Latest / Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast / Issue 350: Faster

Transcript

Issue 350: Faster · Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast

• 0:00
  We must be cautious. Welcome to the ned Palty. Hi, this is
• 0:08
  Nick Anstasu, story editor on Star Wars, The Clone Wars and Star Wars
• 0:14
  Bad Batch. And you are listening to Aggressive Negotiations. Strap yourselves in.
• 0:24
  We're going to ludicrous speed. You're here with the Jedi Masters for another episode
• 0:29
  of aggressive negotiations as we continue our walk through season two of The Bad Batch
• 0:35
  in preparation for the launch of season three. I am one of your hosts,
• 0:41
  Jedi Master John Mills, and joining me for this examination of the fourth
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  episode of the second season called Faster is the esteemed Jedi Master and race aficionado,
• 0:53
  nay, inventor of the most obscure type of racing out there, comic
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  book racing, which is a very odd one. I don't know how you
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  get the books to actually slide, especially in the digital era, but perhaps
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  you can illumine us just a little bit, Jedi Master Matthew Rushing text gone
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  plaid. You know, you know, comic book racing is, especially in
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  the digital age, it is to see how fast you can flip the digital
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  pages and get to the end. So that's and and and I mean we're
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  talking nanoseconds. We've had to find a way to track that on your devices
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  so we can have winners. Now, whether or not you retained any of
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  the comic doing that, I don't know. Probably not. I don't even
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  think any speed readers could read that quickly. But it is turning into the
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  well, it's turning into the game and the millennium people are really loving it,
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  and so, uh yeah, we're gonna be We're gonna get sponsors.
• 1:53
  We've got nerf Nuggets sponsoring us and Mantel Mixes next. Uh so, yeah,
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  we'll see where we go. You know what, it's really exciting.
• 2:02
  It's an exciting time, and it's exciting because, just like comic book Racing,
• 2:07
  you can find this show on digital devices of every sort, and you
• 2:10
  can go ahead and leave us a star rating and review. We'd appreciate it.
• 2:14
  That'd be great Over on Apple Podcasts or you know whatever podcatch or sort
• 2:19
  of thing you have going on on Twitter. We are at the Jedi Masters
• 2:23
  and the network is at Join Nerd Party, and just look for the Nerd
• 2:27
  Party on every social media network that is worth being on and you'll find us.
• 2:32
  So here we are. Fourth episode, Faster and This is a decided
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  departure from the tone of the last episode. Last episode Solitary Clone really dark,
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  really heavy, lot of thematic stuff that we're working through. But usually
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  with a series, when you're having those sort of deep episodes happening, you
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  have a situation where you can either continue to push forward and go further down
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  the rabbit hole, or you decide to give the audience a breather and give
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  them something a little lighter to ingest, Now, would you have preferred them
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  to continue going down the rabbit hole that's opened with Solitary Clone, or did
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  you consider this a welcome palate cleanser after something so deep and intense. I
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  mean, I think it's interesting that you asked that question because I know a
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  lot of friends that did not enjoy this episode. I think they wanted the
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  more you know, dark and gritty take and the continuation of that that we
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  were of course getting with the Solitary Clone. I think what's fascinating about this
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  episode is the way in which the undercurrent of it is quite dark. You
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  know, there's a lot of dark humor in this, like you know,
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  somebody getting killed while watching a race. You know the fact that we continue
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  down the trend of learning that characters that we've trusted, like Sid in the
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  show, may not be trustworthy at all, and just how far they might
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  go to use our characters that we do love to get out of situations that
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  they have put themselves in. And so I think when I look at this
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  episode, especially on the heels of the previous episode, yes, it has
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  a lighter feel to it, yet at the same time, I think this
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  is continuing the trend of this series that there's a dark underbelly to it,
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  and you know, I think a big part of that as well is that
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  we're also getting a taste of the underworld itself and the ways in which it
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  seems like the Underworld here are taking full advantage of the Republic being gone,
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  the Jedi being gone, and running these you know, you definitely get to
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  feel like this is a race, a type of racing that would not just
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  exist anywhere. You know, it seems much more dangerous than even pod racing,
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  and so yeah, I mean, we could do a whole show on
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  the legalities of this type of racing, but yeah, I mean that's that's
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  kind of where I come down on it, and so I'm interested, you
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  know, especially watching it the first time, and now as we're doing our
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  rewatch here, do you feel like you wanted to continue to go down a
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  little bit darker road or do you feel like this is you know, the
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  right tone being set here in this episode with where we are in the season
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  two, I mean it's episode four of the season. My natural inclination is
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  to keep pushing, keep going for that. You know, it's something with
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  with a real weight to it, which sounds dismissive of other things, but
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  it's not intended as such. It's sort of like, you know, being
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  old enough to have watched the run of The X Files up until it was
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  unwatchable, and everybody out there, even if you love the X Files,
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  you know exactly what I'm talking about, but watching that series up until you
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  couldn't anymore, they followed the same sort of tactic. They would have these
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  sort of bottle episodes where you might go one, two or even three episodes
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  with the quote unquote mythology, the big alien conspiracy, all of this big
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  stuff that connects back and forth, and then you would have an episode where
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  they would give you a breath and you'd initially come into it and you'd be
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  like no, no, no, no, no, I want to go
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  back to the other But then you understood they were actually being really good to
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  you as an audience. You touched on a lot of stuff though, you
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  know, between getting a hint about Sid being not just a comic character.
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  I think in the first season it's easy to regard Sid as just sort of
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  you know, you know, she's an underworld silly foil for the heroes in
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  this. That final warning that's given to Tech and Wrecker and Omega carries real
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  weight to it, and yeah, it does. I think in terms of
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  the racing, what I love about this about riot racing in particular is with
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  pod racing. With riot racing, these are all taking place in the more
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  lawless parts of the galaxy, and you very much get the sense that riot
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  racing and pod racing their variations on a theme. Obviously, but while pod
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  racing is oh, very fast, very dangerous, that's sort of the one
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  where it's like, you know, some people might consider it a little underclass,
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  but they're willing to, you know, have it on there. You
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  know, it's like an F one race. It's like, okay, we
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  can have that, we can host that, right, But Riot racing is
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  only going to happen in the really bad parts of town sort of thing.
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  It's sort of like the difference between Fast and Furious Tokyo drift and an official
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  F one race. They're both essentially the same thing, but their spins on
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  it. It reminds me a little bit of the swoop racing that they did
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  in the knights Ill Republic games. This is very similar to that that race
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  that you'd have because it was in a lot of like enclosed spaces and like
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  tunnels, and it was very similar to this. So I can definitely see
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  the inspirations that they got from that game here as well as, of course,
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  you know, playing around with the whole idea of pod racing and kind
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  of taking it to another level and a different level. And so I thought
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  that was one of the things that was interesting about this as well, because
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  you know, if you have something like pod racing, there's got to be
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  other types of racing out there. I think that what would be an interesting
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  arc in a book or something like that. Here's another free idea I'm giving
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  to Lucasfilm and by default Disney at this point. But I watched this episode.
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  I rewatch it. This time, and I think to myself, I
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  would actually like a book or a comic or something that shows the encroaching weight
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  of the Empire by having something like this happening on Coruscant and the Empire going
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  in and shutting it down. This might be too far of the extreme in
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  terms of for some people's tastes, the idea of fun at any expense as
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  long as I chose to do it, I chose to do it sort of
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  thing. But it could really show how the Empire itself was shutting down any
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  sense of liberty or fun all the way down to something like this, Like
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  I could see some sort of story about somebody who's a racer in this sort
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  of circuit, and the races are getting more and more shut down, and
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  we like start on Corissant, we go to other places, and the idea
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  being maybe that the Empire is taking all of these people that would normally be
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  great pilots or pilots who could defeat them and finding some way to exploit or
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  elaminate them. Sorry, no, that's a whole that's a whole tangent.
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  I just you know, I think you said it best, Like, it's
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  not just pod racing it's pod racing plus, and I think that's do you
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  think that might be something that people had a trouble plugging into like they do
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  you think they would have gone along with it better if it was just pod
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  racing quote unquote. I think that it's one of those things where I don't
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  know if it has anything to do with the fact that we're doing racing or
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  any of those you know things at all. I think it really does come
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  down to just the question that you asked at the beginning, which, you
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  know, I think that a lot of people, you know, and this
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  happened with the Clone Wars as well, well, that the times where the
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  show was really getting into its own mythology and everything, people really got into
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  that. And then the episodes that seemed to be a little bit more carefree
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  or fun or whatever people seem to dislike. And again, I want to
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  think one of the the key parts of this this this episode too, is
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  we look at it in context of having seen the season. This this episode
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  helps us build the relationship between Omega and Tech and Wrecker without Hunter around,
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  right, and so it continues to build her relationship with the other clones,
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  so that you know, once we get to the end of the season and
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  we have what happens there, Right, it's going to really mean something,
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  especially to Omega. And so these are episodes to which when you look back,
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  you can see why they're important. And I think that that's one of
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  the things is that, you know, the com Wars did the same thing.
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  They never wasted episodes. For the most part, I would go to
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  my deathbed saying that you didn't need four episodes of the Droids and you know,
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  Purgatory. But you know, for the most part, they understand what
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  they're doing with the stories here and why they're telling these stories, and there's
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  enough important story points in this episode that make it important. But the other
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  thing, you know, you were asking for this idea of okay, should
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  we have a comic series or whatever. We kind of see the Empire coming
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  in as shutting these type of things down. I think that this is a
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  place on the other side where actually the Empire likes these things happening. Right,
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  It's almost the controlled chaos. It allows people the illusion of freedom of
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  being able to kind of cut loose. With the same time, you just
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  know that the Empire is using these type of underworld people and places for their
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  own benefit, and so I think, to me, that's actually the story
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  that would be fascinated to see, is the way in which Palpatine is actually
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  using these black markets in these type of places for his own benefit. I
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  would then take both of those concepts and use it to illustrate how as the
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  governor's power grows, you can see how capricious rule is in the empire and
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  how onerous imperial rule is completely depends on where you're living, right, great
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  point, So people who are living underneath a governor who's not the worst person.
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  He just wants his money and a little bit of graft and you know,
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  let's not be too hard on everybody, they're the ones that are like,
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  what, why do you think the empire is so bad? And then
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  meanwhile people are over where like, you know, the no fun guy is
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  and the you know, the guy that's taxing them to death and everything like
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  that, and they're like, what are you talking about? This is the
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  worst thing we've ever endured, and you know, making it more capricious that
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  way. But I like that that we're spitballing this story because I think what
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  it speaks to is that there is an underpinning to this episode, even though
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  many people I think regard it as a throwaway that there's world building here,
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  there's character building here, there's foreshadowing. When I watched the episode and they
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  got the warning about Sid, my expectation is, well, Sid is then
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  going to show that she she's learned to be sweet because of them, and
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  she's going to be generous and kind in a way that benefits them, and
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  it shows that people can change. And instea head, they subvert my expectations
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  wink wink by having said basically, you'll have to beleeve me here be an
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  apple at the end of this, just like the guy warned, So that
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  actually winds up like you said on the rewatch, It's like, Okay,
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  this has real weight to it now, and like, yeah, on my
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  rewatch, I have a whole other layer I can come at it with and
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  be like, oh, if only we listened well, And I think and
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  I would say, the beauty of that, right is that, yes,
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  in many ways we are so attuned in Star Wars to having that be the
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  case. And I think what makes this great is the same reason I always
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  argued that I thought Kylo Ren should stay evil is because that subverts expectations and
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  that changes the trajectory of where we all believe it to be going right,
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  and it also I think helps us to be able to see, you know,
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  Sid becomes, of course a character who is truly out for herself and
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  she doesn't really care about anyone. And it'll be fascinating, of course when
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  we get there and we talk more about that. But again, this sets
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  that up right because every moment, especially the moment at the end of the
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  episode where she's like, I guess I owe you one and Tech says I
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  would say that you do, and she's like, you know, I'll get
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  you back, and it's she's so uncomfortable with owing anybody anything or being close
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  to anyone because she really truly only cares about herself. She doesn't even care
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  about her honor of owing people really, and you know, the beautiful thing
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  of these characters for her is she's been able to use them. And what's
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  interesting is that in many ways, you know, Sid is kind of a
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  smaller version and a less nasty version Palpatine. People are there for them to
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  be used, and you know, how you treat them is indicative of how
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  much you can use them for, you know, and so when we saw
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  Palpatine being nice to Anakin and all those things, it was all for his
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  own benefit, right, He didn't really care about Anakin. You know,
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  we've talked about that before, and so I think in some ways that's kind
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  of what we're getting with Sid as a character, which as this whole series
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  really is about showing us the way that the Empire slowly creeps in and changes
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  everything. I think that makes this makes it a really interesting microcosm of the
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  macro cosm of the rest of the galaxy. You know two things here.
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  First, before I lose it completely, I want to acknowledge what you're talking
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  about. Where somebody in the stands gets shot and die while watching the thing.
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  That to me, and I know how dumb this statement will sound,
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  that is old school Star Wars humor. To me, that's the stuff that's
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  got a real edge to it, that will make me chuckle every time I
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  watch it. Because to your point about the Empire creeping in, it's this
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  sense of these people that are watching riot racing have always been they're watching this,
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  you know, gladiatorial, you know, chariot racing sort of thing.
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  It's the bread, you know, it's the circuses part of bread and circuses
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  for everybody, But it shows how somebody like Palpatine can take control because there
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  are enough people where they're also in it for their own entertainment. Nobody cares
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  this guy got shot. This is what I watch the race, and it's
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  like it shows how that's the sort of undercurrent that somebody like Palpatine can really
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  manipulate. But additionally, I want to ask you a question, because we're
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  talking about sitting everything Recker, Tech, Omega. Does the future go differently
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  from this point forward if Hunter had been there when the crime lord issues the
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  warning, Is it simply the fact that it's Wrecker and Tech and Omega that
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  there isn't the lack of a better phrase, there isn't the adult in the
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  room necessary to say, okay, everybody, let's huddle. I think this
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  guy's telling the truth right now. Whereas Tech and you know, Recker is
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  basically a kid. Omega is a kid, and Tech, you know,
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  he doesn't think in that way sort of thing. Do you think it goes
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  different if Hunter had been here? I think that's a great question, and
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  I think yes, because you know, of course, Omega has been raised
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  by these clones in some ways to help people when they need help. Right.
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  That's one of the things that to the whole season is about, right,
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  what are we going to do with the time we've been given? Do
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  we just save ourselves or do we help save others? You know? And
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  Omega's really picked up that idea from these Clones is that you help other people
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  when they need help. You know, she never spent time with Jedi,
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  but she is exactly what they are, right that she sees somebody in need
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  and she does what she needs to do to make sure that she can help
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  them if she can, right. And that's exactly what the selfless type of
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  behavior that the Jedi were supposed to be known for and the type of messages
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  that you know, George Lucas was very keen to pass on in Star Wars
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  about the the joy of the life of being selfless and the joylessness of being
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  selfish. And I think you also see that nice juxtaposition between somebody like the
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  Clones and Sid. Sid is a solitary person whereas they are family. And
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  what's interesting too is we'll dive into the next episode next time you see the
• 21:07
  same thing I think with Fee right, like instead of her being somebody who
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  is a loner, you know, she is willing to kind of work her
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  way into the family of the Clones, right, And so it's such an
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  interesting way that they're building in the season, right. And I think that
• 21:30
  it's one of the things that I've really come down to, especially in this
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  era of television, that it's difficult for me to kind of judge just one
• 21:41
  episode at a time as the season is coming out, because it's only in
• 21:47
  retrospect that I think you can truly see what they're doing in each episode.
• 21:52
  And then I think you can rightly judge. Okay, I could see how
• 21:57
  this episode could could you know, kind of be you could have some of
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  these points shifted into other episodes, and maybe this episode wasn't necessary, right,
• 22:06
  But I don't think that that that's the case with this one. I
• 22:08
  think this is one of those episodes that we get enough in and we get
• 22:14
  enough character growth and everything, and I think we get just a nice look
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  at the you know, a different side of the universe here in this part
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  of the galaxy. That's that's worth going through this episode for. And so
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  you know, I'm glad that it's one of the I'm glad it's one of
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  those episodes that we got and rewatching it, I had a really good time
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  because as well, you know this this episode is kind of a technological marvel,
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  just with all the stuff they're doing with the racing and everything that's people
• 22:48
  don't realize, you know how it's not easy to build these things in the
• 22:52
  computer and make them look right. And this is another place where the lighting
• 22:56
  and the motion, the camera movement and everything is just the way that George
• 23:02
  Lucas would have filmed it, and he did in episode one. Yes,
• 23:07
  final note before we go, a thumbs up or thumbs down on Tao the
• 23:11
  riot racing droid. I felt like Tao was classic type of droid and the
• 23:18
  idea of him, it's almost like he has the personalities of R two D
• 23:23
  two and C three PO put together, because I think R two D two
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  always feels like a droid who's very sure of himself, and then C three
• 23:33
  pos just kind of like not knowing when to shut up. And you put
• 23:38
  those two things together, and I felt like you get Tao. I like
• 23:41
  your read don't I don't see R two and three PO put together per se,
• 23:47
  which is not to say that I don't see what you're saying. It
• 23:49
  makes sense. But I would love a Tao action figure because I actually really
• 23:56
  enjoyed him as a character, and I would like to have more of him
• 24:00
  somehow. But you know, alas must not be. But you know,
• 24:07
  maybe we could get Tao a Star Wars story as just like a cartoon,
• 24:10
  short envisions or something like that. I don't know. I'm just pitching ideas,
• 24:12
  a full of ideas this time, a full of other things too.
• 24:15
  But Matt, you are full of ways to contact you online. Where can
• 24:19
  people find you? Yeah, all over social media under the name Matt Rushing
• 24:22
  Zoe two. Of course, you can find me here on the network with
• 24:26
  outpost talking about every single chapter the Harry Potter series, one chapter at a
• 24:30
  time, over on the TFM network doing the six oh two Club, discussing
• 24:33
  all of the franchises that we love. Outside of Star Trek, you can
• 24:37
  also find me doing literary tracks the or Warp five, The Artificial Tango,
• 24:41
  and Saddle Up and John. When people want to see what you've got going
• 24:47
  on and maybe talk about their love of Tao and their desire for a Black
• 24:52
  series figure, where can they find you? Well, you can find me
• 24:56
  a campaign for that as Kessel Junkie online and you can find me here.
• 25:00
  Are working in references to Tao from this moment forward on another show called house
• 25:03
  Lights that I co host with Darren Moser and Tristan Riddell. So with all
• 25:08
  of that said, I think it's time to go back and prepare our riot
• 25:11
  racers to go out and face the I don't know, you know, there
• 25:18
  are so many competitors out there, but none can really you know, we're
• 25:22
  shaken, bake of the riot racing circuit. So I think it's time to
• 25:25
  close these negotiations. Now you see me. Now, you don't join the
• 25:33
  revolution, join the nerd Party