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Issue 344: A Jedi Carol · Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast

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  I'm going to regret this. Welcome to the Note Paul team. Hi,
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  this is Nick Anstasu, story editor on Star Wars, The Clone Wars and
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  Star Wars bad Batch, and you are listening to Aggressive Negotiations. It's a
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  jingle jangle morning here at Aggressive Negotiations, the Star Wars podcast that is trying
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  to bring just a little bit of cheer to you at this time of year.
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  I'm one of your hosts, Jedi Master John Mills, and I'm joined
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  on this merry mixer of a podcast by my dear friend, my compatriot,
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  my fellow Jedi Master, Matthew Rushing. Matt are you ready to get silly
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  with today's topic? I absolutely am ready for that, and I'm absolutely ready
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  for people to go ahead and give us a review at Apple Podcasts. If
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  it's not the worst podcast you've ever listened to, why not give us a
• 0:53
  five? Be fun, be silly, and you, of course can reach
• 0:56
  out to us online at the Jedi Masters on X and and at join nerd
• 1:00
  Party for the Network on X and the Nerd Party on Facebook and Instagram.
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  And if you can find our TikTok account, please let us know because we
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  don't have one anyway, all right, Matt, So we are here at
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  you know, we're recording at the most magical time of the year for many
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  and I had another one of my silly topics come to mind. We've talked
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  about a couple of different things, but I wanted to get your take on
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  something here. I recently encountered the live action version of How the Grinch Stole
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  Christmas. Not a fan particularly, but it put me in the mind to
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  think about the Grinch, okay, and I suddenly realized that there's sort of
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  like a two part thing here. One is Luke Skywalker in the Last Jedi
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  simply the Grinch on Mount Crumpet. And two, my other favorite movie to
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  watch at this time of year is any version of a Christmas Carol. And
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  we know that at the core of a Christmas Carol as a visit by four
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  everybody forgets Marley by four different ghosts who basically kick Scrooge in the spiritual head
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  and say, wake up, bro, you're kind of screwing things up right
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  now. And given where you and I differ about the presence and function of
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  force ghosts, shouldn't we be able to get some sort of Christmas Carol esque
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  story from Luke, So attack either one of those. Those are the two
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  thoughts going around in my brain right now. You know, I think that's
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  actually a really interesting idea, you know, the ghosts of Jedi past,
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  present, and future coming to visit Luke on OK two and the whole Like
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  you saying that, I'm thinking this really could be, you know, a
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  fun It almost feels like it would be a very fun like fan fiction almost
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  type story to have happened between the last Jedi and and you know, the
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  Rise of Skywalker almost where you know, Luke has made it to the nether
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  world of the Force, and then he's visited by the Force ghosts who like,
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  let him know, you didn't do such a great job there, Bro.
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  And so then when he of course meets with Ray in the Rise of
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  Skywalker, you know, he seems to be singing a whole different tune.
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  And you know, so I think this actually is the perfect way to kick
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  off this conversation because it also ties into our conversation about a holiday special,
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  and this seems like the perfect holiday special to do. I think it would
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  be a great holiday special. The only unfortunate thing is to stay quote unquote
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  within Ken of course, you're right. The visit from the three ghosts would
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  have to happen basically in the world between worlds. I mean, Ahsoka has
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  this sort of experience with the ghost of Anakin in the Ahsoka series. He
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  exactly a singular role, but he takes her through her past and she has
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  to deal with her present to overcome her fear of the future, which is
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  the journey that Scrooge goes on exactly, So we have precedent now. I
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  just think it's such a missed opportunity because since we have established now with the
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  sequel trilogy, if we are going to accept that as further expanding what force
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  ghosts are capable of, one would think that they could have crossed over into
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  the land of the Living to set Luke right before everything went wrong. But
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  I'm willing to accept your interpretation, But which three force ghosts because the only
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  two Jedi he encounters personally, I mean, I guess Anakin would have to
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  be the third one. Those would be his three force ghosts, right,
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  But it would have to kick off somehow, you know. I think that
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  you might actually just kind of get it in the framework of the Jedi that
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  Luke knew so you would have Oi Wan first, you would have Yoda second,
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  and you know then you would have Vader and Slash, Anakin being the
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  third, you know, Anakin being the one who kind of brings everything home.
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  And you know what I think makes this actually the most interesting as an
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  actual story idea is because of the way in which they've dealt with Anakin in
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  the Ahsoka series. And you know, the fact that this whole experience allows
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  Anakin. Ahsoka's experience with Anakin, the things she learned from Anakin and the
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  things that she's been holding on about herself to in many ways be redeemed right.
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  She can now see the forest and the trees and distinguish between the two
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  and see the good, the bad, the ugly, the great, you
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  know, all the things that were actually beneficial. And I think she can
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  more rightly see herself now and the ways in which you know, she is
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  not Anakin, she will not turn into Anakin. And mainly because throughout her
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  life, you know, she's made different decisions. And so I think the
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  opportunity then for Luke to have this experience, and I think, you know,
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  you bringing this up just kind of brings to mind my whole frustration in
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  general with the fact that I don't know if it's necessarily a terrible idea to
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  have Luke's struggle, but we knew that one of the main reasons to transition
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  to a force ghost is that ability to be able to impact future generations because
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  you can come back. We saw that happen. I mean, and I'm
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  not just basing this in my opinion, like you see that happen because we
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  know that it's Qui Gon who contacts Yoda, puts him on this journey.
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  Then Yoda puts Obi Wan on this journey, and then you know, obi
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  Wan of course puts Luke on this journey, and so and in some ways,
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  you know, we also see that somehow Anakin has found his way into
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  this journey. So there's so much I think here that the idea of force
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  ghosts really allows us to be able to, you know, learn from the
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  past, and you know, with the Obi Wan show showing us that you
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  know, they're always there, you just have to be willing to see them.
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  I think that this idea with Luke is just so rife for storytelling,
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  but it also frustrates me in some ways that it was never used just in
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  this sequel trill in the first place, because it also seems like this would
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  have been a thing that would have been incredibly beautiful and powerful. And talk
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  about ways of bringing the entire series, you know together, I just don't
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  you know, when you talk about prequels, original trilogy and sequel trilogy,
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  I can't think of many better ways to bring all of it together. A
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  couple of things going off of what you're talking about there is with the past,
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  present future. It's it's interesting because encounters with forced ghosts is a consistent
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  thing. And additionally, you have a situation where one of my favorite versions
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  of a Christmas Carol alec Innis actually plays Marley, so that's pretty great.
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  But I think the first person that Luke would encounter as a spirit would be
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  like evil the evil side would be Darth Vader, because it's sort of like
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  he's, you know, the evil spirit never truly gets out. Marley never
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  really gets out, but he buys a chance for Scrooge to do it.
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  And additionally, the way that Dickens describes the three ghosts that then visit Scrooge
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  is the ghost of Christmas Past, is a little bit sad, you know,
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  car is the torch Bearer. The Ghost of Christmas Present is obviously a
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  little silly, a lot of fun. Everybody loves that character, but has
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  a very deep, somber knowledge. And then the Ghost of Christmas Future is
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  about everything that you fear, So that could even tie into the way Ahsoka
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  encountered Anakin in the world between worlds is she's afraid she's going to become him,
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  and because you're reflective of where you came from, and that's how it
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  all plays together. But what I think is really something to hold on to
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  with it is this idea. Also, you could have it happen after Luke
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  has transitioned over into the spirit realm. You can say, well, why
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  would it happen? Then one of the lessons could be that time sort of
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  means nothing after a certain point. Time is how this crude matter if you
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  will not the luminous beings encounter reality. Time is just the way we understand
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  the eternal and that could be a lesson in and of itself, And that's
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  a lesson that I think fits right in with Star Wars. We even know
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  Lucas was playing with that idea, and it's it's one of those things where
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  I think that. I'd be very interested because of course we know that they're
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  working on a Ray movie. I would be very interested to see how Ray
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  encounters the spirit world. Would she encounter Kylo, would she encounter Luke?
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  Would she like, would anybody come back and talk to her? But I
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  and I'm not going to dwell on this because I'm still trying to keep it
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  sort of light in everything, But it really does demonstrate how they didn't really
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  think through force ghosts in the sequel trilogy. Regardless of whether they change rules,
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  whether they keep the same rules, anything like that. They were just
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  more a convenient story point to throw in there when they needed in. There's
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  like, yeah, the plot accelerator more than something substantive. As you were
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  talking, I was just thinking, you know, in the Old EU,
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  they had come up with rules for themselves about force ghosts because they didn't want
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  them to be a crutch, and you know, therefore, they the way
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  they handled them was they kind of set a time limit, like there's only
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  so much time in you know, the physical world that they can they can
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  manifest themselves, and after that, you know, they go the way of
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  wherever they go, and you know, so they had come up with some
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  rules about that, and I think, you know, you talking about that
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  idea of you know that just not really necessarily thinking it through all the way.
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  Just it reminds me of one meet the Robinson's with the TV I got
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  a big head and little arms, and I just don't think anybody thought this
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  through. But you know, I do. I do think that that was
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  the case with with Force Ghost and it maybe maybe in some ways, and
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  this could possibly be the case. Maybe they were just afraid really to touch
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  it in effort and they you know, what do you what do you do?
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  Uh So, But all that said, you know, I think it's
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  it's interesting that this question has kind of led us back to the previous question
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  of this does kind of seem like the way in which you could do a
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  holiday story in a holiday special that really truly does fit in with the spirit
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  of the season that we're in, you know, as you know, human
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  beings on this planet. But also I think in a way that that truly
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  fits in with the spirit of Star Wars and makes it feel I think,
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  you know, kind of real and in all of that. So, I
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  I don't know, I'm just like, I mean, Disney, are you
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  listening well, let me flip it on its head. Even let's get let's
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  keep silly. And I do want to double back to the Luca's Grinch thing
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  because I'm like, like a dog with a bone, I'm not gonna let
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  go of that one. But when you come in here and you're talking about,
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  okay, Luke encounters that you know, we have sort of like a
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  Christmas special sort of thing. Wouldn't even Palpatine be given the same sort of
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  shot. Wouldn't he have the same sort of gatekeepers coming. Wouldn't there be
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  an obligation even if it's Mace Windu showing up and saying like, hey,
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  bro, listen you you kind of kind of screwed the pooch on this one.
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  Is there something about the evil characters that we don't, especially Sidious,
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  where we don't want to give them this out? Like, would would Sidius's
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  be the ghost of Snoke, the ghost of Mace wind Do, the ghost
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  of uh, I don't know who else? You know? Plaguiests would have
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  to show up, Plague, this would be his Marley, right. Plagus
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  would be like, all right, we're gonna have a really long discussion right
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  now to go through that one. Moment, you know, if Palpatine was
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  telling the truth. But you know, I don't think they've discarded James James
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  Lucendo's book yet, But yeah, like, would you accept a sort of
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  dark side version of this, maybe we'd said it at Halloween, it's our
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  nightmare before Christmas version of this? Would you accept that? You know,
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  I think that Lucas has said, if I remember correctly somewhere, that the
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  reason that I mean, Sith wouldn't even want this in the first place.
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  True, you know, because they're they're so wrapped up in the material.
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  They don't care about anything spiritual, you know, and the only way reason
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  they care about the force is an attempt to continue to have power in the
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  here and the now. They don't care about anything else. And so,
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  you know, I think that's the one thing where you know, they they
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  kind of chose their fate, you know, it's it's the same I think
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  of yeah C. S Lyss's book The Great Divorce, where he helps explain
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  hell as being the very thing that people have asked for their entire lives,
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  right, and so you know, in some ways, you know, for
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  the Sith, what they've asked for is to care only about this existence,
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  and so if there is any existence past, you know, them turning in
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  becoming part of the Force in the end of their lives, that I can't
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  imagine that they could be given any choice other than to basically be tortured for
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  what they've done to the galaxy. You know, well maybe maybe maybe maybe
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  the torture is that the force ghosts don't stop for all eternity. You know
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  those ghosts show up and continually haunted. Well, maybe there's like a rotation
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  too, so that like, you know, they don't get tired of it
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  where it's like, all right, who's got this shift, who's got this
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  millennia off? Trying to talk to the citious character down there? Yeah,
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  fine, I'll take it whatever. It's eternity, it's fine. I think
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  that. I think that, Yes, it's very true the Sith and I
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  like your call out to the great divorce there because everybody in that they choose
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  to go there are people who they choose to go back. Yeah, because
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  it's what they chose, yep. And it doesn't matter how many opportunities you
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  give them. So I almost what I almost wonder is, though, if
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  you could turn it into having just one representative story of a flip side of
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  it, like maybe you could do this these two ideas and sort of like
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  the Tales of the Jedi sort of six episodes series where you have each one
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  encounter and you see how Luke plays it, and then you get the Sith
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  take. We're basically at the end. Somebody like Citious is like, no,
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  yeah, I don't want it. I don't want peace. I want
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  to go back. I'm going to try to find any way to go back.
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  And then guess what, we just backed our way into an excuse for
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  how somebody like Citius finds a way to come back from death because he just
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  he has forever to work on it, and he's going to find his way
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  to squirrel through the gate or something like that, and just you know,
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  find out he's doomed to get defeated again and thrown you know, back into
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  the pit as it were, right, But that I think could be even
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  an interesting sort of thing, you know. I feel like that's the kind
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  of thing where those those are the type of places where it's really interesting to
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  play. But for something like the Infinity type comics, you know, where
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  you know, you've got these alternate type of ideas and you're kind of really
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  playing with that or in some ways you know, we've talked about on the
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  show before Star Wars Visions, Right, it just almost seems like that's a
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  great place for it, is Star Wars Visions to kind of play with this.
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  If somebody had this idea, that would be the type of place that
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  you would want to play with this idea because you could do that because you're
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  not bound to anything other than Star Wars, and that's even tangential at that
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  point, you know, with some of the things we have seen in that
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  series. So this is you know, I think almost a perfect idea for
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  that. Yeah, you know, I'd even love to play with the idea
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  of at some point in the distant past that part of the Sith regimen was
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  burning that spirituality out of someone like you don't truly ascend to Sith until you
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  burn that spirituality out. And that's the mistake Palpatine makes is Anakin's never fully
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  converted. Yeah, Anakin is, you know, Anakin converts and Anakin becomes
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  evil, there's no doubt about that, but his heart isn't in it the
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  way that arth Maul's would be, or even honestly, the way darth Tyrannis's
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  wound up being so yeah, I mean even Dooku in the after world.
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  Oh, Douku would maybe be one of Sidius's ghosts, but I think Douku's
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  Douku's appearance would be more along the lines of listen, we're both in hell.
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  But I might as well talk to you because it gets boring, you
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  know, that sort of thing. But to close it out right, I
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  do want to come back. Do you think that we could have a thirty
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  minute animated special with music where Luke Skywalker on OC two is the Grinch?
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  Yeah, there you go. You have it, folks, right there.
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  He finally accepted one is it's one of the greatest festifest miracles of all time.
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  Matt went along with one of my crazy ideas. So I'm going to
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  bow out at this point because it doesn't get any better than this. Matt,
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  So that people can rain accolades upon you for being my co executive producer
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  on this thirty minute special with lucas the Grinch. Where can they reach you
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  online? Well, of course you can find me all over the place on
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  social media under the name Matt rushing Zo. Too. Here on the network,
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  you'll find me doing an outpost with Drake Coffman as we talked about every
• 20:14
  single chapter the Harry Potter series, and over on the TFM network doing a
• 20:18
  bunch of shows, of course the six oh two Club. You can find
• 20:21
  all the franchises we love in one place. You can also find literary treks,
• 20:26
  the orb Warp five and the Artificial Tango and John. When people are,
• 20:32
  you know, not trying to figure out exactly what you're talking about online,
• 20:37
  where can people find you? Nobody can figure that out. To quote
• 20:40
  a line from Diehard with a Vengeance, not even God knows what I'm doing.
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  So you can find me as Kessel Junkie k s s E l j
• 20:47
  u n kie. You should know how to spell it by now if you've
• 20:48
  been listening for any length of time, and you can find me actually co
• 20:52
  hosting a show here on the network called house Lights with Tristan Riddell and Darren
• 20:59
  Moser, will look at the work of directors. It's a film podcast.
• 21:02
  Shocker. But with that said, I hear the bells ringing for Jedi,
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  a Jedi Carol. That's what we're gonna call it, a Jedi Carol.
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  Yes, back at the temple, So Master Rushing, I think it's time
• 21:18
  to close these negotiations. Sewn negotiations our clook. Join the revolution, Join
• 21:27
  the Nerd Party,