Latest / Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast / Issue 375: Star Wars Merchandising

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Issue 375: Star Wars Merchandising · Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the ned Palty. Hi.
0:06
Speaker 2: This is Nick and Astasu, story editor on Star Wars,
0:10
Speaker 2: the Clone Wars and Star Wars bad Batch, and you
0:14
Speaker 2: are listening to aggressive negotiations.
0:19
Speaker 3: Well, hello, and welcome to aggressive negotiations coming from that
0:25
Speaker 3: really super rainy planet Erradu, I believe from Rogue one.
0:30
Speaker 3: That's right where all it did was rain and we
0:33
Speaker 3: have no idea where we are, but I am just
0:35
Speaker 3: one of your hosts, Jedi Master Matthew Rushing, and with
0:38
Speaker 3: me as he is every single episode to your audio enjoyment,
0:44
Speaker 3: the one and only John Mills.
0:47
Speaker 4: You know, I really think the X Wings and Tie
0:49
Speaker 4: Fighters could have benefited from windshield wipers. Sort of an
0:53
Speaker 4: invention I would have expected to be in Star Wars
0:56
Speaker 4: by this point, but just something, I mean, like or
0:59
Speaker 4: did they you know? Because we have products like rain X,
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1:15
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1:45
Speaker 3: can find us. We'd really appreciate it if you did.
1:48
Speaker 3: But John, we were batting ideas back and forth, kind
1:53
Speaker 3: of like houses being batted back and forth in a hurricane,
1:57
Speaker 3: and you had brought up this idea that I thought
2:02
Speaker 3: was really interesting, and partly because of where we are
2:06
Speaker 3: in age, we're just different enough in age where this
2:12
Speaker 3: could be a classic question to be able to discuss,
2:17
Speaker 3: which is, would Star Wars be the same without the merchandising,
2:23
Speaker 3: and so opening that up, I'd love to hear you
2:28
Speaker 3: know how you approached that, because I mean, it's something
2:32
Speaker 3: that's very different for many people depending on when they
2:36
Speaker 3: found Star.
2:36
Speaker 1: Wars very true. I'll come at it.
2:41
Speaker 4: The first part of the argument is Star Wars comes out,
2:44
Speaker 4: it's a phenomen seventy seven. There were other movies that
2:47
Speaker 4: were phenomenons, but Star Wars was something special. We all
2:50
Speaker 4: know the history, blah blah blah, Like seriously, like I
2:52
Speaker 4: don't think that they could make any more, you know,
2:55
Speaker 4: Like it always blows my mind when something like Star
2:57
Speaker 4: Wars Archives by Paul Duncan comes out. I'm like, how
3:00
Speaker 4: the hell have I gone this long without seeing a
3:01
Speaker 4: picture like this, you know, like there's something from the
3:04
Speaker 4: archive that I haven't seen before. I'm like, like it
3:07
Speaker 4: always know.
3:08
Speaker 1: JW.
3:09
Speaker 4: Wrinsler's books had stuff that I'd never seen before, despite
3:12
Speaker 4: all of the documenting of everything that had gone on.
3:14
Speaker 1: So it always blows my mind.
3:16
Speaker 4: But they always talk about how the merchandising was big,
3:20
Speaker 4: how people had to wait for the action figures, Kenner
3:23
Speaker 4: wasn't ready for it, that sort of thing. But once
3:28
Speaker 4: the merchandising hit, it was everywhere there. And the thing
3:34
Speaker 4: is there were unlicensed things.
3:36
Speaker 1: It was a lot harder to patrol this. Back then.
3:38
Speaker 4: There were unlicensed things that you could get or things
3:41
Speaker 4: that were like Star Wars but not quite Star Wars,
3:45
Speaker 4: you know, laser sword instead of lightsaber or ray gun
3:50
Speaker 4: instead of Han Solo's blaster. You wanted the real thing,
3:53
Speaker 4: but you would deal with the you know, the methadone
3:58
Speaker 4: of it all until the official stuff would come out.
4:02
Speaker 4: And I think that the thing I always fall back on,
4:07
Speaker 4: and I've fallen back on it so much that a
4:10
Speaker 4: lifelong friend of mine, Joey, hates when I pull this
4:13
Speaker 4: one out all the time. But I knew what an
4:16
Speaker 4: x wing was before The Empire Strikes Back came out.
4:21
Speaker 4: I'd seen an x wing. I knew what I knew.
4:23
Speaker 4: It was called x wing, And the only reason I
4:25
Speaker 4: knew it was called x Wing or y Wing for
4:27
Speaker 4: that matter, was because of the merchandising. There is so
4:32
Speaker 4: much about Star Wars that was not stated on screen
4:36
Speaker 4: because it wasn't essential that we found out through the merchandise, right,
4:40
Speaker 4: And so I think that sort of thing it supported
4:45
Speaker 4: the film in such an an integral way and ensured
4:48
Speaker 4: its accessibility and memorability, especially in that key formative seventy
4:53
Speaker 4: seven through eighty three.
4:54
Speaker 1: Face.
4:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this is the fascinating thing. And so
4:59
Speaker 3: I'm I mentioned this on purpose, is that we're just
5:03
Speaker 3: different enough in age and so where the merchandising hits
5:08
Speaker 3: us is different. And so when I saw the films,
5:13
Speaker 3: one of the most interesting parts of that was that
5:16
Speaker 3: there was no merchandise unless you had friends that had
5:19
Speaker 3: the merchandise from when the movies had come out. And
5:25
Speaker 3: because the merchandising, unlike today, you know, it didn't just last.
5:31
Speaker 3: It wasn't just everywhere all the time, right, And I
5:35
Speaker 3: think that's the thing that makes this really interesting is
5:39
Speaker 3: because I who would have loved to have had Star
5:45
Speaker 3: Wars merchandise all over the place to play with once
5:50
Speaker 3: I saw the films on you know, VHS, I didn't
5:54
Speaker 3: have it. But like you mentioned, it's the other merchandising
5:59
Speaker 3: that really grabbed my interest because there weren't a ton
6:02
Speaker 3: of toys for me to play with. Guess what I
6:05
Speaker 3: got into the books because those became the things that
6:10
Speaker 3: we could.
6:10
Speaker 1: Hold on to.
6:12
Speaker 3: And I think that's to me, that's that's just one
6:14
Speaker 3: of the most fascinating parts of this in in that
6:19
Speaker 3: the really again the merchandising in the way in which
6:25
Speaker 3: you know, George Lucas saw this is just utterly fascinating
6:31
Speaker 3: to me. And I love that he did because it
6:39
Speaker 3: allowed me to grab hold of the saga and keep
6:43
Speaker 3: with it. Even though there weren't TV shows, there weren't
6:48
Speaker 3: other ways to watch the movies other than VHS. There
6:51
Speaker 3: weren't animated series coming out. I mean, by the time
6:56
Speaker 3: I was watching, you know, droids and and and e
7:00
Speaker 3: walks were over.
7:02
Speaker 1: You know, it's not like.
7:02
Speaker 3: You could go and find those anywhere.
7:06
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I mean until Disney plus.
7:09
Speaker 3: Right exactly one hundred percent, and so, but things like comics,
7:17
Speaker 3: things like guides to the movies.
7:21
Speaker 1: I remember, gosh, I remember.
7:23
Speaker 3: One of my favorite parts of merchandising was the picture
7:28
Speaker 3: story book A Return of the Jedi that I got
7:31
Speaker 3: from the library. Absolutely obsessed with it, John, absolutely obsessed
7:38
Speaker 3: because it had stills from the movie so I could
7:42
Speaker 3: relive the movie. And then you know, you had like
7:46
Speaker 3: the story book on Get This seventy eight so you
7:52
Speaker 3: could listen to that.
7:54
Speaker 1: You know, so all.
7:57
Speaker 3: The things that you you know, it's so funny because
7:59
Speaker 3: all the things that you're mentioning, right, are those things
8:02
Speaker 3: that a slightly older fan was getting into because they're
8:06
Speaker 3: really starting to explore the movie. This what it allowed
8:09
Speaker 3: me to do is be able to relive the movie.
8:12
Speaker 1: And then bam ninety one.
8:15
Speaker 3: You know, the air, the Empire comes out, and it
8:20
Speaker 3: is like nirvana for me as a Star Wars fan.
8:24
Speaker 3: And so when I think about the way in which
8:27
Speaker 3: the merchandising hit both of us, it's so interesting because
8:31
Speaker 3: it allowed you to dig in deeper. And what it
8:35
Speaker 3: allowed me to do is just kind of almost keep
8:39
Speaker 3: it in my personal zeitgeist for longer and really make
8:46
Speaker 3: those stories a part of me. And so, yeah, I think, man,
8:51
Speaker 3: the way in which the merchandising affects Star Wars beyond
8:55
Speaker 3: any of the other series that we know is pretty incredible.
9:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that I like the way you come
9:02
Speaker 4: at that because it is easy to forget, especially in
9:05
Speaker 4: modern times, that there was a like a fallow period
9:09
Speaker 4: of Star Wars merchandising. You had to really seek it out.
9:12
Speaker 4: You had to be in the comic book shop for
9:14
Speaker 4: the West End Games D six rule book. You had
9:19
Speaker 4: to be Bill Slavisek, my hero forever by the way,
9:22
Speaker 4: but you had to be there for the West End Games.
9:25
Speaker 4: You had to seek things out, and it was difficult
9:29
Speaker 4: until the early nineties. But then I think one of
9:33
Speaker 4: the real brilliant moves to test the waters is now
9:38
Speaker 4: you've got me thinking about the Waves, the original trilogy.
9:42
Speaker 4: That merchandising really kept us in it as well, but
9:46
Speaker 4: also allowed us to dig in.
9:47
Speaker 1: That's a next Wing, that's a y Wing. That's an
9:50
Speaker 1: ad at Walker.
9:51
Speaker 4: They never say ad at Walker on there, and anybody
9:53
Speaker 4: that says it's at at I will refer you to
9:56
Speaker 4: the original commercial because that's what I grew up with, y'all.
10:00
Speaker 4: At Walker, the scout Walker, all of those things. And
10:04
Speaker 4: that's sort of the brilliance, is what you're talking about
10:07
Speaker 4: with the picture book and then the other books, is
10:10
Speaker 4: that stuff was all the source material that you realize
10:15
Speaker 4: wasn't necessary for the films to work. And I think
10:19
Speaker 4: that's the lesson that modern movies forget, is that you
10:23
Speaker 4: don't need to say what the thing is on screen.
10:28
Speaker 4: It can just be a ship, it can just be this,
10:32
Speaker 4: or that. You don't need to specify things in a
10:38
Speaker 4: forgive me for putting it this way, a star Trek
10:40
Speaker 4: sort of way, where you're talking about, you know, the
10:43
Speaker 4: phased isolipters are falling out of sync with the warp
10:48
Speaker 4: dichotics of what no doesn't matter like ship go by
10:52
Speaker 4: toy if you want to learn about ship sort of thing,
10:55
Speaker 4: but in terms of those waves. I think what what
11:00
Speaker 4: that triggers for me is Shadows of the Empire being
11:06
Speaker 4: that movie without a movie, I think allowed them to
11:11
Speaker 4: confirm how they could maneuver in the world, whether those
11:17
Speaker 4: channels were still viable to exactly and definitely teed up
11:24
Speaker 4: what they saw possible. But I would also argue that
11:28
Speaker 4: I know you came in as a newer fan, but
11:31
Speaker 4: I think also Shadows of the Empire was a great
11:33
Speaker 4: test bed because it proved that the older, the slightly
11:37
Speaker 4: older fans like myself, we started having discretionary income and
11:44
Speaker 4: without a movie, because that's the thing that holds them
11:47
Speaker 4: back over time. That's why merchandising died out after a
11:50
Speaker 4: Return of the Jedi is it's like, well, nobody's gonna
11:52
Speaker 4: buy stuff if there aren't any movies coming out, And
11:54
Speaker 4: then they release all of this stuff and people snap
11:57
Speaker 4: it up and they go oh. I think that was
12:00
Speaker 4: possibly the final test to make.
12:03
Speaker 1: Sure that the.
12:05
Speaker 4: Prequels were a viable product, if you will, was to
12:09
Speaker 4: prove that there was a sign of life still out there.
12:13
Speaker 4: And then additionally, I mean, think about the impulse that's
12:20
Speaker 4: burned in there though that everybody basically the toys are totems.
12:27
Speaker 4: It's a visual totem, so you can look at it
12:30
Speaker 4: and have that dopamine rush of ooh, I like that thing.
12:33
Speaker 4: That thing makes me. I have the micro Galaxy Imperial
12:38
Speaker 4: Shuttle from Return of the Jedi on my shelf because
12:41
Speaker 4: that could every time I look at it, it's a
12:42
Speaker 4: little dopamine hit of remembering Return of the Jedi, you know,
12:46
Speaker 4: and my Lego tie interceptor too. Why is it that
12:51
Speaker 4: Star Wars figured that out so completely? Would be I
12:54
Speaker 4: guess the next part of the question because of the
12:57
Speaker 4: fact that we have huge hit moved. Avatar was the
13:02
Speaker 4: two billion dollar movie without a toy line. Do you
13:05
Speaker 4: know any kid playing with Avatar toys?
13:08
Speaker 3: No?
13:10
Speaker 4: Right, So that's my question is what is it about
13:14
Speaker 4: Star Wars is merchandizing? Is it just that the material
13:18
Speaker 4: lends itself so natively to the merchandising or is it
13:22
Speaker 4: just that the merchandising engine behind Star Wars arguably pre
13:26
Speaker 4: Disney because the Disney machine operates differently than Lucasfilm did
13:32
Speaker 4: previous to the purchase. I'm not throwing shade, I'm just
13:36
Speaker 4: saying that. Okay, So two parts. What is it about
13:41
Speaker 4: the movies that make them so natively able to be merchandised,
13:48
Speaker 4: at least in the old days. But then, also, what
13:53
Speaker 4: do you think made it so different when Lucasfilm was
13:55
Speaker 4: an independent company? Why does it feel different the merchandising
14:01
Speaker 4: now than it did then. Why it feels different, doesn't it? No?
14:07
Speaker 2: I think?
14:08
Speaker 3: Okay, So I have a lot of thoughts running around
14:11
Speaker 3: in my head as we're discussing this, because I think
14:14
Speaker 3: one of the things that you kind of nailed there
14:17
Speaker 3: in your conversation and what this did for you is
14:21
Speaker 3: it allowed you to experience the film in a new
14:26
Speaker 3: way in the sense that by giving you all of
14:30
Speaker 3: these new things to learn about what was on screen,
14:33
Speaker 3: it enhanced your viewing and therefore made the desire to
14:38
Speaker 3: kind of be back in the universe and just watch
14:41
Speaker 3: what had already come out really big.
14:45
Speaker 4: Right.
14:46
Speaker 3: Anytime we talk about anything EU here Expanded Universe or
14:50
Speaker 3: anything like that, we always talk about this idea of
14:54
Speaker 3: the way in which that thing makes you understand the
14:59
Speaker 3: film in a different way and enhances your viewing of
15:02
Speaker 3: the film.
15:03
Speaker 1: Right.
15:04
Speaker 3: And so the moment that you knew that they were
15:06
Speaker 3: X wings, that made you more interested in the world.
15:11
Speaker 3: It made it more real, It made it, It made
15:14
Speaker 3: it feel more like a cohesive universe and not just
15:17
Speaker 3: a film like it made it feel, you know, George
15:21
Speaker 3: Lucas always talks about the idea is that Star Wars
15:23
Speaker 3: is basically like found footage from a universe far far away.
15:29
Speaker 3: And so I think that's the thing that made all
15:35
Speaker 3: of that expanded universe material for you, all that merchandising
15:40
Speaker 3: material for you so important, right, And so I think
15:44
Speaker 3: that's part of it. I think the other thing that
15:48
Speaker 3: maybe just makes it different. And I don't know if
15:52
Speaker 3: I'm right on this, but I think that made it
15:57
Speaker 3: different is that they were the first people to do it,
15:59
Speaker 3: and they dumble into it as a mistake, Like George
16:03
Speaker 3: Lucas took a chance that merchandising could be big here.
16:08
Speaker 3: Nobody had ever done this before, but he was like,
16:10
Speaker 3: I'll take this and on the off chance it works great,
16:15
Speaker 3: And of course we all know it worked like Gangbusters, right,
16:20
Speaker 3: And so I think that there's something in that that
16:24
Speaker 3: makes it feel different because it was just this gorilla
16:27
Speaker 3: marketing campaign for this little film that nobody had heard
16:30
Speaker 3: of and everybody thought would probably bomb, and it becomes
16:34
Speaker 3: this Juggernaut, and then kids have the ability to be
16:38
Speaker 3: able to immerse themselves in that universe with you know,
16:43
Speaker 3: toys for it, and then older fans like yourself get
16:46
Speaker 3: the opportunity to immerse themselves in it with material that
16:51
Speaker 3: allows them to feel like they understand the movies on
16:54
Speaker 3: a whole new level, you know, and you're you're hitting
16:58
Speaker 3: every single fan of the film where you need to
17:01
Speaker 3: hit them. And that was like lightning in a bottle, right,
17:06
Speaker 3: And we've never had that again because well, everybody then
17:11
Speaker 3: picked up the same train and it just became the norm.
17:14
Speaker 3: And with Star Wars, it was something new and fresh
17:16
Speaker 3: and different. And I think that's the thing that just
17:19
Speaker 3: kind of made it different. And I think that's why,
17:23
Speaker 3: you know, Star Wars fans in general are people who
17:29
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, look at both of our offices
17:31
Speaker 3: that we're sitting in as we record. They're full of
17:34
Speaker 3: Star Wars memorabilia, and each part and each piece of
17:41
Speaker 3: memorabilia has a memory for us or a way in
17:44
Speaker 3: which it helps us connect to that thing that we love.
17:48
Speaker 3: That's I mean, it easy even different for me than
17:52
Speaker 3: just I guess and I think you know, you mentioned
17:56
Speaker 3: the other Star franchise. The closest one probably is Star
17:59
Speaker 3: Wars Trek when it comes to you know, when you
18:03
Speaker 3: could hold a communicate in your in your hand right,
18:06
Speaker 3: or when you could hold the uh what was the
18:08
Speaker 3: mego toys? You know that had come out those kind
18:12
Speaker 3: of things, right. And what's interesting too, is, like you
18:16
Speaker 3: think about that is uh, you know, Star Trek in
18:20
Speaker 3: some ways does help pave the way for that. And
18:22
Speaker 3: maybe George Lucas was just paying attention and it was like,
18:25
Speaker 3: I think fans want this and if people like this movie,
18:30
Speaker 3: they're gonna want to have a piece of it. And
18:32
Speaker 3: so you know, but like you know, the maverick that
18:37
Speaker 3: he is, you know, he took a chance on an
18:40
Speaker 3: unknown idea and ran with it. And you know, now
18:44
Speaker 3: we're in a place where it's hard to imagine Star Wars.
18:48
Speaker 3: I mean, gosh, I'm even wearing a bad Batch shirt right.
18:51
Speaker 1: Now as a right thinking people should.
18:54
Speaker 3: Exactly because of this, you know, this absolute love for
19:04
Speaker 3: this franchise.
19:06
Speaker 4: Well, I mean it so it goes so well that
19:10
Speaker 4: Spaceballs has one of its best routines with Yo just
19:14
Speaker 4: playing yogurt. You know, it's like dumboischandizing, right, Spaceballs the
19:19
Speaker 4: flame throwa. The kids love this one, and I think
19:23
Speaker 4: that I think what this definitely proves is that this
19:31
Speaker 4: is why I think Star Wars now is encountering some
19:38
Speaker 4: of the cultural difficulty that it did not before, is
19:43
Speaker 4: because setting aside every other argument about the pre and
19:48
Speaker 4: post Disney era and everything like that, is we live
19:52
Speaker 4: in an era where the boards take it too much.
19:55
Speaker 4: For granted that it has to have a merchandising piece,
20:00
Speaker 4: and so they will make decisions about the advertising. I think,
20:05
Speaker 4: what or not the advertise about the merchandising. I think
20:09
Speaker 4: that the thing that made Star Wars so unique pre
20:13
Speaker 4: Disney is that it was I'm gonna make what movie
20:19
Speaker 4: I want to, and then I will merchandise whatever the
20:23
Speaker 4: hell I want to out of it, as opposed to
20:27
Speaker 4: something more mercenary out of a corporate setting. But we
20:33
Speaker 4: can all sort of sniff out where It's like Independence
20:36
Speaker 4: Day actually in the nineteen nineties, remember that advertising blitz
20:40
Speaker 4: for Sorry I keep saying advertising, but I mean merchandising
20:44
Speaker 4: is basically advertising. Yeah, but like the merchandising blitz for
20:47
Speaker 4: Independence Day was the same idea flood the market with toys,
20:50
Speaker 4: and I remember looking at them and I was like
20:54
Speaker 4: it bounced off of me because it suddenly made think
20:59
Speaker 4: that like there was I don't know why it is
21:02
Speaker 4: that the merchandising for Star Wars always seems so special,
21:07
Speaker 4: it always seems so meaningful, And I think it's because
21:10
Speaker 4: the core story wasn't dictated by what they thought they
21:18
Speaker 4: could sell, which is both merchandising and advertising. When you
21:22
Speaker 4: think about it, it's like, why are we making these
21:24
Speaker 4: creative decisions because we can sell, because we can merchandise
21:28
Speaker 4: because we can do that, Whereas I mean, tell me
21:32
Speaker 4: if I'm off my rocker, because I would say the
21:33
Speaker 4: convert that the inverse happened with Star Wars, where it
21:36
Speaker 4: was like, I'm going to make this and it works
21:38
Speaker 4: and people like it so fine, I'll merchandise these aspects
21:42
Speaker 4: of it because people like it, as opposed to cynically
21:46
Speaker 4: putting it together at the development phase.
21:50
Speaker 1: You know, Am I making sense now?
21:52
Speaker 3: I think you're making a complete sense again. I think
21:57
Speaker 3: that what we end up with is the difference here
22:01
Speaker 3: between everything else was that you know, this was a gamble,
22:07
Speaker 3: and and of course you know the gamble pays off,
22:10
Speaker 3: and and so now it's just the norm as what
22:13
Speaker 3: everybody does. And you know, obviously George Lucas is working
22:24
Speaker 3: to make money because in the end too, you know,
22:30
Speaker 3: the beauty of this is is that you know, without
22:33
Speaker 3: the the merchandising, we wouldn't get any of the other films.
22:39
Speaker 1: You know.
22:39
Speaker 3: The merchandising is actually what you know, saved Star Wars
22:43
Speaker 3: uh and and allowed him to then make Star Wars
22:46
Speaker 3: the way he wanted and and to do a bunch
22:48
Speaker 3: of other things, you know. And so I think that's
22:51
Speaker 3: the other part of this that you you asked, how
22:56
Speaker 3: is this different than the other franchisees, How is this
23:01
Speaker 3: different than the ways in which we see this happening,
23:05
Speaker 3: you know, in in other and other places. And you know,
23:09
Speaker 3: one of the main reasons I think this is different, John,
23:12
Speaker 3: is that George Lucas took the money and he poured
23:17
Speaker 3: it not only back into his franchise, but he poured
23:22
Speaker 3: it back into his love of filmmaking and his love
23:27
Speaker 3: of changing the dynamic of what we could do on
23:32
Speaker 3: film because of technology. And that I think is what
23:37
Speaker 3: sets him and Star Wars apart, is because the merchandising
23:45
Speaker 3: became a way of giving back not just to himself
23:51
Speaker 3: but to everyone because movies wouldn't be the way that
23:55
Speaker 3: they are without George Lucas taking a gamble on merchandising
23:59
Speaker 3: with just allows him to then make the films he
24:02
Speaker 3: wants to make, invest in technology so he can make
24:05
Speaker 3: the films that he wants to make, and allow that
24:08
Speaker 3: technology then to be able to benefit everybody else. I mean,
24:11
Speaker 3: you think about even the ways in which ILM became
24:15
Speaker 3: a powerhouse that helped other franchises like Star Trek, like
24:23
Speaker 3: Back to the Future, Like you think of what they
24:26
Speaker 3: did and the and the work that they did on
24:30
Speaker 3: Jurassic Park, and I mean just all of these things,
24:33
Speaker 3: and and all of that happens because George Lucas isn't
24:36
Speaker 3: stingy with the money he makes from the merchandising. He
24:42
Speaker 3: actually just gives that back. And I think and and
24:46
Speaker 3: to top it all off, the man sells lucasfilm and
24:51
Speaker 3: gives away a ton of that money and then creates
24:55
Speaker 3: a museum to celebrate what he loves, which is film
24:59
Speaker 3: that people can go to. And so I think that's
25:02
Speaker 3: the difference.
25:03
Speaker 2: Man.
25:04
Speaker 4: I think that is a great point to end on.
25:07
Speaker 4: And I'll add one sentence to that, because I love
25:10
Speaker 4: the way you're painting that, because I think it does
25:13
Speaker 4: speak exactly to this sort of core difference that we
25:18
Speaker 4: sense on some sort of lizard brain level. This core
25:23
Speaker 4: level is that essentially we're the stockholders. The toys that
25:30
Speaker 4: we bought were stock investments in this empire that he
25:34
Speaker 4: built to deliver more movies to us that we wanted
25:38
Speaker 4: to see. So instead of sitting on a board and
25:40
Speaker 4: buying a piece of paper, we bought a little totem
25:43
Speaker 4: of the thing that we loved, and then that became
25:48
Speaker 4: the thing that we would later see developed back in
25:51
Speaker 4: on us. So I think that's awesome, And so I
25:56
Speaker 4: think if anybody wants to discuss this with you online
25:59
Speaker 4: further or where else can they speak with you.
26:03
Speaker 3: People can check me out all over the place on
26:04
Speaker 3: social media under the name Matt Rushing Zoe two. Of course,
26:07
Speaker 3: here on the network, I've got a completed show called
26:09
Speaker 3: Outposts with Dre Kauffman talk about every single chapter the
26:11
Speaker 3: Harry Potter series, one chapter a time. You could also
26:14
Speaker 3: find me over on the TFN network with a bunch
26:16
Speaker 3: of shows, including The six of two Club, which is
26:18
Speaker 3: a general geet show where we talk about all of
26:20
Speaker 3: the fanoms that we love, so hopefully people will join
26:23
Speaker 3: us there. And John, you're a frequent guest, and last,
26:27
Speaker 3: but not least, Yeah, we just like you to give
26:30
Speaker 3: us a start, rating and review over on Apple Podcasts.
26:33
Speaker 4: And you can find me right here on the nerd
26:35
Speaker 4: Party network for House Lights with Tristan Riddell and Darren Moser,
26:39
Speaker 4: where we talk about the different works of directors. We
26:41
Speaker 4: recently celebrated two hundred episodes, which is a milestone, and
26:46
Speaker 4: on top of that, you can just find me out
26:48
Speaker 4: there working with Matt.
26:51
Speaker 3: But John, I think it's time to close these negotiations
26:54
Speaker 3: because I hear the chimes over at the Jedi temple
26:58
Speaker 3: calling us for meditation.
27:00
Speaker 4: Well, then let's go meditate and see what type of
27:03
Speaker 4: trouble we can conjure. Master Rushing. Negotiations are closed.
27:13
Speaker 3: Join the Revolution, Join the nerd Party.