Latest / The Spy-Fi Guys / "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story"

Transcript

"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" · The Spy-Fi Guys

• 0:00
  Speaker A: A rebellion built on hope. We are the Spy Fi guys, and this is Rogue A Star Wars Story.
• 0:11
  Speaker B: Welcome to the Spy Fi guys. So I apologize to the universe for that.
• 0:16
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 0:17
  Speaker B: Wow. Justice for Dennis M. Is it though? I laughed and then I heated myself for laughing.
• 0:32
  Speaker A: Welcome to the Spy Fi guys, where we cover spy facts, spy fiction, and everything in between. I'm Christian.
• 0:36
  Speaker B: And I'm Zach.
• 0:37
  Speaker A: And today, in honor of Star wars month, we have Star Wars Rogue One or Rogue One A Star Wars Story, as it's formally titled.
• 0:47
  Speaker B: Yeah, I like how you dropped in the Rogue One A Star Wars Story. So I'm very excited to do this episode with you, Christian, because one time listeners may remember that when we do a James Bond movie, I say, I like James Bond. I've seen all the James Bond. But I wouldn't say I'm a James Bond fan. When we do Mission Impossible, I say I like Mission Impossible. I've seen all of them. But I wouldn't say I'm a fan. Well, for Star Wars, I am a fan, a big fan. And I have a lot to say about this movie. And I know that people have had a lot to say about it in the past as well.
• 1:19
  Speaker A: Yeah. And I'm a big Star wars fan as well. I was a Star wars fan before I was ever a James Bond or a Mission Impossible fan or even a Top Gun fan, really. So this was probably my first sort of fandom, as it were.
• 1:31
  Speaker B: So what would you say is the peak of your Star wars fandom?
• 1:36
  Speaker A: Ooh, what do you mean by peak exactly?
• 1:39
  Speaker B: Because I'm going to flex if you'll indulge me.
• 1:42
  Speaker A: Sure, sure.
• 1:43
  Speaker B: I won a Star wars trivia game by myself against like 25 other people.
• 1:49
  Speaker A: All right.
• 1:50
  Speaker B: Yeah. And I won a Boba Fett backpack as my prize. But I should say is just because I knew the original trilogy really well. When they asked me something about a video game or about a prequel, it was a little bit harder. Well, actually, can I help you out, Christian?
• 2:08
  Speaker A: Sure. Okay, go, go.
• 2:10
  Speaker B: Christian has been a longtime member of the 501st.
• 2:12
  Speaker A: I was going to say that that would be my peak probably is being a member of the 501st Legion, which is a group of Star wars costumers specifically focused on the imperial side, where we use our screen accurate costumes for charity work. Yeah.
• 2:25
  Speaker B: So that's pretty good.
• 2:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, so I'd say that's my peak in probably doing. Actually some of the peaks might be doing some of, like when the. When this run of Star wars movies came out seven through nine And Rogue One and a solo came out. We're in the D.C. area, and I got to do a lot of movie openings for the Air and Space Museum on the mall. So that was probably the peak. Greet fans who are all there, lined up, and also hang out with a lot of other Star wars fans with costumes. That was probably the peak.
• 2:55
  Speaker B: That's a good peak. That's way better than a Star wars trivia game. Good job.
• 3:00
  Speaker A: So when was the last time you watched Rogue One?
• 3:03
  Speaker B: So here's the deal now. First of all, I learned a lot of things watching this movie, but the first is it made me feel old because it came out 10 years ago.
• 3:11
  Speaker A: Yes. Yes, it did. Yep.
• 3:12
  Speaker B: And it doesn't feel like it came out 10 years ago.
• 3:14
  Speaker A: No, no, it does not.
• 3:16
  Speaker B: Of course, that means the Force Awakens came out even longer ago than that.
• 3:20
  Speaker A: Oh, 11 years ago. Yeah.
• 3:22
  Speaker B: So I don't think I ever watched it in its entirety since I saw it in theaters.
• 3:28
  Speaker A: Interesting.
• 3:29
  Speaker B: However, I have gone on YouTube and watched the space battle a bunch of times,
• 3:34
  Speaker A: so I think I watched this twice. Opening weekend. I went once with the 500 first and then once with our Friends, and then I rewatched it again a couple times since then. But the most recent time, other than watching it for this recording that I watched it was right after season two of Andor ended. Now, have you. You've seen season two of Andor? Of course.
• 3:55
  Speaker B: I'm a Star wars fan. I've seen all of Andor.
• 3:57
  Speaker A: Okay, well, I'm not, you know, I don't know. Some people who are Star wars fans, like, they don't ignore the TV shows, so.
• 4:03
  Speaker B: Well, okay, I should say, yeah, I'm not a true fan because I haven't seen everything.
• 4:10
  Speaker A: I haven't either. I haven't seen the one with the kids that's very, like, ET themed, so Skeleton Crew.
• 4:15
  Speaker B: I actually like that one.
• 4:16
  Speaker A: I've heard good things. I just haven't gotten around to it.
• 4:18
  Speaker B: I think it's worth your time, but I haven't seen, like, all the Disney plus series and, like, all the cartoons. I haven't never watched all the Clone Wars.
• 4:26
  Speaker A: I've seen almost all of Clone wars is hard to keep track because it's. I've seen most of it, but, like, the early seasons are, like, completely out of order. It's kind of like the old Indiana Young, Indiana Jones Chronicles, where it skip around a lot things in the timeline. So I'm pretty sure I watched all it. But, like, there could have been episodes I missed. I don't know. I just. That's one I want to check. But. And longtime listeners will remember, we actually covered the first, what, three episodes of Andor when we got to see a special sneak peek at the spy museum.
• 4:55
  Speaker B: Yes, that's right. That's right.
• 4:57
  Speaker A: But yeah. So after season two of Andor ends, which. Okay, spoilers for Andor and Rogue One, I was like, where it ends right where it picks up, where we see Cassie Nandor at the beginning of Rogue One. So after the end of season two of Andor, I'm like, all right, now I gotta watch Rogue One. Watch it all the way through. And then at the very end of Rogue One, like, well, now I've got to watch Episode four. So I was up for a long time that night.
• 5:23
  Speaker B: Wow. Nice. So a hero comes. My first nitpick. Because nobody loves to nitpick Star wars like Star wars fans.
• 5:29
  Speaker A: Oh, God, here we go.
• 5:30
  Speaker B: I don't like how, and I blame George Lucas for this originally, how everything has to be completely enclosed, right? Everything has to end where the next one begins. So why couldn't the Andor series just end with Andor in a good place and then we pick up with him later in Rogue One and have there be like, books or comic books or video games or something to fill in the gap, which is how it used to be back in my day.
• 5:55
  Speaker A: I think, actually is the reason we have this is because of time. Tony Gilroy, who did a lot of the pickup and rewrites, he said that he. Well, his plan was going to be five seasons of Andor, and it was. But by the time they finished filming the first one, we do five seasons of it, you know, it's going to take 15 years because it goes so slow. Like, because it just takes a lot of work. And so they compress those five, you know that the four other seasons into season two. That's why you have, like, basically three episode. Which arcs.
• 6:27
  Speaker B: You can tell it's broken into arcs. Yeah, it's very clear.
• 6:29
  Speaker A: Three episode arcs that are like all one year period in Andor's life. And that's where you can get in those in between periods. That's where we can get more, you know, comics and books and whatnot. Tony Gilroy was like, no, I want to have this leading up to the five years right before Rogue One. That was his idea. So it wasn't necessarily a George Lucas idea?
• 6:46
  Speaker B: No, I didn't say it was a George Lucas idea. I said George Lucas started that.
• 6:50
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, no, because there's a Whole big gap between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, as filled in by this point there is.
• 6:59
  Speaker B: But, like, I didn't need to know how Obi Wan got plunked onto Tatooine or how Luke and Leia ended up there unnecessarily. I don't know. If we start talking about the prequels, we're going to be here all day anyway.
• 7:10
  Speaker A: So, yeah, that's my story about the last time I saw this movie. Now, I did do something a little different this time of viewing for at least a portion of it, not the whole thing, because I just couldn't manage it. I did watch it in 3D.
• 7:22
  Speaker B: Really? How did you accomplish that?
• 7:24
  Speaker A: With an Oculus headset. And I don't remember the exact setup of it, but I had the file for it and I was able to watch it.
• 7:29
  Speaker B: Oh, okay. You had the file for it?
• 7:32
  Speaker A: The stolen data tapes.
• 7:36
  Speaker B: I've done terrible things for the Rebellion. Terrible. That's cool. So did you see a difference, though, in.
• 7:42
  Speaker A: I did. I mean, it was. The parts that I did get to watch it in 3D were really good. I don't know if I ever watched in 3D when it was in theaters or if they did in 3D. I don't remember. I'm sure they must have, but it looked good. Yeah.
• 7:54
  Speaker B: Well, the movie in general, that's one of my major takeaways, is it looks really good on HDTVs. On Disney, which is how I watch it.
• 8:02
  Speaker A: Even on your iPad.
• 8:04
  Speaker B: Sure.
• 8:04
  Speaker A: Which is how I watch the parts that I didn't watch in 3D.
• 8:08
  Speaker B: Plot synopsis. Plot synopsis. So, as always, we start with our poetry synopses. And as always, the spoilers begin from what we haven't already covered. So here is the haiku for Rogue One, which is what I'm going to call it. I'm not calling it a Star wars story. It's too long. Counter intel up much unneeded dialogue. Epic space battle. I feel like that summarizes the movie.
• 8:36
  Speaker A: Interesting. Okay. All right. I may disagree with you on the dialogue, but sure.
• 8:40
  Speaker B: Okay. And then here is the limerick for Roll andor seems like a real gloomy Gus. He's likely to frown or to cuss. But they beamed up the plans and Darth pleased the fans. See you next time on Old Disney.
• 8:58
  Speaker A: Nice. Nice. I like it. I like it.
• 9:00
  Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. And then here is the real IMDb plot summary. In a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the death Star, the Empire's ultimate weapon of destruction.
• 9:12
  Speaker A: All right, all right. So we start this movie with a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. We do not start with a traditional crawl. That's right. Is this technically the first movie that starts with that? Doesn't start with that. Unless you're counting the Ewok adventure or the battle for Endor, which I saw the Ewok adventure for the first time.
• 9:32
  Speaker B: Well, what is it that cute, huh?
• 9:34
  Speaker A: It's something. Oh, yeah. Anyway, so. But this one, it starts with a jolt, and it's like a musical sting. And we see that director Orson Krennic has found the Ersos. Galen Erso and Lyanna Erso and their daughter Jyn. And Galen Erso is the space weapons designer.
• 9:57
  Speaker B: So have the memes messed up this movie for you? Like, everything Krennic says has become a meme.
• 10:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, actually, my note here is that Krennic's actually kind of funny. Oh, it's Lyanna back from the dead.
• 10:09
  Speaker B: Critic is way better than I remembered. Way better.
• 10:12
  Speaker A: He's so good.
• 10:13
  Speaker B: He's cool, he's scary, he's funny. But he's also, like, kind of pathetic at the same time. But unfortunately, the unnecessary dialogue begins right away.
• 10:22
  Speaker A: Okay, let's hear.
• 10:24
  Speaker B: I wrote down. Somebody says to Jyn, you know what to do, you know where to go. And then they call Saul Gerrera and he says, you know what to do. Well, then why are we talking? Or why did you even say it?
• 10:35
  Speaker A: Because remember my. My, you know, my advice. And this is what I've learned from Christopher Corey. A lot. Hours of listening to him podcast or director's commentary. At this point, viewers are goldfish. And they do need to say that. Yeah, I mean, apparently I'm a goldfish,
• 10:51
  Speaker B: because you need to keep repeating it to me. It hasn't sunk in.
• 10:55
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 10:55
  Speaker B: Well, something else I noticed here is. So people complained about the prequels, that they were too sterile.
• 11:02
  Speaker A: Sure. Right.
• 11:03
  Speaker B: And they said original Star wars should feel like a lived in universe where things are grimy. I'm not sure that's entirely true. It's kind of like a contrast between Tatooine and the Death Star.
• 11:15
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 11:15
  Speaker B: You like how Krennic's uniform is rumpled?
• 11:18
  Speaker A: It's not crisp. Super crisp. You know, not perfect white. It's.
• 11:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, so it makes it sound like he's been out beating the bushes for a long time. I also noticed a mistake in this part. Oh, so Liara or Lia Lira.
• 11:32
  Speaker A: Lyra. That's the one.
• 11:33
  Speaker B: Lyra shoots him in the shoulder.
• 11:36
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 11:36
  Speaker B: And there's a part. You can go back and look, he's holding his shoulder. I'm going to demonstrate for Christian. But there's a blaster burn on the upper part of the shoulder where he's not holding it. I thought that was kind of funny. It may not necessarily be a mistake. It could have been like, shrapnel or whatever.
• 11:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. All right. What is Jyn Erso's mom's name? Because it's going to bother. I think we've said, like, four different names so far.
• 11:57
  Speaker B: You're not going to win a Star wars tribute competition until you know that.
• 12:01
  Speaker A: Let's see Lyra. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, so Krennic kill or has the mom killed and captures Ghielan. But Jyn gets away, and Jyn is rescued by Saw Gerrera, militant guerrilla fighter of the Rebellion.
• 12:17
  Speaker B: And then we get the Rogue One credit, and we get the first example of what I call Teemu John Williams.
• 12:23
  Speaker A: Oh, wow.
• 12:25
  Speaker B: Dun, dun, dun, dun. And then, like, stops. I'm like, why not do the Star Wars? Christian, I remember you and I played Star Wars Squadrons, and they did this too, where it's like almost the Star wars music, but not quite.
• 12:38
  Speaker A: And I honestly, in squadrons, I didn't notice it. I was too caught up in the actual action of it. But it's Michael Giacchino who's getting to he God. The only thing that I think he needs to do is basically do a James Bond theme. And he's gotten all of his wish lists because he's done Star Trek. He's done Star wars, right? Yeah.
• 12:59
  Speaker B: He's done all the franchises.
• 13:01
  Speaker A: He's done Marvel. Yeah. Anyways, I'm just going back to Saw Gerrera a little bit. Did you know he's a character that he originated in the Clone Wars?
• 13:08
  Speaker B: I did know that. I learned about that after I saw the movie. I wasn't aware. My understanding, though, is that he's quite different than this depiction.
• 13:17
  Speaker A: He is quite different, but it's been years between the two depictions at first, and we've had actually him filled in between them now to show the change. Yeah. But it was an interesting thing.
• 13:28
  Speaker B: So do you want to talk about Sawgreyer now or when we talk about him?
• 13:32
  Speaker A: Let's get to him later.
• 13:32
  Speaker B: Yeah, okay, Sounds good.
• 13:33
  Speaker A: Since we just get a brief look at him. So we don't really know what's going on with him. But yeah, we see older Jyn in prison and then we catch up to our other lead Character Cassian Andor, who's on the Rings of Khafren, which is where we left him in Andor Season two.
• 13:48
  Speaker B: Okay. Well, it's funny because the Rings of Kaferin gets a title.
• 13:52
  Speaker A: Mm.
• 13:52
  Speaker B: Which I don't feel like Star wars normally does.
• 13:55
  Speaker A: Oh, no, no. This is one of the first times they've done that. Yeah. Yeah.
• 13:58
  Speaker B: Which is funny because we give this one scene there, and then they never come back to it. But whatever.
• 14:03
  Speaker A: But, yeah, here's some spy stuff.
• 14:06
  Speaker B: And it's also where we see Andor kill a guy in order to prevent him from falling into enemy hands.
• 14:11
  Speaker A: Not just a guy, his informant. This person who's giving him intel. Yeah. So he gets intel from this guy on the Death Star and confirmation that it's, you know, that it's a weapon and that it was designed by Galen Erso.
• 14:27
  Speaker B: Yeah. And he tells them there's a pilot who defected, and that's how they found out about it. I forgot about that part. That that's how they knew it. And that felt very real because how else would the rebels find out about it? Until the Imperial flips.
• 14:40
  Speaker A: Yep, yep. Some troopers come by and. Andor kills them. But of course, that causes the other troopers to come over and his informant is freaking out and he can't climb out because he's got an injured arm. So Cassian shoots him. Wow.
• 14:54
  Speaker B: Yeah. So that was the first indication that this ain't your daddy's Star wars. This is hardcore shit.
• 15:02
  Speaker A: And then we go to Jedha, a planet or city dedicated to the Jedi and one of the places you can get a Kyber crystal. And we meet the pilot, Bodhi Rook, played by Riz Ahmed. Riz Ahmed, who recently in, you know, another Connections to Spy Stories and Spy Series, he did an Amazon series called Bait, which is about this actor who gets caught up in the James Bond casting rumors. But it's a really introspective story about, you know, being an actor and also just about identity. He's a Pakistani actor, and it's very interesting. So we highly recommend.
• 15:41
  Speaker B: This is one of many movies where he dies. He's looking next Sean Bean.
• 15:44
  Speaker A: He seems to die, but yeah. So he's looking for Saw Gerrera and he's turned himself in. So we're back to Jyn, and she's being. Having a prisoner transfer, but her convoy is interrupted by Andor and K2. So that's right.
• 15:59
  Speaker B: Good to see them again. This is where we get one of many memes as well, about being rescued. But how do you feel about her getting rescued, then just immediately tries to fight the rebels and run away?
• 16:09
  Speaker A: Well, at this point, she's not a rebel. She's on her own. And she doesn't know she's being rescued. She thinks that someone's just trying to break up the convoy, and she's trying to use that opportunity to get out. So I'm okay with it.
• 16:20
  Speaker B: All right?
• 16:21
  Speaker A: And we go to Yavin. Classic Yavin 4.
• 16:24
  Speaker B: That's right, the rebel base there where
• 16:28
  Speaker A: Jyn is being interrogated, asked about her dad and saw Gerrera.
• 16:32
  Speaker B: So, a couple of things. So, as you may know, Christian, we've discussed this in the past. I'm broadly speaking anti prequel, okay? For every kind of franchise. And the reason why that is is because of what I call prequelitis, okay? Where things don't make sense if you have something in the past that isn't there in the future or the present.
• 16:56
  Speaker A: Okay?
• 16:57
  Speaker B: So one example of this is Director Krennic's fancy pants shuttle that he flies around in this movie. So if he gets the nice shuttle, why does Emperor Palpatine get a less fancy shuttle later?
• 17:08
  Speaker A: Do we know that? That's not a nice. That's not the fancy. How do we know the Lambda class isn't the fancier version?
• 17:15
  Speaker B: Yeah, maybe it has better seats inside or whatever.
• 17:17
  Speaker A: I say the Lambda class. You know, who we see in flying, usually the Lambda classes is your higher ups, your vaders, your palpatines.
• 17:24
  Speaker B: Right. Well, except when the rebels use it as a cargo shuttle later. The Empire doesn't think twice about it. Whatever. Anyway, that's not really my point. The reason why I bring it up here is because Mon Mothma is at this meeting.
• 17:38
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 17:38
  Speaker B: Okay. And it bugs me because I'm like, well, if she's at this meeting, then why isn't she in a new home?
• 17:43
  Speaker A: They explained that later.
• 17:44
  Speaker B: Well, like, what? She was, like, busy or something? Or she was like.
• 17:46
  Speaker A: No, she's. They evacuated their leadership, but Jadona is there.
• 17:52
  Speaker B: He's a leader.
• 17:52
  Speaker A: Well, they have to have a. Okay. Dadonna's a military leader. We need a military. You don't need a politician.
• 17:59
  Speaker B: I don't know. To me, it's just so much cleaner to say Mon Mothma wasn't part of the rebellion in New Hope, and then she joined it between then and Return of the Jedi. Is this a nitpick? Yes. I know it's a nick.
• 18:12
  Speaker A: This is a huge. This is a. This is such a ridiculous thing to nitpick because. And I know you hate the prequels But Mon Mothma is there in the prequels, and there's scenes of her starting the Rebellion. Well, the deleted scenes. And then in the Clone wars, there's a lot of scenes of her sort of. Okay, so Mon Mothma not being involved with the Rebellion early does make sense.
• 18:33
  Speaker B: I've lost the battle. I get it.
• 18:35
  Speaker A: Also, in Rebels, there's a whole big scene of her making her speech defecting from the Empire.
• 18:40
  Speaker B: Wait, you mean Andor, not Rebels also. Oh, in both. They do it in both.
• 18:45
  Speaker A: No. Okay, well, we'll take this brief aside. There's actually the episode of Rebels came first, and then the episode of Andor actually shows what happened before the episode of Rebels. And then, so they had to, like, her speech is kind of slightly altered for Andor. So actually, if you. If, if you want, you could watch that episode of Andor and then go right, Go. Go right into the episode of Rebels. There's actually characters other than Monmapa who. Who cross over there, too.
• 19:14
  Speaker B: Well, I guess we know who the true Star wars fan here is, folks. Okay, anyway, so that's fine. No, I'm sorry. There's something else I want to talk about. Let's start with Saw Gerrera.
• 19:22
  Speaker A: Sure. What?
• 19:22
  Speaker B: Okay, now, because there's a part where Jyn Erso says, so what if he defected to Sagrer. You guys are all Rebels, right?
• 19:30
  Speaker A: Oh, yes, that. Yep.
• 19:31
  Speaker B: And they say Saw Gerrera is a fanatic. Is that what they use? Is that the term they use? He's like, he's too militant.
• 19:38
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 19:39
  Speaker B: But the thing is, I don't understand, and maybe you can help explain it to me.
• 19:43
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 19:44
  Speaker B: Why Saw Gerrera is a fanatic and the rest of the rebels aren't? Because, especially now that we've seen Andor, and I never really got the impression in the original trilogy that the Rebels were these squeaky clean, Superman type, holier than thou, like, would never get their hands dirty. Every character, even Luke Skywalker, has a dark side to them. I could easily see Princess Leia ordering people to their deaths in A New Hope. So, like, what exactly makes Saw Gerrera worse than the rest of the Rebels? Is it in a cartoon or a book or something?
• 20:18
  Speaker A: Actually, yes. Actually, there is a part in Rebels where Saw Gerrera wants basically outright war. He's using extreme guerrilla tactics and not worrying about civilian casualties and stuff like that.
• 20:31
  Speaker B: So we see that in. We actually do see that.
• 20:35
  Speaker A: We see a bit in Rogue One, we see a little bit of that in Andor, and then we actually we don't see him not caring about civilian casualties in Rebels, but it is alluded to it. And there's a part where the main character, Ezra, is like, do I stick with my band of Rebels? Or do. Sagira is trying to recruit him, but then he sees that he's doing worse things.
• 20:56
  Speaker B: I think it's also because the original trilogy, all the fighting takes place either in space or in these battlefields where there are no civilians, which is very convenient.
• 21:05
  Speaker A: And there's. Yeah. And there's a few books out there now. I think there's a trilogy called like the Reign of Fear or something. Something like that that is covering. Covers that this same period. And Saw Gerrera is one of the major characters in it. I haven't finished it, but it's. So far it's good. Okay, so they need Jyn Erso to get in contact with Saw Gerrera because they know that Saw Gerrera has the intel from the pilots. So they're sending Jin with T', Jetta, with Andor and K2. Yep.
• 21:36
  Speaker B: There's an appearance of Bail Organa. And then there's a wide shot of the hangar. And you can see the ghost from Rebels.
• 21:41
  Speaker A: Ah, okay. I was gonna say the ghost. We also see. What's his name? Chopper. There's also a call for General Syndulla. It is. But yeah, just pointed out all the rebels of Easter eggs. Yeah. All right, so we have Sol Gerrera, who meets Bodhi, Rook, doesn't believe him and is sent to poor Gullet.
• 22:02
  Speaker B: So I guess this is part of the idea of why he's a fanatic. I guess like the mainstream Rebels wouldn't like, sic a giant creepy monster on
• 22:11
  Speaker A: him that's seemingly like a lie detector.
• 22:13
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's like a Lovecraftian thing. I like how there's a trope in every Star wars movie. There's always at least one weird alien creature.
• 22:21
  Speaker A: Yes, yes.
• 22:22
  Speaker B: And with this one, there's no exception.
• 22:24
  Speaker A: Borgolet. And then we see the Death Star. And this is what impressed me here was the scale of it. Like, you know, you think about, oh, it's a set size, the size of a small moon. And you see what a Star Destroyer in comparison to the Death Star looks like. Oh, my God. Wow, that is huge.
• 22:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's pretty cool.
• 22:44
  Speaker A: Not even a Super Star Destroyer, just a regular old Star Destroyer. And we get CGI horror Tarkin.
• 22:51
  Speaker B: And how do we feel about that? I remember this was the big controversy when the movie actually came out.
• 22:56
  Speaker A: I'm okay with it. The thing is that the guy who they had played Tarkin. What's his name? Guy Henry. Yeah, Guy Henry who plays Tarkin. Look, picture of him. He could have just played Tarkin.
• 23:08
  Speaker B: Let's take a look.
• 23:09
  Speaker A: Just like a little like some dye his hair white.
• 23:11
  Speaker B: My God.
• 23:12
  Speaker A: He could have just played Tarkin.
• 23:14
  Speaker B: You could have played Tarkin.
• 23:15
  Speaker A: You didn't need to do CGI Tarkin.
• 23:17
  Speaker B: It's because what Disney likes to do is they like to push, actually Star wars too, is they like to push the boundaries of technology. True, true.
• 23:23
  Speaker A: You know, as a CGI and you know, visual effects. What's the word? Yeah, pushing those boundaries, it looks really good. But you could have just had the guy play Tarkin. And they do that for other characters. They don't CGI the face of General Dodonna. You just got a guy who looks kind of similar.
• 23:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, Come on. I also remember in theaters when they first did, I thought they were gonna have Tarkin in the shadows.
• 23:46
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah. And they do. They start that. Yeah, yeah.
• 23:48
  Speaker B: Very brief scene of him in the shadows. You hear his voice and then you don't see him again because that's what director Krennic is for, is to fill in the role of Tarkin. You did not need zombie Tarkin, honestly.
• 23:59
  Speaker A: Looks really good. But yeah, we could have just had Guy Henry play Tarkin. He looks so much like a young Peter Cushing that you can just send. Oh, well, whatever.
• 24:06
  Speaker B: It also occurred to me, instead of having Tarkin, they should have had Admiral Motti.
• 24:12
  Speaker A: Right.
• 24:13
  Speaker B: So for those of you who aren't true Star wars fans, Admiral Motti is the guy who gets choked by Darth Vader in the conference room. But it's because he says things like, we don't need the Force. We got the Death Star Star. And Darth Vader even says to him, don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed.
• 24:29
  Speaker A: I think it's a royal you.
• 24:31
  Speaker B: Well, I guess it's open to interpretation. So that would have been cool.
• 24:38
  Speaker A: All right. And then we get a little flashback to little Jin with her family on, you know, and her family and Krennic on Coruscant having like a party or something.
• 24:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, I thought Galen Erso looked kind of cool in his uniform.
• 24:52
  Speaker A: We get the arrival on Jedha and yeah, we find out that the Imperials are taking Kyber crystal. They're strip mining the temple. This is one of the other Jedi temples around the galaxy. And so their plan is to find Saw and use Saw to find Galen Ursa.
• 25:08
  Speaker B: Which makes sense. They run into Dr. Evazan and his friend. How do you feel about this? I didn't like it.
• 25:15
  Speaker A: I'm okay with it. I'm like, if they got the death penalty on 12 systems, this could be one of them. Is it 12 or is it 7?
• 25:22
  Speaker B: 12.
• 25:23
  Speaker A: It is 12. Okay. My first instinct was right.
• 25:25
  Speaker B: Yeah. So the. The thing is, whole city is about to get destroyed.
• 25:29
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 25:29
  Speaker B: Somehow they're there, and then they escape like an hour later. I don't know.
• 25:33
  Speaker A: Well, they're on their way out already. They're leaving.
• 25:35
  Speaker B: Okay. So we also see Donnie Yen. We hear him before we see him.
• 25:40
  Speaker A: Yes. He's panhandling. Somehow knows that Jin's wearing a kyber crystal. Him and Baze. Baze. Last name? I forget his last name. They're the Guardians of the Whills, which longtime Star wars fans recognized. That was, like, George Lucas's initial title for it. Like A Journal of the Guardians of the Whales.
• 26:01
  Speaker B: That's right. I've heard rumors that gets passed around. It's like the whales are like. They ended up being midi chlorians or as like, little creatures in the forest. There's been a bunch of different ideas about what the Whills are.
• 26:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, there's. There's an episode of Clone wars where they. Where Yoda communes with the Whills.
• 26:17
  Speaker B: There you go.
• 26:17
  Speaker A: Anyway, so this town is ready to blow. But figurative. But also literally.
• 26:22
  Speaker B: Yep. As it turns out.
• 26:23
  Speaker A: Yeah. So the saw Gerrera's troops mount an attack on the Imperials, and as you see here, they really don't care about civilian casualties. They're just trying to blow up everything. Jyn managed to save this crying kid, which, as a father, got me. I'm like, oh, God, that child. No.
• 26:41
  Speaker B: Well, it's to show her so that she's a good guy.
• 26:43
  Speaker A: Right.
• 26:45
  Speaker B: I'm just gonna say Jyn Erso, I don't know about you. Didn't do very much for me as a character. They tried to do like the badass, like Han Solo. I only care about myself. In my opinion, it doesn't really work. But this is where it shows that she's on a path to becoming a good guy.
• 27:01
  Speaker A: The Gin and Galen stuff works because the father. So it got. But I, I. I like Jyn as a character. I mean, this is where we get into the problem a bit. Some of the problems about the rewrites and everything is that what the trailer showed versus what trailers didn't show. We. We didn't know who her character was, but we get we end up with someone who was raised to be a rebel, basically, but like a more extreme rebel. And then she leaves it all behind, and then she comes back to the rebellion and end up actually inspiring the whole rebellion, really.
• 27:32
  Speaker B: I could see what they were going for. I just didn't feel like it really worked for me.
• 27:36
  Speaker A: Okay, fair enough.
• 27:37
  Speaker B: Yeah. So there's a part where Andor a guy pulls a grenade andor shoots the guy. And then the guy and the grenade fall into what looks like a building and blows up the build. Well, not a whole building, but like
• 27:47
  Speaker A: a stall part of the building.
• 27:48
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, part of a building. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Also, I noticed that the rebels throw a grenade, and then there's guys, like, standing in the open, just shooting at the. You notice this too? Just standing. And then the stormtroopers just immediately kill them. Right. It's like, you ever heard of COVID
• 28:07
  Speaker A: But yeah. So Andor and Jyn almost get captured, but they get rescued by Chirrut, Imwe and Baze, whose last name I don't remember. Chirit Imwe, played by Donnie Yen, which
• 28:17
  Speaker B: would have been better if we didn't just have a scene where Jin fights a guy with a stick, and then five seconds later, Donnie Yen fights a guy with a stick.
• 28:24
  Speaker A: Yeah, but Donnie Yen's blind.
• 28:26
  Speaker B: Yeah, but. No, but I'm saying cut out the Jinn part. You don't get that.
• 28:29
  Speaker A: Okay, they're rescued by Chirrut and Bass from the Imperials, but then they immediately get captured by Saw's men. And I love the part where they're putting bags over their heads and Chirrut's like, are you crazy? I'm blind.
• 28:43
  Speaker B: Well, yeah, that was that in the trailers. I remember people like that. Actually, I'm going to give away. One of my favorite quotes around here is the part where Chirrut is, like, facing off against the troopers. I like having time. Stormtroopers talk. I think it's just because of the red versus blue. Like, one of them says he's blind. Is he deaf?
• 29:01
  Speaker A: That's pretty good.
• 29:01
  Speaker B: I thought that was kind of a cool line, actually.
• 29:03
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we see the Star Destroyer leaves. Jedha and Jyn has reunited with Saw Gerrera. We find out she. That he abandoned her because people were starting to figure out who's. Who she was. And it was safer for her, for her to be away from him than to be with him because people would, you know, either try to kidnap her or kill her.
• 29:25
  Speaker B: She says, you left me behind. So imagine it's like Doctor who, where he just left her somewhere. But again, it's like, why couldn't they just have a conversation about it? Cassandra isn't much into feelings.
• 29:38
  Speaker A: No, he's not. And there's a very good book called Rogue One. Catalyst, I believe. Or is it. No, there's Catalyst, and there's also, like, Rebel Rising, which covers this whole period. So there you go. There's what you wanted. You wanted Star wars books and TV and comic books to fill in these gaps. There you go.
• 29:54
  Speaker B: Right? That's fair. That's fair.
• 29:56
  Speaker A: She says that the rebels needed her for an introduction, but now that she's done with that and doesn't need to do anything else. And we see the Death Star arriving at Jedha, and we have the very first test firing, not on the full capacity, but just one reactor only. A statement, not a manifesto, as Tarkin says.
• 30:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, of course it looks like a WMD blast when it goes off. You probably knew this, but George Lucas based the Death Star on, like, atomic weapons. That's where I got the idea for it. And I had an observation here, something that I liked. Did you notice that the. So Krennic does the test and all of his, like, people are white male officers?
• 30:38
  Speaker A: Yep. Yep.
• 30:39
  Speaker B: So this may be a hot take, but I always felt like the Rebels are the ones who are supposed to be diverse. The Empire are the bad guys. They're not supposed to be diverse. But then I'm like, well, the fans like the Empire. They're, like, dressing up as the Empire, so I guess they should probably let it go.
• 30:54
  Speaker A: Well, here's the thing. Who is he who's an Imperial, who's not a white male?
• 30:59
  Speaker B: Bodhi.
• 30:59
  Speaker A: Bodhi. But what level of Imperial is he?
• 31:02
  Speaker B: Very low.
• 31:02
  Speaker A: He's a cargo pilot.
• 31:03
  Speaker B: Extremely low. See, that works. So that's why I like this part, is because, like, the upper crust, just like in the original trilogy.
• 31:10
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 31:11
  Speaker B: But I think Disney made it pretty clear that the Empire is gonna be diverse, and I'm fine with that.
• 31:16
  Speaker A: It's more the First Order that's diverse, actually.
• 31:19
  Speaker B: Well, what about in Obi Wan Kenobi, where you have the black Jedi woman?
• 31:26
  Speaker A: Well, she's. That's. That's the. That's the Inquisitors. That's different. They're not strictly. They're not in the Imperial hierarchy of command. They just go right under, right under. They're not, you know, they're not in the Imperial military. They're like Vader, basically.
• 31:41
  Speaker B: Well, if I cared enough, I would go back To Blark, but I don't.
• 31:44
  Speaker A: I mean, I was gonna say in Obi Wan you do have an Imperial who's a turncoat played by what's her name from Indira Varma.
• 31:52
  Speaker B: I don't remember Obi Wan Kenobi super well, I just remember people getting stabbed with lightsabers not once but twice and surviving it.
• 32:00
  Speaker A: Anyways, where are we? So we. Baze notices Bodhi is in the next cell to them and is trying to figure like figure out who he is. And Saw watches Galen's message from that Bodhi delivered. And it's intercut with the Death Star sequence.
• 32:18
  Speaker B: There's the cliche where they shoot a lock to open a door. I love that. That's like peak Star Wars. And so they explain that the reason why the rebels are able to destroy the Death Star is not because there's a flaw with the system, but because Galen intentionally sabotaged him. So it's a recap or a recon.
• 32:36
  Speaker A: A retcon.
• 32:37
  Speaker B: A retcon. It's a retcon. Thank you. And how do you feel about that?
• 32:42
  Speaker A: I'm okay with it. I mean, I think it makes more sense than shoddy workmanship on a project of this scale.
• 32:49
  Speaker B: Well, I don't think it's shoddy workmanship. It never made a ton of sense because you have a trench run with turbo lasers at the end protecting something that the Empire presumably doesn't know is there. They remember the proton torpedo like arcs into never makes any sense. A lot of stuff in the original trailer. You know why it arcs doesn't make sense? Because of the force. Yeah, so anyway, a lot of stuff with the original trilogy doesn't make sense. And I appreciate them attempt to explain it here, but it's going to lead to another question later.
• 33:20
  Speaker A: All right, well, the turbo lasers were not in the trench itself. They were on the top.
• 33:25
  Speaker B: Okay, maybe I didn't understand this, but do you remember the part where it shows the turbo lasers firing like directly from the left to the right? It looks like they're in the trench, are they not? They are in the city's coming right at them.
• 33:37
  Speaker A: You know, in the video games there were.
• 33:39
  Speaker B: No, not in the video games. In the movie.
• 33:41
  Speaker A: I'm. I think I'd have to look at that again. Yeah, whatever. They need to get the plans which are in the archive at Scarif. There's a shockwave coming.
• 33:53
  Speaker B: Like you said, they escape, saw dies for no reason.
• 33:57
  Speaker A: Well, I mean, did you see that he has two prosthetic robot legs so he can't exactly run fast on those.
• 34:02
  Speaker B: Yeah. Something I forgot was that all of saw Gerrera's men die or. Well, there's no body, no death. But presumably they do for some reason. I thought they were the ones who joined up with the rebels at the
• 34:13
  Speaker A: end, but that's not the case.
• 34:15
  Speaker B: Those were other rebel redshirts.
• 34:17
  Speaker A: Other rebels? Yep. So Tarkin decides he's going to take over the Death Star project. Of course Krennic is upset about this
• 34:26
  Speaker B: because this is my triumph, my achievement. Come on.
• 34:29
  Speaker A: Achievement?
• 34:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, the office politics is kind of cool.
• 34:35
  Speaker A: So we find the rebels are on their way to Eadu, where Galen Erso is. And Andor gets orders to kill him. Which Jyn doesn't know.
• 34:43
  Speaker B: So did the rebels know that Galen was at Edu this whole time? Or they only found out about it because the Rogue One crew told them
• 34:50
  Speaker A: they found out from Bodhi because Bo. That's where Bodhi flew out of.
• 34:54
  Speaker B: No, but. But I'm saying Bodhi told the Rogue One crew. The rebel high command.
• 34:58
  Speaker A: Exactly.
• 34:59
  Speaker B: That's the case. But they're like, we can't take any chances. Go bomb it. So I remember in this part being kind of bored. I remember thinking, I'm bored in this part watching a Star wars movie in theaters. Going back and watching again. I was not bored. I thought it was actually pretty interesting. I liked the confluence of three different things crashing together at the same time. Krennic, the rebels and the heroes.
• 35:24
  Speaker A: Jyn tells them about the weakness, but in the chaos, she did not grab the hologram, which would have been the thing to do. So she only have her word as opposed to an actual hologram from Galen. Erso saying it right.
• 35:37
  Speaker B: Well, then they're like, let's go get Galen Erso and have him tell him. Which makes a lot of sense.
• 35:41
  Speaker A: So they get into edu, they end up crashing and the Rebellion loses their signal. So they decide to send a squadron. So Bodhi and Andor say that they're going to go off to steal a ship so he can get out of there. But Andor is trying to fulfill his mission without anyone know it. But Baze and Chirrut figure out that he's there to, you know, kill someone.
• 36:03
  Speaker B: Well, Chirrut is like the force like moves differently around someone who's going to kill somebody. Which I loved. I thought that was great.
• 36:11
  Speaker A: Yeah. So they go after him. Krennic also arrives to find out who sent the message via the pilot. And like, he threatens to kill all of Galen's scientists. So Galen reveals himself But Krennic kills them anyways.
• 36:25
  Speaker B: Yeah. Which, of course, I thought is less. Is this Dr. Evil who does that? Or maybe it's the guy from Moonraker. It's definitely a James Bond villain, though.
• 36:34
  Speaker A: Oh, it's Goldfinger.
• 36:36
  Speaker B: Goldfinger. Thank you.
• 36:37
  Speaker A: Yes. He kills the mob with all the Delta 9 nerve gas. Yep, yep. Yeah. After just explaining the entire plan to them.
• 36:47
  Speaker B: Yeah. So. So Andor has Galen in his sights, but he can't kill him.
• 36:52
  Speaker A: Which was cool.
• 36:53
  Speaker B: I didn't remember that part. I like that.
• 36:55
  Speaker A: But. And he also sees that Jhin has snuck onto the platform and then gets a message from K2 that there's a squadron coming. And he tries to delay them, but they can't delay them. And Jyn almost reaches her dad, but a bomb explodes the platform. And we get the rebel ships in X wings coming in as chaos.
• 37:16
  Speaker B: Oh, my God. Fighting, fighting, fighting. Shooting everywhere is great.
• 37:20
  Speaker A: Krennic leaves, and Jean is almost knocked off the platform by, you know, his shuttle leaving.
• 37:26
  Speaker B: This movie kind of felt like a video game. And I'm not seeing that in a bad way. It's more at the end. But this part, it kind of felt like something like Uncharted, where it's like, hit the button, not take the torment off the edge of the platform.
• 37:39
  Speaker A: And. Mm, I can see that. Yeah. But Jyn and Galen finally reunite, and he gets to have his last moments with her before he dies. And Andor gets Jyn off the platform, and Bode comes in with a stolen ship and they escape. And as they escape, Jyn confronts Andor.
• 37:57
  Speaker B: Yeah. She's like, you were totally gonna kill him, weren't you? Also, the troopers kind of come off like the Putties from Power Rangers, where they get easily beaten up all the time, especially in Jedha. But it's also true here as well.
• 38:10
  Speaker A: Yeah, but I mean, they were like that on Endor as well.
• 38:14
  Speaker B: It's true every. It's the only time they've ever been effective and scary is the opening of A New Hope. It's all been downhill from there. Sure, it would be nice if someone would try to make them scary again, but.
• 38:26
  Speaker A: Oh, well, I feel like there was something where they actually managed that, and I don't remember what it was. Anyways, so speaking of making things scary again, Mustafar.
• 38:38
  Speaker B: So, quick, funny story, my wife and I went to go see a Indian music director named AR Rahman.
• 38:43
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 38:43
  Speaker B: And.
• 38:45
  Speaker A: Oh, wait, did he. He did the music for Slumdog Millionaire. Right.
• 38:50
  Speaker B: I wouldn't be surprised. He's done a lot of Movies, there's a part where they do a song that goes, mustafa, Mustafa, ba ba da Mustafa. And I was like, hey, is that a planet from Star Wars? And I looked it up. It's Mustafar in Star Wars.
• 39:04
  Speaker A: Yep, yep. Yeah. He did Jai Hill from Slumdog Billionaire, and he did the rest of the soundtrack. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I knew his name.
• 39:11
  Speaker B: How do you feel about the Darth Vader cameo in this part? I guess you need to have Darth Vader here if you're going to have him later.
• 39:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And it was interesting that, well, you. You place him at Mustafar, being that's where he became Vader. And there's a lot of comics in, you know, books about why he has his castle in Mustafar.
• 39:34
  Speaker B: Is this the first movie where it's been established that he has a castle there? Movie.
• 39:37
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 39:38
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 39:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And yes, Crannic goes crying back to Vader saying, wah, wah, wah. Tarkin took over my Death Star project.
• 39:46
  Speaker B: Well, I think, to be fair. See, I thought about this too. I was like, why is he going to complain to Darth Vader? Is he out of his mind? But Darth Vader says something like, do you know why I summoned you here? So I think Darth Vader called him there. It wasn't his idea.
• 40:00
  Speaker A: But he still went and complained that Tarkin and his whole thing is like, that means I'm still in charge. Yeah.
• 40:07
  Speaker B: He didn't exactly handle it very well, even if it wasn't his idea. That's true. Do you also notice a couple of things? The royal guards, which I don't know why the royal guards are there. I thought they guarded the Emperor, not Darth Vader.
• 40:19
  Speaker A: There's more than one royal guard. Okay, yeah.
• 40:22
  Speaker B: And then also, he's in the bacta tank. And is this the first time we see him out of this? Like, completely out of the suit? So this may be kind of silly and might be kind of a nitpick, but when I was a kid, I always thought the suit was keeping him alive.
• 40:37
  Speaker A: Sure. Yeah.
• 40:38
  Speaker B: Kind of like Tony Stark. So, like, when Luke takes the mask off at the end, he's about to die. He can't survive without the mask on. But he wanted to see Luke in his own eyes anyway.
• 40:49
  Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes. Except he could also be out in his hyperbaric chamber on his Super Star Destroyer. That's where you first get the glimpse of him. You know, his head, his bald head with him.
• 41:02
  Speaker B: Well, you see him from behind.
• 41:03
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 41:04
  Speaker B: The headpiece comes down. But the front mask could have could have still been there, I don't know.
• 41:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, so, I mean, yeah, but he's in a Back to tank, so. A back to tank is self healing. So that's, you know, that's not what's your problem. Yeah, it's gonna keep him alive. That's probably how. And the other thing is that being in the suit is, I think in some like expanded material is like constantly painful basically.
• 41:28
  Speaker B: Okay, yeah, that does sound right. So he says something to Krennic. You need to make sure that Galen Erso didn't give them any information that they could use to compromise the Death Star. Right. Doesn't he say something like that?
• 41:40
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 41:41
  Speaker B: So, yeah, spy movie. You need to do counterintelligence, counterespionage.
• 41:46
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So we go to the rebels at Yavin and we get baal, we get Mon Mothma. I don't think we saw BAAL before.
• 41:53
  Speaker B: We actually did. I wrote it down, but we just skipped it. He doesn't say anything, but he's in the background.
• 41:58
  Speaker A: But we get Mad Mothma and we get some other, you know, members of the Council, including Palma, who like straight up wants to surrender right now. And like she's saying no. If we're trying to avoid a war, it's like, what do you think you've signed up for?
• 42:11
  Speaker B: I think what she's trying to say was we're a resistance. We're not going to full scale war the way Saw Gerrero wanted it.
• 42:18
  Speaker A: Doesn't have the stomach, but like they've got ships and armies. What do you think you're gearing up for?
• 42:26
  Speaker B: Well, I like the part where she's like, scatter the forces, scatter the fleet.
• 42:30
  Speaker A: Yeah, I was like, I was just incredulous at that. Yes. It's scary that there's a Death Star. Yes. But she's so afraid of having an all art war. I'm like, what do you think you're doing, starting here?
• 42:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, good question.
• 42:44
  Speaker A: But some of them now rightfully think that this could be a trap. There's no Death Star. But what the Empire is trying to do is get them to gather all their troops together to wipe them all out in one swift stroke.
• 42:53
  Speaker B: I actually like this part. It felt very real where they were like, we can't take the risk. We'll do a calculation, ask K2 so to do, calculate the odds. And we're not going to do it. The problem is it gets undermined later when the Rogue One crew go in and they're like, all right, let's just go in Anyway.
• 43:09
  Speaker A: Well, yeah. I mean, now that it's, you know, better to ask for, you know, beg for, permit for forgiveness and ask for permission. In this case, that's basically what it is. And say, all right, this is happening already. We need to support them.
• 43:18
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 43:19
  Speaker A: You need to send troops to Scarif to get the Death Star plans. We get the line. Rebellions are built on hope again.
• 43:26
  Speaker B: Yeah. More than once.
• 43:28
  Speaker A: Yeah. And Manmatha says they need the full support of the Council. So they. Not doing anything officially, but unofficially, Andor and a bunch of other rebel Black Op troops, including Melshi, who is a main character in season two of Andor, but no one. You don't remember him, probably.
• 43:48
  Speaker B: Is he a human or is he that little guy?
• 43:49
  Speaker A: He's human.
• 43:50
  Speaker B: Oh, then, no. All the humans blur together.
• 43:52
  Speaker A: He's the one who goes to Saw Gerrera in season two and, like, learns how to be a bomb maker and then he has him huffing the gas.
• 44:01
  Speaker B: Oh, he's like the Weasley little guy. Yeah, I remember that guy.
• 44:03
  Speaker A: Yeah. So he is in this. That's why they put him in Andor, because they wanted to show his backstory. In this last part, he becomes like a second in command to all of the troops. Let's give him a backstory.
• 44:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, I completely missed it. I guess I'm not a true fan.
• 44:20
  Speaker A: So, yeah. They volunteer to help Jyn, and they all board the stolen Imperial ship, which is given the codename Rogue One.
• 44:28
  Speaker B: This is also where Andor says, we've all done terrible things to help the Rebellion. Then he goes on to list a number of things that aren't especially terrible. I know we've already talked about it. Just wanted to put it out there.
• 44:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah.
• 44:41
  Speaker B: I mean, anyway, you want to talk about Rogue One?
• 44:43
  Speaker A: I just want to talk about. When you first heard there was a movie going to be called Rogue One, what did you think it was going to be about?
• 44:50
  Speaker B: Obviously, I thought it was going to be a movie that has been rumored about for a long time, which was a top gun Star wars about an X Wing fighter squadron. Because there's a Rogue Squadron in the movies. And then, of course, in the games and books and things like that. So when you hear Rogue One, you think, who's Rogue One? It's Wedgie Antilles. Oh, my God. A Wedge Antilles movie.
• 45:11
  Speaker A: He's Rogue Leader, not Rogue One.
• 45:13
  Speaker B: Well, maybe I got a little bit ahead of myself. That's how this happens.
• 45:17
  Speaker A: And I was like, I want to put it out there. Because, like, yeah, when we all Heard Rogue One like, oh, it's going to be an X Wing Starfighter movie. Oh, great. Obviously this is not. There's a bit of that, but this is not the main focus of it. And yeah, there was supposed to be a Rogue Squadron movie directed by what's her name, who directed Wonder Woman. Yeah. Which hasn't happened. But supposedly it's not supposedly.
• 45:40
  Speaker B: It's not completely dead.
• 45:41
  Speaker A: We'll see supposedly. But we do. At least we have some sort of pilot based Star wars movie coming out next year with Ryan Gosling. Star Wars Starfighter. I mean, it's in the name there. They can't not have it be about.
• 45:59
  Speaker B: I absolutely hate that video. By the way, did you ever play Star Wars Starfighter? The game.
• 46:05
  Speaker A: I was gonna say that. I was gonna bring it up. There was the Star Wars Starfighter. Yes.
• 46:08
  Speaker B: Did you play it?
• 46:09
  Speaker A: I did.
• 46:10
  Speaker B: Oh, my God. It's terrible.
• 46:11
  Speaker A: It's terrible. But better game. Star Wars Jedi Starfighter.
• 46:17
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's fair. That's fair.
• 46:19
  Speaker A: But even better game than those is any of the Rogue Squadron games.
• 46:22
  Speaker B: That's right. So, yeah, Rogue One, I never liked the title of Rogue One, but I also couldn't think of anything better. So I guess you could go.
• 46:30
  Speaker A: But also, this gives us the origin of why they're called Rogue Squadron. Because they're named in honor of Rogue One.
• 46:36
  Speaker B: There you go.
• 46:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:38
  Speaker B: Did we. Did they explicitly say that in the movie or is it not in the movie?
• 46:41
  Speaker A: In the comics? Later on, there's comics between episode four and five, the Marvel Comics, right after the Death Star, Death Star blows up and all that. And they decide to rename Red Squadron to Rogue Squadron in honor of them.
• 46:57
  Speaker B: Okay, there you go.
• 46:58
  Speaker A: So it is explicit in the comics, but not in the movie. But it's implied in the movies. We also see Bail is going back to Alderaan. He's gonna send his word to his friend, the Jedi. So this is where it's, you know, BAAL leaves and it's implied that Mon Mothma leaves as well.
• 47:13
  Speaker B: And there's a part where he says, captain the Antilles, I got a job for you. And he doesn't name drop Leia, but he references Leia.
• 47:20
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 47:21
  Speaker B: So I'm like, okay, we've hit the high point of the movie. Let's go get him. Oh, my God. Why is there still an hour left of the movie?
• 47:28
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. So they get to Scarif and it has the planetary shield from Spaceballs.
• 47:36
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:38
  Speaker A: And so they have to transmit a code, and the whole time I'M thinking is the code 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. That's the same combination I have in my luggage.
• 47:48
  Speaker B: Oh, my God. I don't know if I should show my wife that movie because she knows what Star wars is, but I don't know how well Spaceballs will hold up.
• 47:56
  Speaker A: It actually holds up pretty well, I think.
• 47:58
  Speaker B: Have you shown it to your kids?
• 48:00
  Speaker A: I wouldn't show it to actually. When they're a little older, I would. There's nothing. I mean, it's. There's nothing, really.
• 48:06
  Speaker B: Okay. So anyway, so he works back in Rogue One. There's more unnecessary dialogue that I actually wrote down.
• 48:12
  Speaker A: All right, what is it?
• 48:13
  Speaker B: Jen says to Jin, we're landing. And then he turns to the crew and he says, we're coming in. They didn't need to say either of those things.
• 48:21
  Speaker A: All right?
• 48:22
  Speaker B: The movie should not be this long. And then Jyn makes another speech about how they're going to fight and win or whatever.
• 48:29
  Speaker A: Well, I mean, they are going into something with against all odds here. You know, they've got, what, 20 people maybe?
• 48:37
  Speaker B: Exactly.
• 48:39
  Speaker A: So. But yeah, they say they're gonna take the next chance and the next. And until they run out of chances or they accomplish their goal and then we get them. Do the old, old uniform swap trick.
• 48:51
  Speaker B: That's. Yeah, that's right. Classic Star wars as well.
• 48:54
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 48:54
  Speaker B: They even have, like, the Landing Party, like, a search party come on board, and then they knock them out or maybe kill them.
• 48:59
  Speaker A: Love it. Love that. They definitely kill them. But he's like, you know what? Diego Luna looks good in an Imperial
• 49:05
  Speaker B: uniform, except they couldn't find a razor somewhere or scissors to make him kind of look.
• 49:09
  Speaker A: It gives me an excuse to have facial hair when I'm dressed up as an Imperial officer because. All right, if he didn't look out of place, then I'm.
• 49:16
  Speaker B: Okay, so it's Christian dressed up as. Andor dressed up as an Imperial officer.
• 49:20
  Speaker A: There we go. Yeah.
• 49:24
  Speaker B: I did like the part where K2 starts to say, I have a bad feeling about this.
• 49:27
  Speaker A: Yeah. He gets cut off. Yeah. And the Krennic also arrives back at Scarif.
• 49:33
  Speaker B: I'm sorry, this prompts another question. Jump in. I told you I had a lot to say about this movie, so if you don't mind. So if the Empire knows that the rebels are after the Death Star plans, and if the only reason they can destroy the Death Star is because Galen built a flaw into it, I'm kind of surprised. The Empire. No, I know, but hang on. What I'm saying is, I'M surprised the Empire didn't go back through the plans and scour them with a fine toothed comb to see if there's any flaws that the rebels might have found. Now I know the Empire is incompetent. That's been established.
• 50:07
  Speaker A: And incompetent and arrogant. There you go. Yes.
• 50:10
  Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
• 50:11
  Speaker A: But also the only person, like, not everyone knows that Galen or the rebels are after the plans. Pretty much the only people who.
• 50:21
  Speaker B: That's not correct. Tarkin says Scarif. There's an attack on Scarif. Don't we keep an original copy of the Death Star plans as.
• 50:28
  Speaker A: Okay, they know that later.
• 50:31
  Speaker B: Well, he knows it now, like, while it's happening.
• 50:33
  Speaker A: Yes. And it takes them a while to get.
• 50:36
  Speaker B: Well, I guess the events of the movie move really fast. Like, when this move ends, it's where a new hope begins, basically.
• 50:42
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 50:43
  Speaker B: So it's probably like 48 hours.
• 50:45
  Speaker A: The only person who really knows, and I think that's part of the reason why he's there, is Krennic. That's why Krennic got scared. And make sure that. See what's going on with plans. And then immediately, as soon as he gets there, bombs blow off. So it's not like they really had time to go scour through them.
• 51:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's okay. Good point. Good point.
• 51:03
  Speaker A: Speaking of. Yeah. So K2 needs to get an interface for the map. And the rebels are planting charges at different, you know, landing pads. It's funny for me, growing up in Hawaii to see palm trees in Star Wars.
• 51:15
  Speaker B: Like, it did feel like Hawaii, didn't it?
• 51:17
  Speaker A: Yeah. You know, they filmed. I don't remember. I think the Maldives, maybe. I used to joke that if Hawaii was in Star wars, it'd be like Naboo. Because, hey, we had a monarchy and we had, you know, a constitutional monarchy. And we're nice and, you know, we have, you know, nice landscape. Yeah. Was like. No, maybe we'd be scared effectually because we were, you know, overtaken by an, you know, an imperial power and had, you know, we had. We still have Imperial, not imperial.
• 51:46
  Speaker B: A very authoritary basis.
• 51:48
  Speaker A: You know, like, maybe we're Scarif.
• 51:51
  Speaker B: Actually, I also thought Hawaii could be Alderaan, because Alderaan's peaceful. We have no weapons.
• 51:57
  Speaker A: Except we have weapons. We have a military base.
• 51:59
  Speaker B: As it turns out.
• 52:00
  Speaker A: As it turns out, they set off all the charges. Krennic sees. Deploy the garrison. Are we blind?
• 52:06
  Speaker B: Yeah, kind of. I like the part where they have misinformation on the comms attacking Pad 5. No, we're under attack in Pad 7. Very spy stuff. Yeah, yeah.
• 52:19
  Speaker A: As Andor says, make ten men feel like a hundred. Mon Mothma hears the report about the rebels on Scarf. She's about to leave and that's when she gets the report that the rebels are on Scarif and that Admiral Raddus is going to fight. And so she says to send fighters. We get an R2 and three PO. Cameo and Jyn.
• 52:36
  Speaker B: Yeah, which actually makes sense because if. If Leia is there and they're on Leah's shep, then they would all leave right away. It didn't bother me.
• 52:46
  Speaker A: Put a pin in that and I will talk about it later.
• 52:49
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 52:49
  Speaker A: Jin and Andor get to the data retrieval, which is really cool looking. And then we get an at. AT attack. Or are we gonna have this discussion? What do you call them?
• 52:59
  Speaker B: George Lucas is wrong. That's what I said.
• 53:01
  Speaker A: Did you wait at.
• 53:03
  Speaker B: AT Walkers?
• 53:04
  Speaker A: Yes. All right, all right. Because what do you call an AT St then it ats.
• 53:08
  Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
• 53:10
  Speaker A: Anyways, yeah. So it's At. AT attack. And then it looks like they're about to get blown up, but then X Wings arrive. Here's where the fun begins.
• 53:19
  Speaker B: It's super sweet. Yeah.
• 53:21
  Speaker A: Red Leader and Gold Leader.
• 53:23
  Speaker B: So I never clap at the theater, but I clap to the theater for Red Leader and Gold Leader. They got me good.
• 53:29
  Speaker A: You see the ghosts too. So you get multiple generations of fans being like, hey, it's that thing.
• 53:33
  Speaker B: Can't believe that they did Red Leader and Cold Leader. It was like incredible. And when you watch it, I remember in the theater that they had like a green screen, kind of like cloud around them.
• 53:44
  Speaker A: Hold on.
• 53:45
  Speaker B: Well, I remember that they looked like they were splicing footage from the 70s into footage today. If you go back and watch On Disney now, you really can't even tell.
• 53:54
  Speaker A: No, I don't. Yeah. A few of them actually get through the shield before it closes.
• 54:02
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, once the fleet jumps in, it's like a completely different movie. It's like an incredible movie.
• 54:09
  Speaker A: And you know, the base gets locked down, but they still need to transmit the plan. So Andor tells Bodhi to transmit to the rebels that they need to get that shield gate open. But Bodhi needs to tie in into the main comms tower. So he. That's his, you know, mission. And Jyn gives K2 a blaster so he can defend himself while they're going to get the data.
• 54:33
  Speaker B: Yeah. So this is like a bit of a video game too, where there's a side quest. Another side quest. And another side quest and all the things they have to do doesn't make any sense. And I know that's a Star wars thing as well. Like Obi Wan Kenobi having to crawl to the edge of a bottomless pit to turn the tractor beam off. Doesn't make any sense.
• 54:50
  Speaker A: Yeah. So the X Wings, you take out the walker and this, you know, this part reminded me of.
• 54:55
  Speaker B: Well, there was a Battlefront 2 trailer where they do this.
• 54:58
  Speaker A: Well, no, but just the sentiment of it. They think they're about to die and then they see some X Wings fly in. And it reminds me of Pearl harbor, that scene where Rafe and Dany take their P40s over Battleship Row and the soldiers in the water start shouting, yeah, P40s. You can basically feel the rebel troops on the ground saying, yeah, X Wings.
• 55:18
  Speaker B: That's right. Yeah, nice.
• 55:19
  Speaker A: And this is also just some of the best looking X Wing battles we've ever had.
• 55:23
  Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's true.
• 55:24
  Speaker A: There are some, like, very Top Gun inspired shots of like, as if the camera was mounted to the underside of the wing as it's flying around. Like, I'm like, oh, it's beautiful. Love it.
• 55:34
  Speaker B: I know you didn't mean this as a shot at the sequels, but it looks better than the sequels battles.
• 55:42
  Speaker A: I remember that there was a scene which had really great. And I was like, was it Because I feel like I remember liking in the sequels the part where Po comes in with the X Wings. Like, no, you really don't get a good shot. Like, there's a few good, cool shots of them, like, flying over the water thing. But the actual X Wing battle itself, you see it more from the perspective of Finn and Han Solo on the ground. You don't see it from the air. And also some of the moves that Poe Dameron accomplishes just aren't possible. Or like, they don't look real. They feel very, you know, not. It doesn't obey the laws of physics, which I know sounds funny because it's Star wars, but they have to feel like they're moving correctly. Even if with your reference points, it
• 56:27
  Speaker B: has to convince you.
• 56:28
  Speaker A: It has to convince you. And some of what he does just seems so unnatural that it just brings me out of it. It wasn't not a shot at the sequels, but it also wasn't a shot of the sequels.
• 56:40
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's fair. So, yeah, the space battles look great and they're flying around.
• 56:45
  Speaker A: And it reminded me of playing Star wars squadrons with you and a bunch of our friends because there's literally A level that's set in Scarab Base.
• 56:53
  Speaker B: It reminded me of Battlefront as well. It felt like you're watching a Battlefront cutscene. You can clearly see where they inspire from. But you can also tell that Gareth Edwards and the crew were Star wars fans. People could actually complain that this movie is like fan service, but they give the fans what they want. I just wanted X Wing battles.
• 57:12
  Speaker A: So. Yeah. So Jin and Andor are in the data storage. K2 is guiding them, and the troopers are starting to approach. And then we get the ties getting released and starting to attack the. Attack the X Wings and goodbye Red 5. Well, we need that spot. That spot open anyways.
• 57:30
  Speaker B: Well, it's funny because they tried to explain why Luke was able to be Red 5, but then Red 5 lost his ship. So they just had like an extra X wing.
• 57:38
  Speaker A: No, I think it was more of the call sign was open, not necessarily the ship.
• 57:42
  Speaker B: Oh, call sign.
• 57:42
  Speaker A: The call signs are not specifically tied to that ship. It's just the call sign that was open.
• 57:48
  Speaker B: Okay. I always thought that Red 5 was sick or something, and that's why you got to fill in for him.
• 57:53
  Speaker A: So when we have Jin and Andor in the data storage, they like go through the list of all these other top secret projects, one of them being hyperspace tracking. Hey, there's a call forward to the Last Jedi. Yes, we're gonna get attacked by angry Star wars fans since I mentioned the Last Jedi.
• 58:11
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's fair. So do you like how it's heaps. Someone has made the observation. I'm not the first one to say it. That Star wars technology is stuck in the 70s where they actually have like physical tapes that you have to pull it out of this giant Mission Impossible style database. But also it's like in Andor when they steal money and it's actual physical cash.
• 58:30
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 58:31
  Speaker B: That was funny too.
• 58:33
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And we get own first of our main character Deaths. We get K2. So getting shot up by troopers. And this is where I started. First time watching it, I started getting a little. Feeling a little queasy about the fates of all of our crew, even though I know none of them show up in the rest of the movies, as I'm like, but. But they could just go off and live somewhere else.
• 58:57
  Speaker B: Yeah. I remember people at the time were arguing that all the characters in Rogue One have to die because otherwise why wouldn't they be in A New Hope? That never made any sense to me.
• 59:06
  Speaker A: No, no. Yeah, just. You mean like, why? Hey, why Mon Mothpa's not there.
• 59:13
  Speaker B: I mean, like there's a million other reasons why they could not be there. It's a whole rebellion.
• 59:17
  Speaker A: So before he dies though, K2 tells them they need to climb the tower. They can still transmit if they're at the top of the tower. And then Bodhi gets pinned down and he needs to connect the shuttle to the shuttle. The cable gets caught on something. He has to go back. But he manages to get in. But we can see the tide is beginning to turn against the rebels.
• 59:42
  Speaker B: Yeah. People start dying. Blue leader dies.
• 59:46
  Speaker A: Yeah. Melshi, Baze and Chirrut get pinned down and they still need to activate the comms tower switch. And then Jyn and Cassian are climbing. They managed to get grab the data tape, but then Krentic finds them.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker B: I like, I like the vertical fight where they're fighting while I'm hanging onto it. I forgot about that in the. When I saw it before and I thought it was a fun fight scene.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker A: Kirit is going to make his move. I'm one with the Force and the Force is with me.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker B: He says that way too much, by the way.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker A: No, no, it was great. It was great. Okay, I will take no arguments. And he managed to pull the switch. And then in that, you know, fight in the data tower, Andor gets hit. And I honestly, the first time watching, I thought that that was the end of Andor.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker B: Oh, like he just dies here.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker A: It gets, you know, blown up and this is like the end of the Godfather with everyone just getting taken out
• 1:00:39
  Speaker B: it actually, you ever seen the Dirty Dozen?
• 1:00:41
  Speaker A: It's more like that. Oh, interesting. Okay. All right, so my list, it's military
• 1:00:45
  Speaker B: movie where the heroes go in and they're not going to make it out, but they accomplish the mission. Also something you'll notice though, with the exception of Shurat, there's no bodies. Right. And you know what that means. No body, no death.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker A: I'm pretty sure we see K2SO's body.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker B: Well, he's not alive, so. Well, he could be repaired.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker A: Droid rites. Droid rites. Uh huh. But yeah. So yeah, Baze finds his faith again after he managed to get to Chirrut's body. And I'm honestly guys, like, I'm still sad here when you know, both of them die.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker A: And you know, they need to press the attack for the space battle. So they get some ion torpedoes and take out one of the Star Destroyers.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker B: So yeah, I know this part is awesome. Everybody loves it. I just feel I have a nitpick again. It's been A long time since I had a nitpick.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker A: Okay, Okay.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker B: I just feel, watching again, that it's just way too effective.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker A: Right.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker B: Because they push the Star Destroyer into the other Star Destroyer and it, like, shatters it. Why couldn't they just push it into the shield gate?
• 1:01:53
  Speaker A: I don't know that they're necessarily trying to push it into the other one. I think they were trying to push it into the shield gate and then accidentally get the other one too.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker B: Well, I don't know. I think Admiral Raddus is, like, just, like, how I drew it up. I think that was his plan all along.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker A: He seemed very like Winston Churchill to me for some reason. Admirals.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker B: Just because the way he talks.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker B: It also made me wonder. Okay, so a Star Destroyer crashes through the shield gate.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker A: Yeah. But it doesn't crash through the shield gate. It crashes the gate itself if you watch it.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker B: Correct. No, you're right. But then why didn't a huge wreckage of the shield gate and the Star Destroyer itself come crashing down onto the base?
• 1:02:35
  Speaker A: I assume that it just landed somewhere
• 1:02:37
  Speaker B: else or like, maybe burned up.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker A: The basis for that. The basis itself is not, you know, is only in one part of the planet. It's not the entire planet. So presumably it just landed somewhere else. Who knows it's the guy. But also, well, just, you know, as. Throw in your. The. The camerahead. Corvettes were seen being given to the rebels by still. Still senator of the time, Princess Leia, in an episode of Star Wars Rebels.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker B: Ah, I see. Thank you.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker A: And also, they are based on designs from the old Republic video game, the mmo.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker B: Oh, wow.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker A: That's a callback. So it's a design that's been in use in the Star wars galaxy for a long, long time. And then we say goodbye to Baze as he gets blown up, and also goodbye to Bodhi as a. Was it some sort of grenade or thermal detonator gets thrown into the ship.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker B: Yeah. Again, a bodiless death for Bode. No Bodhi body.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker A: Bye, Bodhi, the, you know, probably easiest character for me to cosplay other than Cassian. Andor as an Imperial. I've thought about it. I was like, all right, I've already got the pilot suit. I have a vest that kind of looks like that. I just need some goggles and, like, the backpack full of the spool, like.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah, well, that's if you want to go extra level. Yeah. With the backpack.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker A: Yeah. All right. So Jin manages to get to the top of the tower, but she's trying to transmit. But she needs to move the antenna, so has to move it at. This is kind of like a fetch quest. It's like I have to go to this other part to go pull that lever and come back and you know.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker B: Well, again, it doesn't bother me because of the Obi Wan Kenobi tractor beam thing that we talked about. The thing is like, if. If Chirrut didn't have to do that and a Bodhi didn't have to do that, I would have felt better about it. But I actually felt like this part was pretty tense.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's very tense. It was just. It's just kind of funny that it. The way it's structured like a video game in a way. But it's not a bad thing. Yeah. And then. But Krennic gets up there, confronts Jyn and she says who she actually is and she's monologuing actually like, oh, this is a rare hero monologue. And as she's monologuing, Krennic is about to shoot her, but then he gets shot by Andor, who's still alive and manages to climb the rest. So unlike his contact who couldn't climb with, you know, a broken arm or whatever, he managed to climb that entire data tower while being shot.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker B: Well, maybe he found an elevator.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker A: Maybe that's true. Krennic got up there somehow without climbing. That's actually probably the case. I was like, all right, enough shading of his contact.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker B: But no, I liked the Krennic like showdown. You don't get that so often. That isn't like a lightsaber duel. You know what I mean?
• 1:05:20
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. So Jyn transmits the data and we see the classic eight bit plans of the Death Star that we saw in the briefing scene in A New Hope. And I like how they explained that it's the earlier plans of the Death Star because they've got this ever bother you in A New Hope where the placement of the dish on the Death Star in those plans is not accurate to the actual Death Star because it's in the middle.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker B: People have noticed that it's not on
• 1:05:52
  Speaker A: the top, it's in the middle and it's around where the trench is. And like, so they've explained here now that's the earliest plans of it. And that's why it's not. It doesn't look how it should.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker B: I mean, plans are plans, right? So.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker A: Except we get the accurate version of it in. In our very chronologically, our very first look at the Death Star in episode two. Do you remember that they Had a Death Star planned at episode two.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker B: No, I do not remember that.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker A: Yes, they did. Yeah. And it looks how it's supposed to. How it looks in finalized plan. So it all looks like it's going to go well. They transmit the plans. They make their way down from the tower. Oh, shit. It's a Death Star.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I like the way it arrives.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker A: Oh, no, it's great. And, like, there's something massive coming out of hyperspace. And they again, use just one reactor only. Hit Scarif. Vader will handle the fleet. And here's some poetic justice. Krennic sees the Death Star firing as he's dying. And Vader's Star Destroyer halts the escape of the rebel fleet. And this is where we say bye to Jyn and Andor. And Andor tells Jyn, your father would be proud of you. And was like, cassian Marvel would be proud of you, too. Your mom would be proud of you.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker B: Yeah, she only they knew. And his sister that they never talk about again.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker A: And so Vader prepares a boarding party. And we've got the rebels. Gotta get the Death Star plans out. And Vader scene. And Vader is aura farming here.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, everybody loves the Vader scene. I think I like it for a different reason than everybody else does.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker A: What was your reason?
• 1:07:33
  Speaker B: So people like it because it makes Darth Vader look cool and badass, which it does. I always thought Darth Vader was badass anyway. I like it because it's very scary and intense.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker B: Way to end the movie.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker A: Yeah. See, that's also why I like. Because it's like. And maybe it's just for me, being around Darth Vader cosplayers a lot because of being in the 501st or maybe seeing him at Disneyland or whatever. Like, Vader, in a way, like, for a bit, had lost the fear.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker A: Clearly. Seeing this in IMAX on, like, that opening night, like, oh, crap, Vader's scary again. Wow.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker B: Yeah. Now let's see them do the same with the stormtroopers. It's like, have you seen the video of stormtroopers and Darth Vader dancing at Disney World?
• 1:08:16
  Speaker A: That's what I'm saying. Like, you know, you've lost a bit of the fear of Vader. I'm like, now it's like, oh, I'm afraid of Vader again.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker B: Good. I mean. Yeah, that's how it should be.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker A: That's. That's why I like the scene. Because, you know, not because. Oh, I mean. Yes, he's badass. Here. But it's also like, it's terrifying his full power. Like again, not against a Jedi, but against just a, you know, random rebel fighters. And he just demolishes them.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker B: So this. And Also Luke Skywalker vs the Dark Troopers and Mandalorian. I'm not a Disney Star wars hater. It has ups and downs. But I do appreciate that they really give Darth Vader and Luke a chance to use 21st century effects to really let him go to town.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, they managed to get the plans out and they launched the 10 to 4. Now this. Remember I told you to put a pin in that. I have questions.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker B: Okay, sure.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker A: So we see R2 and 3PO in Yavin, and we're told that Admiral Radissart has already gone to his ship. Right, his ship has had the Tantive IV inside of it. When did they get up there?
• 1:09:26
  Speaker B: I just assumed that they like left immediately. And it takes like, just cause Admiral Raddus is in the ship doesn't mean they have time to get himself prepped and ready to go.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker A: Where has Leia been?
• 1:09:37
  Speaker B: Somewhere else.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, but she should have already been there because she's in the ship already.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker B: Yeah, I guess she was in Yavin 4, but not part of the meetings.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker A: Yeah, but the way that Bael talks about I always trust her with my life implies that she's not there. Like, and the Mon Mothma's not. They're talking vaguely about her, but not actually talking about her implies that she's not there.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker B: Like, I mean, you know, I love to nitpick, but I don't have a problem with this.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker A: Oh, this is the one. I'm like, but they're here, they're there. How do they all get there? And inside there I'm gonna leave it alone because. But also, and this is not a nitpick, but it just makes me laugh that literally Vader saw this ship take off and Leia's lying about this being a consular ship on a diplomatic mission to Ulra. It's a bold faced lie.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, it makes it even more ridiculous because he literally just saw her hyperspace away five minutes earlier. I mean, among many other things.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker A: But. And so some of this, this is, this is my part. Like this doesn't make any sense, but it still works for me. And you see, like seeing Leia and you're hearing her. What have they brought us? Hope. That actually got me. And again, now I want to watch a new hope. Like I almost immediately went to. All right, what would have worked is if the Disney up next had been a New Hope. If I had to have been able to just press a button and go into it like I did at the end of season two. Van Dor, and that's literally what happened last time, is that Disney made it easy that could just go into the next thing. But instead they suggested some other show instead of A New Hope. So you didn't like that? You didn't like the Leia scene?
• 1:11:24
  Speaker B: No, I would have. Again, just like Tarkin. You could open the door, seen the bun hair.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker A: Okay, if it was so you. Your problem was a CGI face. It wasn't have Lei showing up.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker B: No, I. Having Leia there was fine. I didn't like the CGI face. Yeah.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker A: I mean, I've gotten to quote My Fair Lady. I've grown accustomed to her face.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker B: Okay, that's fine. I have not, though.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker A: Yeah. Because I've seen it multiple times. It doesn't look terrible. I don't. They use it sparingly. They're just in one scene and that's it. It's not like Tarkin, where he's there the whole time. So I was okay with it.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker B: I mean, it's an improvement over Tarkin for sure. But I feel like if this was made in the 80s, they would have just had the back of her head be like for you, and then you see a hand take it. And this has hope. I don't know. Something, something.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker A: Well, how would you feel if they recast it with her daughter? Or if they had used her daughter as a stand in.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker B: It would have been better than a CGI zombie. Interesting.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker A: Okay. All right, all right. Because. Well, I don't know if you know that for the scenes in Rise of Skywalker where you see young Leia, they had her daughter, who's Billie Lourd, do the motion capture for that. They used her in filming, and then they mapped the face onto it. I know, but. But, yes, but with that, our movie ends.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker B: Spy Fact versus Spy Fiction when the saga begins.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker B: All right, so now it is time for our Spy Fact versus fiction. Would you like to go first?
• 1:12:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, I've got a little bit. So in the. Not. Not to spark off any fandom wars, but in the old expanded universe now known as Legends, the stealing of the Death Star plans carried out much differently. Instead, it was performed by Kyle Katarn, a mercenary employed by the Rebel Alliance. And like the whole. What? The first couple levels are him stealing the Death Star plans.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker B: The first couple levels of Star Wars Dark Forces.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker A: Exactly. Yes.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker B: Sidi Rom.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Which fun game. Now, I was trying to think of. All right, is there any comparable real life spy or heist story like this? There's not. And I couldn't find anything really concrete. But what I did find was an interesting article on StarWars.com about the inspirations that for Rogue One now, Galen Erso himself, they found inspiration from Robert Oppenheimer.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker B: I could see that.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker A: And the Manhattan Project. And as we've seen in the movie, Oppenheimer, you know, he had immense regrets about that. You know, it was about the science room. I also got a bit of Warner Von Braun from him as well.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker B: Hmm. Von Braun was like an actual Nazi.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I know. I was like a little bit. It was like I could. So in terms. Yeah, that's what they. But in terms of like the actual makeup of the crew and everything like that, they had inspiration from not two real stories, but from two movies. The Guns of Navarone and Where Equals Dare. And this is from Star Wars.com they said at its most basic, Guns of Navarro is about a small team against that big, unthinkable mechanical threat. And a larger operation that awaits off screen is dependent on their success. Oh, interesting. And then they said that where Eagles Dare came up in conversation was when discussing the infiltration of the Scarif Citadel. Basically the scenes with Jhin Cassian and K2 disguised as Imperials, bluffing their way through and surrounded at every corner by the enemy is something that occurs memorably in the film. So I think I looked them up. Guns of Navarone isn't explicitly a spy film, but where Ego's Dare, the characters are like an SOE force. So we could cover that in the future.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker B: I mean, it's like the jury doesn't. Which we talked about already. But I don't want to know if everybody dies, so I'll have to watch that.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker A: Yeah. But fun thing about Guns of Navarone, there was a sequel to it called Force 10 from Navarone, starring a young Harrison Ford.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker B: Oh, okay, Interesting.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker A: The last thing I've got is about the data center that they go through that the now. Oh, well, I mean, it is literally a data center, isn't it? Or the data tower. I haven't found anything specifically, but it seems to be inspired by how you used to have tape storage back in like the 70s and 80s. And the most prominent one being is like a storage tech is what it's called. And you literally had all these cassette tapes inside this cylindrical tube with a robot arm that would go around and select the different tapes and Insert them in storage. Tech has a number of different models of it, but they have one of them at the National Cryptologic Museum. And as soon as I saw, I'm like, wait, this looks like the thing from Rogue One.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker B: Oh, there we go.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker A: Yeah. So that's what I've got for spy. So that's what I got for spy Fact versus spy fiction.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker B: Okay, so I have a couple. So saw Gerrera's guys perform what's called an L shaped ambush against the Imperial Forces.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker A: Okay, interesting.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker B: So the way it works is imagine the forces are going along a road and you cut them off, like those guys I talked about who didn't take cover and just immediately got killed. But you have guys directly in front of them and you have guys to the side. Okay, if that makes sense. On one side, but not the other. So you only have them on one side. So that way you're not shooting your own people. And if they retreat backwards, the people in front are shooting at them. And if they stay, they're getting hit from both sides. According to Wikipedia, there's three kinds of ambushes, which is one I just described. Another is linear, where they're all equally distant in a line and then there's V shaped. And the idea is that way you don't hit your own people. But more importantly, this is also from Wiki. I wanted to talk about assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker A: Oh, interesting. Okay. All right.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker B: Right, so the part where Galen Erso is being targeted by Andor and by a whole fleet of X Wing fighters is actually more applicable now than when it came out because we just had this war with Iran where leaders were getting bombed to kill them. So I looked up assassinations of nuclear scientists. I'll tell you about a few.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker B: But none of them were bombed, which is interesting. So terrorists gets bombed and military leaders get bombed, but not scientists. So on 12 January 2010, Massoud Al Muhammadi, professor of Physics at the University of Tehran, was killed by a remote controlled bomb attached to a motorcycle parked near his car. And then another one named Majid Shahariani, on 29th November was killed by a bomb launched from a motorcycle as well. And then finally, on 23rd July 2011, a scientist named Jerush Razin Dajad was shot five times by people riding on a motorcycle in front of his home. So, yeah, it's like a guy who's building a weapon of mass destruction, you know, do you target him just like the rebels did? I thought that was interesting.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, that is Interesting.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker B: Favorite quote? Favorite quote. Okay, so now it is time for our favorite quotes. I guess I can go first this time. Okay, so the movie was actually more quotable than I remembered. So something I liked about the original trilogy is they didn't feel the need to explain everything all the time. Okay, so they say things like, general Kenobi, you served with my father in the Clone Wars. What are the Clone Wars? They never explain. It doesn't matter. For a thousand generations, the Guard, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. What's that? Which leads me to one of a quote Krennic says right at the beginning, the work has stalled. We need you to come back so you know what you're talking about later on. Andor's context says, a planet killer. That's what they called it. There's a point where Jyn Erso says, I've never had the luxury of political opinions. And I like Squadron up, Target Edu. Like, you know, like in the original trilogy, you have those, like, cool, minimal military. Military lines. Admiral Ryder says, I say we fight
• 1:19:48
  Speaker A: very Winston Churchill.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker B: Yeah. And then finally, one thing I really liked, way too good for a Star wars movie, is true. Root says there is more than one sort of prison Captain. You carry yours wherever you go.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker A: Good line. Good line. All right, I've got. From K2. So his first line. Congratulations, you're being rescued. Please do not resist.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker B: Yeah, I try not to do the meme ones.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker A: I know, I know. But that suggests. That's so good. And. Well, I didn't remember this from the first time.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker B: First.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker A: Any of the other times I saw it where Cassian says, I'm beginning to think the Force and I have different priorities.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker B: True, true.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker A: And I had to throw in one more meme line. Be careful not to choke on your aspirations, Director.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker B: I remember when he said that people were like, see, Darth Vader's clearly a dad because he knows his dad jokes.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker A: And then this is actually something I didn't remember. It's from one of Jyn's speeches. But it reminds me of a similar line in from Marvel, but one fighter with a sharp stick and nothing to lose can take the day. Which reminds me of that, you know, the one man speech from Captain America.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker A: But. Yeah, I like that. You know what? I like that. All right, good.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker B: Yeah, the movie. The movie had more better dialogue than I remembered.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker A: Just a lot of unnecessary dialogue.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker B: There is that, too. I mean, do you agree with me or.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker A: No, I don't necessarily. I mean, I think it Didn't. Or if it was there, it didn't bother me.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker B: Okay, ratings. All right, so let's see here. Now it is time for our ratings. On a scale of 1 to 10, martinis, 1 being Avengers 1998 level bad, and 10 being even better than Mission Impossible, Ghost Protocol, how will we rate Rogue One?
• 1:21:42
  Speaker A: All right, I'm curious. Let's hear it.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker B: Zach, Do I have to go first?
• 1:21:45
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker B: Well, I actually wrote down the pros and cons this time.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker A: Okay, that's good. So the.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker B: The pros is the visuals are great. The scenery, the costumes, the ships, the action. It's all really good. Even looks better than when it came out. Red and gold leader. Love it. The action is good. The space battles are good. The moral ambiguity wasn't successful, but I liked that they read for it. Also, good villains, scary villains. I thought director Cruddick was a great villain. It's almost too bad that he died. But again, no death, no body. The cons, it's just too long and it's padded. There's a lot of stuff that could be cut.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker A: Okay. All right.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker B: Because what's great about A New Hope is that it moves along so well, and you don't look at it. You're like, oh, my God, I still have so much long left. Another con is that it's. The characters are pretty underdeveloped, and there are too many of them.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker A: All right, all right.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker B: And our main character, Jyn Erso, really did not do very much for me. And then the zombie CGI characters. So it makes me think. I remember in the past on Spotify, guys, I'm like, the pros are really good, and the cons aren't such a con in this case, the characters is a pretty bad con. On the other hand, it is Star Wars. I'm a Star wars fan. I'm going to be nice. It's a good movie. It's enjoyable. If you like Star wars, you should watch it. I'm going to give it an 8 out of 10.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker A: All right. I remember when it used to be such a struggle to get you in to even rated an 8 out of 10. Like, I think our first 8 out of 10 for.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker B: I tried to have high standards.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker A: I know, I know. I'm just saying. But I think our first eight out of ten for both of us was, what a Valkyrie.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I would say that's pretty accurate still.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah, I know. And. And so this movie, it's interesting. Like, and I noticed it. I really noticed the last time I watched this Right after seeing season two of Andor was the first. Yeah, it's two different movies is what it is. The part where everything leading up to Scarif is like an entirely different movie than everything once the rebels arrive at Scarif.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's correct.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker A: And it is probably in a large part due to the reshoots that happen with Tony Gilroy taking over that part of the film and reshooting a lot of that stuff. But even though it is of two parts, it still works for me. And it works. It works well. The Jinn and Galen stuff works even more for me as a father. And, you know, thinking about, all right, if I had to, you know, if I had to leave to save my daughters, I'm like, wow, that's. That's a tough choice. It's a hard choice that actually hit more for me now than it did before. I do like the spy stuff with Andor, but how much of that now is carried over from everything we learned about Andor and his story in the Andor show? Hard. It's hard to say. I think it is improved by Andor. Like, I. And you know, I liked it initially when I saw it. I like it. I like it even more now because of that. Because it was getting up. But. But again, it's, you know, we have to let it stand on its own, really, as a ship, as a movie. I like that. This is probably the. The most. Other than and or TV show is the most spying that we'll ever get in Star Wars. It is the most, you know, gr. You know, ground level is espionage. We're probably ever going to get in Star wars unless, you know, something very different happens in any of the new movies now. I really like this movie. I would. I'd probably. I'd watch it again and I'm sure I will watch it again. You know, if I decide I want to go on an Andor binge, I will probably end up just watching this all the way through to a new hope again. And yeah, I will give this a solid. A solid 8 out of 10. Like, as you know, I think where it's placed in the whole of that exists. If I was judging it all together, I'd give it higher. But just by itself, it is a solid 8 out of 10. Great movie recommended if you're. Even if you're not a Star Wars. Actually, no, I don't know. If you're not a Star wars fan, I would recommend you see Andor and then after and. Or you should watch Rogue One. I wouldn't say watch Rogue One by itself because as a Star Wars. As if you're not a Star wars fan, you wouldn't necessarily get everything in there. But if you watch Rogue and. Or before that. Yeah, you probably would be able to get most of it.
• 1:26:06
  Speaker B: It's kind of hard to complain that the movie's too much of a good thing.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah. You have anything else you want to say, Zach?
• 1:26:16
  Speaker B: I don't think so. I think we've gone on long enough about Rogue One. Interesting stuff.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker B: And definitely different. That's what we do here on Spotify, guys. So thank you all for joining us. You can find us on social media at the Spy Fi Guys on Facebook, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram and our merch store Redbubble.com until next time. I'm Zach.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker A: And I'm Christian.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker B: And we are the Spy Fi Guys signing off.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the Spy Fi Guys. If you enjoyed our podcast, please be sure to give us a five star rating on itunes. The theme song from this podcast is Mistake the getaway by Kevin McLeod from Incompetech.com licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0. Films, books and television shows reviewed by our podcast are the intellectual property of their respective copyright holders and no infringement is intended.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker B: This is a personal podcast. Any views, statements or opinions expressed in this podcast are personal and belong solely to the participants. They do not represent those of people, institutions or organizations that the participants may or not may may not be associated with in a professional or personal capacity. Unless explicitly stated, any views or opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company or individual.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker A: You can find our podcast on social media, Hespy fi guys on Facebook, Blue Sky, YouTube and Instagram. Sa.