Latest / Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast / Issue 319: REY-Turn of the Jedi

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Issue 319: REY-Turn of the Jedi · Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast

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Hello, then welcome to the Nerd Polity. Hi. This is Nick Nastashu,
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story editor on Star Wars, The Clone Wars and Star Wars bad Batch,
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and you are listening to Aggressive Negotiations. I'd like to talk to you
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about aggressive negotiations. Sorry for the inside joke there, but if you follow
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matt and myself around, you just got it. And that little joke is
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for all of us. I am Jedi Master John Mills, and I am
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here on Aggressive Negotiations, joined with my esteemed Jedi Master friend Matthew Rushing,
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who is very busy right now peering into the future trying to see what the
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magic eight Ball of Destiny tells him about the future of the Star Wars movies.
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How's that going from It's going well, I'm shaking it up, and
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it says it's your turn to talk next. So we finally answered that question
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from the sequel trilogy, so well, I can definitely say that the Magic
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eight Ball has once again betrayed me. So I will go ahead and say
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that none of us should be surprised by that. But what we should be
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surprised by is if you haven't had a chance yet to go over and give
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us a rating and review over on Apple Podcasts, because of course we'd really
1:19
appreciate it. And here we are on the nerd Party. So go to
1:23
the nerdparty dot com, slash contact and reach out to us and let us
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know what you think, what we should be talking about, and what we
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got right, what we got wrong. We just love talking to people.
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It's just it's what we do. It's podcasting, it's talking, it's what
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it's a thing. So there is going to be the return of Race Skywalker
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in a movie that is set fifteen years after the sequel trilogy, where I'm
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going to pull a direct quote from miss Kathleen Kennedy here where she says,
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well, we're fifteen years out from Rise of Skywalker, so we're post war,
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post first Or, and the Jedi are in disarray. There's a lot
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of discussion around who are the Jedi, what are they doing, what's the
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state of the galaxy. She's attempting to rebuild the Jedi Order based on the
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books, based on what she promised Luke. So that's where we're going.
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So we're post war, post First Order, and the Jedi are in disarray
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as Ray is trying to rebuild them so I think that puts us in disarray?
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Is that is that a pun? If it is, it's unintentional,
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but a delicious one. I gotta ask Matt. You know, the wheels
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immediately start turning, the Jedi are in disarray. What can you imagine the
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starting point as here for this fifteen years later movie. Well, I do
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think that this is an interesting question, and mainly because you know, at
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we know Luke is gone at this point. Of course, you know Ben
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Skywalker, Ben Solo has died as well, and you know, we're not
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really sure what other Jedi may be around at this point. You know,
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we don't know who's alive other than Ray, and so it does create I
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think, I don't know, the quote from Kathleen Kennedy does seem a little
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bit strange that there would be disarray. It makes me, you know,
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interested though, and intrigued. The thought of Okay, Ray's calling is to
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re begin the Jedi order and what it should look like moving forward, what
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it should be, how it should be evolved in the rest of the galaxy
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is obviously a question that we would have hoped that Luke Skywalker would have been
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answering with his you know, Jedi Temple and workings with bringing back the Jedi,
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but of course that's not the way the story went, and so that
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now falls to Ray to answer these questions. We know she has the Jedi
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Library, which will most likely be helpful for her. But we have all
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of this history, you know, we've we've talked about it many of times
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here on this show as well as the six o two Club when we've talked
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about Star Wars. This idea of the places in which you know the Jedi
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got things wrong, and the ways in which you know they were, you
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know, too closely aligned with the government of the Republic at that time,
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and all these type of things, right, And these are all questions that
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you know, somebody that Ray is going to have to answer and to try
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and figure out. Yeah, I'm glad you say, oh, too too
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closely aligned with the government. Okay, let me just throw this out there
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that at the end of the Rise of Skywalker, what government. Well,
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this is true, This is very true. The New Republic is destroyed.
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They clearly state that the First Order took over the galaxy and now the First
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Order is done. If anything, this sounds a lot like the galactic state
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of being that we're getting with the Mandalorian where except you know, obviously we
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have a resurgent empire with the Mandalorian everything, but like you know, the
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Republic's a joke. There isn't really a government. It's sort of a lawless
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time. Is that what we're looking at? Are we looking at sort of
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a hey, that worked in the Mandalorian, let's make that raised world too.
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Do you think we're cruising in that direction? So all of the EU
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books, you know, you think of the Thrawn trilogy and all of those
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things where you think about the x Wing series and all of those early books,
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right, we're about the establishment of the New Republic in light of what
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had happened post Return of the Jedi. And that's not something that we really
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ever got into with this sequel trilogy very much. And you know, Mandalorian
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has subtly touched on some of that in the sense of kind of building to
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what we get in this equal trilogy of a really ineffectual New Republic government,
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one that is too worried about too many different things, not really caring about
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anything that's really mattering. You have these warring factions inside it in the sense
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of political warring going on, and they're they're too busy in and of themselves
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to care about what's really happening in the galaxy, you know, and the
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First Order is able to rise because they're basically treated as the JV squad that
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we don't really need to deal with. Right. So this is fascinating to
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me because as I think about what Kathleen, Kathleen Kennedy is saying here,
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as well as the thought process of you know, as you just mentioned where
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this galaxy is at this moment, it actually does kind of feel like we're
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finally in a place where they're actually going to deal with the things that the
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post Return of the Jedi novels actually did. But you know, forty years
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later, forty five years later, and um, because a lot of those
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questions are going to be having to be answered. And at this point,
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you don't have the um. You can't fall bought, you can't fall back
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on anybody. There's no Luke, there's no Laya, there's no Ray,
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There's here's the problem, there's no Han, you know, there's there's there's
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none of these characters there. Um, And so it really makes me wonder,
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then, Okay, so is that one of the reasons maybe we're wrapping
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up some of this Mando stuff is because maybe some of those characters are actually
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going to play into what we get in this. But but let me ask
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you this question, right, like, you know, oh, there's no
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Luke, there's no Layout, there's no Han. Are we sure there's no
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Luke? Because Yotamate a guest appearance at a certain moment in the sequel trilogy,
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So we know that ghosts are in play. And I'm not I'm not
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saying that that's not the case, but I'm just saying I think what I'm
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trying to get at is just that those are not going to be characters we
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really, I think get to Um have consistently, you know, like that
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they're there again those when I when I'm thinking of the post return of the
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Jedi books, right, those are the main characters. And so they may
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make guest appearances. And I'm sure if if they're smart, they have to
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put Luke's forced ghost in there at some point because otherwise, I mean,
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two, you you want to utilize these characters before you can't, and they
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all and and and the one you've got left that can come back is Mark
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Hamill's Luke Skywalker her so utilize him before he's gone as well. I mean
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that would that it would just be stupid to not do that. But um,
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I think again, the question that we're kind of trying to figure out
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is like, all right, what is what does this world look like?
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And you know, yeah, so I think I think that the smartest possible
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thing they could do. I mean what I think the smartest thing they could
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do is Steer is far away from anything having to do with intricate world building
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as possible. And this is where some people might tear into me for putting
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it this way, But I don't think that the non directly trained by Lucas
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storytellers and star Wars are up to the horrifyingly complex questions of governance that that
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man seemed to be preoccupied with. That's a really, really oblique way of
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saying I haven't seen anybody outside of say, a Tony Gilroy capable of laying
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the groundwork for you know, like a Gilroy or a Felony. Obviously Felony
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you know, trained at Lucas's knee, and the people in the animation division
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obviously are flexing what Lucas taught them and stuff like that. I didn't see
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anything in a sequel trilogy that indicated that they were up to the challenge of
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the complexity necessary for that right. And I'm not familiar enough with Stephen Knight.
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He's the acknowledged writer of this. I'm not familiar enough with what he's
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written to know if he's going to be interested or even if Kathleen Kennedy or
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and I made Butcher the name, and I apologize, but I'm not familiar
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enough with Charmie Obi Chenoi? Is that how you pronounced her? I literally,
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I've only ever seen it written, so I don't know. Yeah,
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I think the smartest decision for them is to steer clear of it and have
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them have Ray acknowledge it in the sense that I don't want to concern myself
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with that because that was the mistake that the Jedi made, and basically they
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have an out to keep it at arms distance and be like, what happens
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in the galaxy isn't really our concern so much as you know, making sure
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that the force, you know, were conduits for it well, And you
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know, one of the things I think that the movie could and I think
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we're could do and where it could, I think it would could be most
11:33
successful then, and and really in a way I think that I didn't find
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the sequel trilogy to be as successful personally. Um, is the idea of
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this really focusing, as they're saying here on the Jedi and you know,
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that's really just not something that we focused very much on. When you when
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you think of the story that we got there, there's there's very very little
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of the actual Jedi Order, right, um, and so and that's something
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that you know, of course we haven't had a ton of because you know,
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the Mandalorians not concerned with that type of storytelling. Nothing wrong with that,
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um. But also the bad Batch is not concerned with that type of
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storytelling. It's not happening in and or right, That's that's not its place.
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Uh. So all of these stories have really, I think, not
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had one of the biggest parts of the Star Wars universe, which is the
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Jedi. And so I think that like you said, if if, if
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this story is focusing on this idea of of who the Jedi Order is going
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to be as Ray looks to bring them back into the galaxy, I think
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that is actually a really interesting question. Um. And I think one that's
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worth exploring and and and if it done well, I think it could be
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a great film and a great series most likely, right, And so to
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me, I think you're onto something in the sense of if if what Kathleen
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Kennedy said there is really the focus of this film, which is the Jedi,
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and that's the core. I think that's great because I do think that
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that's a good question, right, you know, the why is always the
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most important question in Star Wars as to why we do something, And so
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what actually a new Jedi Order, which is what this is being labeled as,
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this is the era that we're going to be in the New Jedi Order.
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I think that's a worthy question to actually create a film series out of.
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While I love what you're saying there, the one challenge I think here
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is before the Mandalorian showed up, there was a decided aversion to the question
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of Midiclorians or they have alluded to in Mando m count. Can they have
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Ray searching for Jedi without some sort of acknowledgement of medic Clorians at this point?
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Do you think that they essue midic Clorians entirely in this and just have
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her I don't know. Using a divining rod or something like that. Yeah,
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this is this is maybe a wild theory, but where we were with
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the Eu Luke was really that continuation of of the Jedi order and the through
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line. And of course, you know the way that story went that that
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didn't really end up being the case of him kind of being the through line
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in that way. So I'm going to throw out to you, we know
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kind of where things are going with the Asoka series. They're going to do
14:56
the day Feloni film, which is it seems as a kind of wrap up
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to all of what they're doing, which seems to be building to basically a
15:05
fraud trilogy type of storyline. And well, I'm wondering, so is basically
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in the end, is Asoka actually going to be our through line? So
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that she would be somebody who could could be there as a wizened old,
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you know, Jedi master. You could also still have somebody like a Grogu
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around because by that point, Grogu's forty five years older, and you know,
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Dindajarin might not actually even be alive at that point because by that point
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he would be very old because he was born I mean, he was a
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kid during the Clone Wars, and yes, even though people live a long
15:50
time in the Star Wars a little wasn't it a little after the Clone Wars
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or something like that? Didn't he say it was a little after? Possibly?
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But you know, any my point I think still stands like he'd be
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really old by the you know he would so, so again, like I'm
16:07
just kind of throwing it out there, is that I feel like there is
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this possibility that our actual through line for all of Star Wars becomes Asoka of
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being able to connect from the I don't you know, the prequel trilogy all
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the way past, you know the sequel trilogy. Um. I don't reject
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it out of hand. I don't think it's likely specifically because of the fact
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that Asoka's story. I haven't seen anything that indicates that they would want to
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do that, because you would have included Asoka in the sequel trilogy if you
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wanted her, is the way I would put it, Or if they could
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have found a way to use her setting aside anything else, anything else that
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might be out there, that might have been in an article somewhere or something
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like that. I think that they wouldn't necessarily want to cloud the storytelling Ahsoka
17:00
for casual fans who might be coming to it and not not get it.
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But additionally, it doesn't feel like this would be Aska's story per se.
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And it feels my sense of it would be if you bring in Asoka,
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she would overshadow Ray in a large in a large sense. I could be
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wrong, I could be way off. For all I know. It's you
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know whatever, It's fine, it's I'm I'm not. I'm not dismissing what
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you're saying out of hand. I'm just I'm playing that sort of like annoying
17:33
skeptic role in the case of it, because I really think that what they
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want to do with this movie, and this is all just based on the
17:41
little snippets of whatever, but my impression is that this is an effort to
17:48
solidify and for lack of a better term, legitimize Ray as a character and
17:55
to give her the complete spotlight. You know. Yeah, I think the
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thing that I and the reason I came to that is that there's a great
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quote from Kathleen Kennedy as she was talking to everybody you know about Star Wars
18:11
and what's coming up in all of this, And I don't have the exact
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quote, but she was talking about the way in which Star Wars is an
18:26
interconnected story, that everything that happens is connected together, and in many ways.
18:34
I was I was really struck by the fact that she said that,
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because I think that is one of the things that I think most fans would
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have said as well, that what makes Star Wars special is that every single
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piece of it matters because it's building into a continuous hole. And so I
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just lay that before you to say, like, I don't think it's necessarily
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one hundred percent. You know, get where you're coming from, and the
19:06
criticism of whether or not that would actually work right and whether or not they
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would actually do that, um, but I could see a way in which
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it almost seems like to me that even with the new timeline that they've given
19:29
in the sense of you know, having these different eras and putting them all,
19:33
plotting them all out, you know, on an outline for us is
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to say that, yes, all of these things are connected. This is
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you know, we're not just trying to do one offs here, you know,
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we're we're trying to figure out how this plays into the whole. And
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so you know, I don't know it just it seems like a really interesting
19:56
idea to me because U in some ways, yes, that allows you to
20:02
be able to kind of find those connection points that are still available to you
20:11
that you know aren't and have it aren't available anymore because of the loss of
20:18
you know, somebody like Carry and you know, the death of characters in
20:22
films and makes them difficult to bring back. So um, you know,
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I, I don't know if it's going to happen. I just think it
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would be great if that was the case. So especially when we're talking about
20:37
the Jedi, and in all honesty, probably the only the Jedi that would
20:41
have any weight that we would know of that's probably going to be left by
20:45
that point would actually be Ahsoka. I agree, Yeah, I know you're
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not disagreeing I I and I appreciate you pushing back because I think I think
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there's a lot of validity to what you're saying. In all honesty, it's
21:03
just it's it's such a it's such a fraud conversation, specifically because I own
21:07
it. Everybody on planet Earth who's ever spoken to me knows that the sequel
21:14
trilogy did not did not land well with me. And you know that I'm
21:22
hopeful because I regard every sequel as an opportunity to make the previous entry even
21:32
better. Happened that way with Aviat. I didn't like Avatar, didn't really
21:36
care for it, went into Avatar Wave of Water. I was like,
21:38
I kind of like Avatar now because I liked Avatar Wave of Water. That
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like, I hope this movie redeems the sequel trilogy. I hope it makes
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me go, Okay, this was the worthwhile journey. We got to the
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point where I'm like, Okay, I get it. But the thing I
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can't help letting go of this is what this is sort of like a think
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a final point to close out on is yes, you know, I pushed
22:02
back a little bit, but I acknowledge the validity of what you're saying about
22:04
Ahsoka. And again I get back to in my head, the Jedi are
22:11
in disarray. The galaxy presumably is going to be in a state of some
22:15
sort of chaos, with a government that's trying to set itself up and no
22:21
empire, and therefore there's probably going to be criminal elements running rampant, and
22:26
Ray is going to be trying to hold the you know, the legacy of
22:30
the Jedi together while potentially being counseled by a wise old Jedi who's ready to
22:37
pass the torch. A lot of this stuff sounds like ideas that Lucas was
22:41
bringing to the table for the sequel trilogy, doesn't it. Yeah, And
22:47
if they do that, it will feel like we went through the sequel trilogy
22:49
just to get to a point where we should have started from to begin with.
22:53
Sure, Yeah, am I fair? And feeling like that would be
22:56
a little frustrating. A one hundred percent believe that you would feel that that
23:06
feeling would be legitimate. I think I would feel the same way as well.
23:11
And you know, I think that the thought process of you know,
23:17
moving into this time period again one that look, whether you loved it or
23:23
hated it, um, this was a period in Star Wars uh and and
23:29
as a group of Star Wars films that I think was more fraught with problems
23:37
for a lot of fans, more so than even the prequel era. And
23:42
so, and like you said, I a hundred percent agree with you that,
23:48
you know, there's there's definitely been times in films to which you know,
23:52
I went into a second film and came out of it more excited about
24:02
the overall whole of a series because that second film was able to do something.
24:08
You know, Obviously, I think a great example you gave was recently
24:14
with Avatar Way of Water. But I also think of you know, and
24:18
many people felt like this too, right, Star Trek too completely made people
24:25
back on fire for Star Trek because Star Trek the motion picture wasn't as well
24:32
received and panned by many fans. So, and let's keep in mind that
24:38
Nicholas Meyer came on board and he wasn't even a Star Trek fan. He
24:45
had done nothing like that before. And from what I know of this director,
24:52
she's not known for I know that she worked on Miss Marvel, so
24:56
she's obviously worked in a franchise before, but the majority of her career has
25:00
been bent toward a different thing other than a Star Wars type of movie.
25:06
So maybe this is the spark that's necessary to reinvigorate things, especially about that
25:12
time period. It could happen. Well, yeah, I mean I like
25:17
that idea that, you know, our goal here is to spark the forces
25:22
again, you know, And and you know, and it's interesting too.
25:27
I Mean, you've got a writer here who has done things like he did
25:33
Pee Blinders. He wrote the movie Spencer about Diana Spencer. You know,
25:38
he worked on the show See that was on Apple TV that Jason Momoa was
25:45
in. You know, he wrote a movie called Burnt that Bradley Cooper was
25:49
in. I did a movie called Amazing Grace. I mean, like,
25:52
so he has a very eclectic group of of work. He has a eclectic
26:03
collection of work that he's done. You know, he's not easily pigeonholed,
26:07
it seems like, so I am going to be interested to see what it
26:11
is that they are able to come up with. You know. On top
26:18
of that, you know, I know that James Mangold, who is going
26:23
to be doing the Dawn of the Jedi era, has apparently talked to Dave
26:27
Feloni, and I'm guessing it seems to me as though Dave is becoming more
26:33
and more ingrained into all things Star Wars and that you know, if you
26:38
want to do something Star Wars wise, you kind of have to run it
26:41
by the man. And so hopefully whatever story that they are coming up with,
26:49
they are you know, running it by Dave as well, just to
26:52
be able to make sure that we're being consistent from beginning the Dawn of the
26:59
Jedi all the way to you know what we're going to get here with the
27:03
new Jedi Order, which would make sense, right because that again, that
27:07
goes to what Cathy was talking about in that quote that I was referencing this
27:11
idea that this is one continuous story and therefore you do need stuff that feels
27:18
consistent for the universe and make sense within the universe. And so you know,
27:26
that's that's a great idea. So hopefully that kind of stuff is happening
27:29
as well. And you know, in all honesty, it's Star Wars,
27:33
and I wanted to be good, right, you know, I want this
27:37
film to be good. Regardless of whether or not I liked the sequel trilogy.
27:42
One of the things that I am excited about is that I always enjoyed
27:45
Daisy Ridley. I thought she was a great actress and she absolutely deserved even
27:51
more than I thought that the sequel trilogy gave her, because I thought she
27:56
just the character was interesting and just deserved more. That was maybe one of
28:02
my main frustrations with the trilogy is that it just didn't give these characters enough
28:07
to do. But John, we haven't even talked about I mean, don't
28:10
you need to bring back like John Boyega, don't doesn't Poe need to be
28:15
coming back into this series? I mean, like, aren't there some characters
28:18
here that we should be I mean, especially since we know Finn is force
28:23
sensitive, you have to bring Finn back. Yeah, I mean, you
28:27
can't not have Finn in this story. I would like to say that that's
28:32
one hundred percent yes, but at that point we're trying to you know,
28:37
look into the future, and Yoda warned us about that, and you know,
28:40
always in motion it is. But I think it's true. I think
28:42
Poe is optional. You can write him out being like, oh, he's
28:45
off with the government, We're not concerned with the government, and then you
28:48
can have Finn and say, yeah, I do need Finn and finally get
28:56
Finn to be the character that they originally envisioned him to be before the last
29:02
Jedi completely undid him and really really go off in that direction. You know.
29:06
Yeah, I mean I think that there are there are a lot of
29:11
story possibilities, you know, as a famous Vulcan from another Star franchise said,
29:17
there are always possibilities, and I think there is still a lot on
29:21
the table for this new Jedi Order era, and so there is a I
29:29
would say, a spark of hope that this would be good, and I
29:33
always have the spark of hope that we will deliver a good episode of aggressive
29:37
negotiations. I think we have this time. But if anybody out there wants
29:42
to harass you being scandalized by our opinions about the future of Star Wars storytelling
29:49
as it pertains to Daisy Ridley portraying Race Skywalker, where can they find you
29:55
online? Well, the best places to find me are all over social media.
30:00
I am active most on Twitter, Instagram, Letterbox and Varro and I
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name there and all of those places as Matt Rushing two. Of course,
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here on the network, you'll find me doing our Post, which is a
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completed show. At the moment, we may be bringing it back, you
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never know, because we got a big announcement about Harry Potter stuff, and
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we covered every single chapter of the Harry Potter series, one chapter at the
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time. Over on the TFM network, you'll find me doing a bunch of
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shows. One is called the six or two Club, which John is a
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frequent guest over there, and in fact, as this episode is coming out
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to you, you will have an episode of the six or two Club where
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we're talking about the Bad Batch, So you will want to check that out
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because it is as always when John and I talk about the Bad Batch,
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it's going to be a blast. You can also find me doing literary treks,
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the orb Warp, five Saddle Up, and the Artificial Tango all over
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there on the TFM network. But John, if people want to catch the
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best place to get a ronto rap, where would they find you? Oh,
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the best place to get a ronto rap actually is at the source.
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Go to the most sizely cantina and just stand outside and see what happens.
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But you can find me as Kessel Junkie out there on the space lanes.
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You can find me on letterbox on social media. That's the most fun place.
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It's I get in the least amount of trouble there. And you can
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find me right here on the network, co hosting a show called house Lights
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where we look at the work of directors by different categorizations, eras, decades,
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every single which way we can possibly think of it. And you know,
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outside of that, I think, actually it's time to close these negotiations.
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John. Negotiations are clothed Join the Revolution, Join the Nerd Party,