Latest / Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast / Issue 314: The Bad Batch Commentary: War Mantle

Transcript

Issue 314: The Bad Batch Commentary: War Mantle · Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast

0:03
Welcome to the nerd polity. Hi, this is Nick Nastasu, story editor
0:09
on Star Wars, The Clone Wars and Star Wars bad Batch. And you
0:14
are listening to Aggressive Negotiations. Well, hello, and welcome to Aggressive Negotiations,
0:29
a Star Wars podcast that just does things a little bit differently. So
0:33
excited to be coming at you from the marauder. It is just a joy
0:36
to be on this and with me. Hey, John, can you can
0:40
you stop bench pressing the gonk droid? There? We got a show to
0:45
do. Oh yes, I'll stop for just now, but I'll have to
0:52
get back to it. You know, my routine verse the gonk droid,
0:55
then I bench pressed the marauder itself. But what's interesting is the Gonk Droid
1:00
makes me wonder the nickname of Rob Gronkowski, multiple Super Bowl winner, you
1:06
know, New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers and everything. Future Hall of
1:10
Famer. Gronk was his nickname. So could Gronk bench press a gonk?
1:15
And should that be a children's book that we write for the Star Wars fandom.
1:21
Well, you know, I'm sure that you could probably get Gronk to
1:26
actually, you know, be a part of it, you know, and
1:30
help you write. So yeah, I'm I'm right there with you. I
1:34
think we should do it. But while we're doing that, of course,
1:38
we really appreciate you checking out aggressive negotiations. We have a blast here talking
1:44
about Star Wars each and every week. You can find us all over the
1:48
place. In fact, you know what, John and I would love it
1:49
if you would interact with this on social media. We're at the Jedi Masters
1:53
on Twitter. You can find the entire network at Joint nerd Party. You
1:57
can also find us on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash in the Nerdparty.
2:01
We've got the entire network at the Nerdparty dot com. Wherever you're listening to
2:07
this, please subscribe and that way you will get the show as soon as
2:10
it drops. Also, we would really appreciate it if maybe you take just
2:15
a couple of minutes out of your day as you're listening to this and give
2:19
us a star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Help other people
2:23
find the show. And those written reviews that we get, we always read
2:29
those out in the show. We see those pop up there on Apple podcast
2:34
Thank you for everybody's already done that for us. It means a lot.
2:37
And you can go over to the contact section on the nerdparty dot com and
2:43
maybe you'd like to send us an email. We'd love to hear from you.
2:46
Those emails can actually create show topics and they have frequently here on aggressive
2:53
negotiations and so yeah, we appreciate everybody who writes in. And it's been
2:58
a while actually since we've got an email. But John, we are continuing
3:05
with our Bad Batch commentary rewatch of the first season. We are an episode
3:09
fourteen war Mantle. There are only three episodes left, counting this episodes that
3:15
we're about to do. And so as everybody who's been listening, what we're
3:20
gonna do is we're gonna count three two one play on play. Everybody hits
3:23
play and we will get going. So without further ado, three two one
3:31
play. So as we are getting ready to go into this, you know
3:40
again, this is a rewatch, a third or four three watch or whatever.
3:47
It's it's interesting because I still anticipate this final arc and it's really interesting
3:54
because I know that you know, we were talking about Infested and that's you
3:59
know, it's a ball show, right, It's it's all self contained and
4:01
everything. But coming into this one is pretty pretty cool, you know,
4:10
because you know what is going to be kicking off and war Mantle and specific
4:15
what a what a great title, and what a great establishing shot. As
4:18
the camera moves down through the trees, it's just amazing well and running and
4:26
even just the way that the light is shining through the trees, which again
4:30
we always talk about the lighting on this show, and there's a reason for
4:32
that because it's so good. It's so cinematic, and you know, Joel
4:38
Aaron and his team do a great job. And this this episode, I
4:42
think is actually a really good representation of just how good the lighting is on
4:47
this show. As we're running through, you know, a moonlit planet and
4:53
all of this light is shining through here, uh, you know, through
4:57
these quote unquote pine trees. In the Star Wars universe, you always gotta
5:03
love the device beeping in Star Wars, something that's blinking red. You're like,
5:08
oh, okay, this is gonna be something interesting that's gonna be going
5:10
on here or signaling something. But even the fact the shot choices here showing
5:17
the close ups and then the trooper getting shot in the leg with a stunt
5:24
blast is one of those things that never really occurs to you, like up
5:30
to this point, stunt blast equals stunt you know, stunning people and stuff
5:32
like that. And to have just a piece of you go numb. That's
5:38
interesting, Like it's it's that same but different sort of thing. Again.
5:42
I love this moment too, as Omega is watching Hunter play with his knife
5:46
and she starts playing with her tool the same way, and you just get
5:49
this thing. And you know kids do that, right They they like to
5:55
mimic their parents. Yes, and you love seeing the I what I love
6:02
about this the approach that this show takes at certain points is the shadowy hologram
6:11
figure giving you know, a quest. It has a very mythic quality.
6:16
I know it also has a video game quality to it, but that's because
6:19
video games borrow so much in their storytelling from the stuff we we've grown up
6:24
and experience and everything like that. It's a terrific way to explain the episode
6:30
to you what the goals are right very quickly and have it in universe without
6:35
a bunch of clunky exposition or having them continually stumble across some major thing I
6:46
love this too is they try to figure out what they're going to do.
6:48
And I also like the idea that you know, most of them are like,
6:54
hey, if Rex is asking us to do something, we should do
6:58
it. There's he wouldn't call contact us if this wasn't very important. But
7:03
I do like how much Wrecker flips and flops Echo, who's obviously very dedicated
7:12
to Rex. Rex wouldn't call us without a reason. Yeah, he's got
7:15
a point, and Tech is the one that breaks down the logic. We're
7:17
in the middle of a mission, no money means no food. Well,
7:19
that's immediately going to appeal to Wrecker. He's like, yeah, okay,
7:23
all right, that too. You know. You know what was great about
7:27
that previous shot to poke a city there with the lightning, the ships and
7:31
everything. It's evocative of something that they did in the sequel trilogy, and
7:38
yet here I think it's just perfection with the the the shadows the ships create
7:45
with the lightning on the city. It's amazing. Oh there's there's a there's
7:48
there's worth one difference, i'd say, but I will that shot of the
7:55
destroyer's floating above Typica City is that's one of those ones. Frame that that's
8:03
an incredible shot. That's movie quality, right, there. Well, this
8:07
is also like very interesting because what we're getting here is that it looks like
8:13
these cloning facilities are being emptied out. We've got clones leaving, We've got
8:18
young clones leaving. You know, they're going to be continuing their training elsewhere.
8:24
Things don't seem to be going great here for the Camowans. Yeah,
8:33
and so we I mean, we immediately know this has been on everybody's mind
8:37
from the beginning, and so coming back here to Camino and having not just
8:45
rain but this very ominous sort of sound to the thunder, and having these
8:50
conversations and having these little bits and pieces, we already know, Oh,
8:54
they're going to answer a question. I just know they're going to answer a
8:58
question soon. What I love here too, is the fact that they realize
9:03
that they have been the architects of their own destruction because they're the ones who
9:11
supplied the clones, and they gave those clones to Palpatine he became the emperor,
9:20
and now they've basically hanged themselves with their own rope, which is exactly
9:28
what Sidius does all the time. Yeah, and you know, not to
9:31
get too far ahead, but we see him do it in the second season,
9:37
he lets Rampart hang himself and then turns it to his advantage. Yep.
9:43
And just the level of sheer brilliance of Sidious, that's that's the thing.
9:52
Okay, because we talk about the sequel trilogy. I'm not I'm not
9:56
on any sort of mission to upset anybody or anything like that. But every
10:01
piece of Sidious or Sidius's henchmen that we get in Bad Batch, makes him
10:07
even cooler, makes him even more diabolical, makes him even more clever,
10:13
which contrasts that with very the very light touch to his plan that's given in
10:18
the sequel trilogy. Everybody, even the people that liked it, were kind
10:22
of like, whoa, what exactly was going on? Whereas here, like
10:26
you're saying, the camon Owens go over and they step aside, and our
10:28
reaction is man, Sidious is just one slick mug man go shave unbelievable.
10:39
It's interesting too that they get here and then they realize that, you know,
10:45
there's nobody here. But then I love too. You've got Hunter,
10:48
who's just an incredible tracker, and they're following, you know, where this
10:54
trooper was taken, and they realize that he's most likely in the mountain that's
11:03
in front of them. And I love the inspiration for this planet here,
11:09
which seems to be basically the rocky mountains of Colorado and that type of landscape,
11:18
and we don't see that type of landscape a ton in Star Wars,
11:22
but I think they've done a really good job of just kind of creating,
11:26
you know, a different type of planet that we don't see a lot,
11:30
and it looks it looks really good. I also really like the fact that
11:35
when Hunter does the tracking, it's so evocative of those old Westerns. It's
11:43
the you know, the tracker was always the one that went down and would
11:46
touch the ground and feel the dirt between his fingers and stuff like that.
11:50
And I love that because it's it's evocative without being silly or overblown. And
11:58
watching go up the side of the mountain, I mean this mountain. That
12:01
is the best mountain climbing shot I've seen since Star Trek five. And that
12:05
is the highest compliment that I can give. I gotta chuckle out of somebody
12:09
out there. Admit it, admit it, oh, in this reveal,
12:16
because what we're looking at right now is again how diabolical the Empire is at
12:26
first glance, this is a beautiful forested moon. So what did they do?
12:31
They did exactly what Palpatine always does. They went underground. Yeah,
12:35
but they went underground so that the evil is hidden. It's always below the
12:43
surface. Yeah. And even the fact that that the establishing shots, you
12:48
can already see the architecture evocative of the Death Star. And then you look
12:58
at that, and you look at this and you think to yourself, when
13:01
was this built? This took time? When was it built? Well?
13:09
And I like what you're saying there too, because you know, get you
13:13
get the realization here is that during the Clone Wars, Palpatine has been busy
13:18
doing all of these other things to set the stage for his empire. And
13:28
and I'm sure giving some reason why this should be here, and it's just
13:33
fantastic. And then I also love that this episode is using Echo's own experience
13:39
of the fact that he was a Clone trooper who had been taken and left
13:45
for dead basically, and the moment that Rex and Anakin realized that he was
13:50
alive, what did they do? They went to save him, right,
13:54
and that he's going to do the same thing because he's not leaving a man
13:58
behind and I just love that continuity there for the character growth and the character
14:03
stories that we're telling throughout the Clone Wars and now here to really connect this
14:09
together. Dude, this, I mean the no disrespect at all. This
14:22
is like an incredible video game level right here, where you gotta get on
14:28
and you gotta go down, and you got you're riding on top of the
14:31
elevator hoping nobody sees you. I just love the fact that the troopers that
14:37
are staffing this base are very evocative of the Republic Commando game because you mentioned
14:41
video yes, yes, yeah, I love little nods like that. It's
14:46
a perfect little nod. And you can also see by the way that the
14:50
scene goes around the helmet that it's moving closer to what we see in the
14:56
Stormtrooper trainees in in Rebels. We're seeing a sort of move toward that design
15:03
level. Yes, and the texturing on the walls. We've seen this this
15:09
sort of you know, the light panels that are very evocative of Imperial architecture
15:16
that we saw in the original trilogy and everything like that. But the texturing
15:18
on these walls, which plays of course with the lighting and everything, and
15:20
there's there we go there are our closer to stormtrooper trainee helmets and the glowing
15:28
visor of a Republic commando. Yeah, those I love commandos are incredible.
15:33
Of course they are in Imperial commandos now, but and I just love I
15:39
love that the way the visor glows, it's it has just that extra,
15:46
that extra of of peril about it. Well, and this is our first
15:50
introduction to the t K trooper, Right, they don't even know what that
15:56
is, right, it's so great, but we do because Luke's designation TK
16:04
four two one, so a little nod. But again it's those it's that
16:11
type of nod that we all love so much. If you don't catch the
16:15
reference, it's fine, but if you do catch the reference, it's even
16:18
better. Well, And and the beauty is is that this is a place
16:22
to which those troopers have been introduced and or and are being trained. Right,
16:30
So this is one of the places that that's happening in the Empire to
16:36
replace the clone troopers, and which is an important storyline obviously as we moved
16:41
to the end of this season and of course into that second season, this
16:47
is going to continue. So I love how they're laying the groundwork for what's
16:52
coming, and of course we know where Gregor is going to end up the
16:59
path that he's off on, which is pretty great in and of itself.
17:03
Yeah, but again it's another tie in. You don't have to have seen
17:07
Rebels, you don't have to have seen anything else. You get it.
17:11
If you get it, you get it. If you don't, the episode
17:14
still works. That's how you do the references. Well, yeah, like
17:18
you said, you know, if you've never seen Rebels, this is just
17:22
a clone trooper that they're after. That Rex is said is important, right,
17:26
and you know, of course if you've seen Clone Wars, you know
17:30
who Gregor is. And so you know, I love that, hm,
17:41
I you know, I want to ask you though, you know, as
17:45
we sit here and we have these you know, you know, these discussions,
17:52
and we sit here and we see them getting Gregor and we see him
17:56
starting to give some inform nation as we go in here, and how richly
18:03
textured this is. What is it that can be done for Disney to make
18:11
people more aware of this show? Because as we're you know, recording this
18:17
commentary, the big question is why is it not getting more play? Why
18:25
are they not leaning more into this? Because this is an incredible story right
18:29
now, and it's action packed and my you know, I can only imagine
18:33
that kids would love it. And now we have the reveal of there he's
18:41
training, not clones. Now it's a different world that's coming, you know.
18:47
I think that's a great question. One I gotta call out the fact
18:49
that they're using some excellent New Hope music here from The Escape from the Dust
18:55
Star, which is fantastic. But I to your question, John, I
19:00
think it really just comes down to better marketing and you know, actual marketing
19:08
that you know, whether it's on social media or even on Disney Plus,
19:15
making sure that this is front and center. You know. I think it
19:18
comes down to the things that you promote when people go to the parks.
19:26
You know, I think all of these things matter, and in many ways,
19:29
I think a lot of that doesn't really have to cost a lot of
19:32
money, you know, whether it comes to social media marketing or you know,
19:37
making sure that you have adequate representation when somebody goes to disney World or
19:42
Disneyland and as a Galaxy's Edge and they're seeing bad batch stuff. You know,
19:48
I think that's so important and that I think that doesn't actually happen enough
19:52
unfortunately so well. Even to the fact that you could have bad Batch walking
19:57
around Galaxy's Edge, you put the armor on somebody, have him walk around,
20:02
or even have somebody in like a wrecker costume, people would look at
20:06
it and say, whoa, hey, what's that about. Of course,
20:08
you know, we know all the different challenges there and everything, and the
20:12
Classic opened the door and tons of troopers there, which is a this this
20:18
elevator ride there. It was a little bit evocative of the Captain America,
20:23
you know, where the guys are all digging in, and I was like,
20:26
that would have been pretty funny. Also a vocative of Han solo in
20:32
a New Hope rounding the corner and originally seeing a couple of troopers turn around,
20:37
but in the special edition forward he rounds the corner and there's a huge
20:41
assembly of troopers just waiting for him to find them. I do always love
20:48
to and we've talked about this before, but you know the idea that the
20:52
bad Batch is not trying to kill these troopers there, that's not their goal
20:56
here. Their goal is just to rescue greg and and partially because they all
21:03
know something that these troopers don't know, which is they're being controlled by their
21:10
chips. It isn't really, in many ways their fault. It's a very
21:18
humane thing. I think it's also I would imagine it has to have something
21:23
to do with TV rating thing too, because since we know that there are
21:29
people in these outfits now, having them fire stun blasts is going to be
21:36
more likely to get a TVPG than anything higher. And I think that there's
21:41
also it becomes very telling when they don't use stun blasts, not to get
21:48
ahead of ourselves to the second season, but when they go to Kashi,
21:52
they're not using stun blasts on the transoceans exactly, and so it becomes very
21:57
noticeable that they're making conscious decisions too, you know, when they're whacking people
22:06
well. And it's it's interesting too because I think, you know, at
22:08
this point in this season, they are in a place where they they still
22:18
don't have the full picture of everything that's going on right now, and that's
22:23
still being built for them, and uh, you know, so shooting these
22:30
clones and if there is actually a chance for them, I mean, those
22:34
are all big questions that they've been asking this whole season, and and I
22:41
think that the morality of that is something they've had to struggle with the whole
22:48
season, which is one of the things I think that makes this season great.
22:52
It makes it very very interesting because it's something where it's that effort on
23:03
the part of Star Wars to say, okay, it's it's just like finding
23:08
out that Darth Vader was a person inside and used to be a dude.
23:14
And when you're a kid, all of a sudden, the world isn't black
23:17
and white anymore, and episodes like this lean into that idea of the world.
23:22
There are a lot of difficult decisions you have to make, even against
23:26
your enemies, and you have to make that what you know, you rightly
23:32
say that moral decision, What is it? What is the right thing to
23:37
do? And they're just trying to get away, so they're they're causing the
23:41
least amount of damage, the least amount of death, the least amount of
23:44
pain that they can except for a wrecker who you'll note did just open fire
23:49
with live rounds, and it was just like, screw this stunt's business.
23:53
I mean, he didn't say that, but it's implied. I to the
24:00
fact that you know, Omega has come so far that she was the one
24:04
keeping the ship steady there. I think that's fantastic. You know what I
24:08
never really noticed until this series of shots. The I love seeing Hunter just
24:18
absolutely wail. Yeah, it's just an absolute perfection. But something I didn't
24:26
realize until this one is at the control yokes of the Broader, they look
24:32
like the profile of Darth Vader's tie fighter. Oh that's a good point.
24:37
Yeah, that's gotta be on purpose or the happiest accident of design that's ever
24:41
happened. It just I think this episode is doing such a great job of
24:48
just showing how much Omega has been able to learn and how helpful she is
24:55
to this crew, like she truly is part of this crew at this point,
25:00
with her you know, saving the day there, making sure she she
25:03
plugs in the Gaunt Droid to to help fix the Marauders problem. It's just
25:08
so great. So I also love the fact that we have a complete reversal
25:17
of what we're used to seeing in these atmospheric chases of somebody going up straight
25:22
vertically and getting the chase really high and then doing some sort of like fallover
25:26
and they reverse it and they dive, and then of course now we have
25:32
Hunter doing his Rambo fall Yeah, he fell so far. I'm not sure
25:37
he would have lived, but I'm gonna let it go. He slowed himself
25:41
down with his knife, right. And the wind resistance, yes, caused
25:45
by hitting the tree. I mean there was an updraft and so yeah,
25:49
and great, yeah, well there was a there was a whole lot of
25:52
wind disturbance caused by the ships flying around. Yeah. Well, and and
25:56
what's frustrating now is that it looks like Hunter, Mike, it caught and
26:00
you're like, dang it, we just rescued one person. Now we're gonna
26:03
have to go back and do it again. I love how Wreckers shooting style
26:11
and the turret is just like his fighting style. It's not elegant now he's
26:18
he's just gonna hit what he can hit and cause damage. Yeah, and
26:22
the rest will take care of itself. I also love that these v wings
26:26
you know, of course, sound so much like the Tie Fighters, and
26:30
it's just fantastic. And even just the way in which this ship is being
26:41
flown, the Marauder flipping around and everything, and just the shots are so
26:45
great. Oh. I just love Hunter hearing Omega saying to go back for
26:52
him and him saying sorry, kid, I can't do that. Ah,
27:00
what a heartbreaking way. So here's the question. As we cut back to
27:04
Camino, did you believe that Hunter was potentially not coming back after this arc
27:12
or did you recognize this as cliffhanger only. I didn't think that they could
27:22
leave Hunter out of this show, just because of how close he is with
27:26
Omega, but it did make sense to me that you would want to put
27:30
him in danger in these last couple of episodes to really ramp up the tension.
27:38
And you know, I think what it does is it does leave in
27:42
your mind we don't know what happens to all of these clones, so which
27:48
one might not make it out of this series alive. I enjoy way the
28:00
way that the thunder rumbles after Rampart says a scientist, I have a use
28:04
for a politician, I do not. Yeah, And you know that they're
28:08
about to execute him, and everything everything that the camin Owens did was literally
28:18
just to benefitsidious and then we have this beautiful reveal of Crosshair coming to talk
28:30
to Hunter. It's such a fantastic end because you know this story has been
28:37
building this entire season, and so to give us that moment where Hunter and
28:41
Crosshair. You know that the two polar opposites in many ways of the bad
28:48
Batch are face to face. And I think you know, as you were
28:56
asking the question of whether or not I was worried when I first watched this
29:00
episode, I think that's the point to which, you know, having Crosshair
29:07
there, that's where they clouded a little bit. I think it does leave
29:14
a question mark because we know what Crosshair is capable of doing and how far
29:21
he's willing to take things, and he's not above killing any of them really,
29:29
and so I think they do a great job here as they close out
29:33
this episode by having that face off to really create a question mark in your
29:38
mind, and it helps that question of is Crosshair is he going to be
29:45
redeemable? Is he will he be able to turn? Because that's the whole
29:49
other question of the season. You know, Star Wars has been so much
29:53
about that idea of redemption, and I think it's in everybody's mind that that's
29:59
going to happened for him. But you know, the other question is is
30:03
what happens if a character doesn't choose redemption? What if they keep choosing to
30:08
do what is wrong? And I think those are you know, that's the
30:15
tension we've got going on, and such a such a great episode, like
30:21
such a great episode. It's a wonderful way to tee it all up for
30:26
this final this final stretch of an incredible season, first season of The Bad
30:33
Batch. But if people want to reach out to you with their own question
30:37
marks about bad Bats or aggressive negotiations or anything else, where can they find
30:41
you online? Matt Well, of course, John, you can find me
30:42
all over the place on social media under the name Mattings are two most active
30:48
on Twitter, Instagram, letterbox vero, that's my name there. You can
30:52
also find me here on the network. I had a show that I did
30:56
with Drey Coffin. We talked about every single chapter of Harry Potter one after
31:00
a time. You can also find me on the TFM network. I'm doing
31:03
a bunch of shows over there. Biggest one that's going on over there that
31:07
I'm a part of it the six or two Club, which talk about all
31:11
the phantoms we love, from Star Wars to Bond and Marvel to DC to
31:15
I mean, just you name it. We've talked about it. John's a
31:17
frequent guest over there, and we actually do a couple of bonus shows and
31:21
that same feed, so you can check all of those out. I do
31:23
literary treks about the books and the complex of Star Trek. The Orb about
31:27
Star Trek, Deep Space nine, Warp five is about Star Trek. Enterprise,
31:32
Saddle Up is about Strange New Worlds, and the Artificial Tango is about
31:36
Star Trek percard which as we're recording this, we're back because season three is
31:41
happening now, folks, and we're talking all about it. But John,
31:45
if people wanted to, you know, maybe catch up with you and you
31:48
know, get a picture of you drinking some blue milk, where can they
31:51
find you? Well, I'll be drinking my blue milk as soon as I
31:55
get rescued from this underground prison on a forest moon. Hint, hint,
32:00
everybody could use a little hand here. But you can find me online as
32:04
kessel Junkie k s s l j U n k i E. You can
32:07
find me right here on the network, co hosting a show called house Lights
32:13
where we look at the work of directors by different categories, decade, theme,
32:16
those sorts of things. It's a lot of fun. You should check
32:19
that out. But in the meantime, I used the sidious app to pre
32:25
order three Blue Milks. So I gotta get over to the Tarken Bucks and
32:34
pick that up sometime soon. So Matt, I think it's time to close
32:37
these negotiations. John, negotiations are closed. Join the Revolution, Join the
32:51
Nerd Party.