The Last Jedi

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check I only know one truth It's time for the podcast to end Good, yes

[00:00:27] But see, the joke is that this is the beginning Of the podcast Of the episode And the podcast isn't gonna end It's not It's 2018 It's an end of a year It's coming Yeah This is the end It's time for the podcast's year to end

[00:00:42] After this episode is completed It's beginning now A one-week Christmas break Hello, Mary Fennellmas, Happy Fennellka to all of you I've been dropping Fennell from a lot of previous episodes So I wanted to make it up here with some holiday greetings We've been phoning in Ben's introduction

[00:01:02] Let's put it on the table There's not so much time in the day Yeah, it takes a lot It takes a lot out of me We've been DMing it in We've been aiming it in Yeah The thing people don't know is that when I start the introduction

[00:01:14] We have a registered nurse come in And hook me up to an IV drip Because I've started... There are a couple episodes where I pass out In the middle of doing Ben's introduction Yeah And then we have to hold for like an hour or two

[00:01:28] To resuscitate me before we can finish talking about Hollow Man Spoiler alert We talk about Hollow Man In our Hollow Man episode Also in the basic instinct episode In most episodes, I don't know, whatever Who cares? Hi, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David I'm Griffin

[00:01:44] I'm David Griffin Newman Sims My name is Griffin Newman and I rock the mic Maybe Sims Also rock the mic Yeah This is a podcast about filmographies Directors who have mastered successfully on their career And given a series of blank checks to make whatever

[00:01:57] Crazy passion projects they want And sometimes those checks clear And sometimes they bounce, baby Okay But before that Before we blossomed like a butterfly Out of a cocoon Our earlier larval state Very larval Yes Highly larval Was that of a No Bits Pro-Smits podcast

[00:02:20] A podcast about the Phantom Manus trilogy Mm-hmm But it became a trilogy and we were I'm loading up Wikipedia Wikipedia We talked the wars Yeah We used to be a Star Wars podcast for like a whole year We talked about the prequels for forever We were war boys

[00:02:36] And then we tossed off some episodes about the original movies That are very Contentious and I was gonna say friendly and fun and light And remember when we recorded all of those in like three days I know Well, you know what the other thing about that is

[00:02:52] And just like look at how time passes, okay When we recorded those episodes I was retired Right? I'd retired from entertainment Uh-huh My career was over Is that how like What was that thing you were talking about Voluntary Involuntary syllabus Oh, in cell? Yeah I was

[00:03:10] You were like one of those virgins Who was, yeah Inret Okay, go ahead Involuntary retirement Okay, go on Go on You know I was going through a rough period where I was blacklisted From the industry Due to not being talented enough Due to disinterest

[00:03:29] Complete lack of interest in you Yeah Yeah, but then somehow I got people to hire me It's called the blank check bump my friends Thank you That's what it's called And in the opposite direction When we were recording our episodes about the sequel trilogy

[00:03:42] Which of course is a new hope Empire Strikes Back Return of the Jedi The sequels, right? Yeah We were very stressed out because We had not seen the Force Awakens yet It was right before the Force Awakens came out But a lot of your friends

[00:03:57] Your colleagues in the world of film criticism Had seen it Right And you had this irritation about the fact that Looks so close and gets so far I didn't get into the press screening For Force Awakens two years ago And you've slid like Giffield into the last two

[00:04:08] Star Wars movies early So we saw fucking Force Awakens Together for the first time Right, it was fresh for both of us this But wrote one Yeah And now The Last Jedi You're sitting there With me and with Ben producer Ben

[00:04:22] The Ben Deucer, the poet laureate, the haze Mr. Positive, Mr. Positive The tiebreaker, finance film critic The poet laureate, birthday Benny The peeper, the farth tag-tip The meat lover, we had really good seats Reserve seating, soaking wet Benny White hop Benny I bought those tickets That's right

[00:04:39] And sir, thank you I took those seats Graduated to certain tall over the course of Different Merry Citrus Producer Ben Kenobi Ben and Shyamalan, Ben say Say Benny thing Dot dot dot Ailey Ben's with the dollar sign Warhaw's, Purdue or Bane And Ben, I'm the fennel maker

[00:04:51] And I reordered a little bit today Because most relevantly Kylo Ben True Yeah Ben's solo But really Kylo Ben Really Kylo Ben Really Kylo Ben Really Kylo Ben I was there too yet Hi Hey Ben But you had seen it for a second time

[00:05:08] You were fucking old pro You knew your way around the movie And the first time I saw it Which was three days earlier At the press conference I was sitting there Which was three days earlier At the press conference Humble, right Which is not that much

[00:05:19] But it feels like a lifetime Especially because I'm going I'm logging on And you and Esther Zuckerman And fucking Rai Laws You're throwing out inside jokes Got porgs Yeah Porg jokes Inside porgs Yeah And I It is For one the press screening audience Was amped Yeah

[00:05:40] Really really appreciative and loud And like laughing and clapping And like really into it Where's the audience Our audience was a little bottled They like cheered at like The movies like two or three Largest moments But apart from that Were pretty much like quiet Right Correct

[00:05:57] But we also didn't have An uprising at our theater Unlike some theaters Oh wait what happened to some theaters Do you not know about this thing I'm not uprising Okay So like these theaters You know these multiplexes Every screen pretty much is Devoted to last Jedi

[00:06:10] So that they have a screening Going on every 20 minutes Right Yes Because like we We ended up Chaos We ended up sitting next to a friend Patrick Hotner We did Patrick walks the Walk Hotner By total chance he had the Reserve seat next to us

[00:06:23] He'd reserved in row H And I assured you And I assured you Of the 34th street AMC I would not have let that happen On purpose No I was horrified No it was nice to see Patrick But like I ran into friends In the lobby In the escalator

[00:06:34] Right Yeah And I was like Are we in the same theater My friend Stephen Kelly I saw In the escalator And it was like You know they're like this regular Yes So they're kept on a really tight clock Because they're trying to squeeze

[00:06:46] As many showtimes as they can On every screen Running nonstop Not only that With the long move Not only that We weren't allowed into the theater Like 15 minutes before it started I think they were They were letting out Like having the The tight times You know between

[00:06:59] Be really tight They're bumper to bumper Yeah So some AMC with like 16 screens I don't know What city it's in Okay Sure One of the screenings One of the like You know 1045 screenings Where people have like bought their tickets Fucking three months in advance

[00:07:14] And amped to see Star Wars Trailers around Everything's normal Movie starts no sound Yeah Great Zero sound Just what you want So it's just like Yes I was doing the Star Wars title For those of you who are home David's doing the crawl And the floating

[00:07:29] Star Wars title Silently God that would be so upsetting Right Because you really need that You know Yeah So immediately everyone knows Something's wrong Like the sound isn't even I would be bummed out If I didn't get that initial blast But then the sound was turned on

[00:07:44] A millisecond after That would be bummed out too But they're going through the crawl And there's still no sound So within one minute People are eating each other I'm assuming Right They start going out to the lobby And complaining And they're like I don't know what to do

[00:07:57] I don't know what to do And they're saying like restart it Yeah of course Restart the movie Of course Like we need to get off On a good foot Restart it And they're struggling To figure out what it is And it takes like 15 minutes

[00:08:08] Where the film is playing Now into dialogue scenes With no sound Jesus And some people are still in there Watching this But a lot of the crowd has come out And they're like muting And also the first section Of this movie is all sound Correct There's not like

[00:08:23] Dialogue is not what's You know matters here Although you get some A plus Leason whimpering We're going to get to all of it But so they're out now chanting And you have people with fucking swords Right with like laser swords They can cut through anything Yeah

[00:08:40] And they're like chanting Restart it Restart it Restart it These poor AMC employees And then this one fucking AMC employee Comes out and he goes like Okay we've identified the problem Sure The sound is back on in the theater Because most of the theater

[00:08:54] Has now left that screen Yeah of course Right No one's like still in there So we've identified the problem The sound is back on Unfortunately we will not be Able to restart the film My jaw just dropped We can refund your tickets

[00:09:05] And you can pick a later showing It's like but the fucking all of them Are sold out They're all sold out Oh my god And their videos online But it led to police being called in I'm not surprised It didn't turn violent But the AMC employee

[00:09:19] I think was so terrified For his well being I would be terrified I feel bad for the AMC employees To be clear because They didn't really ask for this I feel bad for the cops Who showed up And then just saw a bunch of kids

[00:09:28] In like X-Wing suits Going like Yeah they're just chanting Restart it This isn't a police matter Did you see my favorite tweet About Star Wars? Which one? About the town No There have been so many great Everyone's been out there On their A game being funny Yeah

[00:09:46] Shout out to Ben Makler Who has my favorite tweet thread That one's good I won't spoil it for you About the medallionians Okay Google Ben Makler Medallionians This is from Dan Klein So fucking annoyed Crowd at my last Jedi screening Wouldn't stop chanting The town

[00:10:02] Over and over again until the theater Buckled and played Ben Affleck's The Town That's a joke about the restarted thing Though That's why I'm bringing it up The town But you watched the video Of all of them like swarming Like the lobby surrounding this

[00:10:17] Like 18 year old AMC general manager And it feels like an episode of the Twilight Zone Like it feels like All right Shirley Jackson's The Lottery All right but we started The 34th Street AMC Which is pretty mediocre theater It's a real middle of the road Multiplied

[00:10:32] Yeah and the seats are really bad Yeah bad seats Awful I mean like our seats were Like our view was fine But like the seats are just Cruddy Which is also fascinating because it's It's a relatively recent theater On the great scheme of things

[00:10:45] It was opened in like 2003-2004 It was I think AMC is just revamping Theater by theater You know how the 20th You know the Times Square one's nicer now Right And I think this one's Just hasn't happened yet Also maybe because it's the newest Of the AMCs

[00:10:59] That it's now the last in line To be renovated But God it certainly isn't Looking great these days No It's also this annoying theater Where the bathrooms are on a different floor Well that's the worst thing about it Although those bathrooms are Appreciably massive They're great But yes

[00:11:15] Yes I'm Max Bathrooms But we saw it there Yeah And we watched the movie So that's the end of the episode Thank you so much for listening Please remember to rate, review, subscribe Oh no I wanted to just say What I thought of the movie Oh okay Good

[00:11:29] Yeah I liked it Good okay so now we're done Oh yeah okay Da da da da Ba da ba da da da da Ba da da ra da da No it's the song Everyone knows the song Alright but wait Can I propose something Can I propose something

[00:11:46] We did our ending song But can we just do a post script Where we like go In a little more depth This is like at the end When we like sometimes Ben will slip in the outtakes Okay So this is the post script About the movie

[00:11:56] is blank check. You know a lot of people are like great, they liked it, swipe delete. But you know if you just want a little more depth this is the post script right? Sure. Ben not interested in my bits. Oh it's fine, it's fine, let's get into it.

[00:12:11] This is like the eighth time Ben's recorded with us in the last 20 minutes. Right now we've recorded the entire Verhoeven miniseries plus bonus episodes. Correct. And like palette cleansers and stuff like that. We've already started our next miniseries if we haven't announced yet.

[00:12:27] We're like fucking zooming, we're at hyperspeed baby. Few parsecs ahead of everyone else. Correct. You know we are connoisseurs of context and so it's important to note we saw this Thursday night. But you've seen it before. We've seen it once.

[00:12:39] I did not have the first time I saw it I was really on edge. This movie really like I was, I don't know if you were, you seemed very into it I was seeing next to you.

[00:12:50] You're in a lot of like thumbs uping and a lot of like. I'm not a very anxious person you know I have a cool. You definitely were doing a lot of like moving around and like putting a hat on to get a hat off.

[00:13:00] You laughing at me doing a jag of scratching different parts of my body for 45 continuous seconds. It was pretty funny. I literally did like. But I mean I was like that. I had Esther next to me who I would grab a lot. Sure.

[00:13:13] I feel, where Esther and I are close enough maybe Esther is crazy that I can grab her shoulders in emotionally taxing moments of the last Jedi. I don't like talking during movies unless I have a really good joke.

[00:13:24] Oh yeah, like that one time you went over and you said it's Luke Skywalker. Oh yeah, that was a really good one where you pointed at Luke Skywalker and said that's Luke Skywalker. Okay, I thought you were going to spoil my other joke.

[00:13:33] No, no, no, your other joke of all time. I'm done. Yeah, thank you. That's fine. I slapped you a couple of times and I pointed at the screen and then I said it's Luke Skywalker. Right, right, right. But the first time I was really freaked out.

[00:13:44] The second time was a little more like my point is my communication method. When I'm watching movies and I don't want to get into long conversations is to thumbs up at the screen to like show approval to the movie. Right, yes, yes, yes.

[00:13:55] I like what you're doing right now. I do a lot of thumbs uping. I just feel especially with these movies, the first time I see it, I'm so nervous about literally just capital W. What is going to happen? You know what I mean?

[00:14:08] I felt that during Force Awakens but I was more sure knowing that you like the movie that our friends like the movie. It's not like halfway through someone's just going to like poop and they're going to be like the poop is the Jedi or something.

[00:14:21] I was trying to think of like a terrible thing. Right, yes. I mean that would be kind of actually rad if that happened in the middle of the film, but you know, the critical response has been so positive.

[00:14:32] And even like David Erlich who does not like the Star Wars films, things that do not rise to the level of the crystal skull, you know, a take that no one has ever had any problem with everyone's happy.

[00:14:43] On our podcast is not something that message boards are still complaining about months later as if it's a relevant recent thing. We love you David, we're going to have you back soon. Yeah, Erlich's going to be on very soon. He's listening.

[00:14:52] And I'm sure all of you are going to love that episode. Yeah. But he loved it. So I was like, oh man, this seems to be like a Star Wars movie that everyone's going to get behind. And in the last 24 hours since it's come out,

[00:15:03] lot of conflicting opinions. This movie is divisive. Although I have been struggling to parse the difference between what seems almost like organized from a very vocal, you know, sort of part of the Star Wars online fandom.

[00:15:20] It's like this sort of like almost like campaign-esque, like that was bad. That was bad. Let's push that out right away, which is reminiscent of a lot of these fandoms. You know, that's what our culture these days is all about, like very, very loud vocal minorities,

[00:15:34] yeah, waging wars on things with these complaints of things like it's too funny, it's too wacky, but also which we'll get into. Yeah. And this is going to be a spoiler-heavy episode, obviously. And also right now we're at the end of the episode.

[00:15:50] Like we're already in like the post-roll, like bonus content of the episode that has ended. So who cares? Exactly. Who cares? No one's listening right now. I really think that I really, really genuinely think no one's listening to this episode. Zero people. No one's interested. No.

[00:16:05] That there's, I think a lot of people had a lot of ideas of where this story is going to go. And they were surprised at Ryan, to write director Ryan Johnson's perhaps like sort of, you know, story choices. His disinterest may be in a couple of characters, especially.

[00:16:21] Both story choices. Yes. And I, you know, I don't think it's a perfect movie. Oh, interesting. I do. I don't know if I think it's a great movie yet. Oh, well, I totally think it's a great movie. I know you do. Yeah. I like it a lot.

[00:16:34] Oh my God. I'm still stewing over it. I definitely need to see it more times. I'm stewing over you. To process more fully. You want to make you into stew? No, I like it. I like it a lot. I think it's a good movie. I'll say this unequivocally.

[00:16:49] It leaves me really excited about the future of Star Wars. That's fine. That's cool. Do you know what I'm saying? Like I maybe had a more visceral sort of charged experience watching Force Awakens. But Force Awakens is like a movie that's all about trying

[00:17:03] to just be like, you love Star Wars. Yeah. And also, but also like meet these people. That's what the Force Awakens is all about. But in all my conversations about Force Awakens since then, my thing has always been like, OK, but where do they go from here?

[00:17:14] You know? And this makes me feel like Star Wars is evolving into something with a future and something new and adapting for the times and not just being a revival to it. I'm really worried about something. What? I had much more hope for the future of this franchise

[00:17:32] when Colin Trevor was at the helm established of episode nine. You got two good entries. How do you close out a trilogy? You need a visionary captain on Captain Colin. Well, I got him. Griffin like fell down. I can't. You call the captain.

[00:17:53] You go make it happen, Captain. You say make it happen, Captain. And then Colin Trevor, it turned out he was too good a director to make Star Wars episode nine. And that is the problem. And let's make it clear. And let's make it clear.

[00:18:03] Approach him and just said Colin with tears in her eyes. Like I can't make you do this. You're too good. This is this is a scluicy. We're going to bust this open right here. Scoop troop. I feel mean. Get out your ice cream scoop because here's the story.

[00:18:15] She saw the book of Henry and she just was like, no. Yeah. She said, I don't want to make a movie that's a masterpiece. No, I'm not interested. I'm not. I'm going to make product. I'm here to push product. Exactly. There's the door. Yeah. So that's what happened.

[00:18:28] And that's why Colin's off the. So we have JJ Abrams for episode nine. And yeah, it'll be fine, but it's just. Yeah, whatever. Whatever. It does leave me excited. OK, so let's talk. Let's talk about the crowd. Yeah. Well, no, I want to talk about.

[00:18:40] I want to ask you about two things before that. OK, you used a term today in your run of tweets responding to the weird backlash. What I believe you called middle of center film Twitter left of center film right of center. OK, sorry.

[00:18:56] Can you explain to me what this is? OK, so I saw a tweet from Ross. Do that do that. And I forget, you know, the guy he's in New York is an op-ed columnist. And he likes to write. He's, you know, he's a political op-ed columnist

[00:19:10] who's very whatever. And you say you're saying that's his voice. He talks. No, he is an Atlantic alumnus, I should say. But, you know, but he writes about pop culture too. Right. Like he likes to have takes and he's a conservative. A little competition is what you're saying.

[00:19:23] Yeah, I'm reaware. No, he's a conservative columnist. OK. Oh, I'm listening. Yeah. But young ish. Oh. Ish. I mean, yeah. And he tweeted. Young conservative, like 61, 62. You know, so I'm waking up and I'm just looking at my Twitter. Yeah.

[00:19:40] And I see someone quoting him saying, and here's his tweet, impressively strong anti-last Jedi consensus among right of center film Twitter. And now he says I haven't seen it so I'm going to have to weigh in. Which look, I love think pieces from people who haven't seen movies.

[00:19:58] One of my absolute favorite. But he's highlighting people again on this sort of and I guess it's sort of like this kind of like, they're not even all film critics, but like right wing or, you know, sort of soft right to middle right wing. Oh.

[00:20:13] Pundits and people like Kyle Smith of National Review and Sonny Bunch of The Free Beacon. So right is center literally means politically right leaning people who are adjacent to film Twitter. Right. And so I sort of click around and look at all these guys

[00:20:28] pieces that they all wrote. And then I think about the movie and I posted what I thought was something that was definitely not snarky at all where I was like, I wonder why right of center film Twitter didn't like it. Scratch in my chin. Yeah.

[00:20:40] Well, these are the same people who felt that Rogue One was an attack on the Trump administration because it features space Nazis, which let me say it again. I remember that. I've said it before, I'll say it again.

[00:20:52] If you're watching a movie and you feel that the space Nazis who are depicted the exact same way that those space Nazis have been depicted for 40 years of a film franchise, maybe they're not making fun of you. Maybe you've become a space Nazi.

[00:21:04] It's that the thing in justified where it's like, you know, you wake up in the morning and you meet an asshole. He might be the asshole. You meet assholes all day. You might be the asshole. Maybe you're a space Nazi now. All right.

[00:21:17] Anyway, so that's what I was referring to. What was the other thing you wanted to say? Um, well, so speaking of this, there is a. Star Wars merchandise website that I frequent, um, that I have strong moral objections to.

[00:21:34] And then I just looked at each other with what I can only describe as dread. You did. And resigned dread. Get ready for the merchandise spotlight coming because it is, I'm going to do a fucking tutorial. I mean, that's great. I can't wait to kill you.

[00:21:47] I'm not just going to describe something. I'm going to do a presentation. I can't wait to commit the sin of murder. Yeah. Um, but, uh, this website, uh, sucks. They have really good photography and want to say the name of it or are we not?

[00:22:02] I'm wondering whether or not to. And I, I'll call it Jedi temple archives. Okay. So I mean, he's purporting that he's sort of like the fucking Jakasta knew of the Star Wars. Everyone's favorite character. Right.

[00:22:12] You know, um, but, but he's sort of, uh, he's got a good database of merchandise, but he like lords over the other rival Star Wars sites. He wants to be in good graces with big Hasbro.

[00:22:25] You know, which mind you has boroughs England to buy out Mattel, which is the Disney Fox of the toy world. Can you make this talk in a movie? Jesus Christ. Toy boy, let him go. I know it's just like we're leading with this. What's up?

[00:22:38] What's up with Jedi temple archives? Hasbro buying me a monopoly and it would, I don't care. What's up? Great moral conflicts within the entire tour industry. Uh, this guy has been on, he loves Star Wars. He loves the merchandise. He's even a decent prequel defender, right?

[00:22:54] But he has been staunchly anti Kathleen Kennedy Star Wars. Okay. And he always cites her as being the person who owns this Star Wars, this incarnation of Star Wars and is always referring to the agenda that she's trying to push with her movies. Oh, this sounds bad. Yep.

[00:23:12] Um, and, uh, you know, I mean, I'm not racist. I just think, you know, if you're going to put people in different races and movies, you shouldn't make a big deal out of it. It should just be normal. I hate this shit. Okay.

[00:23:21] We're going to move past this really fast unless you have something else to say. No, he's been really against fucking hated force awakens, hated rogue one. It's been shit talking at last Jedi when all the good last Jedi reviews came out.

[00:23:33] He found the one that was bad and was like, well, some people don't like it. Sure. I was ready for this guy to take it down and he really liked it. Yeah, he liked it.

[00:23:39] I was just looking at his review and he's pretty much like a right of center, like fucking Star Wars. Same, same type guy. So it is interesting to me that I don't think it's just a political ideology thing.

[00:23:49] I think it is he's challenging our relationships with Star Wars. I agree, which I think is definitely the most challenging powerful element of this into I would say. Yeah, that's that's the thing I unquestionably like about this movie.

[00:24:06] The other thing I like about this movie is like sort of right, like the beginning part where there's the Lucasfilm logo through to the credits. Those are my favorite parts of the movie. I'm not going to weigh in on things I think don't work because they're still

[00:24:18] stewing in my brain. There's some things where I'm I'm I'm batting around my thoughts on execution, but I think I'm going to execute you. I know you will once we get to the merchandise spotlight. But I do think I like everything this movie is saying.

[00:24:32] I like everything this movie is doing. All right, we're doing that. We're doing the crawl. OK. Star Wars. I'm going to sing it and you read the cross. I'll turn his mic down. Thank you. The first order rains Griffin. What do you think of that first line?

[00:24:53] Yes, cool. Keep it going. Usually you offer opinions on the thing on the crawl as we go. I'm going to save it up for one account having decimated the peaceful I made it all fuck. Having decimated the peaceful Republic Supreme Leader Snoke now deploys the merciless lesions.

[00:25:11] OK, now at this point I'm going to use Snoke could have used less of that guy in the previous movie. Are we going to go heavy on Snoke? I'm saying I'm playing the role of me at this point watching the film. Understood.

[00:25:21] I got a little brain because I think Snoke is dumb. I don't know what I'm about to be taught. Very true. Deploys the merciless legions to seize military control of the galaxy. Only general Leia Organa is cool. Still cool. Get excited every time I hear that title.

[00:25:36] Band of resistance fighters stand against the rising tyranny certain that Jedi master Luke Skywalker will return another cool title and restore a spark of hope to the fight. I like spark of hope, but it's a pretty straightforward crawl. I'm not done. But the resistance has been exposed.

[00:25:54] As the first order speeds towards the rebel base, the brave heroes mount a desperate escape dot, dot, dot, dot. Now I like the word desperate because I like stakes. Yeah. And this is a thing that I think around Johnson does really well in

[00:26:07] this movie, which is keep the resistance with their backs up against the wall. Correct. They're up against the wall and they just you go, oh, that's the last wall and then he breaks through the wall and he puts them up against another wall.

[00:26:20] Todd Vanderwerf pointed out that this sort of fleeing plotline is somewhat somewhat vaguely related to the episode 33 of Battles star Galactica. I don't know if you've ever watched Battles star Galactica. It's one of the greatest ever episodes of television. OK, I've only seen the miniser.

[00:26:36] OK, well, you're a big old poop. But I also love this. I love you so much. I'm really into this movie. Mary Fennellmuss. Yes. Sharpening a knife, folks. Yes, I am. Big old steak knife.

[00:26:51] No, you know, and like that I love, yes, that the fleet is what we can see. It's just. It's contained. A bunch of ships. That's all we got at this point. Right. Because you know, some people have that complain of force awakens.

[00:27:02] Like what's the infrastructure of these two things? We're jumping in in media res and the first order in the resistance have both been launched and are at cruising altitude. Right. But where did this come from? Who's running it? Right. Who's bankrolling it? Right.

[00:27:16] And now you have a better like the resistance was, you know, something that I didn't think about it for you. The Republic was not allowed to have an army because of how that went last time. Badly. Not good. Not good. No good very bad.

[00:27:28] The whole problem with them having an army was that when the emperor just went like, by the way, we're an empire now. Yeah. Then he had an army to enforce that with, you know, so no army. Right.

[00:27:37] So they had to take out like a lot of bank loans to cover like a lot of clones. This is true. No, Cypher Diaz was deep pockets. Deep deep. Then he fucking died and left them with the bill. Deep pockets. He stuck him with the bill.

[00:27:48] They called him deep pocket. Cypher Diaz. He put down a deposit. Cypher deep pockets. He did have the deepest pockets in the galaxy. We all know that. Yes. But then he died. He did die off screen. We never met him. He never existed.

[00:27:58] So he's probably still alive with my grandma and TC 14. Altru. TC 14 just off the top of the. The on in the movie. Not in the movie. Okay, listen, can I run that a couple of people who are in the movie? Yeah. T14, not in the movie. No.

[00:28:11] Jimmy Smith's not in the movie playing any character. Unfortunately. Wato, not in the movie. No. Graga, not in the movie. No, there we know of. Dexter Jetser, not, not in the movie. Not not in the movie. He's I'm I'll say this.

[00:28:25] He's not not in the movie, but he's also not in the film. Yeah. Porgs in the movie. Gorgs, not in the movie. No, there that's an episode nine thing. Gorgs. Yeah, Gorgs. They'll come back. Yeah. Episode nine's rise of the Gorgs. Yeah. Uh-huh.

[00:28:48] Armando Sante, not in the movie. Really? He wasn't one of the foxes? No. Okay. All right. I thought so too. But then you chucked it out of the bone structure. Yeah, right. Yeah. Are you done? Yeah, I guess so. I don't know.

[00:29:04] The heating's been off of my apartment for two days and I'm losing my mind. He's just a homeless person right now. I don't know. I don't know how else to describe this down to your Dunkin Donuts. All right. Coffee. Yeah. All right.

[00:29:14] So we've got as the movie opens, not a shot of a spaceship going overhead. Not a shot of a spaceship sort of siloing a planet. No, no. Which is what Abrams went for. We go into this like crash zoom onto the rebel fleet. Yeah. It's really cool. IMO.

[00:29:32] Yeah. David's holding out his fist. And Williams is J-dubs is going wild right away. I don't know if you've ever listened to the score a lot. I haven't yet. Oh, it's so good. Yeah. How do you feel about this?

[00:29:44] Look, I'll say it didn't pop to me in the first viewing, but the same thing happened with Force Awakens, which I now think is a great score. Amazing score. Obviously this is borrowing a lot of his much like the original sequels.

[00:29:53] He's using a lot of the themes he sets up in the Force Awakens. Yes. Yes. And mixing them around and doing. So we're crashing in on the rebel fleet. Yeah, you're not, you're no response to this. No, I'm into it. I'm letting you, you've seen it twice.

[00:30:09] You got about a handle on. Yeah. To the rebel fleet. Yeah. It's cool, cool stuff. Yes. So the opening sequence is a big space battle. And the resistance fighters, yeah. Yeah. Right. A big space battle and very quickly we see a cool X-Wang and who's that little

[00:30:25] head poking out of the back while it's our old friend Bobby Bertram 8. Uh-huh. Well, we also are seeing the people that the rebels are the resistance is leaving this planet. Yes. And there's that great shot of Billy Lord looking at the sky. Oh yeah.

[00:30:42] You see the Star Destroyers arriving by hyperspace in the sky. Yeah. Pretty cool. A lot of Billy Lord in this movie. Yeah. Yeah. I liked her with her little, her little cinnamon buns. Yeah. She's got little sort of cinnamon bumps. Right.

[00:30:54] Not like a cinnamon but like a box of Ant-Mins. Like. Yeah, like donut holes. Little donut holes. Yeah. Um, yeah. What is her character called? Connix. Is that right? I think it's Connix. I believe it's Connix. I think the name of the character. Correct. I nailed it. Yes.

[00:31:11] Cable co-connix. I was going to say nailed on the first try, but technically that was like a hyper try because I guessed five times in one go. Uh, but she's yeah. All right. So yeah. So big space battle. Right. And we were with Poe. Uh-huh.

[00:31:24] He's in his X-wing. Yeah. And he's taken on this dreadnought ship. There's another resistance woman who we get a lot of in these scenes. In the A-wing. A lot of times, yes, right? No, there's that woman with a lot of schnaz. There's a woman with a prominent nose.

[00:31:39] She's on the main ship. Yeah. Right. That's what I'm saying. Okay. I'm saying her and Connix are kind of the two like point people when we need like exposition or we need like a human reaction shot to what's going on. Uh, yeah.

[00:31:49] Here I want to call up that actress's name. Who is she? Because she just feels like a very Star Wars-y actress. I, she does in that she strikes me as like some kind of like esteemed British stage actress, right? Right. Like who just has like a good face.

[00:32:03] Fuck, who is she though? Why do I not know? Connix, I'm guessing maybe Connix has her character's name. Connix. Yeah. You know, you hit once with that but uh. No, I'm feeling good about my ads. Send me to can't tell a bite baby. I'm on a roll.

[00:32:16] Um, okay. So, yes. You can describe this better than I can because you've seen it twice. I'm still trying to remember. Amanda Lawrence is the actress's name and she's playing commander Daisy. Okay. Uh, she's cool. Yeah. Anyway, but uh, no, it's a right. Poe is stalling for time.

[00:32:31] There's this big dreadknot ship. Yes. Sort of like a new. Star Destroyer thingy. I don't know. It's like a big, it's got big cannons. Yeah. But I mean, I major props right off the bat. This movie has no death stars. Yeah. No true. Zero death stars. Yes.

[00:32:46] It does have big guns, but it doesn't feel the need to eviscerate planets to create stakes, which I like. I also, yes, you're not like this movie maybe for the first time, at least for me, I was able to grasp more how the battle is going to go.

[00:32:59] Like the strategy of the military strategy. It felt way more clear. Actually, I was like, oh, they're like battleships. That's kind of what I mean about the 30th battle. So galactic thing right? Yeah. We're just like, we're really, they've never like even thought about like shields

[00:33:13] before in any kind of major way. The movie also gets into like war profiteering and stuff. Oh, it's so good. I think it's really cool. It's a good movie. But yes, you know, like there was all that like fucking jerk off talk

[00:33:25] when Rogue One came out, which I don't know if you know this, but this Star Wars movie is a war movie. Well, right. I mean, I think that was more what Gareth Edwards' pitch was. And then that got sort of smoothed out. Right.

[00:33:35] It was really just in the aesthetics of like how he shot it and how he choreographed the fight scenes and all of that. But this is a movie that's actually like more concerned with the sort

[00:33:44] of like the DNA of war than any Star Wars movie I think has been before. And showing how wars are actually fought in board rooms and in fucking. I know what you mean. You know? Yeah, yeah. No, I know what you mean. I mean, right.

[00:33:58] I think this movie is or one of the main pulses of this movie, which is something I'm trying to write about is that it's like about like what the rebellion actually is rather than just the good guys.

[00:34:11] If that makes sense, like about the like the motivation behind like being a rebel. Yeah. Rather than just being a good guy. That's also, but look, that's the cornerstone of Star Wars. The reason it's connected over all these years is it's about these choices we make

[00:34:28] with the power we have. I think this movie is way more interested in that than most of the Star Wars movies. I agree, but I think he's honing in on something that's elemental, you know? I mean, it's so. I think it's kind of not that. So now worried.

[00:34:42] It's a force thing. I don't know. No, I it's just like the rebels have always just been the good guys. Yes. And in this, that's not really true. They are good guys, but he wants, he wants them to be rebels.

[00:34:53] Like this is a movie about like the value of being in a rebellion rather than being a good guy because Finn's a good guy. But when this movie begins, he is not a rebel. He was never really a rebel and this movie, you know, his arc,

[00:35:06] especially is about him accepting the concept of like being a rebel. Let me finesse my point, please. What I think the Star Wars movies are about are what makes a person good, what makes a person bad? Yeah.

[00:35:18] And I think this film is very interested in that, you know, the act of choices we make our actions versus our words, you know, those sorts of things. And this movie like really doubles down on that in a much messier way, which I love. I agree.

[00:35:31] I love all the politics of this movie. All right. So big space fight though. Right. First he's just like, here we go, baby. Let's watch Poe Dameron be like a badass dogfighter who's like better than everyone else and do it just on pure like ego alone.

[00:35:46] I think regardless of where you stood on Force Awakens, I think everyone had the exact same criticism, love it or hate it. Everyone walked out of that movie with the exact same criticism, which was not enough Poe Dameron. Sure.

[00:35:56] Because he was kind of a character that was almost added midway through the movie. Like he wasn't supposed to live and then they were like, oh, we're going to keep you around, but he doesn't write. And then you got fucking Oscar Isaac.

[00:36:06] You got like a fucking supernova, you know? So so this movie knows we got an ace up the sleeve. We're going to play it. And we're going to play it. You were happy. You were giving a lot of thumbs up. I love him.

[00:36:14] He's one of my best friends I've ever had. Have you been reading the Poe Dameron comic book? No, it rules. I don't read these things. I haven't been reading the Star Wars comics as thoroughly as I should. But the Poe Dameron comic, I cannot recommend enough.

[00:36:24] Charles Suley writes it and it characterizes him really well because I think Poe Dameron is a really interesting inversion and deconstruction of Han Solo. Because Han Solo's whole thing is acting like he doesn't give a shit.

[00:36:39] And Poe Dameron totally gives a shit and wants you to know how much he gives a shit. He gives a shit. He wants to be a hero, but he's also still maybe a little too obsessed with the performative aspects of being a hero.

[00:36:49] Well, as Leia puts it so beautifully in a line that I assume was written by Carrie Fisher because apparently she wrote most of her own lines. Cool. Get your head out of your cockpit. Yeah. That's a real Carrie Fisher, Joe. Right. Yeah. It's so good. I think.

[00:37:05] I think that's the kind of thing some fans are annoyed about, though. I was making a cock joke. I have problems with certain comedy months, which we'll get to later. Oh, I have problems with no comedy. I know you love everything about this movie. We get it.

[00:37:16] Except for one thing. What? I don't know. I'll think about it. Too short. Yes. That's it. Too short. He takes out the dreadnoughts. No, I was just because I just so I can recommend this.

[00:37:29] A lot of times when you read like the comic book, adaptation, spinoffs of movies, it feels like fucking fan fiction. Yeah, yeah. The characterization Poe Dameron's so good. It actually made me love the character even more going into this movie. We're talking about it right now.

[00:37:46] It's two and a half hours long. So Poe is kind of doing that bit with the commander. Yes. So funny. So it's basically he's like communicating with. He's doing a real can you hear me now? Yeah, exactly. So funny. Yeah, it's great comedy. He gets 10 comedy points.

[00:38:01] Hux even reluctantly gives him the comedy points. Yes, very well. Ten points. Your favorite character. He. All right. So Hux is there. He's on the he's on the dreadnought. He's on like whatever the leadership, but he is.

[00:38:14] As you noted, he's been made up even to be look a little pastier and his eyes have like eyeliner on them. Like some kind of red bags. Yeah, like and he's doing full grimace and his voice is even weaselier. He's just so resonant in 2017 to me.

[00:38:29] Yeah, that character where you like even in 2015, which is very funny in and he's doing the same bit, which is like, you know, the sort of almost a parody of the British villain. Right? I also like that's the guy that's the little red pill guy.

[00:38:43] I find all of Star Wars so resonant in 2017 because this whole thing about the dark side, whether they take the form or the first order or the Sith or what have you right? The Empire. It's these guys who are like actively choosing to be bad.

[00:38:58] Like we have a lot of villains in film franchises who think they're doing the right thing. Right. Hux is bad. Hux likes to be bad, which is like these fucking red pill guys we're dealing with where they're like, I want the fucking power. Right.

[00:39:10] And I'm going to choose to play the bad thing. That's my opinion on that. I'm like, you know, like I'm going to fucking own you hating me. But I just love Hux. I love him. We got married. You did. Congratulations. And my apologies to Joanna.

[00:39:24] I could have stopped it. They asked if I had any objections. You know, one light fighter. He just every line. We just swingering ID the way. I got a fucking talk. Jesus Christ. So Poe takes out the cannons on the dreadnought. BBA helps out.

[00:39:41] He like zaps his own head for a second. Right. So that's cool when he's inside the guts of the thing and stretches his head out like Inspector Gadget. And also another funny bit with like plugging up the holes in the holes. But it's like it said circuits.

[00:39:54] I'll say all this comedy I'm totally into. OK. And then so the bombers come in. You got this big bomber run, big lots of dog fighting at the first space battle we've had in these sequel movies. This is when we have what's her name? Rosa's sister.

[00:40:07] Rosa's sister's name is Paige. Paige Tico. Tico is their last name. Yes. Played by Veronica Ngo. Ngo, I think. An excellent nearly silent performance. I mean, I yeah, it's so good. I think that's great. It's really good.

[00:40:25] People in our audience were groaning, but I mean, it is sort of wrenching, I guess. I think it was dropping the you know, like, you know, her sort of. But I love that whole sequence feels like the fucking like the baby

[00:40:36] carriage and Battleship Potemkin or something, you know, she has to activate these bombs to take out the dreadnought, which is Poe's big like fucking all or nothing. Yeah, we got to do. We got to take this thing out. And Leia's like, come on, fucking, play your game.

[00:40:48] Risk is too high. We did what we were supposed to do, which is like stall for time so that we could all flee. And there's a great bit of really just effective, simple visual storytelling, because I think Ryan Johnson's best at

[00:40:59] just sort of just economic, concise, fucking punchy, you know, information told visually. But when Leia looks down at the monitor and sees all the ships with the Xs over them, it looks like a Battleship board, you know? I love that he just holds onto that tech, you know,

[00:41:18] from the original movies, this look of it wire frames. And Carrie Fisher was an actor of enormous empathy and you just see the pain of like every one of those people matter. These are not just ships that went down. I agree. It's so good.

[00:41:33] But meanwhile, Page is in there trying to set off these bombs and she has all sorts of hijinks with the remote control, which slips out of her hands and you get this moment where she kind of makes this decision wordlessly, right?

[00:41:44] Beautifully acted that she is going to sacrifice herself. She's laying on this sort of catwalk. She all she can do at this moment is choose to use her remaining energy to kick to get the remote to set off the bombs where she does

[00:41:55] and she dies a hero. Yes. And we see she has this piece of jewelry, this sort of medallion. Half of like a friendship. Right. Right. Exactly. That's a charm. Hold necklace. Yes. This is the first time we saw the inside of that ship.

[00:42:08] It's like huge rows and stacks of bombs. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, it looks really cool. So, so, oh, a victory. But dammer is coming in like all fucking dammer. There's this great shot of his ex-wien flying into the transport like and like and stopping and landing really fast.

[00:42:28] And he yeah, he's just like dread not down like we did it. Right. And like as like fucking no, she slapped him in the face. Yeah. Yeah. You're demoted. Cool. Your jets like people are dead. Do you take out a dread now? Who cares? Time to celebrate. Yeah.

[00:42:41] Also, we see Hux get like face planted by a giant general, Snokehead. Yeah. That's his punishment. Yeah, he dunks on him pretty hard. He does dunk on him pretty hard. And let's say this right off the bat. Snoke is great in just head form, you know?

[00:42:53] I love it when it's just his head pops up. He's like general. Yes. Snoke also looks so much better in this move. He does. They probably had more time because his like in Force Awakens like they kept changing what he looked like.

[00:43:07] Right. Like he was like his design was a. I also think for debate, I think if you did a side by side comparison, they've changed the design a bit. Aside from that, clearly plus the technology and just spent more time on it

[00:43:17] and the performance feels better. The character right now. Obviously he's now not a hologram, I guess. So you have a little more light on his face. When we get to the hologram thing, I remember seeing Force Awakens and going like,

[00:43:28] why they need to fucking mo cap this guy? This could just be a dude in makeup. Yeah, right. And this time they really fuck with the proportions of his skull and the scarring and the damage. So it really is.

[00:43:37] Because he's like real skinny, you know, and then his head's kind of bulbous. Right. There's like cheeks barely exist. Right. Yeah, he's weird looking. Right. But you dug smoke. I was all about Snoke in this movie. Snoke maybe was my stand out from the film.

[00:43:52] Could have been bigger. He could have. He could have been bigger. He was big. They made him like minute bull size instead of like Godzilla size. He's like maybe eight feet. It's like eight to yeah. Yeah. Good reach. You know? Right. Yeah, good wingspan. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:44:07] OK, so Leia puts Poe in his place. Hey, demotes him and says you're not the fucking movie star here. It's about people. And this is it's about a cause. This is not a one off thing in the movie that is not going to get.

[00:44:19] This is Poe's arc in the movie. Yes. Is like, yeah, you're the best. I mean, yeah, you're great. Good at piloting. Yeah. But like that's not going to win this war. That's also the arc of the movie is what does it mean to be heroic?

[00:44:32] What is the heroic thing to do? You know, I'm not in very forcefully. I'm just moving my whole body. You know what this is? This is a fucking anti virtue signaling movie. Get off. No wonder people have that ask and do the work

[00:44:48] and don't look like you need a fucking applause break when you do it. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. I mean, she's she's thrilled. I'm sounding facetious when I say that. But that is kind of movies. It's a movie. It's called action movie. Yeah.

[00:45:00] About doing the right thing for the right reasons. Yes. And then to wrap this little bit up before we get to go to the island. Sure, we also have this scene where Kylo Ren with his helmet on. Yeah, goes to see Snoke. Uh huh.

[00:45:16] Ren right as Hux is leaving and Snoke berates him. Yeah, says you suck. Yeah, fuck you. I thought you were a big deal. This is for a lot of your dick is tiny. The layer. OK, so this is I mean, for one night,

[00:45:30] this is incredibly good looking movie. Correct. It's gorgeously designed. It's really well shot by a Stevie Edlin. Very well lit. Well, yes, part of the job of a cinematographer. Right? Yeah, but I'm saying specifically. I want to single out the lighting is lit and and you know,

[00:45:47] Ryan Johnson has said we went into this with red being like we wanted red to be this sort of very crucial color in the movie. And this yeah, this throne room, which is just all blank red, pure red. Right. But like lit red walls,

[00:46:00] like red, loose, light walls that are glowing. And then what I love, which is like Snoke was basically like, yeah, red, red, this is all red. You guys are going to wear red. I love gold. And then can I have a gold cape?

[00:46:12] Yeah. And he has a captain. He he borrowed Meryl Streep's captain from the post. Yes. Spoiler alert. He asked people if they want to blinse in a blunt. Yeah, he looks like a Christmas tree fairy. He gets a smelting accent. This amazing. We're doing two different bits.

[00:46:25] I know, but they're both good. I was trying to get you on to my bit. No, I like you. Join me here. My bit. And there's one other thing that happens. Our good old friend, Finn wakes up. Yes. And of course, wants to know where Ray is.

[00:46:45] Right. And he's in a tube suit that looks awesome. It does. I love that. He's leaking all over the place. He's a little discombobulated, post happy to see him. I like that they're still nice space friends. They're of course not the nice space friends.

[00:46:55] And of course, they're not hashtag the two friends, but they are nice friends in space. Yeah. Agreed on everything you just said. But yes, we do have that. There's nothing really else to that. We'll get to more of that, obviously. Yeah, Rose comes in later, right?

[00:47:07] OK, so now we go to... But it's just important we see Ben being berated for his failure against Ray. Yeah. And like if you're so such a big deal, why'd you get beaten by a girl who'd never held the lightsaber before? Snoke is kind of verbalizing the criticisms

[00:47:21] of people who think that Ray's too powerful and force away. And Ben is like, you know, Kylo is saying like, I killed Han Solo and he's like, yeah, and it fucked you up so bad, Ray beat you. Yeah.

[00:47:30] Which is, I think, a thing that's important to get on record because obviously he got shot too. Yes. And that's sort of a visual reason for his ineptitude, you know, but like it's also that he's completely rattled by killing his father in force away.

[00:47:44] Because that's Snoke's thing is like, you got too much of that solo shit in you. And he's like, solo shit? I fucking killed Han Solo. And he's like, don't act like that was a fucking easy thing. Yes, exactly. Don't act like he came out of that.

[00:47:55] Get out of my sight and take that ridiculous thing off, which he's talking about the mask. Right. So Kylo smashes it. Crushes him. Which apparently is something that Ryan Johnson asked Kathleen Kennedy in his initial pitch for the film. Can I get rid of the mask? Yes.

[00:48:08] He was like, essentially the way this pitch worked, she brought him in and sat him down and said, we want you to do episode eight. What do you think? Yeah. And he was like, I don't know. Let me think about it.

[00:48:18] He claims he did not think that's what they were going to. Right. Maybe a spin off they were. I don't know. And then he said, well, can I read the Force Awakened script? And they were like, sure, here's the script.

[00:48:26] And he said, OK, well, there's a bunch of things I'm going to want to do. Here they all are. And one of them was, I need to smash his helmet really early on. And they were like, pie. Yeah, it's fine.

[00:48:34] Which also makes sense for the arc of this character, which I think is the most interesting arc of the film and I think is the best performance of the movie. It is. Driver. Driver is unbelievable. Unbelievably good. It's an extremely good performance.

[00:48:45] I remember when he's great in the last. That fucking, what's it called? That sitting show a movie with zero Jews in it. This is where I leave you. When that was like Adam Driver starting to take off and Sean Levy, the great auteur Sean Levy, the maestro himself.

[00:49:05] Trevor Rose, the captain, and he's a lieutenant. Come on, come on, come on. What's up? He said like, I was on set with driver and I went like, well, this is the major actor of his generation. I was like, fucking Sean Levy, you don't know anything.

[00:49:17] Who would be a major actor of his generation? And it does kind of feel like Adam Driver is like shaping up to maybe be, especially when you look at the fucking directors he's worked with. Yes, he's great. I have no objection that I love Adam Driver.

[00:49:28] He was my blanky winner for Best Actor last year. I know. He might, I mean, let's see where he sells into my blankies this year. That's me looking at my watch for the blankies. Yeah. Oh, there in a while. Look, we'll get to it.

[00:49:40] Look, this episode's steaming ahead full speed ahead. Oh, wait a second. OK, look, I know we got great momentum going. I just need to step out of the bathroom quickly and I'll let this person in.

[00:49:51] OK, the doorbell made you realize that you need to step out to the bathroom so the person can come in. OK, well, is it up to go to the bathroom, let someone in please? That's what I'm going to do. I just OK. Yeah, I know I'm coming.

[00:50:05] Hey, hello. Hello. Hello, sir. What are you doing here? Perhaps you do not recognize me. We're in the middle of a podcast. Seem perhaps you previously knew of my mustache. Do not recognize me with the Oh, you have your own.

[00:50:21] My chin, the sides of my face, my cheeks. We have never met before. You are a clean shaven man. Well, no, I mean. Oh, you're saying you have a mustache? Well, no, I mean, clearly you've said I'm clean shaven, so that must be accepted as canon now.

[00:50:36] No, I'm sorry. I was looking at my computer and I wasn't looking up. No, I'm running with it. I'm clean shaven now. OK, great. Who are you? You never met me before. Who are you? My name is Rich. Uncle Pennybags. We've never met before.

[00:50:52] So I know Rich, Mr. Pennybags. What was his name again? We only met in the one time. Moneybags, Pennybags is the nickname. Look, I have to level with you. OK? Yeah, sure. Rich Uncle Pennybags. I know you didn't add with a Rich Uncle Pennybags previously. Oh, OK.

[00:51:10] But that's not canon anymore. Unfortunately, we found out that Rich Uncle Pennybags was part of a giant Ponzi scheme. OK, can you just send the money back right away, Ben? Dollar Shake Club, here's your money. So I am actor Christopher Plummer

[00:51:26] and I have now replaced Rich Uncle Pennybags. So we can accept this as just a new continuity. You're going to get it out in time for Christmas. You do have the gravitas required and no makeup on your face. But how did you get your face so clean shaven?

[00:51:38] Well, you don't become a Rich Uncle Pennybags by spending a billion dollars on every razor. You fools, I look at you, common laypeople. How much do you spend? $2,000, $4,000 a blade? Well, how much do you spend? Can I talk to you for a second? Please. Because I used to.

[00:51:55] I used to. That used to be my life. Right. But then I found Dollar Shave Club and for five dollars a month. They send me a whole package. What? Razors. Replacement razors. OK. Shave butter. OK. For the shaving. Yes. Body cleanser.

[00:52:18] Yeah, all of this is encouraging, but here's the problem. Go ahead. I got a stinky butt. Butt wipes. What? They're in the package too. And if for five bucks you can get this package. Yes. And after that, replacement cartridges, they ship for a few bucks a month

[00:52:34] so you can keep shaving. Because, you know, I used to just shave once. A decade. And then just beat me into panic. Yeah, exactly. Well, fine. Thank you. But instead now with Dr. Carver's shave butter with the butt wipes, with the body cleanser. The good doctor himself.

[00:52:50] And it's all I'm looking great. It's all delivered right to you. Yeah, of course. It means no more annoying trips to the store or cruising up and down. I was looking at the shelf upon shelf like what the hell is this product? What do I do with that?

[00:53:02] It's all figured out for you. Man, you seem really freaked out about shelves. I get so lost in these stores. They just hold things. It's like the end of... The hard locker. Yeah, exactly. I'm a long time blankie. Let me ask you this question. Thank you, Mr. Plumber.

[00:53:16] You just turned 88 by the way. Happy birthday. Thank you. So, but... It's a fiddle. What I'm saying is you don't need all the money in the world to do... I see what you did there. Dollar Shave Club. You just need a few bucks a month.

[00:53:27] Let me ask you two follow-up questions. Yeah, please. Dollar Shave Club. This sounds like a great company, great products at an affordable price. Great customer service. All true and it comes right to your door. Can they help negotiate the release of my kidnapped grandson?

[00:53:42] I think that's gonna be a premium addition. You're gonna have to talk about that with someone at the company because I don't know about that. Now, that's a joke, of course. I broke character for a bit because... Right, because you're playing J. Paul Getty in an upcoming movie.

[00:53:53] Right, but that's not this... Which we're against for plugging. Yes, no, this is a different, disgraced character that I've had to be replaced in the role of... Rich Uncle Pennybags, of course. Yeah, so it's nice to see you. Here's my follow-up question. Yeah. Dollar Shave Club.

[00:54:05] Let's say I want to get a Golden Globe nomination really quick. Let's say we wanted to wrap this up really quick. Yep. Well, go on. But the movie wasn't finished and there was no way the Hollywood Foreign Press will have seen the film in time to nominate.

[00:54:20] Oh my God. Do you think I could order enough razors to send to every member of the Hollywood Foreign Press in order to bribe them into nominating me? I have no idea. I want you to love Dollar Shave Club as much as I do. That's what's important.

[00:54:32] So if you want to try the first month of their razors... Or our listeners. You or our listeners. With, you know, and then you get the shape butter, you get the body cleanser, you get the butt wipes, all that for five bucks.

[00:54:45] Then you just go to dollarshaveclub.com slash check. Slash check? Is there a promo code? That's the promo code to get the starter set, five bucks a month. Tell me the URL. Blankcheck.com. No, no. Dollar Shave Club.com. Google.org. Dollar Shave Club.com. Jesus.

[00:55:05] Dollar Shave Club.com. Slash check. Okay, check. And just once again to very briefly make sure we're all clear on the canon. I am totally clean shaven. I am Academy Award winner Christopher Plummer. The timeline is roughly before the Golden Globe nominations have been announced. Yeah.

[00:55:23] And the real rich Uncle Pennybags, which is his nickname, Moneybags is his real name, was involved in a Ponzi scheme. All true. Thanks so much. Anytime. Go see all the money in the world Christmas day. Oh, and hey Griffin, how you doing? Oh, hey. Good.

[00:55:37] I just had a big poop. I wish there was some way for me to wipe my butt. Dollar Shave Club. Anyway, so we're gonna talk about... No more needs to be said. We're gonna talk about Akhto. Akhto, the island of Akhto. Which we've glimpsed in Force Awakens. And...

[00:55:55] Force Awakens ends with a helicopter shot, like we all asked. Yeah. Of Ray holding up a lightsaber for Luke Skywalker. My least favorite shot in the Force Awakens. It's a little annoying. I don't like helicopter shots. It doesn't bother me quite as much on rewatches,

[00:56:06] because I guess it's just sort of ingrained now. Sure. I get it, I'm a drone guy too. But no, yeah. It's, you know... In the end of the last movie, Ray goes to Luke. And we pick up in that gesture. Offers him his blade. Holding out the blade.

[00:56:20] He takes it. And then he checks it over his shoulder. Chucks it over his shoulder. I love that so much. I like that. I was immediately like, oh wait, I love... Wait, I didn't get... I didn't see that coming at all.

[00:56:30] And then what's the next thing that happens? Luke goes into his little hut and he changes out of his regal white robes to some grungy bullshit. And then... Kylo rags. He looks like the Fisher King. And then as Ray... He looks like the Fisher King. He does!

[00:56:43] As Ray retrieves the lightsaber from some porgs who were in this movie. Yes. The porgs. They are in the film, but we can confirm that. Yeah, of course. Because there was... There was debate over whether they'd show up. Whether they'd be in the movie or not.

[00:56:56] They're like anime penguins. Yeah, yeah. They're based on the puffins that really live on that island. And they are like penguin chickens. Where do you land in the pork wars? The Great Port of Wars of 2017? I'm pro-porg. Very solidly pro-porg.

[00:57:12] I like that their puppets makes me really happy. I also feel like they're really used in moderation. Yeah, no for sure. It's not like they save the day. No. They're just like these sort of funny little creatures that live on this island, which is a weird island.

[00:57:26] Another creature that lives on this island is a giant milk producing... I mean, how do you describe it? Like nanotea giraffe. Yeah. I mean, what is it? Right, and we see Mark Hamill. Mark Hamill. Milk it. Squeeze that nipple. The nipple straight into the bottle

[00:57:43] and then drink the green milk that comes out. Blue milk. Whatever. That's where it comes from. It's pour, that's cannon. With glee and then look at Ray like a crazy person. Yes. And then immediately walk over somewhere else

[00:57:56] and get a giant pole and go over to a cliffside and catch an ichthyosaur. Yeah, he's just being a real stinker. Basically doesn't talk to her at all. And he's kind of being a Yoda. Like he's being like fuck off. Well that's what the movie...

[00:58:11] He's being a little trickster. That's the move he's made. You know, because Yoda abandons the universe after his great failure in which he caused the entire universe to be taken over by a Sith Lord. Pretty much unilaterally great job, Yoda. Which is amazing.

[00:58:25] One of the most impressive things this film does is it actually makes the Phantom Man's trilogy better by acknowledging that the fucking Jedi Council were too busy up in their ivory tower to pay attention to what was going on. They actually allowed everything to happen.

[00:58:40] It brings that up. Bunch of stodgy old fools on their fucking poop chairs. True. Not even a dollar shave club butt wipe to be seen. True. And they let it happen. They let it happen. They caused their own demise. So Luke's kind of like, you know what?

[00:58:55] I don't know if the Jedi's were a good thingy. We shouldn't be mourning them. Okay, move on. But as I was saying, he has done the Yoda where he's like, Yoda went to Dega but I never see anyone again. Luke has gone to this planet to die.

[00:59:08] Let me drink my milk. Yeah, he wants to drink his milkshake. But Rey will not stop. Rey keeps pestering him with like, I'm from the resistance, your sister sent me and like the first order is close to taking over the galaxy and we need your help.

[00:59:21] Which is sort of silly because it's like, what's Luke gonna do? I mean, I guess the crawl is saying that he'll sort of rally people to the cause and I get that because he is the famed slayer of the emperor and Turner of Darth Vader.

[00:59:34] Right, and you could argue that the resistance needs such a figure right now. Right, he is someone to sort of light a spark as people keep saying it. Because Kylo Ren is a larger than life figure. He is so performative

[00:59:49] but he leaves people quaking in fear and terror. As is Snoke, Snoke's pretty performative. We remember if we talked about his gold cloak. Yes, Kylo Ren's just a little more out there. If he's doing like the meet and greets, he's like...

[01:00:00] Snoke has a drive time radio show every day. General! And so it begins, I don't know, what does he say? It's called Snoke and the Boomer. Oh God. But yeah, but they need someone to inspire hope. But that's not really why she's there. No.

[01:00:21] She's there because she's a little Jedi. She's a little lightsaber craver. A little bit teaching. She needs some tips. When does he realize that she has duff horse? Well, so he keeps ignoring her and she sort of gets huffy. And then she walks over,

[01:00:39] she sort of feels called by something and walks over to this big tree and walks into it, this big sort of smoky, weird gnarled sort of tree. It's called like the, of the wills or something. Oh is it? Well I mean...

[01:00:54] It has a name in the fucking Star Wars canon I'm forgetting. The wills are the guardians of the wills. That's like what a... I think it's called the something of the will. Donnie Yen's character is a guardian of the will. And they're like a order of monks

[01:01:10] who preserve Jedi shit. So anyway, but she walks into this tree and it's like there's some books on a shelf. And Luke is intrigued that she knows of like to go to this place. And then she says like, I've been having these dreams all my life.

[01:01:24] I've seen these symbols. I never know what they meant. So that's where Luke is going like, wait a second who are you? And she's like I'm from the resistance. No, no, no, no, who are you? Yeah, I'm from nowhere. Everyone's from somewhere.

[01:01:35] Jakku, okay that is kind of nowhere. Once again, good joke. Yeah, it's great. You seem to be saying this with surprise. Cause there are a couple of comedy points I'm gonna deduct later on in this movie. When?

[01:01:44] There are a couple of times I think it goes a little too broad. Wait just give it to me. I don't like BB-8 operating the walker. Oh sure. That sounds so much a comedy thing to me but okay. I don't like Luke dusting the dirt off his shoulder.

[01:01:58] Oh, I love that. I think that's a little too self-aware. I love that cause the whole point is that he's trying to enrage Kyla Rents so much. I agree. I just think he plays it to the back of the house a little too much. He just does this.

[01:02:13] All he does? I think he plays it to the back of the house. Now the whole point of that is that's a story that will be told for millennia. You can't spell Hamel without Ham. And he wades through the water as well but there are a couple moments

[01:02:25] where I think they indulge him a little too much. No, this is a Christmas ham. I agree. It's gorgeous and juicy. I sink my teeth into it. But there's a little fat. Sometimes you take a bite and there's a little fat.

[01:02:34] The BB-8 thing I'm kind of with you on but I think that's more than being like BB-8 should do something now. Yeah, I think the BB-8 moment can go fuck itself. That's the one moment the mover I was like this can go fuck itself.

[01:02:44] I don't want BB-8 operating a fucking walker. But they set it up earlier. Yeah. So sounds like you're really embarrassed right now. No not at all. I'm very confident. I'm a confident person. I've never been embarrassed in my entire life.

[01:02:55] Ben, you look like you're shaping up to say we're all in weird head spaces today are we not? I'm feeling great. I feel great. Yeah. I disagree with that. I think Griffin said a weird answer. You admitted yourself you were really stressed out today.

[01:03:08] Oh I have a lot of work to do and shit. That's true. But that's not that uncommon for me. I'm cold and I haven't showered in 48 hours because the water's fucking out in my apartment. When did you wake up? When did I wake up?

[01:03:19] Because you said you had a lot of trouble sleeping. I didn't fall asleep until 6 a.m. Great. I think I woke up 10 or 11. Not great. No not great Bob. And then I didn't get out of bed for like two hours because it was so cold in my apartment

[01:03:35] that I didn't want to get out of my tamale. Yeah you were keeping the hot box. I was bundled. I was hot box. Yeah I was farting to keep myself warm. Well apparently I slept for five hours and 46 minutes. All right do you want to start over?

[01:03:46] Yeah I don't know what the fuck is happening. Opens on, great joke. Oh you're gonna call me out for dumb derailing jokes. Okay I smile. Yeah right we're all in a great mood today. Ah! You guys are so mad. Just get ready for the merchandise spotlight.

[01:04:01] Okay so Luke is like fuck this, you know? Jedi shouldn't be a thing. They were foolish. He's interested in her and she's like I want to and he's like it's time for the Jedi to end. Yeah done out of here. You want to have the force fine.

[01:04:18] Have fun Jedi dead concept. Yes that's his call. Right okay so what happens next? But it's really more also as we know he failed Ben Solo. He lost his Jedi school. All these kids got murdered. And this time it was personal.

[01:04:34] It was a very emotionally taxing incident obviously. Ben was a sort of once in a generation you know amount Ben Hosley. Kyle Oren who is kind of the Ben Hosley of Sith Lords. In terms of like power. He's not a Sith Lord.

[01:04:52] It's in crucial note there are no Sith. He's a knight of Renn. He's a knight of Renn I'm sorry. Right he's a dark Jedi. Dark Force user whatever you want to fucking call it. But obviously it's his nephew. It's the bloodline that he's connected to.

[01:05:06] He understands that balance between the Skywalker and the Vader of it all. That and also he failed his sister. Yes. He failed his good buddy Han. Yes. And kind of failed the galaxy. Yeah. So yeah legacy of failure there. Right and he's looking back on the whole legacy

[01:05:27] of the people who trained him and going like Yoda might have fucked this whole thing up to begin with. So why should I be carrying on the traditions of this order that maybe is inherently fucked? So from this we're gonna cut back to the fleet.

[01:05:41] Where Kylo Ren enraged because he just got a you know called a beta male by Snoke. Yeah. He waved his finger at him. Yeah. Yeah big long little spindly fingers. Yeah he kind of got cut. Gets in his pretty cool little fighter craft.

[01:05:59] What do you think of his fighter craft? Sort of tie interceptor type. Oh cool yeah. Spinny spins. Good. Attacks the rebel fleet because they're tracking them through hyperspace which shouldn't be possible. Right. But apparently in Rogue One, did you read this? No.

[01:06:13] There's some little thing in Rogue One where like you know how they like hack the empire files and Rogue One and all that. One of the files says like hyperspace tracking technology. Oh cool. So they uh. It only took another 80 years to perfect. 20. Oh sure sure.

[01:06:28] And like it's hard. Sure. And also the empire got blown up. Sure. You know so yeah. Yeah they just start over. Yeah give it a second. Right they had to download like McAfee to do file recovery on those hard drives which burned up. All true. Explosion.

[01:06:42] Ben and David are both typing in this now. I think David's filing a piece. Yeah I'm not but I should be. But no. Ben is writing copy for other podcasts. No I just wrote virus joke cut out. Oh cool.

[01:06:53] I watch him make all these little notes it's really funny. It was a file recovery joke. No okay so you look like an idiot. He attacks the fleet. Attacks the fleet. I don't know if there's something else you want to say here. No.

[01:07:03] And well because you seem to have something to say about the hyperspace tracking or was it just a McAfee joke. Yeah I think that's probably just fine. All right fine attacks the feet blows up the main ship's bridge. Attacks the feet who are you a Quinn Tarantino movie.

[01:07:18] Blows up the main ship's bridge leg gets sucked down into space what did you think of this? Did you think is this the end or were you like this can't be it because it would

[01:07:26] it's not hasn't been given enough weight like because that's what I thought when I initially the second I saw her get blown into space. What I thought and I will say this. I might have fallen for it more head carry Fisher not died in real life.

[01:07:40] Because then you're like oh no we kind of knew they weren't killing her off because they had said over and over again like Leia's performance is going to stand as it is I mean

[01:07:49] fit Kerry's performance you know and like we're not messing with it at all we're not replacing anything. And I also think if that was the decision to have her die that early on in the film they would have edited and structured that sequence differently to give it more

[01:08:01] import if it truly was going to be her final moment. So she gets but you know who does die. Admiral Ackbar. Ackbar the biggest trap of all Esther went like like she was very shocked yeah it was a trap

[01:08:14] it was a trap yeah it was a trap and he got I was trying to figure out why they killed him off like like did maybe the actor died and then did he I believe so maybe they were just kind of

[01:08:24] like a voice Ackbar was like very old yes like I'm just like the voice of Ackbar I think it was Marlon Brando Ernest Borgnein oh wow Douglas Fairbanks some other yeah the guy the original guy who voiced him died okay in 2016

[01:08:43] right yeah so maybe that was it maybe it was just like you know what yeah let's let's let Ackbar have a noble death and this movie also is it's a real not that noble really just get sucked in

[01:08:53] space it's not with the old in with the new movie it is it is very much like you know what we can't just keep on relying on the old institution it's true and you know the resistance is so

[01:09:02] centered around Leia as this icon of the rebel alliance that first gave birth to the republic and yeah it's like you know it's a crucial moment at the end of the movie when Poe is like leading

[01:09:13] people down where Leia is like don't look at me like follow him like you know where it's like she knows too like I can't do this forever Dave Schilling at birth movies death

[01:09:21] sure had a review this morning I think is really good where he said he thinks this film and it also this lines up very well in terms of the time periods in which these trilogies are being made sure but this film is really about millennials inheriting and reckoning

[01:09:35] with the legacy of the baby boomers sure I can see that you know it's like one political movement a generation or two later dealing with the very self-righteous empowered we fixed everything

[01:09:45] sure yeah I get that I get that read I mean like nothing was fixed we're now inheriting twice as many problems because of what you tried to do sure and like our parents told us we

[01:09:53] could be anything right okay guys guys college participation right we're like 20 minutes into the movie and we've been talking for an hour plus this is a four-hour episode I cleared off the whole

[01:10:05] day studio I have a hotica dinner to get to what if at this point right now when you're saying we've already been recording for an hour plus Ben has edited the episode down so much that

[01:10:14] we're at minute 12 I mean that's what he should do you click that would be prudent he could cut this shit no so I just um the big thing that happens here is that Leia

[01:10:26] is floating in space uh-huh getting a little freaky yeah and she sucks herself back with force powers she flies like Superman what do you think of this scene because it is hotly divisive yeah I

[01:10:39] don't know okay I like that she survives I like that she uses the force to survive yeah me too I'm not sure how crazy I am about the execution of the moment itself usually all right well I

[01:10:50] disagree with you cool I mean I just I mean I just watched it and was immediately like spellbound by it and then as I was walking and I was so happy that she finally got a force moment extended

[01:11:02] beyond her just sort of like sort of looking uh pained or whatever you know like which is what she's done in the other movies I'll say I literally I was 100% with it and was like pumping my

[01:11:12] fists until she starts the actual floating like the flying back onto the ship it felt a little too godlike to me if that makes sense but she's just sucking herself you know it's just uh

[01:11:25] moving but you're doing the handra like that was part of it was like the whole screen is Carrie Fisher she's a fucking dead legend if they teed it up a little bit more with the force

[01:11:34] slap when he's when she slaps Poe she slapped him across the room or something yeah then I would have been a little bit more like okay or even if they played like the electric slide while

[01:11:44] she's like force sliding back onto the ship that would have worked like that would be more subtle to me do you know what I'm saying I totally know and Ben agrees Ben agrees he's sort of going

[01:11:55] to take a picture of you Ben so do that so Leia is back on the ship now she survived but greatly damaged she's unconscious so she's gonna go into the sort of the fin chamber the revival

[01:12:07] and let's say this I don't want to be morbid okay but like this is something they wrote before she died obviously 100% of the 100% and I've read a lot of people say that they thought she should have

[01:12:15] died that moment that would have been a great hero death I think there's only people saying that from the vantage point of knowing that the actor is dead yeah also I don't why would that be a great

[01:12:24] hero death she just gets blown out of the I agree 100% and then whatever I think it's because then holdo kind of enters and feels like she's going to be the new Leia which she isn't no

[01:12:33] but the thing I was gonna say is that's people wanting the movie to be able to have a internal way to deal with Carrie Fisher's death oh I think the movie does though

[01:12:47] yeah by thematics but it keeps her alive at the end of the film but it makes it clear the universe isn't about her anymore right but it'd be so hacky to me if she died on screen

[01:12:56] because they would just feel like what we're saying where they were like I guess we should kill her off because she died you know right and furious seven is a very different case where

[01:13:03] like he died halfway through the movie they had to rewrite the movie to work around that I'm not thrilled that you just brought up furious I'm thrilled that I just brought up furious seven deals with

[01:13:12] it uh very well in its own way but if the force of what maybe the last day had tried any of the shit they try you know digital recreational it like it would have gone over like a 100% and also

[01:13:24] I think the ending of furious seven's a masterwork but if Paul Walker had finished all the principal photography I don't think they should have done any of them that was literally

[01:13:31] the only half the footage they need so they had to rewrite the movie agree let's not talk I agree I'm just I'm responding to fan criticism furious seven's a perfect movie fan criticism seems to

[01:13:40] just be like I don't like it it's goofy I don't know those are her force powers you know and it seemed a lot of like it's also that's not how things have gone before right it's also weird

[01:13:50] simultaneously like I don't like how much the movie is goofy and I don't like how much the movie's cynical like I don't I think they don't like the fact that Luke isn't they don't like

[01:14:00] look tossing the lightsaber over his shoulder but they also don't like him saying that the jedi order was fucked sure but at least they knew that was coming yeah that's in the trailer

[01:14:09] that's in the trailer um it's just pretty funny to me that the force awakens ended on Luke being offered the saber and then two whole years later we finally see his reaction to a

[01:14:18] which is like I think that's a good joke I think it's a good joke how many comedy points I give it 10 I gave it 10 I think 15 fine so fin but you have to put up five of your own

[01:14:27] I'm only putting 10 fine so here's the new situation the fleet is here oh yeah I'm putting up five miles okay the fleet is here is out now she is out energy she's in a healing

[01:14:36] they can't jump to hyperspace because they seem to be being tracked to hyperspace so they have to just keep outrunning the star destroyers yes and like sort of stay in this sort of static

[01:14:47] you know what I mean like fixed but essentially chase the first order is playing rope a dope with them it knows if they keep on trying to race pass them through hyperspace they'll run out of

[01:14:56] right fucking energy and then they'll just be stuck they'll be cornered and that's when Muhammad Ali fucking takes him down right yeah so now two big things happen one hey lay us on bed rest for a

[01:15:08] little bit sure here's the new boss in town her name is hold up a stern yes that's her name space turn she fucking rules our buddy Emma Stefanski emilyn hold up yes our buddy Emma

[01:15:20] Stefanski I believe it was the great Emma Stefanski I hope I'm not misattributing this to her but I think it was her when I love dick came out said it's weird that Kevin Bacon's become the sexiest

[01:15:29] guy alive because he was never the sexiest guy alive there were other people sexier than him and then he just stayed in it and now he is the sexiest guy alive okay and I kind of feel the

[01:15:37] same way about Lord during just like persistence longevity legacy yeah she comes on screen I'm just like Jesus hair yeah got this sort of a giraffe neck yeah she's got a good

[01:15:48] six inches on fucking Oscar Isaac all I mean Oscar Isaac is not tall Oscar Isaac's not tall she's especially tall and she just fucking rules or during 510 yeah pretty tall yeah but she's probably

[01:15:59] got heel on it's certainly big for an actress definitely his heels on has a lot of hair and she's just got a quiet gentle authority and she's also got fucking pink hair and space during

[01:16:09] rules so yeah but so Poe is like what's the plan here are we gonna go both things up what's the plan because his x-wing gets blown up in the attack so what are we gonna what are we going she's sort of like here's the plan

[01:16:22] because she was like lay is protege and she's like look I learned from Leia we all know Leia I'm not gonna fucking do shit Leia style I'm not tolerating your bullshit Poe dammit

[01:16:32] you want to have fun adventures do it in a spin-off comic that only Griffin will read this is a main entry Star Wars movie you play by my rules we call that the Poe chair

[01:16:43] you sit in it so you'll sit there and if I need something from you such as an order of macaroni and cheese yeah I will let you know you're getting a provisional 12 issue run and after that we will negotiate so that's what's happening but Finn seeing all this

[01:16:59] I gotta get the fuck out of who remember is essentially three weeks old yes as a person yes he had his little adventure yes which was the first time he's basically been a conscious

[01:17:08] human being his love is real but he is not and then he was in coma you know he was in so he's basically still brand new he's looking at all this Ray's not with him right there's this

[01:17:18] little beacon that she can find and now he's sort of been grandfathered into being seen as like an important they're all like your hero you're the trader from the first order who like helped us blow

[01:17:26] up Starkiller base what a great guy you are kind of a savant I don't know if I can replicate it my my software slump is gonna be hard so he's but also he's like fuck Ray can't come back

[01:17:36] to this because this is doomed this whole thing looks bad he goes to his escape pod to leave who's he meet rose Tika played by Kelly Mary Tran who is a UCB alum West Coast UCB

[01:17:48] year that had no idea that was her main base I mean she had pretty much just done sketch videos web series and was a UCB performer I she's never in a movie right correct so her and I are

[01:17:57] exactly the same much like Gal Gadot and I are exactly the same because we're both Jewish superheroes right Kelly Mary Tran and I are exactly the same because we're both UCB right became a part of the most important franchise of all time right most important

[01:18:10] franchise is your parents are also your parents are refugees who fled Vietnam during the Vietnam War right or is that any is that one difference between right and I'm saying that's maybe more I go into the Gal Gadot thing where we're both like highly trained militant the

[01:18:25] Jews but yeah she is you're right UCB thank you she also did some second city stuff yeah she was like an IO she did all the LA improv theaters is a really good entertaining weekly piece on her

[01:18:37] just like temping and working night jobs and taking classes and wondering whether she should quit or not and then getting Star Wars and not being able to tell anyone for like four months

[01:18:45] right I love her in this movie I love this character and how do you feel about it I he's doing the Griffin face again introduction this character 100% on board I find her very

[01:19:00] winning very just honest and open as a performer especially for someone who has not been in a movie before right she feels completely unintimidated by her surroundings sure it just feels like a very very joyful honest open performance okay I think the setup of the character is awesome

[01:19:18] her sister died obviously she's very sad and she's working in the trenches she's part of this big thing works behind pipes all day right she's essentially working in like the mail room of

[01:19:27] the resistance she's like an engineer or something she's some kind of yeah and she views Finn as a celebrity this is the hero this is the guy this is the inspirational story he worked his way up

[01:19:36] from from the bad side to the upper ranks gives me hope that maybe I could make it happen someday which makes Finn reevaluate his whole position because he just still thinks that he's some fucking noob but he realizes now okay yes but what's your criticism of this

[01:19:50] character I think this character is missing like one emotional beat and I can't figure out what it is there's like some emotional beat this character is missing for once I'd seen the end of the

[01:20:00] movie and knew the whole arc they were trampled off there's some beat missing and I can't identify it okay I don't know which may for me is like the difference between this character

[01:20:10] like I think you'll see it again and maybe you'll get a little down about it now you said you have a whole hot tick on what you like about the whole rose fin plot line because some people

[01:20:18] say that this is like the plot line that is the least consequential could be lifted from the film and you've been defending it pretty hard of course it's crazy that people say that to me I mean

[01:20:26] it's it's inconsequential in terms of like what they get wrapped up in pretty quickly is this sort of like hair brain scheme like out of out of a Star Wars movie yeah it's Star Warsy and

[01:20:39] I would say exactly where they're gonna like they're gonna zip over to some planet they're gonna get a guy they're gonna break onto a Star Destroyer and they're gonna break the hyperspace tracker so that they can escape because she's resistance tech and when he starts explainer

[01:20:50] this thing about them being able to figure out oh how the tracking would work and how we would disrupt it and they're both like janitor types you know they both have worked in the bowels of

[01:20:58] ships right so they kind of get that him on the first so they go to Poe who's like the regional manager it's like the highest ranking person they're really close no but Poe is also

[01:21:06] like what the you know we need to fucking do something really really cool right like I think we should do sort of like a Star Wars thing right now like I don't like Laura Dern's plan

[01:21:14] which seems to be like caution and moderation right not into that like what if we did something completely stupid yeah like hired Colin Trevor directed Star Wars film and they're like well

[01:21:24] let's hire Colin Trevor to break the site and he's like no no he won't do it you won't take my calls too talented the captain I can't but uh no it's there like what if we do all this crazy

[01:21:36] shit and he's like go do it and yes spoiler alert their plan fails yeah it doesn't work yeah it ends up being a real uh wild goose chase a little bit yeah yeah I mean right they get caught up with some

[01:21:49] unsavory types they see a little bit of galaxy and they form a real strong bond and the arc of a movie to me is more about Finn who is a baby not who has no concept of why the rebel alliance

[01:22:04] or resistance whatever should really exist apart from that the first door is bad he doesn't like the first order yeah uh understanding like the underpinnings of this galaxy and like what they're

[01:22:16] actually fighting against yeah but at the same time without the sort of like it's not goofy and gung ho like it's textured and like the del Toro character is there to be like I get what you're

[01:22:28] saying kid but you know you know that I don't know if this is exactly black and white over here it's a murky universe right you know what I'm realizing and she is this character who's like

[01:22:38] you know I am the marginalized people of this galaxy right but she's also still entirely optimistic right she believes so thoroughly in the good that can exist in people I mean the thing I love

[01:22:50] about this character and people probably just don't like this part of the movie maybe but like is that when he's like cantabite what's it like and she's like it's the worst it's full of the

[01:22:58] worst people it's the worst place and then he arrives and it's this like gorgeous casino planet with all this fun shit and like but like and she's like just what I thought you know what I mean

[01:23:08] like that's what I love about her yeah but sorry what were you gonna say I'm realizing I think the emotional beat I'm missing to make this entire plotline work for me is there's a lot of rows

[01:23:19] explaining where she comes from what she's had to go through what she's had to persevere past one scene I'm not saying there's too much sure maybe two scenes I'm saying you have

[01:23:26] her at the beginning you ever talk about the her the beginning where she talks about her sister dying and right and then on cantabite where she's sort of like look closer I'm saying there's the correct

[01:23:33] amount of that I'm not she's yeah she's offering some advice that Alan ball offered in American beauty look closer yeah sure which got so fucking profound agreed this movie could use a

[01:23:43] plastic black floating around at some plastic black oh no fuck you fuck you I didn't say it being so mean to me I love you I never get to talk on this podcast no no no let's just

[01:23:56] we'll say back we'll get a clean never get to talk it's really true how you never get to talk on this podcast just something I've been worried about yeah clean take a bag okay like a plastic black

[01:24:05] floating around all right what do we get that what do we get that yeah we got a clean okay that's the whole episode cool um this is a great post script by the way by the way yeah

[01:24:15] really long no no I don't think so I guess it's about as long as our usual that what's the beat you're looking for cancel our podcast um the beat I'm looking for I think

[01:24:25] that makes would make this whole plot line and their relationship sing for you just that final bit what is it I want the moment where Finn opens up to her about his past experience that's fair

[01:24:38] I mean she because she knows his story the legacy oh first order this and that I want some moment when he relates to her because it's a lot of him listening to her talk about what she's gone

[01:24:47] through right and I feel like they don't have the deep emotional bonding moment that I want they're sort of unified by being in this high stick situation together I agree with all of that

[01:24:57] nice kids but I like that his big moment is this uh literal and metaphorical triumph over phasma where he not only defeats her and she is there's people are like phasmas really

[01:25:12] not a character in these movies now she's dead yeah and I say to that two things one she's totally kind of come back in episode nine she's gonna be all burned up and weird and I'm gonna love it yeah

[01:25:20] me too or maybe she won't I don't know but I would be so into that she's like yeah like burnt phasma come on now she's bronze but yeah yeah she's like copper phasma no but also like

[01:25:30] she's like she is just a stand-in for like the trauma of Finn's life in the first order right she's the man she's the school mar not beyond that like the the tormenter the person

[01:25:40] who is like you are she says it literally like you're a cognitive machine or what you know what I mean like she has that line to him in this movie so he's defeating that part of his past right

[01:25:51] but but then the so that's his arc here but her arc is that is teaching him like the people matter I agree but let me ask you this okay I'm not gonna see you know that's how we're gonna win

[01:26:01] not by destroying what we hate by saving I love all the messaging of this movie but this is what I want to ask you I want to give Ryan Johnson a medal for that line when

[01:26:09] they're on that fucking balcony and they're looking at those creatures doing the race do we know what they're called the fendral I can draw I think that's what they're called and she talks about

[01:26:20] like no but look at what's going on underneath look at the coal that's being shoveled in to operate this this train right and pointing out the abuse of these children you know so sorry not fendrals that's a harry potter thing the favours fothier is something like that

[01:26:35] okay anyway space horses don't you feel like if there was some moment where finn opened up to her and was like I know that feeling and sort of talked about the sort of like pipeline of being a child

[01:26:48] soldier being reared for that spoke of whether or not directly or indirectly the presence of phasma like figures in his life yeah I get I get what you're saying that might be cool I don't

[01:26:58] know it would also I think make the phasma thing land a little more heartily for me this is the one time in the history of this podcast that you've said something where I'm like no I get that

[01:27:09] hey finally no I got what you mean but I'm first episode you let me talk first episode where you realize that I'm a genius you're just it's famed for how quiet you are on this show yeah

[01:27:19] and like how you know reticent you are to jump in you muzzled me you just had this triumphal moment where you actually like you know won me over yeah there's a huge moment I succeeded

[01:27:30] now now David I want you to sell me on something uh yeah okay yeah all right um well how do you feel about like drama I mean love it how do you feel about science fiction the best how do you feel

[01:27:44] about podcasts I don't know if it's going to be a lasting medium but what if it's more of like a sort of single episode podcast feature length okay like an hour and a half long it

[01:27:55] tells a complete story like you know like more sort of like an old-fashioned radio play like a movie for your ears exactly wow I should write ad copy exactly uh all right well I want to

[01:28:06] talk to you about this show called Cerberus Rex okay good title um it is a science fiction show hour and a half long sort of an audio adventure I guess is the you know as you put it a movie

[01:28:21] for your ears uh that's available to stream or download on sci-fi.com that's sci-fi.com and that's not a domain name you come by easily no it's sci that's a real deal domain name

[01:28:35] dash fi yeah and you can get it a high quality version of it for two bucks or you can just listen to it for free in regular quality version uh they don't I don't know if they have a

[01:28:44] professor crispy working on that high quality version but uh it's possible it's not a pretty crisp to my ears that might just be the where professor crispy this is not the title because

[01:28:54] you are not professor crispy no so that they might have they might have hired the good doctor himself I think that Jason over at Cerberus Rex he might have you know formed a dark alliance with

[01:29:05] professor crispy well maybe it's a nice I think he's a good guy uh let's let's say this too okay oh I like listening to audiobooks well guess what that's not the medium that this work was

[01:29:17] intended to be heard in that's a book and then someone's reading it okay this is like it's like a radio drama I mean like I've listened to some of these like the message I was talking

[01:29:26] about the message I like that a while back you know like there's this like sort of revival of like great old school yeah radio plays let's talk about a level of intentionality I'm gonna sit down

[01:29:37] I'm gonna write a 90 minute fucking sci-fi drama designed for this medium going to get professional actors hell yeah voice actors yeah but also like theater actors screen actor yeah gonna have like music special effects sound effects pew pew ding dong ding dong suspense yeah

[01:29:57] and it's you know gonna have like twists and turns like it's like a involving like you know look I like talking about butt wipes as much as the next guy all this love

[01:30:07] sponsoring like love being sponsored by butt wipes but it's cool to talk about like you know an actual work of drama on this show and like promote that look I mean look we love art we're

[01:30:20] patrons of the arts if nothing else okay and this is a work of art made by someone jason hardcastle let's say it is a blankie he is yeah he's a fan of the show and he reached out to us

[01:30:32] for us to listen to the show he wanted you know wanted to see if we were into it and uh we said fucking talk about it on the show yes I don't really want to get into the plot of it

[01:30:42] because I feel like the whole point of it is the you know like getting sort of sucked in by it yes but it's about these like scientists investigating a sort of you know physics mystery it's got like

[01:30:55] kind of like experiments x files sort of vibe with like sort of a john carpenter the thing kind of atmosphere if that makes sense you know what I mean and uh it's great and you guys

[01:31:05] should listen to it at ci.fi.com hell's yeah hell's yeah all right okay so now we're back on the island of acto so this shit's great yeah right yeah I mean like I feel like you liked the island stuff

[01:31:19] pretty much I was so excited that I was seeing Luke Skywalker in a movie sure interesting see like I like Luke Skywalker mm-hmm but it's not like I Han Solo was the one where I was like

[01:31:32] I was worrying about him and like I wanted him to be okay and for like Luke I'm sort of like Luke can do whatever he wants I'm not gonna worry about it um Han Solo is my favorite yeah character

[01:31:43] he's cool or was you know my childhood favorite character I think I've become more of a leia guy with time from the original uh sequel trilogy virtue signaling much hey sorry I'm kidding she's the Lisa Simpson of the Star Wars universe um she's she's the best but uh

[01:31:59] uh Luke represents so much there's so much power in the idea of Luke Skywalker and I also think the rush of watching Mark Hamill get apart like this and and nail it and like do well that was

[01:32:15] the big thing very exciting yeah because he did mostly become a voice actor and you'd hear him in interviews say like yeah I kind of resigns to the fact I don't think I'm gonna get that big

[01:32:22] live action role again you know I thought I could age into being like an interesting kind of character actor and it mostly feels like voice acting and then he does these sort of

[01:32:30] cameos where it feels like children of Star Wars casting him to show up for one scene even in stuff like Briggs B. Bear which he's good in it's like you know he's being deployed as

[01:32:40] Mark Hamill even if he's playing another I always think he's good but also he's done a lot of animation voice acting which is very big very often and so there's that question of like can

[01:32:48] he go back to live action he's really good actually like I actually you know I'm just sort of thinking about all the choices he's making and he's kind of got you know I know he's also got a

[01:32:56] good face right now he looks incredible you know what I mean he's aged into this he looked like they did it right like he looks like this grizzled yeah kind of like slightly freaky great glassy

[01:33:07] eyed work oh my god his eye work in this movie is great because that's the thing like sometimes when you see people who are predominantly voice actors I know he's a different case because

[01:33:15] he started out as an on-camera stage actor right right when you see them on screen their voice can feel a little disconnected from their body sure because they've honed that one thing so

[01:33:24] much get you but he's doing like a full incredible rich vocal performance like he really knows how to play his voice like an instrument now right but then also he's got this incredible like fucking clenched like jaw glassy eyed like broken bottled fucking fear that he's holding on

[01:33:43] to in every single shot yeah he's got some amazing close-ups in this movie he does when he attacks Kylo oh my god that's intense and it's also kind of really showing that even

[01:33:56] Luke Skywalker is going between good and evil yeah not so simple and I like you know I always like the meta energy of an actor so excited to be given the chance that you can feel how much

[01:34:12] they're fucking given into the movie that he can't believe he's getting to play this part you know yeah even though he sort of talked about how freaked out he was by Ryan Johnson's

[01:34:22] like take on Luke yeah I think he thought he was just going to get to play like heroic Luke right yeah probably right originally you know well how does Luke get one over to like work with Ray

[01:34:36] after ignoring her for a while he goes to the Falcon oh he sort of explored around because he's you know wrestling with the death of Han she asked about right he asked about Han

[01:34:45] because he sees Chewie yeah where's Han what happened to Han and then he goes and he sees the dice sees the dice which are this like very like minor piece of lore but they are in the original

[01:34:56] movie and they're not in all of them they're only in the original movie in force awakens oh is that dresser like forgot about them in the sequel weird but I always knew about the

[01:35:04] dice because like any of the like the star wars cards and you know they were always like throw them in yeah I think a lot of fans are like Han was like yeah dice what's this

[01:35:13] it's not like Han was like I'm the dice man but it's like the fucking dice the fuzzy dice and no I know what he did do that smoking trick he did put his armor on his head

[01:35:25] little list muff it why can I speak today I'm literally mispronouncing every word every time I try to do a bit correct well done clean take who does he run into little list law

[01:35:36] who does he run into on the falcon you're really struggling our buddy R2D R2D to our good friend R2D and I in what I think is a pretty cute little prod from Ryan Johnson to JJ Abrams yeah R2 he's talking

[01:35:52] R2 says like you know essentially they can say what the fuck's the matter with you living on this island sacred island watch the language yeah and then R2 he's like nothing I'm not doing this

[01:36:01] no way no way you do yeah and R2 plays the leia tape yeah and he goes like this has a cheap shot which especially now with the passing of Carrie Fisher like that was the moment that

[01:36:13] brought me closest to tears so good but I also do right yeah it did get one yeah and it just um it's it conjures up the optimism of sure of his original story and right the you know

[01:36:32] the thrill of the rebellion right and he's he's seeing that ray is like leia like him at that point at that age where it's like they actually believe that they can save the galaxy and maybe

[01:36:42] the people who think that that's possible are the people who need to be empowered to do so at least try so he starts training ray and we pretty quickly have yeah the music I mean

[01:36:55] the music cue and you should listen to the score and I believe the cue is that the track is called um maybe it's called the last jet I might actually be called that okay like of luke

[01:37:09] marching out is john williams is just like hey man I ain't dead yeah you know but um he starts training ray we have my favorite scene in the movie which is uh the first lesson

[01:37:20] he says he's going to give her three lessons with the with the pebbles yes where essentially he's sort of probing her force powers yeah beyond that he is explaining what the force is yeah this

[01:37:30] is in this way the films have never even tried to do before in a poetic manner it's it's like a tarrant malik sequence like it becomes like a tree of life it's wonderful yeah I really think it's

[01:37:41] very economical it's not over the top yeah and he's just like I mean there's also the line where he's like what's the force and she's like it's this like magic power you can make people do things

[01:37:50] and lift rocks and stuff 100 wrong uh and he's like that's not what it is and then he does the thing where he tickles her finger with the leaf which is really funny and I'll give him two comedy

[01:38:01] points for that I'll give him five it's really funny um because he he's like look at him in that scene when you rewatch it where he's like okay that must be the force that's what it is you

[01:38:10] know what's the thing I find very interesting about this film uh ryan johnson is on record as a as a phantom ass trilogy defender uh okay I didn't know that and you know you wonder how much of that is

[01:38:20] like diplomatic now that he's like you know part of the machinery but he seems to talk about intelligently enough and be like it's its own thing I respect it for different reasons there's

[01:38:30] a lot of him trying to bridge the gap between the two yeah and make those first three phantom menace movies work more in the larger context here right and he's sort of like not throwing out

[01:38:42] anything in the phantom menace trilogy but getting into like a deeper thing where he's like I'm not saying it's not midi-chlorians no no we're just not gonna talk about that and I'm also not saying

[01:38:51] it's everything they said in the original three sure right I'm I'm getting to like I'm an old dude here here's what the force really fucking is here's what the force means to me you know

[01:39:00] he's like what do you feel and she's like life death you know peace uh violence right like she keeps sort of and he's like in between it all and she says balance yeah and it's there's these nice visual

[01:39:14] representations of all these things that she's sort but Luke's point is right balance it's for everybody like this isn't a jedi thing okay no I mean the future of the galaxy rests on the undecided voters you know what I'm saying you have your first order you have your

[01:39:29] resistance god and it's like polarized time yeah it's a polarized time you need you need the people who are aware of the balance and moderation to be able to fucking nurture that but then she like

[01:39:38] forces out and cracks things and flips and pebbles and it has a vision of this like sort of dark place on the island pool this like weird sinkhole it's cool and then also he flips out yeah he's

[01:39:48] like you're too powerful I've seen that power once was like Ben I wasn't scared of him I'm scared of you yeah and she makes it clear that she felt everything on the island other than him

[01:39:58] he's turned himself off to the force yeah he's he's gone forth so came here to die came here to die along with the jedi um so what's happening at the same time as all this island ship

[01:40:10] is that Ray's having these conversations with Kylo Ren yes they keep meeting each other in their minds yeah which I think is a really cool cinematic device I think it's awesome it's very simple but it's done very well able to do this cross cutting conversational thing

[01:40:25] yeah where they're in their own rooms they in the only time you see them together in the same room it's this like kind of frightening site yes where it's like they've gotten so close that they can

[01:40:34] actually sort of like sort of may manifest themselves in front of each other yeah and I think this definitely feels like he had the opposite actor on each set oh doing this probably is very

[01:40:48] interesting I wonder about that because that would have been such a task they're very focused performances yeah you know they're so good yeah and they're really relating to each other even though

[01:40:55] they're in different backgrounds like you know you rarely get them in the same shot in any of these conversations everyone's gonna have one of them peeking into the other ones place for a moment

[01:41:04] um but it's that kind of like super analog trickery that almost excites me most in big movies like this um yeah doing shot reverse shot in different ends of the galaxy and it's like

[01:41:18] it's sort of playing in the pool of like the ray kylo ren connection where it's like or they related is that why this is happening are they in love is that why this is happening like

[01:41:29] but also rey gonna turn evil is he gonna turn good this other thing that ryan johnson's really trying to do which is like yes all this is indebted to the previous star wars films yeah but i'm not

[01:41:38] making this the exact same dynamic we've done before right these two characters as figure heads are going to be different than the protagonists and villains we've had before but also what they represent the forces that they're leading you know yeah this it's we're gonna

[01:41:53] hang closer to the middle yeah that's not so much about stark opposites anymore well also it's like these characters are so like their place in the world is so volatile you know like kylo ren's the whole point of him is he's just like fountain of power

[01:42:08] and since he got turned like rey is this sort of fountain that's risen like and there are characters that are burdened by legacy he wants to be darth vader and she wants to be luke skywalker

[01:42:17] and both of them are starting to wonder like wait who are these actual people that i'm trying to be i love that about rey though the in the last movie she wants to be hunts solo and in this

[01:42:25] movie she's like i mean he's cool but i think i might want to be luke skywalker and we know that in the next movie she's gonna want to be wato um but uh this is where driver

[01:42:35] starts to really fucking blow me away because he this whole movie is him just like a coin somehow balancing up on its side right waiting to see where it's gonna fall and he actually creates an

[01:42:48] astonishing amount of tension right trying to figure out uh where he's gonna go yeah and whether or not he's manipulating you the audience whether he's manipulating her yeah or if he's genuinely that conflicting and he does it all in a very bottled way i mean it's the thing

[01:43:03] about acting where it's like he's always more interesting to watch someone try to hold back than to show so good at in something like that or trying not to show anything but you're seeing the

[01:43:14] emotion seep out from all sides of him the hatred the vulnerability all of it i said this before you got here comparing this performance with hayden yeah it's like he just kills it you actually

[01:43:27] i mean he's found a way to visualize through his face someone weighing the balance of his own morality i mean hayden had the problem of one who was being directed by george lucas and you know

[01:43:40] two he was acting alongside tennis balls but three right he was playing this character where we're all like he's gonna be darth fader yeah so anytime he's a bitch sure sure uh not to you know but

[01:43:50] like not to be too glib about it but anytime you think we're like darth fader supposed to be cool man what the fuck but i'm watching this movie and i'm going like you know what

[01:43:58] you know whatever we are like an hour into the movie or whatever i'm watching and i'm going like two hours in the podcast yeah that's what you mean yes uh i'm going there's a chance that by

[01:44:06] the time we get to episode nine yeah uh kylo rance the hero and raise the villain like they could pull this off when i'm seeing this when i'm watching this movie they're starting to shake

[01:44:17] hands the first time i'm genuinely wondering is that the trick they're gonna pull where saving ray will be the focus of the ninth movie like is that gonna happen and i'm i'm concerned

[01:44:28] because i don't want it to because i just don't think you can pull it off but it is amazing how close they feel they feel to pulling it off yes yeah um and of course he's planting this thing in her

[01:44:38] mind of like luke's version of like the massacre yeah is a little different like from my version luke's version is i was evil and he you know he he rebelled and my version is i woke up with luke

[01:44:52] getting ready to kill me he tried to preemptively kill me yeah there's this sort of rashomon like we see the scene three times right and the third time is probably the closest to the truth which is

[01:45:01] that luke thought about it he had the moment of weakness and even in thinking about it he helped propel ben you know into becoming right and that's the main reason that he

[01:45:10] cast himself out of society yes that he felt like i don't want to be luke skywalker the legend i can't handle that he just loves that milk right off the tip just yeah yeah he's sucking

[01:45:19] right off the tip um okay so now oh we the nuns fish nuns oh yeah they're fish just want to shout them out turtle nuns uh they're great and i love them so they live on the island and they're running

[01:45:32] bit with with like we keep smashing shit yeah like so we've covered a good degree of the kanto bite stuff just by zooming ahead but oh yeah there's something because they need someone who can

[01:45:45] so they talk to maz an eighth build lapida nayango appearing only via hologram i think that that's pretty good joke though yeah where she's like having some kind of wacky space adventure like that we

[01:45:56] should see in a spin-off movie yeah which is a union dispute she says uh huh what do you think yeah yeah yeah it's good good comedy yeah whatever i want maz and nine now i do too

[01:46:07] like i want maz to do a whole bit i miss maz she's great yeah uh but but she's like right go recruit my friend the master code breaker he's on kanto bite he wears a red flower yeah he co wrote out a man too

[01:46:22] rock of ages talks about his dick a lot yeah which is like kind of a weird double standard that we haven't really started investigating well we're starting to i think yeah let's start digging into

[01:46:30] that yeah well you talk about dicks a lot i do but i think in a very positive way i think in a very progressive way uh they go to try to recruit him at the casino planet kanto bite

[01:46:43] which has become another point of people going like this feels like prequel shit and i look at it and i'm like this feels like the good execution what lucas was trying to do in the prequels here's

[01:46:51] what this feels like it's awesome yeah it feels like one john williams is like again like i'm not dead like he's around some bangers oh my god the score for this whole sequence is amazing

[01:47:01] that long shot uh ryan does where you know he pushes through the casino yeah and you just see 8 000 amazing creatures doing weird gambling stuff i also look i love space drunks right oh space

[01:47:12] drunks yeah there's that weird little like gremlin who starts putting coins into bb8 but up until now we've only been in space dive bars where it's like this is a hive of scum and villainy right

[01:47:22] because i mean again it's that cut of rose being like it's the worst place and you're like oh it's like mausasling and then you cut to these people being like they're like clinking their

[01:47:30] champagne glasses yeah right this is like a high thread count scum yes throw looks great he slams the dick out in the table he's but he's obviously he's your red herring right red flower red herring

[01:47:44] he's awesome and i'd love to see a whole movie about justin throw uh james bond yes space bond but instead they get thrown into the slammer because they parked in the wrong place because

[01:47:55] poor people are not allowed to be in this casino and they can sniff them out immediately exactly and these are all war profiteers yeah they're arms dealers they weapons people like that's what

[01:48:05] rose is pointing out to fin like that's how you what's the biggest business in the galaxy wars it's not called star piece baby so they get thrown in the slammer in the tombs the drunk

[01:48:15] tank right yeah along with a lawyer played by full benicio del Toro now i have to say this is a big movie this is a crazy big budget right yeah uh state of the art resources this one

[01:48:29] has the single most incredible special effect i've ever seen in my life and i don't know if it's digital i don't know if it's practical i can't help it's aesthetic uh if it's an animatronic

[01:48:38] they have found some way to make benicio del Toro look tired that was your big joke that you didn't want me to spoil i'm assuming let's be honest it was very funny you laughed

[01:48:51] second he showed up yeah it was very funny i said how'd they do it how'd they do it i'm like what and he's like how'd they make him look so tired pretty funny see ben the joke is that benicio

[01:49:01] del Toro always looks sleep deprived benicio del Toro looks needs looks like he's been in like hyper he is a cast man he does yes he's been in hyper sleep since also some mac well then

[01:49:13] since the usual suspects because he's kind of doing the usual suspects and he is a little bit yes that kind of like he's got this stutter that he's added yeah he's going full del Toro i knew what they wanted i like it

[01:49:27] oh i love i'm really into it my favorite thing is when he goes to get something from his little bunk in the prison and it's his boots and he drapes them over his shoulders listen are you

[01:49:38] kidding me star scum okay he is star scum i like star scum yeah i've also been missing on some star scum i also like that they're like where are we gonna find a cold breaker and he's like i

[01:49:47] can do it yeah i can do it and they're like uh no don't worry about it we're fine he's like i'm just saying i can get you into snokes boudoir you know he's like and they're like

[01:49:58] yeah don't worry about it we don't want to deal with you it's only after he literally breaks out there like i guess we should go with this guy yeah but he's like a space cross

[01:50:07] punk he's got a drug head hat and he's got like a pocket full of pins that he can use to like they're essentially like lock picks right like space lock picks they're pretty cool he says he's a lawyer

[01:50:19] he's like a night court lawyer he's great yeah uh and then there's this whole sequence where they break the horses out and ride them around now well i watch this sequence i burst into tears

[01:50:30] and cried for the whole thing really and then like the first time and other people was walking out we're like i like the movie a lot except for the space horses okay i'm gonna throw out a

[01:50:38] complaint that i think you're gonna just go nope wrong shut up uh great uh i i think this i was very locked into rose actualizing like her own feelings here with this sort of music

[01:50:52] agreed 100 like the kids and 100 here's my great yeah it's a little one yeah yeah i think the compositing in this movie is a little dodgy i think whenever it gets into live action actors

[01:51:02] in a mostly CGI zone the compositing isn't as strong as talking about compositing because it sticks out like a sore thumb and i think that's which which we mean just them running yeah when they're in

[01:51:10] like the full CGI environment i also think it happens during the battle with uh bb8 on the walker and shit like that there's some sequences where i think those are the two the it's like

[01:51:21] a little muddier the spielberg percentage thing we talked about 75 25 i know because i think ryan johnson is pretty analog he's an analog dude yeah i agree and and jj maybe has a little

[01:51:32] more experience with that you know there that would be a little more experience with that you know force awakens also has a couple sequences where the visuals are kind of flat like you know

[01:51:41] it's hard this shit's hard i agree there's just a couple moments where they look like color forms placed onto a CGI movie i am big old nerd i'm owning it but uh i i just like the idea i

[01:51:52] guess i do too i like her getting that you know taking the um saddle off at the end there saying this is how it's worth it the thing that phantom astrology defenders always throw out is like

[01:52:02] look jj was just rehashing the old movies like lucas was actually trying to do new shit with it and it's like here's the best of both worlds here's like new shit that's actually well executed yeah you know yeah yeah uh this isn't like fucking dexter

[01:52:15] jetzer's diner which let me say is like i mean good food and affordable prices yeah but thematically doesn't make a ton of sense sure it's just this weird fucking 50s nostalgia bet whereas the casino

[01:52:27] thing is like this actually says something about the universe the structure of how it works i agree now i mocked openly a tweet that said something along the lines of like this movie's worse than

[01:52:39] episode three even george lucas never made a film where half the storyline is pointless filler and i was like one have you seen the pod race in episode one the best sequence well

[01:52:52] pointless filler i mean george lucas is the king of pointless filler and that's what i call pod racing that was to be fair an official cd compilation cd was released in on tatooine right now that's

[01:53:07] right call pod racing correct uh also uh weird a brock obama to tweet that especially since he's been pretty quiet recently i think he finally found something you wanted to talk about yeah

[01:53:18] um so yeah you've been mocking that i i know i think all this works and i think it is where he's like yo right i think this is not pointless filler whereas i think something

[01:53:26] like the pod race which i do enjoy yeah is lucas being like well i can't just take the kid so uh i guess there'll be like a whole thing about a yeah a bet double bet on a pod race but then

[01:53:40] this gets to one of my favorite elements of the movie which is they're down in the trenches and they see these kids who are like slaves you know tending after these creatures yeah

[01:53:51] and rose and fin are able to come to them and be like hey look there's this chemo where rose secret the coda rings her sort of french resistance coda ring yeah yeah

[01:54:00] and being like we're rid of the resistance like yeah and you see them all just go like yeah because like here are two kids who like came out of nothing no i'm saying fin and rose oh sure fair enough you know it's like these are now relatable heroes

[01:54:15] this is true this is true they're they're similar to these kids yes they're upbringing you know mining planet for rose that's kind of a medicine about what star wars means to children you know

[01:54:25] but it works i love it i mean this to me feels like inherent to johnson's initial pitch yeah because it's the ending of the movie yeah these kids do you think that's what his trilogy is going

[01:54:35] to be if not directly kind of i'm wondering if since it seems like episode nine is going to be the end of the skywalker saga he's going to make a new trilogy of new characters who are kind of

[01:54:45] the children of maybe the outcome of these films maybe yeah i don't know he's also kind of talked about like going to the further reaches though so like maybe it won't be as sort of like fate of

[01:54:55] the galaxy oriented that's my whole yeah yeah uh new hope it would be a great new hope so back to octo yeah there's the big fight between ray and luke mm-hmm where she sort of confronts him finally

[01:55:09] and says like what happened with ben she also before this she goes down into the the pit yeah and does the infinite mirrors and yeah man what do you think of that sequence she almost breaks

[01:55:19] into a fossey number thing yeah it's a busby berkeley sequence like i think the compositing is a little dodging but but i'm actually rolled my eyes at that i was really annoyed about that you

[01:55:29] did a full like fucking george cloney oceans 13 i roll yeah that's a good call thank you um but i like i like the sequence a lot i love that i mean look i love the dark the cave of evil

[01:55:41] and empire strikes back i love luke you know facing off against right but like yeah the metaphor is clear right in that i like to me the idea of this scene is oh yes definitely

[01:55:53] totally clear no in the empire strikes back oh sure like the metaphor is very clear luke chops off dark faders head luke's face is underneath we get it but this one's his own worst enemy but in this

[01:56:03] movie too is super clear well i like that it's more i know i know what they're saying she wants to see her parents and she's like you know like at the end of this long line of rays

[01:56:16] like trying to get to some like final answer yeah and it's like you know he's telling us like ray it's about ray she has to make her own destiny right but you know she's looking for an answer

[01:56:26] that there is no easy fix exactly but it's not doing it in the way where it's definitely saying all of our points in unison yeah it's like one of those things where we're singing a song and he's

[01:56:37] like home with a break i do like that sequence a lot but then right that's when she and right afterwards is when she confronts luke and they have that little fight with the sticks i think that's

[01:56:50] cool yeah where luke's finally waking up you know yeah they're in the rain and you know he snaps off the branch and he sort of stops himself when she gets the lights luke runs up to it and

[01:56:59] but his his owning up is good and it feels right yeah and she just kind of says something like look we need you now i'm saying it one more time i'm gonna go off right i know what i gotta do

[01:57:09] i think i can get bent i think i can win him back right coming with me or not and she holds out the lightsaber again and he's like hard pass yeah and she's like but is this hard pass like the way

[01:57:19] the blank track always say hard pass where then it actually means that the performance is good coming up yeah that'll be an hour seven if you want to skip ahead um and i can't believe i have

[01:57:30] to say well whatever it's fine she leaves in there she leaves in there and she goes she kind of pulls a luke skywalker and return to the jedi yeah where she just surrenders to her enemy you know right

[01:57:41] in chain chains you know but before we get to that sequence which is the best uh there's this shot that you thought was so pretty right after that where luke is like i've failed and you know

[01:57:54] he's walking over to the tree and this is a shot you loved at the back of a character's head i love that shot it's the shot after that that i don't like oh okay what shot is that you didn't

[01:58:03] like i don't know we were joking about this shot right at the end of the movie uh luke is having a moment of real uh you know he's gonna go burn despondency burn down the tree burn it all

[01:58:14] library of six books or whatever it is and then he's got like a flare yeah the camera pants and then who do we see we see a fuzzy little head two pointy ears why it's old

[01:58:26] yoder himself yes it's yoder the character we really came around on yeah gets good later yeah and uh surprised there have been rumors that he was maybe in the movie frank os is

[01:58:39] the i had no idea see i had heard no idea do you want to know why i had in clings that he was maybe in the movie because i was really good about staying away from all the rumor mongering

[01:58:47] about this movie uh because of fucking muppet fan blogs anytime frank os was doing anything and they question him about it he give weird sketch answer right it's because you're too in on the

[01:58:57] moth that's the thing i was staying away from this the wars but the mops that's the crossover point yeah and he was like i don't know maybe i'm in it yoda is in the movie yoder is in the

[01:59:07] movie and it cuts around to his front side and immediately we all went like wait is this cgi is it a puppet they've clearly harken back to the older design of yoda right yoder sorry

[01:59:19] um it is a pup yeah i think it's wall puppets here mm-hmm they got the characterization 100 correct that's what made me so happy i think at the opening couple of shots when they're putting

[01:59:29] that force ghost filter on him he's got the blue halo you know that filter itself is so cgi that it makes the puppet looks look less tactile and as the scene goes on and they drop the filter and

[01:59:39] he becomes more physical presence next to luke then i think the puppet looks great great let's talk about the scene cool yeah yoder yeah yoda uh here's a great great scene i couldn't believe

[01:59:50] how good it was here's the thing they got right yeah yoda is a little stinker he's a little piece of shit he's a little like loose walker yeah this awful terrible he looks fucking with people

[02:00:02] well and also it's like he's a real prank he's watching luke once again not go through with something where it looks like i'm totally gonna burn it down and then he's like oh

[02:00:08] shit i probably shouldn't and so he just goes like boop and lights it all on fire himself yoda he's like who cares looks like those books yeah they were not they were not the dumb books

[02:00:19] yeah boring she raised got it she gets it don't worry about her yoda essentially is like a dude who took his career too seriously and then later in life was like oh it's all play yeah where he

[02:00:30] was just like yeah jesus what 800 years of like fighting yaddles appointment right jedi i was the problem let me own up become the solution let me have some fun let me knock a stick around

[02:00:43] boil snakes i mean he's he's also just what what happened to george lucas right i mean that's what yoda is yes like in the prequels is older george lucas the problem is that he

[02:00:53] mentioned buttoned you know because he's it's in the younger yoda that he's more george lucas he old george lucas right so now what he really helped yoda but i just like lighten up you

[02:01:04] know the thing about like that's the pain of being a master we are what they grow beyond is so such a lovely line about like i agree like obi one's bird and yoda's bird you know like all

[02:01:15] the burdens of all these like jedis who've tried and kind of failed but also like if star wars is going to continue to mean something it has to be this generation star wars not a star wars

[02:01:26] that is too deeply rooted in the past uh this movie has to fully bridge us into a new generation that is not tied to the original films for emotional resonance right yes yes yes

[02:01:37] you know and yeah and he's saying like luke like it's okay that you fucked up like you should talk about fucking up yeah ray it's you know she's will learn from your failures but also this is ray's

[02:01:47] movie now so just do what you can to help her because she's the lead now uh love this scene just love what a little you know right little grover he is yoda uh he's a little stanker and

[02:02:00] then i'm just very impressed that ryan like knew took the swing you know right yeah yeah it's we can we can reclaim yoda dumb fucking self serious yoda uh he's a little stanker and um ray gets in the

[02:02:15] falcon goes into her little escape pod lands right on the ship and immediately is cuffed or she gets there she's there ran and she's like hey cool so that conversation we were having and he's like

[02:02:26] nope cuffer yeah you then did this whole you did this whole no no no with me for a while not nice not extra to the throne room yeah ben's favorite place oh do we talk about the red boys love those

[02:02:39] red boys they got all kinds of cool like new uh like lightsaber weaponry like yeah they have like light uh blades a light whip crimson samurai armor they look a little bit like the uh Dracula's armor

[02:02:53] from bram strokers Dracula it's really good design uh they look great and they're totally faceless masks and you're just like oh they are just gonna be really good background right yeah they might be

[02:03:04] right they could just be awesome design dressing right like the imperial guards who never actually did anything but in this scene uh ray is is trying very hard to like she thinks she can get

[02:03:15] in there and fuck with snow can fuck with ren she has this whole plan that she's going to turn ren because she when she has this charged conversation with them she's like i saw his future and he's

[02:03:25] he's gonna be good yeah and she keeps on trying to pull a fast one force a lightsaber out and they're like what the fuck are you doing this amateur night yeah what are you talking about

[02:03:36] you're an open miker uh this is the snokes scene yeah you think you can do like weekends like three shows at night at like the fucking yucklebone boyzie uh-huh that's what he says you're not a

[02:03:47] road dog yet no she's not a road you're an open miker you got five good minutes she has the thing yeah we're your opener's weak you clonk sir with you don't know crowd work enough enough my god man

[02:04:00] you madman ben saw me to stretch for time yeah i didn't put the light up i got time uh god so uh what's with this uh let me let me do my chunk on millennials

[02:04:12] he he clonks her with the lightsaber that's cool yeah what else um i guess he's his crucial line to me is where he says like check this out ren like yeah i told you you get so dark there's gonna be

[02:04:27] someone to balance it out and rey is like he's he was close and and fucking sucks like are you fucking kidding me i've been maneuvering this entire thing i bridge your mind i know what a piss

[02:04:37] boy he is i set the two of you up i'm everything's working according to plan don't think like you pulled anything on me he's giving the emperor monologue from maturen of the jedi where he's like

[02:04:47] everything is my design uh and what i like about this is despite his design being more monstrous i think circus plays uh snoke more human than mcdermans palpatine in the later movies i think

[02:05:01] he's playing them like he looks super fucking gross but he's just a very kind of like he's a shaman evil yeah he's a bad man he's an asshole a bad alien man whatever he is asshole he's a total

[02:05:13] asshole he's like ha ha ha yeah i like to kill things and be bad yeah i'm i like being bad and now i kill you yeah and he tortures her she gets lifted that's a great shot of her lift in the air

[02:05:25] gets the luke info out of her finally mm-hmm took two movies but then he's like great gonna kill you now kylo's gonna do it right and we see kylo's hesitation he's got the lightsaber

[02:05:36] and then she's pleading for her life and then he's got the other hand going like this under the table right as snoke is like i know what's happening yeah you know like i can see him he's

[02:05:45] decisive there's no more doubt in his mind she's going to strike oh because it was that earlier moment too when he has the shot to be able to take out lay on the ship and he doesn't take it

[02:05:55] and someone else does and you see him be affected he couldn't so easily kill his mother yes yeah um and we yeah that right that is crucial right i suppose that's sort of helping us

[02:06:06] believe ray as well right and he's fighting to be seen as decisive and unwavering uh and so snokes like yep no i can tell you're about to do it boy and what does kylo do he takes that

[02:06:17] lightsaber sends it right through snokes tummy he takes luke's lightsaber spins it yep and turns it on cuts him in twain answering in twain answering a question i have always had i believe

[02:06:27] i've i have asked on this podcast which is why don't you just turn someone's lightsaber off with the force uh and the only response i ever got was i guess if you're fighting someone you know they're

[02:06:38] they're strong to let you do that yeah but he turns it on with the force yes uh cool cut him in half and then there's this amazing shot right he falls in half it's so good it rules uh it's

[02:06:51] like uh when the brother is killed in walk hard yes and what's that line oh it's so good go go on go on i'm gonna find the line and uh then there's this amazing shot where they look at each

[02:07:05] other and they're like it's on now they each have a lightsaber and in slow motion they turn out it's a wide shot yeah in slow motion right they sort of go back to back and i literally

[02:07:14] lean forward to the edge of my seat what did i do you maybe weren't paying attention you tapped me on the shoulder i don't know i went like yeah like that david was punching the air yeah

[02:07:23] and i'm leaning forward i'm letting out giddy squeeze and i'm all like yeah okay ben looks like he's surfing but confused yep he was sort of throwing his hands out what uh and then they just have

[02:07:37] this awesome lightsaber battle where they fight all these guards do we i'm cutting half pretty bad that's the line in walk hard and they take them all out and it's like great we got that

[02:07:48] done we win no but that's that's so good though yeah right that whole sword that whole sword fights amazing rules yeah the thing where like she tosses him the her lightsaber and he like goes like

[02:08:01] and like puts it and she's in practice and this kind of backhanded lightsaber style she's like a nice little drop right very cool uh kind of like a so katana and then uh they they win right yeah

[02:08:16] all bosses defeated yeah and she's like okay cool so let's go back to the island and we'll be good guys together and he's like i was just so delighted by all this yeah i was so happy that it wasn't like

[02:08:28] some kind of flop where it's like uh now raise good and raise evil and he's good yeah and how with the old and with the new we gotta drop this gone because like i was sort of enjoying

[02:08:38] snook but you know you don't know who he is and yeah yeah if we're gonna care who he is they're gonna need to suddenly do like a ton of snook shit you know that's no spin off this movie

[02:08:48] would have to be like very snoky yeah ruby and then you know people over two years are going like he's Darth plague is he's and it's like i was watching these people do this and be like you fucking crazy

[02:08:58] yeah you think after seeing force awakens that that's the character they're gonna sink all their energy into he was mace winded do you know that there because he's bald like that's all they

[02:09:07] had going for it oh god anyway uh kyle was like no and now i'm in fucking no i mean he's joined yeah he's calm but like he's calm he's like i want you to join me let the past die right it's

[02:09:21] not about the resistance in words not about the first order it's about you and i rule in the galaxy together we can make this right because what's happening at the same time is that you know

[02:09:28] work we'll get back to it but finnan well we should do whatever you know finna roses plan is kind of failed and they've been captured shelled they've gone undercover as first order

[02:09:37] officers but evil bb8 who's pretty cool yeah and and people were worried that was going to be like a big fucking thing he's just a bad little roundie yeah he's a bad little to quote emily ashida

[02:09:48] he's about lower he's about bad little round he's a bad little roundie and uh so they're sort of captured now and uh yeah he extends the offer to rey and she's like hard pass i mean it's

[02:09:59] again it's sort of it's an echo of something that's come before but in a totally new dressing yeah the sort of you know join me and we can rule the galaxy yes uh she's not into it she uh they you know

[02:10:12] is going to get well we don't know what happens because then cut back to the fucking space turn we got a wrap up space turn because she's being she's being really icy and pose pretty bent

[02:10:23] i'm a little worried yeah and you know because i'm like is she just going to be like this sort of you know cold lady character who po has to like sort of push aside you know i mean like

[02:10:33] it's gonna be her where he like holds her at gunpoint yeah where he's like fuck you your plan sucks yeah you have no way of dealing with this so i'm gonna like put you in the brig and we're

[02:10:42] gonna do finn's whole crazy plan yeah and then that doesn't work no and leia shoots fit a po which is great yeah with her old gun with the ring

[02:10:54] yeah and then um space turn space turn i mean but well before we get to spend i just do you like the throne room fight like how did you feel how shocked were you by snokes death all of it

[02:11:07] like great you were perfect but were you on board i mean like 100 on board is the wrong question like were you prepared for that or like no totally surprised or what you know loved it

[02:11:16] and the double reverse i loved it double reverse pretty good yeah but right at the same time you've got finn's plan failing finn and rosa's plan failing although benicio's having fun yeah but i mean yes

[02:11:27] there's that cool little bit with her you know her jewelry thingy it's a good conductor yeah yeah yeah we left out that whole thing and and and the whole line he says to fan where he's like hey man

[02:11:37] everyone's bad yeah because you made the wrong choice and maybe maybe yeah uh do you think he's gonna come back yeah yeah he's sort of the weird land though he's sort of like

[02:11:47] dark land oh like like kind of land oh except he doesn't like because when the atc started firing at them i'm like oh maybe he's in there right but he wasn't which was good because that would have been

[02:11:56] maybe a little too right land without the people skills right yeah so while finn and yeah but like you know so while this plan of evacuation is being executed space space turn stays behind

[02:12:08] turn space turn space turn space turn space turn to protect and then is it you know the plan starts to fall apart in these little transfers are getting shot right she goes into hyperspace well

[02:12:19] because yeah leah's woken up at this point yeah and shoots poe and is like shut up the plan makes sense which is essentially like we go to this little base over here and she explains to poe

[02:12:28] like down yeah hold those doing the right thing she's not about looking heroic she's about getting the work done maybe you should take a lesson from her she's a fucking fighter pilot she rules

[02:12:37] i taught her she's space turn your plan is one in a million and like you know we've had luck with that in the past but it's luck she got an oscar nomination for less than seven minutes of screen

[02:12:47] time in a while she's good fucking shut up and pay attention and excuse me by the way she's good yeah take notes oscar is it could have been wild space turn is good so the hyperspace

[02:12:58] she goes on a fucking hyperspace ram just really quick you know blue velvet's one of my favorite movies yeah of course hopper is so crazy blue velvet uh yes so blue velvet that goes on her

[02:13:12] hyperspace ram i don't know yes what do you think of that that's really nice and it's silent yes it's an image we've never seen before yeah i hated that she was dying selfishly because i

[02:13:24] want a trilogy of space turn films yeah i mean yeah she's kind of the smiths of the new series all about space turn yes she's my smith yeah she's my smith she's my north star right uh okay so now

[02:13:37] great sacrifice she's taken out a bunch of ships uh thin fights phasma knocks her down to become bronzed yeah rebel scum you were always scum rebel scum yeah get that one eye one shot at

[02:13:51] gwendoline christie's eye yeah like that yeah um and uh i hope in the next one when she comes back is zombie phasma bronze phasma she takes off her mask it turns out only that one eye looks human the

[02:14:05] rest of her face does that get she looks normal still underneath and she's like oh this is what i always look like i'm one human i am and i'm bug i'm all bug uh she's uh she's cool i like that

[02:14:17] they shoot at her and it just doesn't work yeah that armor is cool yeah phasma who cares uh great and so then uh what happens now they're all sort of unified they know the place to go which is this salt planet

[02:14:29] there's an old base there and they can hide out there sorry what's the name of the planet again it's called crete uh love this planet white and red so it's like oh is this hoth no not cold

[02:14:42] salt it's not snow what is it been salty salty guy spits it out salt salty planet garth jennings goes like gareth edwards garth edwards yeah garth jennings is another one of those

[02:14:55] the hitchhikers got to come hammer and tongs or whatever the fuck red red dust though red dust is pretty cool so because you know i like i like dirt i like when when shit gets dirty and this is

[02:15:04] good and the red salt mines when they go inside the cave are gorgeous like red structures oh boy and the crystal critters foxes they're pretty cool yeah uh love them yeah good it's sort of like a shitty

[02:15:17] old rebel thing you see them set up like the old rebel laptops you know like right in little oh now the resistance is like occupy wall street yeah but i like it it's like let's make it real

[02:15:30] fucking scrappy and their plan is like well now we're here we can call the old original trilogy bros who are still like scattered out there maybe you know use in leah's like use my code yeah

[02:15:40] doesn't work right no one comes no one comes and now the first order is there with their gorilla walkers yes but also at at is gorilla they're cool those things but also before then we've you know had

[02:15:54] this great scene which in my press screening everyone laughed out loud no one laughed in our screening where hux is standing over kylo ren he's just got this look of like this fucking guy

[02:16:04] and like takes his gun out like he reaches for his gun yeah and then kylo ren wakes up and he immediately is like i forget you know there's also that thing where like hux is like what are we

[02:16:13] going to do we don't have a leader now yeah well that's the next thing that happens kylo's force chokes him until he's like i mean uh we did we do have a leader he's a supreme leader is dead

[02:16:23] long live the supreme leader yeah uh there's also the best gag in the entire movie if i'm gonna give one million comedy points to anything it is a shot of a ship slowly lowering down

[02:16:35] thrusters so good i think to myself that design looks a lot like an iron and then it is in fact just an iron pressing the beautiful fascist uniforms yes uh so that happened an hour ago in the movie

[02:16:48] guys want to call that out a million comedy points and then uh yeah they're sort of gearing up for this final battle and who shows up old luke skywalker yeah where they're like hope is

[02:16:58] officially gone he shows up he looks great he looks like old like sort of the luke weave glimpsed in flashback cut his hair luke yes yes yeah he looks even younger he's not wearing his like

[02:17:09] weird you know island robes right like they're like half snot sort of closer to like the return of the jedi outfit the black sort of jedi kind of thing and uh he's he has a lovely confrontation with

[02:17:22] lay i'm so happy they shot something with the two of them together oh it's wonderful uh thank fucking god where you say sorry i heard she has the uh i changed my hairline that's really good yeah

[02:17:32] uh love carol gives three p o a little wink yeah three p is kind of funny in this movie yeah i like the lay line where she's like wiped that expression off your face yeah i just i i miss

[02:17:43] carol it's rough such a badass she is she's bad as in this um and then there's the sort of found out they have these like creaky ships that cool really fly well so they have to put

[02:17:54] out like a little tripod and sort of like mono skis mono skis yes and they've got open cockpits which i love and rose is kind of having to like nudge finn and help him they're going towards this

[02:18:04] big sort of blaster gun they have and finn thinks that he has to make the sacrifice yeah he's everyone else i mean poe has that moment of like oh he's learned his lesson where he's like this

[02:18:13] is suicide run we're not gonna destroy this gun yeah like as much as we might want to be badass is right so break off and finn's like finn is now they're like no we got to do it like you know

[02:18:24] right he's ready to die yeah rose saves him yeah i love it says the line you love we're not gonna win like killing the things we like and now i've now i've forgotten it you know i find a little

[02:18:36] sweaty that she's passed out then he shakes her she says this one line beautifully kisses him and then passes out again when she comes to she's very alert and then she immediately passes

[02:18:46] out again star wars it's stars it's star wars but then luke comes out fucking lone man and they realize like oh luke's taking the hit for us he knows we need to survive so that the resistance

[02:18:56] can exist right this is our opportunity to escape how do we get out of here let luke take this lone man facing out against the ships right their escape is less important it's the right

[02:19:05] it's the luke thing you got against him uh yeah but i just love adam driver in this scene so much yeah and also i love that joke the similar joke where the men win the millennium

[02:19:14] falcon shows up and rey is helping out yeah with chewie yeah and they she like diverts the ty fighters yeah oscar a pose like they hate that ship or finna's i can't remember one of them you know

[02:19:24] and that's that's funny yeah it's funny it's because it's you know it's the millennium falcon yes so uh they fire everything luke is unscathed he brushes the dirt off his shoulder it's great

[02:19:36] a little too much paprika on the sandwich no i i clap and you do and uh then uh kylo comes out for the confrontation yeah i david what i like to clap i all right ben hated that you're trolling

[02:19:55] go on um and uh luke tries to convince kylo no he doesn't what do you mean that that he's wrong no he doesn't not really he just he says i'm not here you know like kylo rents like are you here to apologize and looks like no

[02:20:12] and kylo rents like good yeah and then luke is essentially saying like you can't beat me yeah you strike me down i'm never gonna leave you back off mother just like your father yeah

[02:20:23] kylo rent tries to strike him down and doesn't work just like it hasn't been working yeah goes right through him i just love how driver is playing this mix of like total fear and total

[02:20:33] rage in one person at one you know like you know like luke is so frightening to him so can i ask you something that's been it turns out luke's like a forced projection like he's like manifested

[02:20:44] himself on this planet what do you think the movie accomplishes by doing that when he's going to sacrifice himself anyway uh what do you mean the whole point is that he's keeping kylo

[02:20:53] like he would just get destroyed immediately like one shot and he's dead the whole point is that he's stalling yeah i know that is that he buys them many minutes of time by like and beyond that force

[02:21:05] holler it's really important that he looks like the man kylo ren last saw sure he looks like luke who we've seen he looks exactly like luke in the flashbacks yeah rather than scraggly old

[02:21:17] you know you know alien tit milk luke right and then you get the reveal that he's like phase three iron man where he wasn't actually there and he's back in the cave wearing the white

[02:21:28] robes he's literally like this like ghosts of christmas past for kylo ren like that's what he's doing yeah i also i'd also just would not make a lot of sense that luke got there

[02:21:38] how the fuck would he get there sure i mean we see his x-wing in the water yeah like you know under the water but he like his door is made of an x-wing like peace yeah he salvaged that like

[02:21:49] that that ship's not really like so it's like a book at henry house right and i think it's just also like you know haundid cool haunch it flying around and shooting stuff right yeah but luke is a jedi

[02:22:01] yeah it's cool that he does a crazy jedi thing yeah sure you know and he lets himself go he's sort of surrenders to the force in the way that obi wanted a nice different way to kill off

[02:22:12] legacy character when haund obviously got a saver on him before he was a hologram that's what i thought was going to happen was that kylo ren would charge at him before he gets there he would turn

[02:22:21] into the ropes right but i think said they do it back in the cave i think what i didn't like about that is one that's obi one so it's like sort of like you're rhyming it too much and haund's

[02:22:30] death is so obi one yeah it's such a like specific right of it right and i love the thing of luke on the rock seeing the twin sons of tatooine as he dies that's such a smart image you got really

[02:22:43] choked up it's so good it's really good and it's so like poetic like this movie is poetic in a way these movies usually can't be bothered to be or don't have the strength you know whatever don't

[02:22:54] have the sort of right time to be maybe you know right that is a very let's like simple effective image and and meanwhile borrowing from the past but you know using it for an interesting new way

[02:23:05] rey has landed on crate and they've all tried to find escape out of these caves and she does her cool jedi shit too she gets them all out lifting rocks and her and finn she gets to hug finn yeah

[02:23:16] she gets to meet po which is a really good show it's a good joke they never met yeah um and you know they're like what are we gonna do the resistance we're like we're bootstrapping here

[02:23:27] and leia's like we got everything we need like look at everything we ask her isik chubaca three porgs bb8 yeah uh the other droids bobby birchermate yeah bobby birchermate yeah uh they got a good skeleton curve they've got that sort of alien guy who's sort of

[02:23:47] yeah the elow asting yeah he's cool he's so cool i love that guy he's nice yeah did they still have a a pz four c o you know that guy he's like the blue droid with the long neck the draught

[02:23:59] neck i don't know i don't know he's a really cool design who's been at the resistance base in the last two movies i can't remember if he's still alive at this point in a constable zubio is there

[02:24:07] you got a conics uh yeah she's around i think conics is still there conics am i right about conics uh yeah i love that look uh ray gives where she sees this uh bond finn and rose have made

[02:24:19] she doesn't look jealous or sad she just sort of acknowledges it i think she looks a little sad in a way that's full perhaps yeah oh maybe i don't know if that could have been a thing with

[02:24:28] us but now i probably not right and it's the sacrifice of of the jenna she also has the great long goodbye with uh kylo where they see each other again yeah oh don't say anything i think that's

[02:24:40] very well handled i think it's all there's also a really nice joke of when leia sees chubaca for the first time she gives in a long hug because everyone criticized the last movie oh really i

[02:24:49] didn't pick up on that so i will watch for that it happens really in a movie because like chubaca so nice to see you of you chubaca because i'm the forest awakens he walks right past her and you

[02:24:58] know the empire strikes back ends on such a bummer right yeah you think this is how the movie's ending with with this like we got a good team and then there's like this like fucking vandy fair like

[02:25:08] fold out like right of them all leave a bit spread of all them like pose perfectly like a christmas car and a shot of the falcon like flying through hyperspace and you're like we're ending

[02:25:17] and it cuts to a really beautiful ending i think it's gorgeous like the the kids yeah telling the story of little cinderella boy the kids from the little sweeper in the basement telling the story

[02:25:29] with the ring he's got the dolls of luke's uh you know triumph and like that's doing a little march you know the whole passing on the legacy oh Jesus he has to do the merchandise spotlight

[02:25:38] he's passing on the legacy yeah yeah we're wrapping this up his shitty slave master alien yells at him he goes out with his broom and he looks off but what does he do at the broom

[02:25:46] you didn't pick up on this what he starts swinging around like a light no he he calls the room to his hand oh right yeah yes this kid has the force power that's why i think this kid's gonna be a key

[02:25:56] figure or whatever the ryan johnson like some older version of him maybe exactly i don't think it's gonna be this kid no i think it is i think it is it's gonna be that kid they're

[02:26:03] gonna wait 40 years for him to become older though right it's gonna be boyhood that's what he's doing boyhood yeah what's your fucking merchandise spotlight oh no the worst kind of merchandise spotlight is when griffin immediately like looks at the floor it backs up we know it's a

[02:26:17] visual bit here rustling a great visual bit for our fair he's got a purple bag from toy's rust toys russ toys russ what's your favorite branch of toys rust that you go to uh well there are only

[02:26:33] there's a new one in time square now but i don't know how permanent it is and then there is um the one uh near here herald square new york city lost its best toys or us which was the proper time square

[02:26:46] one there's a one in the Bronx that i like to go to because no one goes there and sometimes they have good items um but this is unimportant interesting this is unimportant david okay okay because since

[02:26:57] the last shed I product line was revealed around august september for force friday mm-hmm i have been inundated with at tweets when are you going to weigh in on this okay the new advancement

[02:27:11] in the toy line because you may remember in the year 1999 kenner announced that now toys talk yes the invention of the contact contacts right figures too small to include a voice trip themselves

[02:27:23] came with plastic dog tags that you could swipe across a reader that vaguely looks like a prop from the film in order to make toys talk yes a conclusive failure mm-hmm something that except for this podcast

[02:27:34] I liked and I brought it a little bit of a second one right clearly they would never try something like that again except they did these crazy bastards did it in the same way that the new

[02:27:46] fucking trilogy rhymes with things in the old trilogy they have created the force link oh no okay so here's here's what this new fucking toy line is the smaller figures which is not my scale

[02:28:00] usually I tend to be a six inch man sure but i'm delving into the three and three quarter inch waters for the sake of this spot like buying items I would not have bought otherwise just

[02:28:09] remove the cloak plastic cloak okay this is the force link starter set okay no so this is even a toy it is okay because it comes with a little kylo okay all right that's cool and a little

[02:28:21] cloak and then rather than the communicator you had to get for the contact chips right which was stupid this is even dumber uh-huh you have to wear this thing on your wrist it's like the size of a

[02:28:33] fucking it's so big yeah it's really shitty and you have to wear on the back of your wrist like this which is really counterintuitive looks like the um the beacon that they have correct yeah

[02:28:43] much like the contact was supposed to look like that that fucking thing yeah okay so you have to wear this thing on the back of your forearm and then flip your wrist up to activate and you put a

[02:28:56] figure in hand and then when you it was working before because the ankles are the problem there we go okay so now if I swing it makes lightsaber noises and if I tap it I mean I guess I'm sure

[02:29:15] I guess I can see that if you are a kid who wants to play yeah of your toys yeah it's sort of not I'm a serious it'll collect right it sort of hides the like you know you don't you can do it all

[02:29:26] in one hand I guess is that the idea of it okay you want to hear my take yeah I hate it I think it's dumb yeah it seems ridiculous I think if you want to hold toys in your hand and make noises

[02:29:36] you can make them with your mouth this takes so many tries to get right all right all right but also they had to buy one get 140 off deal let him keep going I mean I also get it amazingly

[02:29:46] I worked out four hours from when we started didn't think to mention it that's Ray and the the guard thing so are those guards a knight of ren or are they just guards

[02:30:00] no they're elite praetorian guards so we we still don't know what head is literally down on the console we still don't know what happened to the knights of ren right no yeah interesting Ben's asleep

[02:30:13] I wonder if I wonder if they'll like have a role in uh Jesus I should have gotten space nice yeah I wish I'd gotten him but I want to hear when you say the talk also the audio quality on this

[02:30:23] is better than the contact ships but I think it's even dumber we should say that space nice yo del Toro is called DJ but I don't know if his name is pretty sure his name is space nice

[02:30:31] Del Toro here's how del Toro likens his character okay to a knife I'm trying to make this so these guys don't talk they don't have any lines they're talking about the red boys makes a sword do you think they like red bull

[02:30:54] yes Ben just had to move his whole head to say yes all right that's enough of that okay um you know really crinkle it up though yeah so you wouldn't have known that if you hadn't bought this

[02:31:10] everywhere true there's bad pranks all right make a prediction and this enough I'm not done real del Toro likens his character to a knife saying if you grab him by the blade he'll cut

[02:31:22] you if you grab him by the handle he can be very useful let's talk about this more we haven't had enough episode I think it makes 215 this weekend sure they're predicting 210 right now yeah I think

[02:31:33] it opened to had 45 uh on Thursday night alone it's gonna have about 100 on Friday they say yeah sure I think the backlash is going to even out I think the early critics were like overly enthusiastic I think now the hardcore Star Wars obsessives are overly negative and I

[02:31:49] think we'll end up with people going like yeah like Star Wars right good movie excited about the next one I think it will make significantly less than the Force Awakens um but it's also worth noting

[02:31:58] that like Empire did the least of the original trilogy and it'll make less than the Force Awakens of course right nothing's gonna make more than that thing I'll make like 650 no it'll make more

[02:32:07] than that I think let's that's a good bet you're saying 650 it's gonna crack seven I'm gonna go like like let's say 750 I'm essentially betting it makes in between Force Awakens and Rogue One so 750 okay uh Rogue One made 530 is that right 560 right so Rogue One essentially made

[02:32:25] 500 and Force Awakens essentially made a billion so if we're going prices right rolls without going over I'm gonna stay at 600 okay yeah so I can have I'm claiming the 600 I get it I get it I get it

[02:32:37] okay you can have it if you want I just think I'll be closer I'll take it um but I don't know maybe I won't be I mean I don't stop that I'm not actively doing it the thing doesn't turn off

[02:32:50] I regret buying this this isn't my scale I'm a six inch boy uh okay what are those three and three quarter you realize what that sounds like right I know you think I'm not owning my

[02:33:03] bit you think I'm not a master of comedy well I don't know I marked cutting out your cock jokes don't do that fat cock don't cut that out there's no room for that kind of talk on this podcast

[02:33:17] sacred podcast three and three quarter inch performance review weaker sculpts Mark for articulation limited pain ops Mark Hamill yeah good everyone's good in this mode who we're getting a bad review to I don't know maybe you maybe you really hated Daisy Ridley she rules

[02:33:35] it's like to take her out to a pasta dinner no we're not having your little routine about the sad boy taking days you really have for dinner you're right you're right you know what yeah

[02:33:45] I've come into some money lately I have a steady job in the star of a tv show I'll take her out to steak okay all right steak lobster or vegetarian equivalent I don't know

[02:33:54] what her diet is she only eats fish okay now take her out to a lobster dinner I was reading about her diet recently yes she watched some documentary that freaked her out about food

[02:34:02] production cut went was a vegan for a while realized she could not hack it as a vegan so she reintroduced fish but that's it okay so Griffin noobs on the record hey Daisy Ridley

[02:34:12] anytime you want a bronzino it's on me sounds good I don't want to brag but uh I'm on a streaming tv show so we're both doing okay right now that's true you're the star of stars

[02:34:24] yeah she's like optioning things you know she's like a fucking mogul now yeah well I don't want to brag but uh you own her in three and three quarter inch plastic size yeah we get it she's

[02:34:39] with the fucking resistance bronzino baby on the record anything else I'll just be a nice dinner I'll just be a nice dinner nice bronzino dinner I want to compare notes I feel like you need to

[02:34:49] see the movie again obviously what are your plans see it again in a theater great plan I'll probably see it again this weekend do you have any yes no I don't I don't have like I don't have

[02:34:59] set plans right now um but I'll see it again soon do you think this is our great episode ever I don't know what the fuck is going on anymore we've also been on like a good run that's the thing

[02:35:08] and we were like oh here's a gimmie going back to the well star wars we can't fail and this has been a train wreck Ben has literally left the studio it is now midnight New York City is on fire

[02:35:22] I'm surrounded snowing outside I'm surrounded by merchandise I have no no place for in my collection like I have a star wars display and this will be in Congress next to the rest of it as

[02:35:32] I said the scale is off it's I'm gonna put a fucking three and three quarter inch ray next to a fucking six inch land though what a bad ending it's a great movie that's a good movie a good

[02:35:43] end where does it go in your rankings or do you need to see it again I need to see it again what are your rankings right now right now I I'll tell you right now my rankings are

[02:35:52] I think I literally go star wars go for empire strikes back return the Jedi right I cannot decide whether I place this and force awakens are kind of neck and neck right now different reasons

[02:36:08] and then I go phantom anus wow rogue one attack close revenge of the stuff yeah uh yeah no I'm definitely I know it's hacky but it's like yeah this is number three

[02:36:23] uh ahead of Jedi yeah that's done Jedi rules and it's for cool kids is it yes for cool no this is a movie that just has actual things I'd never seen in a star wars movie before what

[02:36:37] I'm talking about like over and over again where it's like poeticism like attention to like camera detail and design detail that I feel like has been lacking for you know even in like

[02:36:46] force awakens yeah which I think is a nice movie with cool robots and monsters and a movie that's wanting to take a narrative risks narrative risks moral stands coming on the world we're into they ben zingered the podcast is still going on thank you very much for listening

[02:37:01] to this post script at the end of an episode I think we kept it kind of short this time for the post the episode itself was really short that's a good point the episode really this is just

[02:37:12] bonus content no one's listening this is just for patreon subscribers okay sure yeah you're right okay so this is the longest post script we've ever done wow I think ben's like pretending to be mad

[02:37:22] and failing and he's just mad Ben can I give you a present do you want a red boy yeah yeah he likes you feel better you like the red boy do I get a toy his sword cuts in half yeah

[02:37:32] do you want kylo or do you want ray I think I want kylo even though it's a tough choice I like them both yeah I mean those are my faves uh where's my yes see look now you guys love it

[02:37:40] it's great time I just don't want that insane apparatus I'm not giving it to you I want the apparatus that's the only thing I do want because then you'll know who's in the resistance yeah I'll

[02:37:49] tell you what I want I want this apparatus and I want a space nico because the only use for this apparatus is to be able to make space nico talk yeah that would be cool I like the idea

[02:37:58] of his voice coming out of this you don't like these I mean they're pretty cool solid they are kind of little they're little yeah I feel like my action figures when I was a kid they were

[02:38:06] a little bigger than this no your hands are small that is the classic star wars size and lately they've been making them bigger but that is the old vintage star wars I never had a lot of star wars though

[02:38:14] I mostly had x-men oh those are bigger those are five those were yeah look you can get me started on scales I can go deep into it the industry's in turmoil right now a hasbro buying

[02:38:22] metal would disrupt everything they would own both DC and marvel and it would be a big issue so you're getting a phone call who's calling it's my landlord hopefully the heat's turned back on I

[02:38:35] hope so that'll be a nice answer it on David wrap up the episode okay thank you all for listening please remember to rate review rate review and subscribe thanks to Andrew for our good

[02:38:45] oh for our social media uh jobo and pat reynolds for our artwork uh leon mcgaumary recording the theme song uh and uh that's it right now go to blankies.reddit.com for some real nerdy

[02:38:56] shit and as always let's find out okay I appreciate it yeah yeah let me know what that ain't going on but I appreciate the amount of energy you're putting into this

[02:39:08] it's frustrating yeah yeah okay talk to you soon bye and as always I still don't have heat in my apartment