Latest / Most Things Kenobi - A Star Wars Podcast / Episode 148: Beginning our next series on "The Anakins": covering the actors who have portrayed Anakin Skywalker, beginning this week with Jake Lloyd

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Episode 148: Beginning our next series on "The Anakins": covering the actors who have portrayed Anakin Skywalker, beginning this week with Jake Lloyd · Most Things Kenobi - A Star Wars Podcast

• 0:00
  It's most things Kenobi and don't try at Anakin we.
• 0:04
  Always have the high. Ground.
• 0:17
  Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Most Things
• 0:19
  Kenobi, a podcast about Obi Wan Kenobi and all things Star Wars.
• 0:23
  I'm your host, Leanne. And I'm your host, Lauren.
• 0:28
  And we're transitioning from Obi Wan's to Anakin's.
• 0:32
  So we we just covered all of the actors who portray Obi Wan
• 0:38
  Kenobi in various media roles throughout Star Wars.
• 0:42
  So we thought you can't have Obi Wan without Skywalker.
• 0:45
  So that's true. Now we're covering the Anakin's
• 0:50
  and we're starting with Jake Lloyd, of course, 'cause he
• 0:53
  started as little young Anakin. And then we will transition to
• 0:57
  Hayden Christensen, which will be a huge episode, and then
• 1:00
  finish with the ever amazing Matt Lanter who voices Anakin in
• 1:05
  The Clone Wars. So today is Jake Lloyd, and we
• 1:10
  have to put this out there because Jake Lloyd has not had
• 1:17
  an easy life. And we want to acknowledge the
• 1:20
  importance of mental health, of taking care of your mental
• 1:24
  health, of acknowledging how important a role that mental
• 1:30
  health plays in all of our lives in varying capacities.
• 1:34
  And we want to do this episode by honoring Jake and his role as
• 1:39
  Anakin, but we also don't want to come across as crass.
• 1:43
  We know he's had mental health issues.
• 1:45
  We'll we'll touch on those a little bit in this episode.
• 1:48
  And we just want to give the respect that Jake is is owed.
• 1:53
  Yes. And as a fan base, I think that
• 1:57
  Jake Lloyd will forever be a symbol of how the fan base can
• 2:02
  and should do better. And I think as a fan base, we
• 2:05
  have done better. Yeah.
• 2:09
  We've seen the reemergence of so many characters that were, for
• 2:13
  lack of a better term, just mistreated in a way.
• 2:17
  The opinions of them were exaggerated and often false.
• 2:21
  And those characters have come back in ways that have redeemed
• 2:25
  them. And Jake is still struggling
• 2:31
  with mental health and is getting better.
• 2:34
  And his mother just said in March of 2024 this year that
• 2:38
  he's doing much better. And so we want to pat him on the
• 2:41
  back from here at Most Things Kenobi, and also honor him this
• 2:46
  week for the important role he played as setting the foundation
• 2:49
  for who Anakin Skywalker becomes and where Darth Vader comes
• 2:55
  from. Right.
• 2:57
  He's the origin story, basically.
• 3:00
  And I remember seeing The Phantom Menace in theaters and
• 3:03
  thinking to myself, Oh my God, this cute kid turns into Darth
• 3:09
  Vader. You know, 'cause it was real.
• 3:11
  I was seeing it. Yeah, I know.
• 3:13
  It's crazy to think that he's the first time you see Anakin.
• 3:17
  Ever, right, ever. It's wild to think of.
• 3:21
  And he's such a cute little boy. He really is.
• 3:25
  He just embodied like that youthfulness, you know, because
• 3:31
  there's so many scenes of him in The Phantom Menace where he's
• 3:33
  like, interacting with, what's his name, Yato.
• 3:37
  Is it Yato? Wato.
• 3:39
  Watto. I was like, yeah.
• 3:42
  Who's Yato? Wait.
• 3:43
  No. Well, OK, Yato is his weird twin
• 3:48
  brother who's flying around somewhere else, but anyway,
• 3:53
  Watto and how hard would that be?
• 3:57
  We know The Phantom Menace came in with all these new fangled
• 4:01
  ways of filming and high tech, and so as a little kid it would
• 4:08
  be really hard to talk to something that's not there, you
• 4:12
  know? Yes, I.
• 4:13
  Crazy. I actually wrote a note.
• 4:15
  It's funny you're saying this already 'cause I wrote a note.
• 4:17
  I'm sorry, did I jump? Ahead.
• 4:19
  No not really. I mean it was just something
• 4:21
  that I had noticed after going back and re watching a bunch of
• 4:24
  his scenes. I feel like you can always tell
• 4:28
  an actor's weakness through their eyes.
• 4:30
  So if they're really self-conscious or like,
• 4:33
  insecure, their eyes betray it always.
• 4:37
  And Jake Floyd's never do. And Natalie Hartman's do all the
• 4:42
  time. Oh shit.
• 4:45
  Which I, I just think it's so interesting because she's older.
• 4:48
  She had been acting already. Jake Lloyd never done anything
• 4:51
  before. And so you can see like he was
• 4:53
  just really sincere. And so there wasn't this like
• 4:58
  Natalie Portman blinks too much or like her eyes kind of drift a
• 5:01
  little bit every now and then. And I think it's because she's
• 5:04
  acting to a tennis ball. We always have to remember this
• 5:09
  in the in the prequels. Exactly.
• 5:11
  So you can see that actually being a little kid with an
• 5:14
  imagination and being younger, that might actually play to his
• 5:17
  benefit. Very true.
• 5:20
  I mean, he was this sincere little boy in the way he
• 5:23
  interacted with Qui Gon, Owen, Liam Neal, Liam Neeson.
• 5:30
  I can't ever pronounce. I can't get the L's and the E's
• 5:32
  out. Liam Neeson always was so kind
• 5:38
  anyways and was like the perfect Qui Gon and set the stage for
• 5:40
  who Qui Gon is. Right?
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  But his interactions with Jake Lloyd as Anakin came across
• 5:46
  really well, I think. Yeah, yeah.
• 5:50
  I can't help but say that all of the acting around him is so flat
• 5:56
  that it makes Liam Neeson seem even more engaging as an actor.
• 6:01
  When? When when you the bar is so low,
• 6:06
  right but. Gosh, yeah.
• 6:10
  You get this sense. You get this sense.
• 6:13
  I mean, I remember when little Anakin is standing in the room
• 6:18
  in the what is it? The I can never the council
• 6:21
  room, the big, the big circle. Yeah, Yeah.
• 6:24
  He just looks so tiny compared to Liam Neeson.
• 6:28
  I know Liam Neeson. I mean, she's like 70 feet tall.
• 6:32
  Yeah, and so it makes him even more diminutive and I feel bad
• 6:36
  for him because like, Oh my God, you know what's going to happen
• 6:39
  Anyway, I'm down the line and. Well, there's this scene where
• 6:42
  he takes Padme by the hand, Anakin takes Padme by the hand
• 6:46
  and leads her out of the room. And because Liam Neeson is so
• 6:49
  tall, they book. They both look like children
• 6:52
  leaving the rivers, like little kids running out to play or
• 6:56
  something. Yeah, it is kind of cute.
• 6:58
  I mean everyone always talks about like the Padme Anakin age
• 7:03
  difference. It's not that big of a deal when
• 7:07
  they get older, but it's very noticeable in this movie.
• 7:11
  It's so weird, it's true. That's that's why like when you
• 7:15
  get in your 20s, when everyone's in their 20s, it's like you
• 7:17
  can't notice anymore. You don't know how old anybody.
• 7:20
  I don't know how old anyone is right now.
• 7:23
  Clueless. If they're not very evidently a
• 7:27
  teenager, I don't know what age they are.
• 7:30
  And even teenagers, I I, I went and saw something on a college
• 7:35
  campus, and the college kids looked so young to me.
• 7:39
  Oh yeah, yeah, 'cause their skin, you're so skin's really
• 7:43
  good. You're so pure.
• 7:45
  Yeah, but. They're they're not.
• 7:48
  No, but they haven't been beat up by life as much yet, so.
• 7:53
  They're not jaded yet, yeah. They're.
• 7:57
  Not exhausted. They're like tired from school
• 8:01
  and partying, but it's different than being just run over by life
• 8:08
  as appropriate. I can't.
• 8:11
  I cannot agree more with that statement if I tried.
• 8:18
  Yeah, yeah. Well, I I think that Jake brings
• 8:23
  just such an innocence and a sweetness and a warmth to
• 8:27
  Anakin, that is. So much.
• 8:30
  It's almost hard to believe that he could beat Darth Vader,
• 8:35
  except for this scene that they cut out where he beats up a kid
• 8:39
  well. There's that.
• 8:42
  Clovis is coming. Yeah, right.
• 8:48
  Oh man. I do think though, it's very
• 8:53
  obvious they're trying to set up parallels with Luke.
• 8:57
  You know, he's the sandy haired little boy.
• 8:59
  He's got the same outfit basically on, you know, Ishmi is
• 9:04
  like Aunt Peru. Their homes are very similar.
• 9:08
  And I noticed that they even Anakin enters the movie The way
• 9:13
  Luke does, but opposite. Like Luke comes up the stairs
• 9:16
  from the inside out and Anakin does the opposite.
• 9:20
  He comes down the stairs from the outside in and like moves
• 9:23
  the opposite direction of Luke. So there's this weird parallel
• 9:27
  where. Luke ascends.
• 9:30
  Yes. And Anakin descends.
• 9:33
  Yes. Yeah, I like that.
• 9:36
  It might have been no meaning at all.
• 9:38
  But when you look for meaning, you can see like, I don't know,
• 9:41
  does George Lucas do anything without it being intentional?
• 9:44
  I don't know. Maybe.
• 9:46
  I think it's intentional. It seems to be like, yeah, the
• 9:50
  first time you see a character, it's usually very purposeful the
• 9:55
  way you see them. So I don't know.
• 9:57
  That was just something I noticed.
• 9:59
  But it's very obvious they're trying to connect it to Luke and
• 10:04
  A New Hope and show that parallel there, which is kind of
• 10:07
  funny. I'm looking at that, but I guess
• 10:09
  we're just looking at Anakin. But Padme is there too, you
• 10:13
  know, And there's a lot more Leia in her, I would say, in
• 10:17
  these scenes. Oh, for sure, for sure.
• 10:20
  She's gentle towards Anakin, almost like Leia is towards the
• 10:26
  Ewoks. Kind of timid, you know?
• 10:36
  But Padme is so aloof. I feel like there's so much
• 10:43
  going on in The Phantom Menace with Padme and so many.
• 10:48
  I have so many fucking questions about those damn dresses and
• 10:52
  that hair and. Yeah.
• 10:56
  It's just, it's, it's a struggle for me because I've never liked
• 11:00
  Naboo as like a cultural epicenter in Star Wars.
• 11:05
  It's beautiful, don't get me wrong.
• 11:07
  The architecture, the scenery, the waterfalls, the, the whole
• 11:11
  thing. But like, she just doesn't sell
• 11:14
  the role of of what she's trying to be.
• 11:18
  Yeah, in the movie she's so flat.
• 11:22
  It's so bad, it's really bad and I think but.
• 11:26
  She's meant to be flat, right? Because she's supposed to be an
• 11:29
  emotionless queen. I think that they have kind of
• 11:32
  explained that after the fact. Honestly, I know that.
• 11:38
  I know that there's a book that says that the Queens are all the
• 11:42
  same, so that it's all the same. You're getting the same kind of
• 11:47
  leadership and you, you know, to also diffuse emotions.
• 11:52
  So they're very flat and they even use their dress and and
• 11:56
  gowns as a political statement and all of that.
• 12:02
  But I do think it's just because Natalie Portman is such a flat
• 12:05
  actress and she is in a lot of other things that I've seen her
• 12:08
  in. She is.
• 12:09
  She's great in V for Vendetta. I love that but.
• 12:13
  When? When she's in the workshop and
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  Anakin's there and he asks, are you an Angel?
• 12:18
  First of all, please. Please.
• 12:21
  I know it's supposed to be meant as like, a child.
• 12:24
  Like he thinks she's beautiful, and he's never seen anyone like
• 12:27
  her, so she must be an Angel, an angelic being.
• 12:32
  Yeah, but she doesn't even her. I don't want this to be a pad
• 12:37
  made at a Natalie Portman bashing session.
• 12:39
  But, like, what is her response? Like what I think she actually
• 12:43
  says. What?
• 12:45
  And her face is like, I would literally have done it
• 12:48
  differently. I would have been like.
• 12:51
  I. I would have been more Leia.
• 12:54
  I'd have been like, well, what's your definition of an Angel?
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  Tell me, like, have you seen many angels?
• 12:59
  Like I to me, I would have delivered some snark.
• 13:02
  But I guess she's supposed to be thirteen.
• 13:04
  I don't know. Phantom Men is in general like
• 13:08
  I, I questioned Watch, but in general it's not like.
• 13:13
  Question. It's just I, I want to credit
• 13:19
  Jake Lloyd for selling his role, whereas Natalie doesn't so much
• 13:24
  So there's an imbalance there where I wanted like a little bit
• 13:27
  of childlike back and forth and instead it was just huh.
• 13:33
  Or whatever version of that is in the movie.
• 13:35
  I can't remember, I haven't seen it in it.
• 13:36
  I didn't go back and rewatch anything, but I can't put myself
• 13:40
  through that. But I do like the pod racing,
• 13:45
  like the scenes, the pod racing scenes, because it's totally
• 13:48
  Anakin. I can totally buy that.
• 13:49
  Yeah, it is. The whole thing with that dude
• 13:52
  that walks on his front legs, what's his name?
• 13:54
  Vulva, yeah. Thank you.
• 13:56
  Can't stand him. You know, the fact that Jabba
• 14:00
  the Hutt's in charge of all this shit, you just know, you know
• 14:03
  where this is going. I feel like they basically
• 14:06
  retold the A New Hope that it's in the same planet and they have
• 14:14
  the same conflicts but they solve it with the little version
• 14:19
  of Luke instead of grown up version of Luke.
• 14:22
  I I don't know it was. The same thing could be said
• 14:25
  about Force Awakens, though. It's kind of rinse and repeat.
• 14:27
  Yes, yes. Shuffle around a bunch of
• 14:29
  characters and names you're. Totally right.
• 14:32
  Put them in a desert, have some conflicts, have someone show up
• 14:35
  that shakes things up. Yep.
• 14:37
  Yeah. But it would been cool if if
• 14:45
  Anakin, little Anakin, would have had some kind of
• 14:49
  interaction with Maul. Yeah, I guess he just sees him
• 14:53
  from a distance, Really. Yeah, isn't it?
• 14:55
  He's running and and and like Qui Gon's like duck and and a
• 14:59
  speeder goes over his head or something.
• 15:01
  And then at the end too, there's basically Qui Gon tells him to
• 15:05
  get in a ship and stay there, and that's the last time Anakin
• 15:09
  ever sees Qui Gon. You're right though, and that's
• 15:12
  very well. He sees him at the pyre, which
• 15:14
  is really, really scary because Anakin will be on that pyre and
• 15:22
  Obi Wan's next apprentice, Luke, Anakin's son, is watching
• 15:26
  Vader's pyre. It's a whole fucking mess.
• 15:29
  Yeah. What do they call the?
• 15:31
  The? The legacy of?
• 15:32
  What do they call the? The and it like Ahsoka's legacy
• 15:39
  is by following Anakin, Obi Wan, Qui Gon the theaster.
• 15:44
  Trio. Yes, well, the disaster like the
• 15:46
  legacy of of disaster or something, I don't know it's.
• 15:52
  It's a shit show is what it is. Yeah, disaster lineage.
• 15:57
  Ahsoka is part of a Jedi lineage that fans have dubbed the
• 16:00
  disaster lineage. The lineages passed from Yoda
• 16:03
  down to Ahsoka. So it's Yoda, Dooku, Obi Wan,
• 16:08
  Anakin, Ahsoka, and then we'll end it there.
• 16:12
  But the disaster legacy, but not really.
• 16:17
  Not really. They're like the best and the
• 16:19
  worst. Like the very.
• 16:20
  It's like every other one, Yeah, you know.
• 16:24
  Every other one. Shit every other one.
• 16:26
  It's a generation. Yoda's great, Dooku's bad, Obi
• 16:29
  Wan's great, Anakin's Ahsoka's great.
• 16:32
  We don't acknowledge anyone after her.
• 16:34
  So no, no, you know. But he's he starts a new branch
• 16:40
  of the family. Yeah, true, true.
• 16:43
  Luke is like an offshoot. He's like the other piece of the
• 16:47
  flow chart. It's like Obi Wan has two pieces
• 16:50
  of flow chart, Anakin's on one side and Luke's on the other,
• 16:53
  which is appropriate. Well, it's.
• 16:56
  It's impossible to research Jake Lloyd without touching on how
• 17:04
  shitty he was treated. Like there's just no way around
• 17:08
  it. And he was eight, I think
• 17:14
  something like that, and 10 when the movie came out and critics
• 17:21
  were hard on him, fans were hard on him.
• 17:24
  And then he's even said that when he went to high school and
• 17:27
  college, people just wouldn't drop it.
• 17:30
  Like it was constant. And I've watched some interviews
• 17:35
  with him from about like 13 years ago, give or take, and
• 17:41
  every single one was at a con and each one, the person
• 17:45
  interviewing him was doing some sort of gotcha moment with him
• 17:50
  trying to bait him. Jar Jar sucks, like how does it
• 17:56
  feel to be one of the shitty performances and start with like
• 18:01
  horrible kind of questions and like panels where they have fans
• 18:06
  stand up and ask questions. You know, like like you said, as
• 18:10
  a fandom we really need to do better.
• 18:13
  I just can't believe that people think it's OK to target a person
• 18:20
  like that. He was fucking 8 years old.
• 18:22
  He made no creative decisions at all about the character.
• 18:27
  Yeah. And I referenced in the opening
• 18:32
  of this episode that some have come back and have been
• 18:36
  redeemed, such as Ahmed Best, who was Jar Jar Binks.
• 18:41
  And I think it's time for us, if we haven't started already.
• 18:45
  Truth be told, I don't research it enough on social media to
• 18:48
  know, but I think that some credit is due to Jake for his
• 18:54
  representation of young Anakin 'cause he does deserve it.
• 18:59
  He did not deserve the berating and the gotchas.
• 19:03
  Like, that's just smarmy. That's slimy and tasteless and
• 19:07
  uncalled for, honestly. Yeah, It's the same thing with
• 19:11
  Hayden when he had to distance himself after a period of time
• 19:16
  from acting altogether. Cause after so much of that, you
• 19:19
  can only take so much of that, and so you need to distance
• 19:22
  yourself. And now it was said that Jake
• 19:26
  Lloyd's mental health deterioration over time was not
• 19:29
  a result of, or at least not a direct result from the treatment
• 19:34
  he received during his time acting in Star Wars.
• 19:37
  But of course it contributes. Mental health issues crop up
• 19:42
  later. They start young and they crop
• 19:44
  up later. Like they really present
• 19:46
  themselves as, as far as I know, OK, my yeah, my own experience,
• 19:51
  plus reading stuff. But he is in treatment.
• 19:55
  So that's excellent. That's that's acknowledging you
• 19:57
  have a problem, that's seeking help for said problem and
• 20:02
  learning to live with it because a lot of it you just can't get
• 20:04
  rid of, you know? Well, and from what I've read
• 20:07
  he's got, he's a paranoid schizophrenic.
• 20:10
  I don't know if that's true or accurate or even a a diagnosis
• 20:14
  that's used nowadays, but I had some friends in high school that
• 20:20
  developed it and that generally in men, from what I've
• 20:24
  understood, I'm not an expert, I don't know.
• 20:27
  What I understand is most men present those symptoms are in
• 20:31
  their early 20s, and you might not know that's what's happening
• 20:37
  to you. So people could be interviewing
• 20:40
  you and you might act a little awkward and they're like, oh,
• 20:43
  what an awkward weirdo. It's like, no, this is a person
• 20:47
  who's having a mental health thing that didn't even know it
• 20:51
  necessarily. Like the friends of mine I've
• 20:53
  had who were diagnosed with schizophrenia, they were lucky
• 20:58
  that they had a family member who also had it.
• 21:00
  And they said they went to this family member and said I'm
• 21:03
  feeling weird. Some weird stuff is happening
• 21:05
  because it it involves hallucinations and like
• 21:07
  paranoia. And luckily that family member
• 21:10
  was able to get them help right away.
• 21:12
  But some people don't know that they're having hallucinations.
• 21:15
  That's the problem. My grandma was having them right
• 21:17
  before she died. She had no idea she was
• 21:19
  hallucinating. She just thought it was normal.
• 21:22
  Well, when you're living it, unless you can step outside it
• 21:25
  or have someone outside of you bring it to your attention.
• 21:28
  I mean, I don't know how one lives.
• 21:33
  I, I just, I'm trying to speak about this with respect and I
• 21:37
  don't, I, I don't have it, so I can't comment directly, but it
• 21:43
  seems like it would be a really hard thing to live with and not
• 21:48
  know you're living with it, right?
• 21:51
  And have the world's scrutiny on you.
• 21:53
  Yes, yes, that I was just going to say.
• 21:56
  And to have everyone looking at you and seeing something that
• 21:59
  you don't, it would make me paranoid in the sense of I don't
• 22:04
  want to talk, I don't want to go to another interview, I don't
• 22:07
  want to be around people, which probably makes symptoms worse
• 22:11
  'cause you're retreating. I don't know.
• 22:15
  We're not experts, we're just. Yeah, I mean, it's just human
• 22:18
  nature, right? With if you go to a con and get
• 22:22
  interviewed and every time you do, it's a really unpleasant
• 22:25
  experience, why would you want to keep subjecting yourself to
• 22:29
  that? Correct.
• 22:31
  Then layer mental health problems on top of that.
• 22:33
  I think it's really important for people to realize that when
• 22:37
  you're jumping to conclusions about a person, you don't know
• 22:42
  what that person is dealing with for real every day.
• 22:45
  True. It's very true.
• 22:47
  So if you're accusing someone of being awkward.
• 22:50
  Or rude. Or too forward or too shy or
• 22:54
  whatever. Maybe you should stop and think
• 22:58
  maybe there's something going on with them.
• 22:59
  That's none of my business, but I could cut them some slack, you
• 23:03
  know? Like I think we just all need a
• 23:06
  little bit more empathy and kindness and our desires for
• 23:12
  Star Wars could maybe take a backseat to.
• 23:15
  Kindness. And compassion, you know?
• 23:18
  Yes. These are actors and actresses
• 23:22
  who are handed a script and told to do ABC and D and they do it.
• 23:27
  That's their job. Exactly.
• 23:31
  If we have critiques, we have to critique a much larger picture
• 23:35
  and remember that this is fantasy, this is fake.
• 23:39
  At the end of the day, this is an escape.
• 23:42
  These individuals are lucky to be a part of this universe and
• 23:45
  we should, you know, the Star Wars universe.
• 23:47
  Right, right. They deserve some respect as
• 23:50
  human beings and as actors and actresses doing their job,
• 23:54
  whether we like it or not. Right, and you're allowed to not
• 23:59
  like it. Yeah, I was just going to.
• 24:01
  You're taking the words out of my mouth.
• 24:02
  I'm sorry. No, no, I was just going to say,
• 24:07
  how many times do we sit here and talk about how we didn't
• 24:10
  like the direction The Last Jedi went, but we respect Mark
• 24:13
  Hamill's ability to act through it, act through it beautifully,
• 24:19
  and do his job. Like period.
• 24:23
  Yeah. There's respect in that there's
• 24:25
  no a child. Yes, Oh my God, a child who's
• 24:29
  not even equipped to deal with talking to strangers, much less,
• 24:34
  you know, the fandoms attack journalism.
• 24:37
  Oh my Lord, Can you imagine? I can't imagine being critiqued
• 24:42
  so heavily and not, I mean, at 8 years old, what do you know?
• 24:47
  I would have you know. I would have been destroyed.
• 24:50
  The kind of person that I am, that would have ruined me
• 24:53
  forever. So I yeah.
• 24:56
  He's just a kid and he did well and he didn't deserve it.
• 25:00
  So we're not here to to scold anybody.
• 25:03
  It's just when you when you're years later along in this fandom
• 25:08
  and you look back, you think it wasn't that bad.
• 25:11
  We joke about like everyone's flat and Natalie Portman's flat
• 25:14
  and blah, blah, blah, 'cause it's just a show, you know?
• 25:17
  Yeah. But we would never like, get her
• 25:20
  on a stage at a con and be like, hey, why was your enemy so
• 25:24
  terrible like? There's decorum, folks.
• 25:29
  Hey, Jesus. I think that people, especially
• 25:31
  now with the Internet, they're hiding behind anonymity.
• 25:34
  So they think they can say whatever they want and there's
• 25:37
  no consequences for that. And that is just like, don't be
• 25:42
  a shitty person like. Period.
• 25:45
  Yeah, like print that at a T-shirt.
• 25:47
  Like that's, that's basically the bare bones of what we're
• 25:53
  trying to say. Like you could do whatever you
• 25:55
  want. It's the, it's the age-old
• 25:57
  phrase like if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say
• 25:59
  anything. Like you don't have to say
• 26:01
  something rude right to a person's face.
• 26:03
  Even if you believe it. Maybe it's, it's more important
• 26:07
  to not crush a person than for you to get your opinion out
• 26:12
  there. You know, I, I don't.
• 26:13
  Know, yeah. Clearly I have feelings about
• 26:16
  it. Well shit, dude, we're talking
• 26:20
  about someone who had one appearance in one.
• 26:23
  Like an appearance in one movie. Yeah.
• 26:26
  And has had a really difficult life ever since.
• 26:29
  And to ignore it would be just tone deaf.
• 26:34
  And that's what we're here for. And it kind of just goes back to
• 26:38
  stop being a shitty person because, look, he's doing what a
• 26:44
  lot of people don't have the ability to, don't have the mind
• 26:48
  to, don't have the means to. He's getting help for it.
• 26:52
  And his mother said March 2024 his mental health is improving
• 26:56
  during his hospitalization. And we commended that most of
• 26:59
  all because guess what? Anna can never sought that shit
• 27:02
  out. Yeah, it's true.
• 27:05
  I think it's really taking the step for your own mental health
• 27:09
  is sometimes one of the hardest things you do because it's
• 27:12
  really scary. And what you could be doing is
• 27:16
  unlocking A Pandora's box, you know?
• 27:18
  And if you're getting the right care, you'll work through that,
• 27:22
  you know, with support instead of trying to just thrash around
• 27:27
  on your own. So if anyone is suffering, you
• 27:31
  know, seek help if you can. And yeah, even if it's, you
• 27:35
  know, better help is a great example.
• 27:37
  You can get care in your home. You don't even have to leave.
• 27:40
  You know something? Even if you reach out to a
• 27:43
  friend, just support. Yeah.
• 27:45
  I mean, I want to make the link between Jake Lloyd and Anakin
• 27:50
  because Anakin had issues. We talk about it all the fucking
• 27:53
  time. We're going to talk about it in
• 27:55
  the next two episodes because these are the Anakin episodes.
• 27:59
  And I think it's commendable. Jake Lloyd is an example of when
• 28:08
  you're, you have issues and you seek help and you start the path
• 28:12
  to bettering yourself and, and everyone around you is lifted
• 28:16
  up. You know, you're, you're, you
• 28:18
  take care of yourself and in turn, the people around you are,
• 28:21
  are seeing improvements in their lives and stuff.
• 28:23
  So it's kind of this ripple effect.
• 28:25
  Or you could be Anakin Skywalker and have issues and everyone
• 28:28
  around you ignores it. You ignore it and you turn into
• 28:31
  Darth Vader. OK, so this is an example of
• 28:41
  where you don't want to turn into Darth Vader.
• 28:44
  I don't mean to make light of it, but you know what I mean?
• 28:46
  Like there's two paths here. The path to the Light Path of
• 28:48
  the Dark, Star Wars. How many times have we said a
• 28:51
  simple conversation might have saved all the drama and stuff?
• 28:54
  Hello, Anakin. If he'd had just had a few
• 28:59
  conversations that went a little deeper and people didn't ignore
• 29:04
  the very glaringly obvious problems we made-up, we might
• 29:07
  have had a different outcome. But he was the chosen one.
• 29:10
  So the wills, we'll, we'll blame it on fucking wills because we
• 29:16
  don't know another way of explaining it.
• 29:20
  The fucking will. I know we need a shirt also that
• 29:22
  says fuck you Wills. WHILLS because everyone named
• 29:29
  Will would be like, pardon me? Yeah, that's sorry.
• 29:33
  Yeah, not you will, but the wills this one with an H will
• 29:38
  Wheaton. Yeah, Wills, we got to say Wills
• 29:42
  from does. Anyone know that reference?
• 29:44
  I'm sorry if you don't. It's Family Guy.
• 29:48
  OK, Whip cream. Whip cream.
• 29:52
  Whip cream, Wills. OK, listen, we're here for you,
• 29:58
  Jake. Thank you for portraying a
• 30:00
  wonderful young Anakin and setting the stage for all of the
• 30:04
  Anakins to come because he was our first look at live action
• 30:10
  Anakin ever. Amazing.
• 30:18
  So our next episode is going to be all about Hayden Christensen
• 30:25
  I. Mean it's about time.
• 30:28
  This is an episode that has needed to be recorded, but now
• 30:33
  we have the opportunity, we have a lot of material to cover.
• 30:37
  Yeah, even more now because of, oh, the last few years.
• 30:43
  The Obi Wan series, the Ahsoka series, we have so much material
• 30:48
  to cover. It may be one of our longer
• 30:50
  episodes, we'll see, but it's going to be amazing.
• 30:53
  So join us back here as we cover the Anakin Skywalker, Hayden
• 30:58
  Christensen. So last week we wrapped up our
• 31:04
  Obi Wan series and we asked our listeners who is your favorite
• 31:08
  Obi Wan and why? And our friend Ben wrote this to
• 31:13
  me. My favorite Obi Wan actor is
• 31:15
  James because how much he cares for his fans as well as the
• 31:19
  staff of any event he's attending.
• 31:21
  And Ben knows this because he has been the staff at an event
• 31:24
  James has. He has many times.
• 31:27
  Yes, during Star Wars weekends he would go around saying hi to
• 31:31
  all the cast members and he convinced Mark Hamill to join
• 31:34
  him once. I would have died.
• 31:37
  I know ass right out. That would have been me.
• 31:43
  Yeah, There is also something I do want to say really quick
• 31:47
  because I was listening back to one of our episodes that I I was
• 31:49
  saying that people had written in to answer a question and I
• 31:52
  said they were too long to read. And I meant on the show.
• 31:57
  I just wanted to specify that because, yeah, I, I never said
• 32:00
  that. And I thought I had clarified it
• 32:02
  in the episode, but I didn't. So we read everything you guys
• 32:05
  send us always. If I Yeah.
• 32:08
  If I say that and mean it like it's too long to read on the
• 32:11
  show, because sometimes we get very long stuff, but please
• 32:15
  don't take that as a don't send us up.
• 32:17
  We love it. Please send it.
• 32:19
  We love reading all your comments, all your feedback.
• 32:21
  It's always great. So thank you.
• 32:25
  Can I just add Lauren showed me a picture of Steven Stanton.
• 32:29
  She showed me a picture of Steven Stanton as like
• 32:33
  cosplaying as Tarkin and Oh my God, folks.
• 32:38
  Isn't it crazy? It is insane.
• 32:41
  I had to do a double take. I was like damn, he's like a
• 32:43
  young tark. Like it was good.
• 32:47
  I'm going to post it I think at some point because it was I was
• 32:49
  just like this makes too much sense.
• 32:52
  It does. It was really good.
• 32:54
  And so that's my comment about that's my answer to the to the
• 32:59
  question of like, damn, Steve. He could play it in live action
• 33:04
  You. Know he really could.
• 33:05
  He really could. He really could.
• 33:06
  Because he does the voice already and he already looks
• 33:09
  like the character like he should.
• 33:11
  Come on Disney, make this happen.
• 33:13
  I'm all for it. Damn, so good.
• 33:19
  All right, well, thank you so much for joining us here on the
• 33:22
  Most things Kenobi podcast. We appreciate every single one
• 33:25
  of our patrons and are grateful for your support.
• 33:28
  If you would like to support the podcast and become a patron as
• 33:31
  well, head over to the Most things Kenobi Patreon.
• 33:35
  As always, you can follow us on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, and
• 33:38
  YouTube. And don't forget to subscribe on
• 33:40
  your favorite podcast player. If you enjoy our podcast, we
• 33:45
  always appreciate you writing us on Spotify and or Apple.
• 33:49
  And if you need just one place to find all of these, head over
• 33:51
  to our website, mostthingskenobi.com.
• 33:56
  So until next time, Myspace Twin, may the Force be with you.
• 34:01
  Always.