Latest / Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast / Issue 357: Pabu

Transcript

Issue 357: Pabu · Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast

• 0:00
  I'm going to regret this. Welcome to the note Palty. Hi. This
• 0:08
  is Nick and Ostasu, story editor on Star Wars, The Clone Wars and
• 0:12
  Star Wars Bad Batch, and you are listening to Aggressive Negotiations. That's right,
• 0:24
  Welcome back to Aggressive Negotiations, the Star Wars podcast that prides itself on
• 0:29
  its ability to go out and dive deep into the galactic core for the heaviest,
• 0:36
  the densest, the most intricate reads of the Star Wars galaxy. I'm
• 0:42
  John Mills. Joining me as always is Jedi Master Matthew Rushing. Matt,
• 0:46
  are you prepared to go past the great barrier of Star Wars exploration and discover
• 0:53
  what lies at the center of the Star Wars Galaxy with me today, John,
• 0:57
  I absolutely am. I'm so excited to do this. I think it's
• 1:00
  going to be fantastic, and I hope everybody is buckled up because we have
• 1:06
  a fantastic episode for all of them, especially as we visit that little island
• 1:12
  in the sun that I just can't get enough of. That's right, we're
• 1:17
  talking about Paboo, and that is the name of the episode of the Bad
• 1:21
  Batch season two that we're looking at and where you can find us as we
• 1:25
  travel over to paboo is. You can find us online at the Jedi Masters
• 1:29
  over on ex Twitter, Twitter x, and you can find the network at
• 1:33
  Join nerd Party and the Nerd Party on Facebook and Instagram. And Matt,
• 1:40
  I want to tell you that the first time I ever encountered Paboo when season
• 1:45
  two of The Bad Batch aired for the first time, I had conflicting emotions
• 1:49
  about the episode because I loved so much of it. But I'm just going
• 1:55
  to tear the bat eight off here and say even this time watching it felt
• 2:00
  to me like something that needed to be a two parter that was instead a
• 2:05
  one singular episode. I know that my feelings ameliorated over time, but this
• 2:12
  is an episode where maybe this is a compliment of some sorts where I wished
• 2:15
  I'd had more time to get to know Paboo before we were onto the next
• 2:21
  adventure and before we were at the end of this one. Did you share
• 2:25
  that reaction. I think that's a really interesting reaction. And honestly, we
• 2:31
  haven't really talked about this episode much, you know, since it originally came
• 2:35
  out, and didn't talk about our feelings beforehand. And I can see what
• 2:42
  you're saying, because it does feel like, you know, it's not only
• 2:47
  the introduction of this new place, right, but I think it's the introduction
• 2:53
  of, in the culmination of some of the themes that we've been playing with
• 2:57
  the character of Omega this whole season, which is she knows how to be
• 3:01
  a good soldier, she doesn't know how to be a good child. And
• 3:08
  this gives her that opportunity and opens up the door here for our characters to
• 3:15
  possibly stop running and just start living, and which is something that none of
• 3:22
  them know how to do. I mean, you know, and I think
• 3:24
  that's the thing where I could see this being a two parter. So not
• 3:31
  only did we get to fully dive into and plumb the depths of that thematic
• 3:38
  element, but that would give us just more time in Paboo with its people,
• 3:46
  getting to know that its culture, maybe a little bit more about the
• 3:49
  planet it's on, all that kind of stuff, to really kind of root
• 3:53
  you here in a way that I if there's any criticism, it just feels
• 3:59
  like the episode is so fast, I don't really get the opportunity. I
• 4:02
  want to be rooted here. And it starts off with a tremendous nod to
• 4:09
  Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, with a scene very evocative of the
• 4:14
  exchange of the Ashes of Nrhachi, but of course with its own bad Batch
• 4:20
  twist to it, and a great action scene kicks it off, and then
• 4:25
  the need to go off. We have a very foreboding message from Sid and
• 4:30
  then the team goes off and we get to Paboo and we have so many
• 4:35
  great moments. Again, like you said, it does it feels fast because
• 4:41
  I get Wrecker feeling full for the first time in his life. And I
• 4:46
  love that scene where he's sitting there just chowinged down on sushi and he's like
• 4:49
  he feels the need to tell Hunt I feel full. Right, It's a
• 4:54
  joyous moment for him. I'm not hungry anymore. And we get Oh,
• 5:00
  getting to be a kid. I think that the thing that I really wanted
• 5:04
  it to go into a second episode for was to have a first episode where
• 5:10
  we had tremors and then the next episode we could have the tsunami. I
• 5:17
  think that's the reason it feels crunched to me, is it feels like the
• 5:20
  tsunami thing is something that could have been teased out as a possibility instead of
• 5:27
  having it happen immediately, because it takes I think, what's an arc of
• 5:32
  the batch getting settled and makes them too okay with the whole earthquake and tsunami
• 5:41
  thing in terms of them learning to let go and let Omega be a kid.
• 5:46
  Because Hunter doesn't have very much time in this episode to get relaxed enough
• 5:51
  to say, eh, what's a little tsunami risk. Yeah, we're gonna
• 5:57
  stay here for a while. I would have rather had them decide to stay
• 6:00
  there for a while the tsunami happened, and then you know, like tsunami
• 6:04
  happened in the next episode and them say, no, it's still worth it.
• 6:09
  This is a once in a three decades sort of thing. It's still
• 6:13
  safer, it's still better, It's still worth it. And while it sounds
• 6:17
  like I'm being overly critical of the episode, it really is something where that
• 6:25
  is the only thing I can come at it for is the fact that I
• 6:28
  wanted more of it, So in a sense, I don't see that as
• 6:30
  a criticism so much as being a spoiled fan. I guess you could say
• 6:36
  where I'm enjoying what's going on so much. I want more of it,
• 6:43
  and so I think that you're then left in an interesting box because you have
• 6:48
  the end of the outpost where you have crosshair on Tantis, and you have
• 6:58
  this setup. So maybe let me bounce this off you. Maybe it's a
• 7:01
  wise decision because I would have been cranky and impatient to get back to Tantus,
• 7:06
  and so putting this over two episodes would have been the worse of two,
• 7:12
  like we chose the lesser of two evils by crunching things in as opposed
• 7:15
  to stretching it out. I think that what you just said is probably the
• 7:20
  reason that it's not two episodes, and and part of that is because you
• 7:26
  know, after this episode there's only three more episodes left in the season.
• 7:30
  And what I think one, I've got to call out the fact that there
• 7:35
  is a great Raiders of the Lost Arc sense to this episode where remember when
• 7:41
  they go to Cairo and they're on top of the house with Sola and they
• 7:46
  are feeling it, right, they are feeling you know, India is feeling
• 7:51
  what it would be like to have a family with Marion, to experience what
• 7:57
  Sola experience is with his family, right, And that's so we have that
• 8:01
  scene here right, they're on top of the terrace. They're looking out at
• 8:05
  this incredible place. You know, they're sensing what it could be like to
• 8:09
  be here for a while and and and live life and enjoy a part of
• 8:15
  life that they've never experienced before. So I really like that. But I
• 8:20
  think, to me, the thing that this episode is probably meant to do
• 8:26
  the most for us is to remind us of what is being lost in the
• 8:37
  Empire, what is being lost by them slowly taking over the galaxy, and
• 8:45
  that were there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of planets like this
• 8:52
  where people got to just live their lives and do their thing, and the
• 8:58
  threat of the Empire hi now to come and then ruin this place because the
• 9:03
  bad batch haves arrived will now hang over this, you know, luscious beautiful,
• 9:13
  this almost Eden like island. Well, and that's sort of the thing
• 9:18
  is like, again I'm being a spoiled fan. I almost wonder now,
• 9:22
  as we're talking about it, maybe two episodes I would have had that sense
• 9:26
  of like, Okay, it's time to move on. But we know now
• 9:31
  I have the advantage point of knowing this is going to become something of a
• 9:33
  base for them, and so we don't need to spend as much time here
• 9:37
  because every other place we've hit has sort of been I go there, I
• 9:43
  leave, I go there, I leave, I go there, I leave,
• 9:45
  and this one has more of a sense of I've come here, I'm
• 9:48
  staying. There's no need for me to wrap anything up. Let's leave this
• 9:52
  open ended. In terms of the lifestyle. This is where I will keep
• 9:56
  a lot of praise on this episode is I felt like Pabou was a place
• 10:03
  that really existed, that it could exist, and I felt like there was
• 10:09
  something being conveyed in this episode of a lifestyle I have always wished I could
• 10:15
  have experienced but never did that. It felt like a very what I would
• 10:22
  understand to be a very sort of Mediterranean town feel and one that you know,
• 10:33
  I grew up in more of a Luke Skywalker sort of sense, in
• 10:37
  the middle of nowhere with a loving family that I felt like I needed to
• 10:39
  escape from even though I didn't realize how good I had it sort of thing,
• 10:43
  and instead, like you said, it's that scene where Indy and Marion
• 10:48
  see Salah and his family in Cairo, and it's this beautiful culture in this
• 10:54
  beautiful town where it's like, I'm not from here, but I feel like
• 10:58
  I could right here, like I could live here. So yeah, I
• 11:03
  mean, in that sense, it's remarkable that Pabou feels like a really realized
• 11:09
  place where the show is telling me about someplace i'd want to be, as
• 11:13
  opposed to some place i'd want to study from a distance sort of thing like
• 11:18
  org Mantel or any of those other places we've been to. This is a
• 11:24
  place where it's like, I feel like this is a fully realized culture that's
• 11:28
  happening here. To your point, this is an actual culture that exists and
• 11:31
  is and makes sense to me. Well, and the beauty of this too
• 11:37
  is you know, and we have it to explain to us that this is
• 11:41
  a place that people have kind of just found themselves and it's a sanctuary in
• 11:48
  many ways for people. Even it seems like before the Empire, we're kind
• 11:54
  of trying to find a way to get away from it all and to create,
• 12:01
  you know, not a commune type of place, but they've created a
• 12:05
  society based off of mutual respect of one another. They seem to have,
• 12:09
  you know, a well run government with the mayor there and everybody you know,
• 12:13
  they have a shared sense of values that allows this place to be what
• 12:20
  it is. It's it's it's almost a i would say, a microcosm of
• 12:26
  what the of what the Republic was meant to be, and they've found a
• 12:31
  way to do that here. And again I think it's it's one of those
• 12:37
  things where when we think then about the fact that this could be lost if
• 12:41
  the Empire finds it. That's the thing that's terrifying. You know, I
• 12:46
  feel the same way about this place that I do about you know, the
• 12:54
  Empire ruining some place like Naboo. You know that just incredibly Gorgeou just has
• 13:00
  so much to offer the galaxy and the Empire just coming in and ruining it
• 13:05
  all for everyone is a terrifying thought. Or even a place like Best beIN,
• 13:15
  Yeah, because there believes they're all you know, Lenda believed they were
• 13:16
  all safe because they're too small. What does the Empire care about this?
• 13:20
  Who cares? It's no big deal? And just like Best beIN, it's
• 13:24
  this group of people that the Empire wants is what's going to draw the Empire
• 13:30
  there. Eventually it doesn't happen this season, but you know, look,
• 13:37
  by the time everybody's hearing this. I hope they've been watching The Bad Batch.
• 13:41
  But you know, in your heart of hearts, wherever the Batch goes,
• 13:43
  the Empire is going to find them. And so there's this sense of
• 13:48
  foreboding of oh, the Empire doesn't care about us. We're tiny, we
• 13:52
  don't really have any resources they want, but you do have something they want
• 13:58
  now in Omega and the Batch they want them. You now have something the
• 14:03
  Empire wants, and the Empire only knows how to deal with things places having
• 14:09
  something it wants in one way, and that's taking it by force. We
• 14:13
  saw that with the Zillobeast, that little settlement that the Zillobeast got loose in.
• 14:20
  That's what could happen to this place. We've seen now in Metamorphosis.
• 14:26
  What's going to happen if the Empire ever finds out that their quarry is here,
• 14:31
  and it's not going to be pretty and it's something to be feared and
• 14:35
  something that's terrible. And yeah, so you know, I mean again,
• 14:41
  I know I came at it from it seemed like I was coming at it
• 14:45
  from a really negative place at first, but it is really something that I
• 14:50
  struggle with because I both understand why we couldn't spend a lot of time here
• 14:54
  in this first introduction to it, But I guess it's a huge compliment that
• 15:01
  I wanted to spend more time here with it. And frankly, you know,
• 15:09
  let me go ahead and ask the question of all of the places we've
• 15:11
  seen in Star Wars, and we've seen many. We've seen ice planets,
• 15:15
  we've seen desert planets, we've seen paradisical planets like Naboo, which has both
• 15:20
  beautiful high plateaus and vistas and also swamps and underwater cultures and all of these
• 15:28
  sorts of things. Where do you put Paboo? Is Paboo a place after
• 15:33
  you watched this episode? Is Paboo a place you would want to live in
• 15:37
  the Star Wars galaxy? Or like on the places where you could live?
• 15:41
  Where would you put it is on the Is it like top third? Middle
• 15:43
  third, bottom third? Obviously it's not bottom third, but you know,
• 15:46
  where would you rank it? Yeah? I would say this is probably like
• 15:52
  middle third. You know, it's just clearly a place really middle Yeah.
• 15:58
  I think you know a part of that that there's so many places in the
• 16:02
  Star Wars galaxy that I would want to live, and but I I and
• 16:07
  I say that when I think like middle third, I'm thinking like top third
• 16:11
  is like three places, you know, so like this could be like to
• 16:17
  Middle third, you know, like it's it's very It just seems like such
• 16:19
  a wonderfully idyllic place, you know there. The weather seems to be great
• 16:23
  there, you know, it seems to be pretty temperate. It just seems
• 16:27
  like a nice place where what it feels like is very Mediterranean. And so
• 16:34
  yeah, exactly because of that, Yeah, who wouldn't kind of want to
• 16:38
  be there? Well, there, there are only a couple of strikes against
• 16:42
  uh, choosing it as a place to live for me, which is one,
• 16:47
  I haven't seen their fermentation, uh you know, ideal. I need
• 16:52
  to know what they do for, you know, for for things, Yeah,
• 16:55
  when you want when you want something to take the edge off sort of
• 16:56
  thing. Although probably all of these people are very for last. But also
• 17:03
  the cuisine might be great, but it really seems limited to fish overall.
• 17:07
  And so either you're all in for fish and hopefully not allergic, or you're
• 17:14
  not. Sort of thing, like, I don't know how much variety there
• 17:17
  is. And if you've been traveling the galaxy, your palette probably is such
• 17:22
  that, like, you know, by the third rotation, you're like,
• 17:26
  you know, I could really go for a stake, right, Yeah,
• 17:27
  I go for Zimbantha. And there doesn't seem to be a lot of interplanetary
• 17:32
  stuff, but I can't lie. Paboo is a place where it speaks to
• 17:38
  that grew up in the middle of nowhere kid that I am. I can
• 17:41
  hear that. Yeah, nobody can. Nobody can bug you. Nobody's gonna
• 17:48
  talk like, nobody's gonna rat Like you're just out there and it's like you
• 17:52
  just do. You live your life and you leave everybody else alone and they
• 17:56
  leave you alone. But you respect each other so that when you do interact,
• 18:00
  it's it's pleasant. You know each other, it's cool. There's no
• 18:04
  strangers here sort of thing. So I don't know, but you know,
• 18:14
  all of that said, we know that Pebou is going to become the place
• 18:18
  that they are living from here on out. And did you get that sense
• 18:27
  the final question sort of thing. Did you fully have that sense at the
• 18:30
  end of this first episode the first time you watched it where you're like,
• 18:33
  oh, yeah, Peboo, this is it, this is where they're going
• 18:37
  to be I did expect this, you know, especially since they decided to
• 18:41
  stay. I did expect us to be a thing that would come back and
• 18:47
  be important for the bad Batch and I think because it it's a place that
• 18:57
  fits the themes that we've been playing with with these characters and with especially the
• 19:03
  character of Omega, and so absolutely this was a place that I figured we
• 19:11
  were going to be seeing more of. I'm glad that we're going to spend
• 19:15
  more time with Pebo. I think that's probably why over time I became more
• 19:19
  okay with this being just a sort of singular introduction episode like this is because
• 19:26
  I do get that more time on Pebo, I do get more of a
• 19:30
  sense of belonging in place. And so it's cool that works. And so
• 19:40
  Pabu is a place that I love. And something else that I love is
• 19:45
  interacting with you online. So why don't you tell people where they can find
• 19:48
  you? Well, all those places you could find me online, those social
• 19:53
  media hives of scum and villainy, So you must be cautious, but you
• 19:59
  can find me as Matt Rushing zero two on those platforms. You can also
• 20:03
  find me here on the network with our post talking about every single chapter of
• 20:07
  the Harry Potter series, one chapter a time. I'm on the TFM Network
• 20:10
  with a few shows. One is called the six oh two Club. John's
• 20:12
  frequent guests over there is we talk about all of the franchises we love outside
• 20:17
  of Star Trek, and then you can find me with a bunch of Star
• 20:19
  Trek talk on the orb Orp five, the Artificial Tango, Saddle Up and
• 20:25
  sometimes literary treks. But John, you know, if people want to see,
• 20:29
  you know, maybe what's happening in your world, where would they be
• 20:33
  able to follow you? Well, you can find me as Castle Junkie out
• 20:37
  there on those wretched hives of scum and online villainy that Matt mentioned. And
• 20:41
  you can find me right here on the network co hosting a show called house
• 20:45
  Lights, which is a director podcast where you know, we talked about movies,
• 20:51
  which is, you know, like I've said before, breaking new ground,
• 20:52
  breaking new ground with that one. But speaking of breaking new ground,
• 20:57
  I have decided to open a time show on PABO and Jedi Master Matthew Rushing,
• 21:03
  you have signed up for my first pitch back at the Jedi Temple,
• 21:06
  So I think it's time to close these negotiations. How long is this gonna
• 21:11
  take? Negotiation ninety rotations? It will take ninety rotations. Negotiations are closing.
• 21:18
  That's what you think. Join the Revolution, Join the Nerd Party,