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Issue 369: The Acolyte · Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast

0:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to their ned policy. Well, hello, and welcome to
0:22
Speaker 1: the six h two quote as well as aggressive Negotiations,
0:26
Speaker 1: because that's right, it's time for another fantastic crossover here
0:30
Speaker 1: between both of the shows, because well, your hosts are lazy,
0:34
Speaker 1: and I am just one of your hosts, Matthew Rushing,
0:36
Speaker 1: and with me as always is the amazing and astute
0:41
Speaker 1: Jedi Master John Mills.
0:44
Speaker 2: Was it lazy when they paired up Aliens and Predators?
0:48
Speaker 2: Was it lazy when they paired up Deadpool and Wolverine? No,
0:51
Speaker 2: it was not. It was simply a good idea. Matt
0:53
Speaker 2: and so I applaud and celebrate that we have once
0:57
Speaker 2: again joined together in some sort of podcast crossover multiverse event,
1:05
Speaker 2: Aggressive Negotiations and the six o two Club to talk
1:09
Speaker 2: about a topic which hopefully I think people might be
1:12
Speaker 2: interested in hearing us share our thoughts about. Yeah.
1:15
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, everybody knows that the latest Star
1:20
Speaker 1: Wars series, The Accolyte had ended there in July, and
1:25
Speaker 1: John and I honestly just have not really had time
1:28
Speaker 1: to sit down and talk about this together because, in
1:32
Speaker 1: all honesty, the end of July for me was incredibly
1:36
Speaker 1: busy and just hadn't really had an opportunity to kind
1:40
Speaker 1: of get my mind around recording of the show. So
1:43
Speaker 1: that's what we're gonna be talking about today before we do.
1:47
Speaker 1: Of course, you can find us all over the place.
1:49
Speaker 1: You can follow both of the shows on ex Twitter
1:52
Speaker 1: at the six oh two Club or at the Jedi Masters.
1:56
Speaker 1: You can also find us online of our respected networks
2:00
Speaker 1: at trek dot fm or at the Nerd Party dot com.
2:05
Speaker 1: You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook dot
2:07
Speaker 1: com slash the Nerd Party or Facebook at Facebook dot
2:10
Speaker 1: com slash track fm. And you can also find us
2:13
Speaker 1: all over the place on social media under the varied
2:16
Speaker 1: networks as well at trek fm and at Joint Nerd Party.
2:20
Speaker 1: We're on Instagram as well at the six o two
2:23
Speaker 1: Club TFM as well as at the Nerd Party, so
2:29
Speaker 1: all of those places. We would love it if you
2:30
Speaker 1: would interact with us. And you know, John and I
2:33
Speaker 1: would be remiss if we did not ask you to
2:35
Speaker 1: give some reviews for the shows over on Apple Podcasts.
2:39
Speaker 1: It's been a while since both of the shows the
2:41
Speaker 1: six o two Club or Aggressive Negotiations said, have you know,
2:45
Speaker 1: had somebody go in and give us some nice words
2:48
Speaker 1: and so help people find those shows. If you like
2:51
Speaker 1: what we do, we would really appreciate that. And the
2:54
Speaker 1: reason we ask is because it actually still makes a
2:56
Speaker 1: huge difference the reviews, and so please do that, Okay, John,
3:01
Speaker 1: Coming into this show, you know, as with all of
3:04
Speaker 1: the Star Wars shows, right, we're very aware which's coming out.
3:08
Speaker 1: Both you and I are very plugged into what's going
3:10
Speaker 1: on behind the scenes. And so I think one of
3:14
Speaker 1: the questions I was just and just for anybody who's wondering,
3:17
Speaker 1: this is gonna be kind of a free, willing conversation.
3:19
Speaker 1: We're we're gonna probably just hop from thing to thing,
3:22
Speaker 1: and so normally you might see chapters in the episode,
3:27
Speaker 1: but I don't really know if we'll have too many
3:30
Speaker 1: of those in the episode, just because I think we're
3:32
Speaker 1: gonna be hopping around a lot. We're gonna be hitting
3:34
Speaker 1: light speed all over the galaxy, and.
3:36
Speaker 2: So you're used to chapters in the six to zero
3:40
Speaker 2: two club, whereas aggressive negotiations, it's sort of our bag
3:43
Speaker 2: to be a little bit looser, and so this is
3:45
Speaker 2: again that melding where I think we'll find a middle
3:47
Speaker 2: ground with that.
3:48
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna loosen it up a little bit here, folks.
3:50
Speaker 1: But so I am really interested though coming into this
3:55
Speaker 1: show so set up in the sense of they had
3:59
Speaker 1: mentioned show is kind of going to be a show
4:02
Speaker 1: more about the villains in the sense that we were
4:05
Speaker 1: supposed to explore the Sith. We knew that coming in.
4:10
Speaker 1: We also knew that this show kind of seemed to
4:16
Speaker 1: have a fighting style in it that was reminiscent of
4:20
Speaker 1: things what you would have seen in Crouching Tiger, Hidden
4:22
Speaker 1: Dragon or The Matrix, you know, and that this was
4:28
Speaker 1: going to take place, you know, about one hundred years
4:31
Speaker 1: before the Phantom Menace. So I guess coming into it
4:36
Speaker 1: knowing those things, how were you feeling about the show?
4:41
Speaker 2: Honestly, I was feeling a little cautious about it, specifically
4:48
Speaker 2: because I think you're really messing around with something potentially
4:53
Speaker 2: radioactive when you wade into something that ties into the
4:58
Speaker 2: lore at that BA level. I mean, this isn't just oh,
5:02
Speaker 2: I have to make sure I don't kill Lando between
5:05
Speaker 2: the Empire strikes back in Return of the Jedi, or
5:08
Speaker 2: I have to make sure that Han has the Falcon
5:10
Speaker 2: by the time we get to the beginning of Star Wars.
5:13
Speaker 2: This is something very foundational that very much was going
5:18
Speaker 2: to inform world building, which had always been implied free
5:24
Speaker 2: the Phantom Menace. And also, you know, plenty of hints
5:27
Speaker 2: had been dropped, and there had already been plenty of
5:29
Speaker 2: material that fans were very, very attached to. Now, you
5:36
Speaker 2: and I we differ very much about the whole you know,
5:39
Speaker 2: how Cannon is a book thing and and stuff like that,
5:43
Speaker 2: and I have other friends that I talked to, and
5:45
Speaker 2: it's a whole spectrum of how people think about those things.
5:50
Speaker 2: But it was definitely something where whatever you're going to
5:53
Speaker 2: put out had better be so darn good, so darn
5:58
Speaker 2: good that everybody says, you know, that was worth everything,
6:02
Speaker 2: that was worth whatever you did with it, and it
6:05
Speaker 2: you know, I think additionally it provides a tremendous creative
6:09
Speaker 2: challenge to put yourself in that box, regardless of what
6:13
Speaker 2: era you're in, because you're saying to yourself, well, I know,
6:17
Speaker 2: I can't color outside the lines too much because I
6:20
Speaker 2: have to make sure that the Sith are still hidden.
6:23
Speaker 2: I have to make sure that the Jedi are still powerful.
6:26
Speaker 2: I have to make sure that the Jedi are still
6:29
Speaker 2: at the top of their game, because you know, Lucas
6:32
Speaker 2: himself said the Phantom Menace, it's the end of the
6:34
Speaker 2: Golden Age. The Jedi are still a number one, and
6:38
Speaker 2: so that's just a lot of balls to juggle. So yeah,
6:41
Speaker 2: I was a little I was a little cautious in
6:43
Speaker 2: my expectations.
6:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I think it was interesting because coming
6:48
Speaker 1: in I felt cautious as well. But I felt like
6:53
Speaker 1: there was room for optimism for me in the sense that,
6:58
Speaker 1: you know, I think the idea of actually following the
7:02
Speaker 1: villains in a show is a pretty interesting idea, so
7:06
Speaker 1: I think the show had that going for it. I
7:08
Speaker 1: also think that the opportunity to kind of get behind
7:13
Speaker 1: the scenes then in their build up, which we've seen
7:18
Speaker 1: alluded to obviously in plenty of things from The Phantom
7:22
Speaker 1: Menace through the Clone War series. You know, we've picked
7:25
Speaker 1: up lots of pieces, you know, especially with the reintroduction
7:30
Speaker 1: of Darth Maul into the series where we kind of
7:32
Speaker 1: even learned a little more about his backstory all of that. Right, So,
7:38
Speaker 1: to me, the the field is ready for harvest when
7:42
Speaker 1: it comes to understanding the machinations of the Sith behind
7:47
Speaker 1: the scenes, especially with like a Plaguis in the background,
7:50
Speaker 1: you know, we had the James Luceno book that had
7:52
Speaker 1: been written all those years ago, which was incredibly good,
7:57
Speaker 1: and many people did grab onto as what they held
8:01
Speaker 1: onto as canon, you know, because the book was so
8:04
Speaker 1: good and played so well into that series, and so yeah,
8:11
Speaker 1: I felt like coming into it lots of interesting ideas.
8:18
Speaker 1: I think. The other thing I personally was a trepidacious about, though,
8:23
Speaker 1: is especially seeing the promotional material, trailers and such, I
8:32
Speaker 1: was immediately put off by and worried by just the
8:36
Speaker 1: look of the fight scenes because Star Wars, even through animation,
8:41
Speaker 1: has a very specific type of style in the way
8:46
Speaker 1: things are shot, even in animation, which comport with everything
8:51
Speaker 1: that we had already seen in live action, right, maybe
8:54
Speaker 1: just slightly heightened or you know, you have the ability
8:58
Speaker 1: to make something feel more grandiose, just because again you're
9:03
Speaker 1: an animation. It's so much easier to have somebody flip
9:05
Speaker 1: off a building than it would be in live action, right,
9:08
Speaker 1: and so that kind of stuff, And so that I
9:12
Speaker 1: definitely came in already feeling as though that this was
9:20
Speaker 1: starting on shaky ground, if you if you if you
9:24
Speaker 1: put it that way.
9:25
Speaker 2: Well, you know, like I said, I get what you're
9:30
Speaker 2: saying about like the book and stuff like. Like, for me,
9:32
Speaker 2: even if they had a show and it was like
9:34
Speaker 2: darth Plagus wound up being a I don't know, like
9:38
Speaker 2: an Issy Tib instead of Immunist or something like that,
9:44
Speaker 2: Like I would have been fine with it. But I
9:46
Speaker 2: think that the following the villains thing was always something
9:50
Speaker 2: where I didn't know if they could commit to actually
9:54
Speaker 2: following the villains, Like that's a perspective shift that works
9:59
Speaker 2: if it's told from the perspective of the villains, not
10:02
Speaker 2: in the sense that like, oh well, I spend more
10:04
Speaker 2: time with the villains. I was hoping the show would
10:09
Speaker 2: be literally sitting with the Sith as they worked behind
10:16
Speaker 2: the scenes and seeing them intersect with certain things, instead
10:21
Speaker 2: of what honestly wound up happening, which was felt like
10:25
Speaker 2: they couldn't commit to it. It felt like there was
10:28
Speaker 2: that impulse there in the show, but it was still
10:32
Speaker 2: a Jedi show. It was still we're going around with
10:35
Speaker 2: the Jedi, and the Jedi are doing things. We're going
10:37
Speaker 2: to the Jedi and stuff like that. It's like, that's
10:40
Speaker 2: not the show that I was that my excitement meter
10:45
Speaker 2: was even registering for I was registering for I got
10:49
Speaker 2: two Sith sitting there and they're planning s and then
10:53
Speaker 2: occasionally they got to take somebody out to keep mouth shut,
10:58
Speaker 2: and we find out how they managed to keep themselves
11:00
Speaker 2: on the DL for as long as they did. That
11:04
Speaker 2: is where I think the show frustrates the hell out
11:08
Speaker 2: of me is it did not commit to that, and
11:10
Speaker 2: instead I got a Jedi show, which, no matter what
11:15
Speaker 2: you do, that is the trickiest of grounds, because no
11:21
Speaker 2: matter what you choose to do with the Jedi, there's
11:24
Speaker 2: no way to the only way you can you can
11:29
Speaker 2: do it right is to have it so that it's
11:31
Speaker 2: Jedi themselves out there without ever touching corus On, without
11:35
Speaker 2: ever going back there, because that is too I always
11:40
Speaker 2: felt before the show was too you know, too much
11:47
Speaker 2: to chew, too much to bite off like you know
11:50
Speaker 2: it was it was way too much to give yourself
11:53
Speaker 2: to do.
11:55
Speaker 1: Well. And I think so maybe, uh again, we're going
11:59
Speaker 1: to be jumping all over the place, but let's just
12:03
Speaker 1: kind of talk. I think it's a great time to
12:05
Speaker 1: talk about what actually happens then in the show when
12:08
Speaker 1: it comes to the Sith, because one it's like they
12:13
Speaker 1: want to dance around the idea of whether or not
12:17
Speaker 1: this character known as the Stranger, which I don't think
12:21
Speaker 1: they're ever actually called in the show. You only learn
12:23
Speaker 1: that if you read you know, ex Twitter or whatever.
12:28
Speaker 1: And we want to dance around, of course, this idea
12:32
Speaker 1: of you know, whether he's actually a Sith or not,
12:36
Speaker 1: or if he's really an apprentice of the Sith, even
12:38
Speaker 1: though we do see Darth Plagis you know, in the
12:40
Speaker 1: in the show. And then yes, you're dancing around the
12:45
Speaker 1: whole idea of whether or not people like you know,
12:50
Speaker 1: kyote MUNDI. Now you've thrown a wrench into the idea
12:54
Speaker 1: of like that, does he know that there's some sort
12:56
Speaker 1: of dark side something going on out there? And is
12:59
Speaker 1: the the uh you know, middle management Jedi Council aware
13:03
Speaker 1: of this at least and does does Yoda know? Like so,
13:08
Speaker 1: I guess my question is is like it seems like
13:10
Speaker 1: all of the things that you were worried about, they
13:14
Speaker 1: kind of uh basically stepped on every single land mine
13:18
Speaker 1: that you were worried they would step on.
13:20
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you said that, because the Kia d
13:23
Speaker 2: Mundy thing is such an unforced error because people obsessed
13:27
Speaker 2: over it. You know, I had a person that I
13:29
Speaker 2: work with saying like, no, it's established to these X
13:32
Speaker 2: you know, years old because it said that on the
13:35
Speaker 2: action figure card or whatever, and I'm and you know,
13:37
Speaker 2: I'm I'm the gen X jerkwed. That's like, yeah, well,
13:41
Speaker 2: technically the trading cards from tops back in the seventies
13:44
Speaker 2: said that Luke and Leo were two years different in age.
13:47
Speaker 2: So hey, oops, But like it's one of those things
13:51
Speaker 2: where throwing Kia d Mundy in there all it's going
13:56
Speaker 2: to do. That is the one character that absolutely you
14:01
Speaker 2: should not have involved with a Sith plot line at
14:04
Speaker 2: this point in history. It's like you asked for the controversy,
14:10
Speaker 2: not that it's a controversy, but you asked for the
14:12
Speaker 2: continuity question. Okay, so is this the only time he
14:15
Speaker 2: ever encounters that question? And they never come back to it,
14:19
Speaker 2: and then there's more of a cover up, And I
14:22
Speaker 2: think that is the problem there is you could have
14:26
Speaker 2: had literally any other character. You could have even had
14:32
Speaker 2: a character that we recognize there. It's just because of
14:36
Speaker 2: his specific sentence about believing that the Sith had been
14:40
Speaker 2: extinct for a millennium that of course everybody's going to
14:45
Speaker 2: fixate on that. It doesn't mean that I'm dismissing it.
14:48
Speaker 2: I'm not saying the creators were wrong to do it.
14:50
Speaker 2: I'm not even saying I have a problem with it.
14:52
Speaker 2: I'm saying it's a dumb mistake in the sense that
14:56
Speaker 2: you you didn't need to raise this question.
15:00
Speaker 1: I mean it's an unforced error. Yes, exactly, That's really
15:04
Speaker 1: what it comes down to. And and no, I and
15:07
Speaker 1: I agree with you. It it just raises the continuity question.
15:11
Speaker 1: And it just makes I think what it does is
15:15
Speaker 1: it makes the phantom menace that there be something in
15:21
Speaker 1: question now in your mind, you know that doesn't need
15:25
Speaker 1: to be there, especially because it really does seem like
15:28
Speaker 1: in that film, he very much believes that it never
15:33
Speaker 1: felt like a line that was being delivered, as if
15:35
Speaker 1: it was like a wink, like oh yeah, we know
15:38
Speaker 1: they haven't been but they and and and then it
15:41
Speaker 1: doesn't like legitimately the fact that Yoda shows up at
15:47
Speaker 1: the very end and it's like we need to talk,
15:51
Speaker 1: you know, Venestras, like we need to talk. It's like, okay,
15:55
Speaker 1: how it It really does feel as though by touching
16:03
Speaker 1: Corrissant like you mentioned, because I think this is the thing,
16:07
Speaker 1: like we don't love to just go and rewrite things.
16:10
Speaker 1: But there's such an easy way to ameliorate all this
16:14
Speaker 1: and not even have it be any kind of issue
16:16
Speaker 1: in your mind. So you can still have so much
16:20
Speaker 1: of this story play out where it's all just taking
16:23
Speaker 1: place on the Outer Rim, and it happens within a
16:28
Speaker 1: week or so, so you're not even aware that it's
16:35
Speaker 1: you know, like the rest of the galaxy is not
16:36
Speaker 1: where it's happening.
16:37
Speaker 2: Oh you know, you know how you tie it up
16:40
Speaker 2: in a bow in all honesty is you have whatever
16:44
Speaker 2: final fight is going to happen, and then you have
16:48
Speaker 2: May and you know whomever else you have. You have
16:52
Speaker 2: two bodies laying there and another Jedi shows up with
16:56
Speaker 2: you know, a scouting party or something, and they say, oh,
17:00
Speaker 2: it looks like they killed each other. What do you
17:01
Speaker 2: think happened? I guess we'll never know. Exact problem solved?
17:05
Speaker 2: Yeah done.
17:05
Speaker 1: Yeah.
17:07
Speaker 2: But the thing is, I think where the show gets
17:09
Speaker 2: greedy is it's obviously trying to set up for a
17:12
Speaker 2: second season. And that is the thing that always drives me, baddie.
17:16
Speaker 2: And this is why I will always give Lucas so
17:19
Speaker 2: much credit in the fact that even with Attack of
17:24
Speaker 2: the Clones, even with the Empire strikes back, there's a
17:27
Speaker 2: resolution to everything that happens within the context of the
17:31
Speaker 2: film that it's not. It doesn't feel like even with
17:37
Speaker 2: those endings where you know something else is coming, it's
17:40
Speaker 2: still resolved enough that it's not a poking the audience
17:44
Speaker 2: in the rib saying huh, yeah, something else is coming.
17:47
Speaker 2: All right, right, you want season two? Right? That is
17:51
Speaker 2: the greediness of this season that gets under my skin.
17:55
Speaker 2: And I know that there are people who love this show,
18:00
Speaker 2: and I will never like voicing a criticism doesn't take
18:06
Speaker 2: that away from anybody. I've gotten complaint from people in
18:10
Speaker 2: the past where they're like, oh, just let people enjoy things. No,
18:14
Speaker 2: I'm just talking about my opinion on it. Feel free
18:16
Speaker 2: to disagree. But I think the show got greedy and
18:21
Speaker 2: it was trying to. It had visions of a series
18:24
Speaker 2: as opposed to just telling a story, and that's where
18:27
Speaker 2: it trips. Even the Mandalorian, each season ends, you could
18:34
Speaker 2: have no more seasons than the Mandalorian. After the third
18:37
Speaker 2: and it's over. It's fine. It's done. You might want more,
18:41
Speaker 2: but it's done. It's not stringing you along. Even a Sosoka, right,
18:47
Speaker 2: they could choose not to do another season of Ahsoka.
18:49
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be happy about it. I'd be a little sad.
18:53
Speaker 2: But I got my coda, I got my wrap up.
18:56
Speaker 2: You know what, if this is all that I got, Oh, okay,
19:00
Speaker 2: it's not great to end it there, but okay, I'll
19:03
Speaker 2: live with it. I'll explore it somewhere else. Except for
19:08
Speaker 2: the dangling throng thing. That's that's the one thing that
19:11
Speaker 2: you know, I need resolved. But yeah, you know what
19:15
Speaker 2: I'm trying to say here, No.
19:16
Speaker 1: No, I like what you're saying there. And I think,
19:19
Speaker 1: you know, people could be thinking to themselves, Oh, but
19:21
Speaker 1: you know like it, and Or does that. But and
19:24
Speaker 1: Or specifically told them, hey, we're doing this in two seasons,
19:29
Speaker 1: and they contractually are obligated to do two seasons to
19:33
Speaker 1: tell the full story. Like that was that from the beginning,
19:38
Speaker 1: that was what they were going for, was two seasons
19:40
Speaker 1: to tell the story, to get you to the lead
19:44
Speaker 1: up of Rogue one, and so, like that was a
19:47
Speaker 1: part of the structure. You know, that was a part
19:49
Speaker 1: of the thought process of the show from the very beginning,
19:53
Speaker 1: right and and so, And speaking of structure, I've got
19:58
Speaker 1: to ask you, Becau because this show does the thing
20:02
Speaker 1: that so many shows these days try to do, which
20:06
Speaker 1: is to utilize flashbacks to then fill in what's happening
20:10
Speaker 1: in the present. And I've got to ask you, does
20:16
Speaker 1: that work at all for you in this show?
20:21
Speaker 2: I will get in trouble if I say more than
20:24
Speaker 2: the following comment, no, it's a mess, and I will
20:29
Speaker 2: I will fade into the west and remain Castle junkie
20:33
Speaker 2: with that one. I think that, okay, fine, I'll get
20:37
Speaker 2: in a little bit of trouble. It does flashbacks completely wrong.
20:43
Speaker 2: I remember we traded text messages after I think it
20:47
Speaker 2: was the second episode where the second episode is the
20:51
Speaker 2: flashback one, and it's like, oh, here's what happened in
20:53
Speaker 2: the past, and there's no there's no frame on it.
20:58
Speaker 2: There's no present day frame on either end. There's nobody
21:02
Speaker 2: narrating it. It's just bare.
21:05
Speaker 1: Episode three where they do the who.
21:06
Speaker 2: Okay, yes, episode three, but it feels like they just
21:09
Speaker 2: aired it out of order, you know what. It feels like.
21:13
Speaker 2: It feels like Star Trek the original series was like, well,
21:15
Speaker 2: you know, the fourth episode is actually the one that
21:17
Speaker 2: aired first, so technically and it's like, what why it
21:23
Speaker 2: didn't flow it just interrupted the narrative flow of everything,
21:28
Speaker 2: and the show just struggled with that. It never, honestly
21:34
Speaker 2: think it never recovered from that structurally. It just sort
21:38
Speaker 2: of unspooled from there.
21:41
Speaker 1: I completely agree, And I will give an example from
21:45
Speaker 1: Star Wars where I have been very critical where I
21:48
Speaker 1: did not think that this worked, and that is you
21:52
Speaker 1: mentioned season three of The Mandalorian. The structure of that
21:56
Speaker 1: season was not good and should have been completely restructured
22:01
Speaker 1: so that you worked in the storyline of what was
22:03
Speaker 1: happening on Corussant with the doctor, with all of the
22:07
Speaker 1: other stuff going, instead of it just having it be
22:10
Speaker 1: its own standalone episode and so that way each episode.
22:15
Speaker 1: I understand that The Mandalorian set itself up as almost
22:21
Speaker 1: being a Clone Wars like series where each episode was
22:24
Speaker 1: meant to kind of stand on its own but then
22:25
Speaker 1: was loosely connected. But by the time they got to
22:28
Speaker 1: season three, they were very much telling a more serialized
22:33
Speaker 1: story and they needed to go to a slightly more
22:36
Speaker 1: serialized format, and they didn't, and it was a mess.
22:41
Speaker 2: It was not great.
22:42
Speaker 1: Now, I will say that season redeemed itself. By the end.
22:46
Speaker 1: I felt like it does all come together and they
22:48
Speaker 1: found a way to make it work, but it wasn't
22:50
Speaker 1: as clean as it could have been, and really some
22:53
Speaker 1: simple restructuring of episodes with the storyline would have fixed it.
22:59
Speaker 1: I think the different that I feel with The Acolyte,
23:03
Speaker 1: it still suffers from all of those same problems. The
23:07
Speaker 1: problem is is that when you're doing a perspective show,
23:11
Speaker 1: you need the final reveal of the full perspective to
23:15
Speaker 1: actually change your feelings about the series. This doesn't do that. No,
23:22
Speaker 1: it does not, because the things that we're then seeing
23:26
Speaker 1: is okay, Well, may Is is still a psychopath for
23:36
Speaker 1: the most part, and we okay, we basically see Jedi
23:42
Speaker 1: characters getting mind controlled against their will, right. We see
23:49
Speaker 1: a character specifically in Soul, who makes it seem like
23:56
Speaker 1: he has to make a decision between saving two characters,
24:00
Speaker 1: when in all reality, why is the Jedi dude holding
24:05
Speaker 1: up two bridges instead of just grabbing two girls that
24:08
Speaker 1: together weigh about one hundred and thirty pounds and pulling
24:12
Speaker 1: them both to safety. I don't get it, Okay.
24:17
Speaker 2: That yes, is that one bends the brain in this
24:21
Speaker 2: sense that there were other ways they could have structured
24:24
Speaker 2: that where he attempts to save them, but he loses
24:27
Speaker 2: concentration or something and feels great guilt about it. Whatever
24:30
Speaker 2: you want to do. But in terms of the mind
24:34
Speaker 2: control part, we know from the very first Star Wars
24:40
Speaker 2: movie ever that the Force can have an influence on
24:45
Speaker 2: the weak minded. You're telling me that a Potawan whose
24:52
Speaker 2: greatest character flaw apparently is that he's whining about doing
24:58
Speaker 2: a thing.
25:00
Speaker 1: I go home the cores on where you know, I
25:03
Speaker 1: could get Nerve steak every day.
25:05
Speaker 2: See. But see the thing is, this is the this
25:08
Speaker 2: is the thing. This is why probably mace Wind is
25:10
Speaker 2: my second favorite Jedi after the tie between Ant because
25:15
Speaker 2: I picture if Mace Window was there, he'd handle it
25:17
Speaker 2: like Patton, where he would just slap the kid and
25:19
Speaker 2: be like, come on, grow up a little bit.
25:23
Speaker 1: You know.
25:24
Speaker 2: I think that that character being weak minded enough to
25:29
Speaker 2: be mind controlled, it doesn't It doesn't make the not
25:37
Speaker 2: Night Sisters seem powerful. It makes a Jedi seem weak.
25:43
Speaker 1: Well, and I'll let me add to that in the
25:45
Speaker 1: sense that I don't think it makes the Jedi seem
25:48
Speaker 1: weak for him to be mind controlled. He's a Padawan, okay.
25:51
Speaker 1: But Kal Knaka, the Wookie Jedi Master like or at
25:57
Speaker 1: least Jedi Knight. You're telling me that he susceptible to this.
26:03
Speaker 1: That's the part that I didn't get.
26:06
Speaker 2: Well. I think there's also a tremendous mistake where Soul's
26:12
Speaker 2: great conflict is he kills the the dead mother, that
26:18
Speaker 2: the head witch whatever. Yeah, right, because she's turning into
26:24
Speaker 2: now keep in mind, she's mind controlled the padawan, and
26:29
Speaker 2: then she starts turning into Missed with her eyes going
26:35
Speaker 2: completely you know, completely dark, and he reacts to that,
26:42
Speaker 2: and you look at that and you say, well, I
26:45
Speaker 2: probably would have presumed something not cool was happening as well.
26:51
Speaker 2: And she says, I was just going to go hug
26:53
Speaker 2: my child. And I'm like that in and of itself
26:57
Speaker 2: if you simply constructed it so that she doesn't start dissolving,
27:01
Speaker 2: but she actually is running over to her child, and
27:04
Speaker 2: he misinterprets it as her attacking the podle on physically.
27:10
Speaker 2: That I okay, that suddenly makes a lot more sense
27:14
Speaker 2: to me, and that I know that people will say, hey,
27:22
Speaker 2: why are you being so critical about that? But I
27:26
Speaker 2: shouldn't have to qualify it or quantify it. Like it's
27:29
Speaker 2: one of those things where I see it and I say,
27:31
Speaker 2: there was such an easier way to deal with this,
27:34
Speaker 2: just like the flashbacks, just like other things that happen
27:39
Speaker 2: where we find out this whole incident is something that's
27:42
Speaker 2: been covered up for a lifetime. Basically, I don't, I don't.
27:52
Speaker 2: It doesn't work for me. It just doesn't work for
27:56
Speaker 2: me that this would to be something that would function
28:05
Speaker 2: in this way for as long as it did if
28:08
Speaker 2: you sold it to me as both of these character
28:12
Speaker 2: like it was a year ago, Oh okay, But by
28:15
Speaker 2: the time we get to it, just the structure of everything,
28:21
Speaker 2: motivations get cloudy, editing decisions are in question for me,
28:29
Speaker 2: and then essentially I'm still left there saying I thought
28:32
Speaker 2: this was supposed to be from the villain's point of view,
28:36
Speaker 2: and it's not. It's never from the villain's point of
28:39
Speaker 2: view truly, unless you say, oh, well, May is one
28:44
Speaker 2: of the main characters, so it's from her point of
28:46
Speaker 2: view blah blah blah, but it's not really from her
28:48
Speaker 2: point of view. It's from OSHA's point of view most
28:50
Speaker 2: of the time. So it's like, I don't. What this
28:55
Speaker 2: show really feels like is that nobody was a strong
28:58
Speaker 2: enough hand on the wheel in the writer's room.
29:01
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, no, no, no, So I like what you said
29:04
Speaker 1: because you know, the clarity of the situation is so frustrating,
29:08
Speaker 1: and I think this I want to dovetail into something
29:13
Speaker 1: that I was struck by as you were talking about that,
29:16
Speaker 1: because I think it's really the crux of the whole story,
29:19
Speaker 1: which is the lack of clear motivations for characters at
29:23
Speaker 1: any one point in time. And it reminded me of
29:26
Speaker 1: a C. S. Lewis quote where he says, make great
29:30
Speaker 1: pains to be clear. Remember that though you start by
29:33
Speaker 1: knowing what you mean, the reader doesn't, and a single
29:36
Speaker 1: ill chosen word may lead him to totally misunderstanding and
29:41
Speaker 1: a story, it is terribly easy to forget that you
29:44
Speaker 1: have not told the reader something that he needs to know.
29:47
Speaker 1: The whole picture is so clear to you in your
29:50
Speaker 1: own mind that you forget that it isn't the same
29:53
Speaker 1: in his. And I think that's exactly what happened in
29:56
Speaker 1: this series. But unfortunately, I think in some ways it
29:59
Speaker 1: almost does even seem like the writers are all specifically
30:02
Speaker 1: clear on what the motivations for the characters, because it
30:05
Speaker 1: always seems and I know you're not supposed to use always,
30:10
Speaker 1: But I'm using it here for a reason because it
30:13
Speaker 1: literally seems like always characters do a thing because it's
30:18
Speaker 1: what the plot requires for the next thing to happen,
30:21
Speaker 1: instead of because of where I, as the watcher, am like, oh,
30:26
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm understanding this character, and all of
30:28
Speaker 1: a sudden, then they just do a like almost complete
30:31
Speaker 1: one eighty in the very next scene, and it's like,
30:34
Speaker 1: but where does the motivations for that come from? And
30:37
Speaker 1: so there is such a lack of clarity and understanding
30:40
Speaker 1: of who these characters are. And you know, you spoke
30:44
Speaker 1: to the idea of the tops cards having you know,
30:48
Speaker 1: Princess Leiah be two years older than Luke. Right, it
30:53
Speaker 1: is very clear that there are things that Lucas didn't
30:56
Speaker 1: completely know h and was still making up as he
30:59
Speaker 1: went long Tolkien was the same way, and Lord of
31:02
Speaker 1: the Rings. So some of the greatest creators that we've
31:06
Speaker 1: known in the twentieth century were making it up as
31:09
Speaker 1: they went along. Right, But as we're watching it, we
31:15
Speaker 1: don't feel completely out of left field for things that happened.
31:19
Speaker 1: The fact that Luke and Leia end up being twins
31:22
Speaker 1: isn't like, well, that makes zero sense comp I could
31:25
Speaker 1: never see how that could happen, you know, like, no,
31:29
Speaker 1: we can figure out from what's been said how that
31:32
Speaker 1: could happen, right, And we already know that they were
31:36
Speaker 1: raised by different people. I mean, even just the original
31:39
Speaker 1: trilogy alone gives us all of this. And so I
31:44
Speaker 1: think that's the thing that I really struggle with in
31:48
Speaker 1: this show is because, as an example, I was really
31:55
Speaker 1: enjoying the character Soul at the beginning of the show,
32:00
Speaker 1: and he was my one in He was the one
32:02
Speaker 1: thing I was kind of enjoying by the show. By
32:05
Speaker 1: the end of the show, I would say they completely
32:08
Speaker 1: assassinated the character of this character because the choices that
32:13
Speaker 1: he makes make so little sense. By the end, I'm like, Okay,
32:17
Speaker 1: I don't even like you anymore, and now I like nobody.
32:21
Speaker 1: And that was a really frustrating thing because I felt
32:26
Speaker 1: like you had me with one character, and because you
32:30
Speaker 1: couldn't be disciplined in your character motivation scene by scene,
32:38
Speaker 1: even in legitimately the same episode, and then compounding that
32:42
Speaker 1: with eight episodes where that happens every single episode, scene
32:47
Speaker 1: to scene, character to character, I was just like, Okay,
32:49
Speaker 1: I this that's the biggest problem is is really that
32:53
Speaker 1: this show comes down to writing, and I would argue
33:00
Speaker 1: you my perspective is that this show is very poorly constructed,
33:08
Speaker 1: and from especially from a character story standpoint, as we
33:12
Speaker 1: talked about, from just a structure standpoint, you put two
33:15
Speaker 1: of those things together, that's detrimental one on its own,
33:18
Speaker 1: but this show has both in my opinion.
33:21
Speaker 2: I don't disagree with you, because what they did with
33:25
Speaker 2: Soul at the end infuriated me because it wasn't at
33:32
Speaker 2: all who the character was before that moment. And I'm
33:37
Speaker 2: going to be controversial here. I'm gonna go ahead and
33:40
Speaker 2: be controversial with you here where I'm going to say
33:43
Speaker 2: that there seems to be a personal story told in
33:51
Speaker 2: this metaphorical tale. Now, I'll say it this way. If
33:57
Speaker 2: you look at the prequels, whether he realized it or not,
34:02
Speaker 2: George Lucas was working out his life story in those
34:07
Speaker 2: three films, and I will go to my grave. I
34:11
Speaker 2: would if I met mister Lucas face to face, I
34:14
Speaker 2: would say, do you realize what you did here? This
34:17
Speaker 2: is your life story, but you put Jedi and Lightsabers
34:21
Speaker 2: in it. And I am fully convinced that I could
34:24
Speaker 2: make him look at it and say, oh, wow, you're right.
34:29
Speaker 2: I think that there is something here where.
34:32
Speaker 1: The the.
34:38
Speaker 2: Lead producer, you know, Leslie Hedlund, is working something out
34:45
Speaker 2: with what she's talking about here, and I don't think
34:48
Speaker 2: it's invalid, but I think that it's muddled and it's messy,
34:54
Speaker 2: and as a result, the story doesn't land. And a
35:02
Speaker 2: strong ending can make up for a lot of sins.
35:06
Speaker 2: You talk to somebody who isn't nuts about episode one
35:10
Speaker 2: and they will still rave about the ending, and it
35:13
Speaker 2: ameliorates a lot of things for them because they still
35:16
Speaker 2: loved what happened in that last reel and they're on
35:19
Speaker 2: board and they're like, you know what, I didn't like George,
35:22
Speaker 2: or I didn't like this, but that lightsaber fight and
35:24
Speaker 2: the assault on Naboo and the fight with the droids
35:27
Speaker 2: and everything. They're like, bang, that's what I was looking for. Conversely,
35:32
Speaker 2: if you have something that's a bit of a mess
35:35
Speaker 2: and then you have an ending that does not work,
35:38
Speaker 2: nobody's listening to you anymore. Nobody cares. I think that
35:43
Speaker 2: probably fifteen or twenty years from now, people will come
35:48
Speaker 2: back to the accolyte and say, I get what you
35:52
Speaker 2: were saying here, but it took this long to get there.
35:57
Speaker 2: That to me is something that is an inherent flaw
36:04
Speaker 2: with the series, because I think that it was trying
36:09
Speaker 2: to say something important and personal and it just because
36:15
Speaker 2: of all of its structural problems, nobody heard it.
36:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that is incredibly well said, and I
36:33
Speaker 1: think the most interesting thing about this is that we
36:36
Speaker 1: could legitimately go through if we wanted. We don't every
36:44
Speaker 1: episode do a commentary and stop every time that there
36:49
Speaker 1: is some sort of misunderstanding of motivations. Case in point,
36:57
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of one, which is the character Basil, who
37:02
Speaker 1: is a Tinian tracker who showed up in Han Solo's Revenge.
37:08
Speaker 1: If I don't know what that's anyway, So yeah, why
37:15
Speaker 1: is he at one moment hating on May and the
37:22
Speaker 1: next moment he's like trying to keep Soul from doing
37:27
Speaker 1: whatever he's trying to do from her in the ship.
37:29
Speaker 1: Like I think that's just one example of of of
37:33
Speaker 1: things just not making sense in any way.
37:39
Speaker 2: Let me jump on what you're saying there. You're absolutely
37:41
Speaker 2: right because the tracker character is like Chewbacca without Han
37:50
Speaker 2: talking to him, we understand Chewbacca because Han says, yeah,
37:57
Speaker 2: you're right, where did he too, is right? Where did
37:59
Speaker 2: you take up that old fossil? Right? Like, we cannot
38:03
Speaker 2: understand Chewbacca. We need a character with Chewbacca who understands
38:08
Speaker 2: him in his scenes otherwise we're going to be completely lost. Yes, okay,
38:18
Speaker 2: I'm going to nitpick something even sillier with the tracker,
38:22
Speaker 2: and I want to get your reaction to it. Actually
38:25
Speaker 2: is at that part you're talking about where he's subverting
38:29
Speaker 2: what Soul wants to do or salt am I pronouncing
38:34
Speaker 2: it wrong. I thought it was okay anyway, when he's
38:38
Speaker 2: subverting what he wants to do when he's running through
38:40
Speaker 2: the ship. All I could think of that whole time.
38:43
Speaker 2: And I think this speaks to some of the structural
38:45
Speaker 2: issues with the show. Was I was sitting there saying,
38:48
Speaker 2: how big is this friggin' ship? It didn't look that
38:51
Speaker 2: big and it took like ten minutes to get from
38:53
Speaker 2: the back to the front. I'm like, what is it
38:57
Speaker 2: the tartest? Is it a lot larger and certain parts
39:00
Speaker 2: of the ship than on where I think it is?
39:03
Speaker 2: And like question those sort of basic problems, And you
39:09
Speaker 2: know Ahsoka had problems like that as well. When we
39:13
Speaker 2: talked about that, there were certain editing things where I
39:15
Speaker 2: was like, why is it taking so long to get here?
39:17
Speaker 2: Like when we first you know, wind up with Sabine
39:20
Speaker 2: and she's going down, and it's like, Okay, the scenes
39:23
Speaker 2: just could have been cut a lot shorter and a
39:25
Speaker 2: lot faster, And suddenly Lucas saying faster, more intense makes
39:30
Speaker 2: a lot more sense, doesn't it. Yeah.
39:33
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more with you, there can. I We
39:38
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about at the beginning, you know,
39:42
Speaker 1: this idea of the way in which they shot the action,
39:46
Speaker 1: and what it ends up being is saberfu because it's
39:52
Speaker 1: gung fu but with lightsabers, and I'm not sure I
40:02
Speaker 1: know if you know that really works and all honestly,
40:06
Speaker 1: I think the reason I don't think that it works
40:11
Speaker 1: is that it's just too floaty, feeling like the action
40:16
Speaker 1: never feels grounded. And that's one of the things I
40:19
Speaker 1: think that when we look at Star Wars action, especially
40:24
Speaker 1: lightsaber battles, even in moments when you know you had
40:28
Speaker 1: the lightsaber battles in the Clone Wars right, there was
40:34
Speaker 1: a real grounded nature to that, and I don't feel
40:37
Speaker 1: like there's a grounded nature to most of the lightsaber
40:40
Speaker 1: battles that are here, because even in moments where you
40:45
Speaker 1: sense it all of a sudden, then it goes to
40:48
Speaker 1: this kind of like weird, almost weightless feel, and it
40:56
Speaker 1: just it doesn't really work, and it's it's frustrating because again,
41:02
Speaker 1: it's one of those places where we've talked so much
41:07
Speaker 1: about in the Clone Wars, where you know, the show
41:09
Speaker 1: takes on a genre and then does that genre. So,
41:13
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think it's a terrible idea to
41:16
Speaker 1: try and do you know, this type of genre, but
41:21
Speaker 1: it also has to feel like it fits within the
41:25
Speaker 1: Star Wars universe, right, And I don't know. I think
41:28
Speaker 1: there's a way maybe you could have done this, but
41:30
Speaker 1: I just don't feel like they pull it off or
41:33
Speaker 1: are successful.
41:36
Speaker 2: Well, if you're going to do it, have a character
41:40
Speaker 2: have that fighting style and then another character can't react
41:44
Speaker 2: to it, which you could argue, and I would argue
41:48
Speaker 2: that when the stranger is slaughtering everybody, you get a
41:53
Speaker 2: sense of the Jet I can't keep up with him exactly, Yeah,
41:56
Speaker 2: that he's fighting in a way that they don't understand.
41:58
Speaker 2: And then there are a couple of Jet where they're
42:00
Speaker 2: able to adapt and say, okay, I can figure out
42:03
Speaker 2: what you're doing here. I think that the problem with
42:08
Speaker 2: the lightsaber fights, and this is something that I think
42:13
Speaker 2: is possibly a byproduct of people using the volume who
42:21
Speaker 2: don't quite that have not quite mastered the way to
42:30
Speaker 2: use the volume of the way that Greek Fraser has.
42:33
Speaker 2: I mean, Greek Fraser shot the Batman with the volume,
42:38
Speaker 2: and that feels like you're going through a city this
42:42
Speaker 2: There are a couple of key moments where, no matter
42:45
Speaker 2: how good the lightsaber fight is, it switches to a
42:47
Speaker 2: long shot, and like when all of the trees get
42:53
Speaker 2: cut down and then there's all of this fighting that
42:55
Speaker 2: goes on, and it pulls up and I go, wait,
42:59
Speaker 2: was that only that feet there? That that happened in
43:02
Speaker 2: that felt like that was a lot more space. There's
43:04
Speaker 2: some space cheating going on here, and I think that's
43:08
Speaker 2: the issue that the lightsaber fights run across, is the
43:13
Speaker 2: fact that when I'm in the midst of the fight,
43:17
Speaker 2: it feels like I'm covering a lot. It looks like
43:20
Speaker 2: I'm covering a lot more territory than I actually am,
43:24
Speaker 2: as shown in the long shots. And even that is
43:26
Speaker 2: something where we'll solve that by just removing the long
43:29
Speaker 2: shot and all of a sudden, there's no problem, right.
43:36
Speaker 2: That is so I don't I think the big climactic
43:42
Speaker 2: one where the stranger is killing everybody, I think it
43:44
Speaker 2: works except for those certain shots there where it suddenly
43:48
Speaker 2: feels a lot smaller than it should. But the visual
43:54
Speaker 2: language is confusing in terms of where everybody is. And
44:01
Speaker 2: then additionally, I never get the sense that people don't
44:07
Speaker 2: that they're reacting to a light taper style they'd never
44:09
Speaker 2: seen before. That's what the stranger should bring with him, but.
44:12
Speaker 1: The same way that you got that with Palpatine. That's
44:19
Speaker 1: what they're trying to emulate, is that, and it doesn't
44:25
Speaker 1: work the same well.
44:27
Speaker 2: I mean, Palpatine comes rocketing out like a little whirling
44:30
Speaker 2: dervish and slaughters three Jedi in two seconds, and it's
44:34
Speaker 2: like and the only reason that Mace Window survives is
44:36
Speaker 2: because windows like, oh oh no, right, and he actually
44:39
Speaker 2: he falls back and is like, oh, okay, I got
44:41
Speaker 2: to adapt the way that I'm fighting right now. Yeah,
44:46
Speaker 2: that's a great pull. You're right. Yeah, Palpatine takes everybody
44:50
Speaker 2: by surprise, and then one person is like, whoa, yes,
44:52
Speaker 2: so yeah, I.
44:54
Speaker 1: Don't want to pick on any of the cast specifically,
44:57
Speaker 1: but I would just say that overall for me, one
45:00
Speaker 1: of the major downfalls of this show as well was
45:04
Speaker 1: that a majority of the cast was not up to
45:06
Speaker 1: what they were being asked to do. And I don't
45:10
Speaker 1: know if that's the direction that they're given. I don't
45:12
Speaker 1: know if it's the writing. I don't know if it's
45:14
Speaker 1: the actor. I don't know if it's all of it.
45:18
Speaker 1: But so many of the most important characters in this show,
45:23
Speaker 1: I did not feel like we're able to carry the
45:25
Speaker 1: scenes in the way that they were needing to. And
45:29
Speaker 1: in all honesty, I'm not here to blame the actor,
45:32
Speaker 1: because as you've said many times on many shows, and
45:35
Speaker 1: I think it's absolutely right, it's the director who's there
45:38
Speaker 1: to get out of the actor what they want and
45:41
Speaker 1: to give the actor what they need to do the
45:44
Speaker 1: scene in the way that they feel its best for
45:46
Speaker 1: the show. And from the start of the show, which
45:50
Speaker 1: was directed by Leslie Headland, who is the writer and
45:54
Speaker 1: producer of this show and the main story editor of
45:58
Speaker 1: this show, it didn't happen, and I was I think
46:06
Speaker 1: that's also one of the things to which it was
46:09
Speaker 1: very frustrated. I mean, case in point, I think Cat.
46:13
Speaker 1: Seeing Carrie Ann Moss in this show was a complete
46:16
Speaker 1: mistake because she's a detractor from the series instead of
46:22
Speaker 1: you know, somebody that you really attached to, and because
46:26
Speaker 1: we know her too much from her work as Trinity,
46:31
Speaker 1: and she's basically just a version of that instead of like,
46:35
Speaker 1: you know, being in I think she's in the Jessica
46:37
Speaker 1: Jones series and she basically plays kind of like a
46:39
Speaker 1: side villain in that, and she's incredibly diabolical and grated
46:43
Speaker 1: in it. And so you don't see her as Carrie
46:45
Speaker 1: and Moss. You see her as that character, right, because
46:47
Speaker 1: she's not just playing something that feels so familiar to
46:50
Speaker 1: what you've already seen her do. And so that's just
46:53
Speaker 1: a kind of case in point there. But you know,
46:56
Speaker 1: none of the characters I felt like for the most part,
46:59
Speaker 1: except for the character Soul, who I was enjoying his
47:03
Speaker 1: earnestness throughout most of the series. And then it's it's
47:06
Speaker 1: the writing that really ends up letting him down. I
47:09
Speaker 1: don't think HiT's his acting, but he's really the one
47:12
Speaker 1: I gravitated towards in the series at all. And then,
47:17
Speaker 1: you know, but I just felt like everybody else, I
47:19
Speaker 1: just I'm not connecting in the way you'd want to,
47:23
Speaker 1: and that's really difficult in a show that has this
47:27
Speaker 1: many characters to it that there was only one that
47:29
Speaker 1: I kind of connected to, and then by the end
47:31
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't like this character.
47:34
Speaker 2: Well, I think you're hitting on it there, character, Bloke.
47:37
Speaker 2: There are too many characters. I think that if they
47:41
Speaker 2: boiled this down to a Jedi in his potawan or
47:47
Speaker 2: two Jedi masters and one of them has a pot
47:50
Speaker 2: of wan, you immediately boil it down. You take it down,
47:54
Speaker 2: really to the lowest, leanest possible level. Why does episode
47:59
Speaker 2: one work as a There are a lot of characters
48:01
Speaker 2: in episode one, but we are following a Jedi and
48:05
Speaker 2: his padawan as they go from place to place to place.
48:09
Speaker 2: We have a clear main character set. I never get
48:14
Speaker 2: a clear main character set here. I think Soul is
48:18
Speaker 2: a main character, that's fair to say, but who else
48:25
Speaker 2: is real? I mean Osha and May should be the
48:28
Speaker 2: main characters. It's sort of set up for May to
48:30
Speaker 2: be the main character, but then Soul sort of takes over,
48:35
Speaker 2: and that speaks to the whole it's a Jedi story
48:37
Speaker 2: instead of a Sith story. And then the stranger shows up,
48:40
Speaker 2: and the stranger is super interesting, but he's not a lead,
48:44
Speaker 2: or is he, because he takes over for a little bit.
48:46
Speaker 2: And so as a result, you have all of these
48:50
Speaker 2: characters fighting for dominance in terms of being you know,
48:55
Speaker 2: the one who carries the thread through. And I think
49:01
Speaker 2: that's just why we have our lack of focus here
49:03
Speaker 2: because at one point that please forgive me for forgetting
49:06
Speaker 2: her name, but green Jedi.
49:09
Speaker 1: Bald Green, Venestra.
49:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, Venestra, that's it, Venestra. And she's suddenly the main
49:16
Speaker 2: character at the end. Question mark right, It's like who's.
49:21
Speaker 1: And one who seems the most Unjedi of all Jedi,
49:25
Speaker 1: which anyway, I do have. I think maybe one last
49:30
Speaker 1: question real quick, which is just David Harewood, who I've
49:34
Speaker 1: known in many things and seen him throughout many things
49:38
Speaker 1: and always enjoyed him, especially in his work in the
49:45
Speaker 1: air Verse, things like that him being a senator who
49:54
Speaker 1: is so distrusting of the Jedi all ready. Did that
50:05
Speaker 1: work for you at this like one hundred years before
50:12
Speaker 1: the Phantom Menace?
50:14
Speaker 2: It could have if you had him have a single
50:17
Speaker 2: scene where he's talking with a shadowy figure who's promising
50:22
Speaker 2: great power and playing into his fears about the Jedi.
50:29
Speaker 2: I think that sells the scene. Instead, it feels more
50:32
Speaker 2: like a setup for season two.
50:34
Speaker 1: Right, And I think and the reason I'm wondering this
50:39
Speaker 1: question is because it seems like one of those things
50:45
Speaker 1: to which you're trying too hard to connect to the
50:50
Speaker 1: Phantom Menace, and you're doing it in a way that
50:54
Speaker 1: feels almost disingenuous to what you're trying to connect to,
50:59
Speaker 1: because even and there, we don't see the Jedi yet
51:05
Speaker 1: as being people that people distrust. It's not until you
51:11
Speaker 1: know the Clone Wars begin where that really begins to
51:14
Speaker 1: ramp up. At least that's what we've seen in the
51:16
Speaker 1: Star Wars universe. In the prequels, we haven't been given
51:20
Speaker 1: the information that a lot of people mistrust them. In fact,
51:25
Speaker 1: what we actually see is that most people in the
51:28
Speaker 1: galaxy they trust them, or they barely knew that they
51:31
Speaker 1: existed because they just didn't run into one, right. And
51:35
Speaker 1: so this just I think your quick edit there makes
51:40
Speaker 1: it make so much more sense. And I think it
51:48
Speaker 1: also kind of helps set up the character of plague
51:52
Speaker 1: Us in the sense that he is slowly already starting
51:56
Speaker 1: to do the things that Palpatine then would then pick
51:58
Speaker 1: up on and continue and so yeah, I like that.
52:05
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I guess that it comes down
52:11
Speaker 1: to it, you know, John, if you were to give
52:15
Speaker 1: the accolyte a rating out of five lightsaber crystals that
52:20
Speaker 1: have been bled, what would you give this? And again
52:27
Speaker 1: I feel like we look, there's so much we could talk.
52:30
Speaker 2: We could go on for hours and hours. We could
52:32
Speaker 2: go on for hours and hours, but there's no need to.
52:37
Speaker 2: If you love what we said, we appreciate it. If
52:39
Speaker 2: you hate what we said, just keep in mind, it's
52:41
Speaker 2: just two people talking about their opinions about something. Okay,
52:45
Speaker 2: That's all this is, if I'm being honest, And it
52:53
Speaker 2: hurts me so bad because we spent a lot of
52:57
Speaker 2: time talking about what did not work. Lee Young Jay
53:01
Speaker 2: as soul until the writing betrays him. I thought it
53:07
Speaker 2: was a supply a sublime performance. Loved him. I thought
53:11
Speaker 2: he was great the stranger forget the actor's name. I
53:16
Speaker 2: thought it was awesome. And boy, arm Day just became
53:20
Speaker 2: really a thing in my life after seeing him in
53:23
Speaker 2: his costume. Not yeah, I love Smilo w Rent. Yeah,
53:34
Speaker 2: but but but that's the thing is, like I would
53:35
Speaker 2: actually get that action figure because I actually liked the design, right,
53:39
Speaker 2: So you know that's me. I you know, instead of
53:46
Speaker 2: opening another can of worms, I'll just go ahead. Please
53:50
Speaker 2: forgive me, everybody if you hate the rating that I
53:52
Speaker 2: give it one way or the other. But the act
53:55
Speaker 2: Lite winds up with a one out of five from me,
53:58
Speaker 2: I'll never watch this again.
54:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I was waffling between whether I give
54:05
Speaker 1: it a half star or a full star, and I
54:10
Speaker 1: guess I'll give it a star. It's it's just incredibly frustrating.
54:17
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't like not liking things in
54:20
Speaker 1: Star Wars because Star Wars is a franchise that I
54:27
Speaker 1: love dearly, you know, like we do this Star Wars
54:30
Speaker 1: podcast and we've talked about on the six o two
54:33
Speaker 1: club for years. It's what brought us together is friends literally, correct.
54:37
Speaker 1: You know, I've now got John can see It a
54:41
Speaker 1: Star Wars tattoo.
54:43
Speaker 2: And love I'm a club brother. Yeah, there you go.
54:45
Speaker 1: And so that's how much I love this series, right,
54:49
Speaker 1: But yeah, this just didn't work for me. And that's okay.
54:52
Speaker 1: You know, if people love it, that's great, more power
54:56
Speaker 1: to you, I guess, but it doesn't work for me.
55:00
Speaker 1: On and this is weird but in strange, but it's
55:03
Speaker 1: like it literally works on zero levels for me, which
55:08
Speaker 1: is really hard to do so but hopefully, you know,
55:12
Speaker 1: we got Skeleton Crew coming up here in December, and
55:15
Speaker 1: hopefully that works on every level for us.
55:19
Speaker 2: Although let's make a special note, I think both of us.
55:21
Speaker 2: I think it bumps up to a one star for
55:23
Speaker 2: you and probably secures it as one star for me.
55:26
Speaker 2: The score is really good for this.
55:27
Speaker 1: It was excellent. I loved the score. Actually, all the
55:31
Speaker 1: references to things from the prequels and stuff I loved. Yeah,
55:35
Speaker 1: I actually really enjoyed the score, except for maybe the
55:38
Speaker 1: song by the Witches could probably do it.
55:41
Speaker 2: I said, the score, yes, not the soundtrack. Yes, a
55:44
Speaker 2: score anyway.
55:45
Speaker 1: But thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate it. John.
55:49
Speaker 1: If if people wanted to catch up with you, see
55:52
Speaker 1: what else is going outside of your life and watching
55:56
Speaker 1: Star Wars, where would they find you?
55:57
Speaker 2: Keep up with my presidential campaign? Yeah, Kessel Junkie on Twitter.
56:02
Speaker 1: I'm on board for this campaign, so I'm ready let's
56:05
Speaker 1: do it.
56:05
Speaker 2: I'm the most I'm the most honest candidate that you
56:08
Speaker 2: will ever come across.
56:09
Speaker 1: It are least of those that are running.
56:11
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, so go ahead and write in Kessel Junkie
56:15
Speaker 2: in your ballots. You won't be sorry. And you can
56:19
Speaker 2: of course find me over on the Nerd Party Network
56:22
Speaker 2: on Aggressive Negotiations, which you're listening to or maybe have
56:26
Speaker 2: heard about now because of the six o two club,
56:29
Speaker 2: and also on a show called house Lights where we
56:31
Speaker 2: look at the work of directors and as we record
56:34
Speaker 2: this are plotting our way through Oliver Stone's three plus
56:39
Speaker 2: hour biopics to talk about those, some of them better
56:43
Speaker 2: than others. But Matt, of course, where can people find you?
56:47
Speaker 1: Well, you know, when I'm not trying to follow the
56:51
Speaker 1: market on kessel coin as you run for you know, president,
56:55
Speaker 1: you can find me all over the place on social
56:57
Speaker 1: media under the name Matt rushing Zer two. Of course
56:59
Speaker 1: here on the network you can find me doing a
57:01
Speaker 1: bunch of other shows as well as on the Nerd
57:04
Speaker 1: Party Network. When I wasn't doing Aggressive Negotiations, I used
57:08
Speaker 1: to do our posts with Dray Kaufman as we talked
57:10
Speaker 1: about every single chapter of the Harry Potter series, one
57:13
Speaker 1: chapter time. But as always, thank you so much for
57:17
Speaker 1: listening and may the force be with you and John.
57:20
Speaker 1: I think it's time to close these negotiations.
57:23
Speaker 2: Matt, negotiations are closed.
57:46
Speaker 1: Join the Revolution, Join the Nerd Party.