM network
26:37
talking about a bunch of different things. One place that happens is in the
26:41
six or two Club, talking about all the fandoms that we love. John
26:47
is a frequent guest over there. We've got some bonus shows you can check
26:48
out as well. You can also find me doing Warp five, the orb
26:53
Literary Tracks, Saddle Up, and the Artificial Tango. But John, if
26:57
people want to tell you just how right you got things, which would be
27:02
a plus, because it doesn't happen very often, where can people find you
27:04
very often? It never happens, Matt. Perhaps I should introduce you to
27:08
my wife and children. I'm always wrong. But if you want to pile
27:12
on, or if you want to just pay me a compliment, which you
27:15
know, that's fine too. Castle Junkie out there on your social network of
27:19
choice, have a lot of fun on Letterbox because I talk about movies and
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good reads where I read controversial things sometimes just because if you tell me something's
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controversial, I get interested in it. And you can find me here on
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the network, co hosting a show called house Lights with Darren Moser and Tristan
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Riddell, where we talk about the work of directors through all different sorts of
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crazy combinations that we come up with. But Matt, I'll tell you something.
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It seems that baby Yoda is okay. I'm nervous. His finger is
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hovering over the hyperdrive button again. So I think it's time to close these
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negotiations. John, negotiations are closed. Join the Revolution, Join the Nerd Party.