The Mandalorian and Grogu with Chris Gethard

[00:00:21] This is the podcast. What, you guys aren't cheering? Woooooooo! You're not ramped up by the high energy, the Mando, when he says things like, Okay, Grogu, come here. Where's that? I feel like it's a lot of him going like, Okay, and where do I go now? I'll give it a shot. You're saying they need to be shot by me?

[00:00:51] Okay. Fine by me. I'll ask one to two questions and then just do it anyway. Mandalorian, thank you for helping. I don't help. Feels like help. Maybe a little bit. Bye. Dun-da-dun, dun-da-dun, dun-da-dun, dun-da-dun, dun-da-dun, dun-da-dun, dun-da-dun. But I mean, you know, it's a fine line, a man with no name who doesn't speak obviously can be cool.

[00:01:21] Can be cool. I saw a really good quote and I want to see if I can find who it was. I was reading through reviews yesterday and I saw, I think it's the greatest distillation of what this movie fucks up to me. Am I allowed to speak yet? Yeah, you can talk. Can I do my impression of Rod of the Hut really fast before I forget? Oh boy. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Can we get a photo in time? Hold on, hold on, fuck. The physicality is fierce. And then of course, with the addition of, I'm not like my dad. I'm a good guy. I'm not like my dad.

[00:01:51] Yeah, I'm my own man. You're a giant slug. But it's just, he's like- You're not a man. What are you talking about? I'm not like my dad. I'm like, will this come up again? He's like, not really. My little sister- Your dad's dead. I don't care. Like- My little sister Romilly had, when Revenge of the Sith came out, a toy that was a Darth Vader mask with a voice changer inside. And it's one of those things where she was like, that's so cool. I can sound like Darth Vader. And it's like, kind of. All it's going to do is make your voice deep and reverb-y. Sure.

[00:02:21] There's not a $30 technology at Toys R Us that makes you sound like James Earl Jones. No. Mm-hmm. And the Rod of the Hut voice performance sounds like Jeremy Allen White wearing that toy. Where all it's doing- I'm not like my dad. Right. Is just pitching his voice down and reverb-y. But then it's just, why'd you hire him? Exactly. Doesn't sound like him or anyone. No. Great. Gareth, what were you saying? I'm sorry. I feel like I'm already going to be the bad boy and say I liked this movie way more than the reviewers did. Okay. Okay. More than. More than.

[00:02:48] Would you identify yourself as liking it or would you say that you just like it more? Or you just sort of like thought it was all right. Well, first thing I want to say. Yeah. Is you guys asked me to be here at 11 a.m. Uh-huh. And I canceled plans I had at 7 p.m. just in case we are still talking about this. David has said- It's not happening. He has no intention of it. We're not fucking- But just so the fans know, I'm literally, I literally, without exaggeration, canceled a commitment to drive an ambulance for a volunteer first aid squad.

[00:03:17] I got someone else to cover the shift. This is true. I said, I don't know if we'll be done. You really did. I mean, I understand that's probably in New Jersey. I do need a little bit of transit. Right. So you got the transit buffer to worry about as well. That still anticipates a 6 p.m. Memorial Day weekend. We could still be talking at 6 p.m. and I might have to get back through traffic. No, we will not be. I mean, you could be. I won't be here. I might be. I think it's a wise decision. It'll be a David-shaped hole in the wall. Look, you're going to leave it all on the field today. Okay.

[00:03:44] So even if you make it back to Jersey by 3 p.m., by noon. If I make it home by 3 p.m., we have failed in our promise to the fine fans of the Blank Check podcast. I would love it. Shout out to Ryan who works at the Dublin pub in Morristown, New Jersey. I was there one night. Shout out Ryan. He said him and all his friends listen to Blank Check and are on a WhatsApp group about it. And this isn't your fault, Geth. I just have to speak to this right away. What? There's a problem developing in our podcast where now every guest comes in and is like, don't you worry.

[00:04:11] I'm not working for a week after this. Yeah. All the time. We're going for it. Okay. I'm never leaving. I won't leave. We had a new record-breaking episode this week. Well, I don't know if we can necessarily announce the guest or can we? We can. We can do it. It was Tracy Letts. Tracy Letts. Tracy Letts. Who has better, you know, who has things to do? 1A Pulitzer. He said, a man of letters. And said, I'm going to be the record. You'll stick around for Letts, but old Gethard here. No, I wanted to kill myself.

[00:04:41] Old Gethard comes through. You threaten to run through the wall like the fucking Kool-Aid man. When Gethard shows up, he says, let's get out of here. Yeah. I'm serious. The guy who's been here from the very beginning. No. The guy who's part of the very DNA and fabric of this show. As we often say, the three of us would not know each other if not for years. It's true. Everybody says I'm the bad boy of Blank Check. Mostly Me, but maybe I'm the glue holding this goddamn thing together. You're the embryo. You're the embryo. Tracy Letts walks through and you'll stay as long as he seems necessary. Well, there were two issues.

[00:05:10] One, of course, I do not want to be rude to Tracy Letts, who is obviously an estimable person. Two, we did have another thing to record after he was done, so I couldn't leave. It was a very long day. It was a very long day. I'm going to admit, it even broke me. My wife was like, are you okay? And I was like, legit, I am not okay. I'm fucked up. And I was fucked up all day and pretty much tomorrow. Same. Same. I was just like, we can't do that again. It was too much. Too much. Stay tuned for that episode. It's a corker. The episode I thought was very good. Yeah, it was good.

[00:05:40] We're all holding it together. It was broken. But two, Geff, you used to run shows, big scale, kind of like you got all these balls. You understand the logistics and the nightmare of- And I'm also a father. And you're a father. And you're a father. You're also a father. And a husband. And I understand all of it, but- Yes. But at the same time, you're like, if we don't- Well, no, David, I mean, I understand all of those obligations. And I also feel like, you know, if there's a counterpoint, I would say even with all those

[00:06:08] obligations on the table, I never shortchanged the people beyond that. You supported me. You never did. Has Gethard- You've never shortchanged it. Ever seen a self-destructive or self-harming bit that he hasn't run headfirst into? If I know one thing about the man, my friend- Like a little bit- My hero? You're a little bit like, yeah, well, you know, those were the glory days. That's, you know, back when- You always got that itch. Oh, yeah. But I mean- If we can do something ridiculous, that's what- I feel- I think about your face all the time, though, on that TCGS episode. Was it- The Chris Gethard show, for those who don't know.

[00:06:38] You know, was it when Fallon was on or maybe you had just been on Fallon? I had been on- Oh, that was a bad night. Right. That was the first time I ever went live. Did you hear that? And you're like, people are actually paying attention. A lot of people have it. I just plugged this show on national television and that episode was particularly chaotic. It was horrible. It was horrible. It was horrible. Ruin this show. Right. You got network TV coverage for a cable access show. Yes. And I said, call up and or show up and do whatever you want to try to ruin the show. You promised on Fallon.

[00:07:07] I said, tomorrow night, I'm going live, the theme is ruin the show. I'll be live, show up and ruin my show. Do anything you can- You even suggested, you can stand in front of the camera. Yes. And then- Which, it's a good bit. It is a good bit. But what I didn't anticipate, and I say this with love, I think, you know, I think there are other people who have done renegade talk shows, like Eric Andre, who I think is hilarious and who I love and admire greatly. That's Jimmy Fallon, one of the wildest out there. No, but I was going to say, I think one of the things Eric Andre has that made him more

[00:07:35] successful than me is like, he can be ruthless if he has to. Totally. Sure. And I don't have it in me. Like, my boundary on ruthlessness is not extended far enough for the- I think it's a long pier to walk with you. Right. I think that Simms was about to say- But I was just going to say, on that show, what I didn't anticipate was that a lot of green comedians that we probably would not have been booking at that point- Right. used it as a chance to come grab screen time. Yeah, sure. That's what happened.

[00:08:03] And I didn't have it in me to just be like, get the fuck out of here. Yeah, right. It was kind of a worst of all worlds. It wasn't weirdos wandering off the street- Who I could speak to in a certain way. It was young artists who ultimately I do feel very much proud of my ability to support young artists over the years. Yeah, it was- But unfortunately it was a bunch of- You've sort of combined them too. No, no, no, no, no. Excuse me. Oh, right. Is Grogu's first name-

[00:08:33] I have only recently watched The Mandalorian Season 3, which I finally polished off- You're slightly more- You're slightly more- It's fresh. A little fresher than I- I had tapped out on everything post Book of Boba Fett. Yeah. A year ago, we put this episode on the calendar. Yeah. We were looking ahead at the schedule and we went like, we basically never booked guests on new releases. Yeah. And certainly- It's sort of a pain for them because they would have to watch the movie right away and all that.

[00:09:01] If we do, it's a thing we usually do at the last second because something sort of makes sense. A year ago, we were looking at the schedule. We were like, gotta get Geth back on. What's the right thing for Geth? And you guys were throwing episode ideas and I forget, it kind of organically came up. Maybe we just do a Star Wars episode. So my commitment to the Star Wars bit actually makes functional sense and doesn't distract from anything else. Of course. And I do want to call out, I'm wearing a Spider-Man 2 t-shirt today and a Spider-Man hat. I do want to talk about Spider-Man a bit. I have some Spider-Man talk.

[00:09:30] I genuinely want to do. I think it's important we talk about Spider-Man in this episode. In relation to Star Wars. I have two other franchises that I also want to bring up. Everyone is just very excited. I also have two other franchises. I do want to just to answer the question. Yeah. I would say I did land on the side of enjoying the experience of watching Mandalorian and Grogu. I think that's fair. It had things I liked. Yeah. But I do think that the sadder conversation is... What is this anymore? I think we all need... And I do...

[00:09:58] I also will say, I think the Blank Check podcast honestly does matter in the world of film nerds. They're nice. You guys and JD Amato, I think, came together and showed people that Speed Racer was in fact a good movie. And now they're saying they're like, credit to Emily Ushita as well. And, but there's think pieces. I mean, JD's my guy. Yeah. But there's think pieces out there about how Speed Racer is actually good. I think that started with Blank Check. But I think Blank Check is a really good place for us to have like an honest, not histrionic,

[00:10:25] not internet commenty, ragey conversation about like, we've kind of just have to admit defeat about the cultural relevance of Star Wars. Oh sure. And then we can go back to enjoying the movies again. I don't even know if it's... Yeah. They are not meeting the moment in any way. That is true. And there's so many ways that this movie shows that. But then if we can get past the fact that they just refuse to do anything that meets the moment outside of Andor, but then we hear about all the weird backbiting behind the

[00:10:51] scenes about the Gilroy Filoni stuff where it feels like the Andor stuff is not appreciated there. You sit here and go, I saw a movie where a rocket ship had turtle feet. Yeah. I saw a movie where Baby Yoda and a bunch of Babu Frick scaled a vertical wall. That I was fine with. David and I are on the things I like. Right. There's things I like. There was like a 20 to 25 minute section that David and I were locked in on. But I want to report to you. Did you guys see it together? We did. We saw it together in IMAX. I didn't get the invite.

[00:11:21] We knew a year ago I was going to be on this episode. We did book it a year in advance. During one of the busiest weeks of my life when I was already canceling other plans, I had to find time to fit this in when I didn't get the impulse. You chose to not go to the after party for Colbert's final taping last night so that you could be rested. Everyone settled down. I was exhausted. Everyone settled down. I started a press screening, which, you know, suddenly get that invite a few days earlier, and I had a plus one at Brock Griffin. Yeah. Ben did not go. Ben didn't go. Ben solidified himself last night. Ben did. Ben did.

[00:11:50] Ben did I also figured like you would probably just see it in Jersey. You know, you would- I know. I'm giving you the guff. I'm giving you the guff. You're giving me the guff. I honestly- You don't get mad at a dog for barking. You don't get mad at Gess for being a bad boy. Come on, baby. I was a little annoyed at the screening because I, like my wife was out that night. We had to fucking get a babysitter because I was like, I got- Because it's like, she was like, is there gonna be another screening? I'm like, it's Disney. They're just kind of like, you show up or fuck you. Well, let's also acknowledge the other thing. Yeah.

[00:12:19] We were coming from Citi Field where we had spent the afternoon at Star Wars Day. That was fine. Star Wars Day, which I will say also, I think, factored into our experience of being very, very underwhelmed by this movie was Star Wars Day with the Mets was an experience that reminded me more of what I like about Star Wars than the Star Wars movie I saw that night. I mean- Mr. Met was dressed up as the Mandalorian. The Mandalorian, yes.

[00:12:48] I thought he gave a better performance than Pedro Pascal. I thought he was a little more locked in. He was locked in. The T-shirt canon. There was just a lady dressed as Padme in I want to say episode two. And the T-shirt is canon, right? Yeah. You know, like they were just kind of doing shit like there was just a stormtrooper walking around. Yes. And it does. There were a couple of stormtroopers. You could kind of like high five them, I guess. And they had like good video package stuff. They had great video packages. And you didn't see this because of where our seats were exactly. But on the screen for every picture. I could close a little bit. You saw it. There you go.

[00:13:17] I mean, current enthusiasm for the New York Mets Star Wars Day versus what I can only imagine your tone and body language will be for the actual Mandalorian and Rogue experience is making me sad ahead of time. I also want to say. Back. Back. Back. Back. Back. Back. Back. Back. Back. Back at the Size of the Upward Side. Right. I'm currently all in on the Mets. It was also a fucking great game. They're bouncing back, right? Quality start from Nolan. See, I didn't know any about that. Five gingers. I wasn't watching any of that stuff. It's like great game. It's true.

[00:13:45] My friend Ellen was there and she was like, I really, I want to get Griffin into it. Like, and I was just like, Griffin's been going to sports games all this life. Yeah. Like, he knows how to entertain himself at a sports game. He gets his food. Yes. He's got his like business. Check out the merch. Right, yeah. You're not about to be like Griff, look at this guy. Like, let me get you in, you know. This is a misnomer. She did turn to me at one point. And this is Ellen Cushing, who co-hosts your secret podcast. It's different, not secret podcast that you should all listen to. She turned to me at one point and went,

[00:14:14] so Griffin, what relationship do you have to baseball? And I'm like, everyone thinks that I've just been like, never looked at it. And I'm like, this was shoved down my throat for 12 years. Yeah, right. There was an extended prison sentence. That war was waged. Yes. You know, I'm not going to wage that war. Right. It was much like Andor. We fought so hard for our freedom. The Gorman Massacre. From the tyranny. I mean, I've been talking about this with my therapist lately. I'm like. About Andor? No, I should talk more about Andor with her. I don't know if she's watched it.

[00:14:42] But I feel like until I was 12, I played two sports a week. Yeah. They kept making me do it. That doesn't seem true. They did that. I've known you almost 20 years now, and that does not ring true. Isn't that crazy? What sports? Was it Manhattan Sports? Were you playing like High Line? No, no, no. No. I was Manhattan too. I did all the little league sports. I did baseball. I did baseball. I did basketball camp at one point. Yes. Would you be shocked if he was like, I had to play two sports and it was racquetball and chess?

[00:15:11] Would you be shocked if Griffin said that? I mean, I'm laughing. I'm laughing. Would you be surprised that when I got to high school to fulfill my P requirement, I took a physio ball class? That was when I had the agency to lean into the bit. What is physio ball? What the hell? Is that like where you got like a medicine ball? It's basically like Lamaze class. Sure. Yeah, doing exercises on a big medicine ball. Kind of like rolling up and down or whatever. Yeah, and I almost got an incomplete on it. They were like... I'm not even joking. I'm not even joking. They were like, what's the right field of you doing this?

[00:15:41] Because you're not... Like, how do we make this easier? From 13 on, I was exactly what everyone thinks I was. From before 12... Like in gym class discussing Betty Friedan with the other kids in gym class, like that type. Yes. Not to stereotype, with the girls. Until I was 13, I was doing baseball. I was doing soccer. They made me go to basketball camp, roller hockey, boxing. You boxed? Yes! There's not a... No. Yes!

[00:16:11] This shit was a nightmare! And by boxing, were you just a punching bag? It was foxy boxing. Well, no, I wasn't like competitively boxing against people, but my dad was like, you should learn how to defend yourself. And I'm like, what if I'm a professional podcaster? And he's like, what's a podcast? I'm like, I'm going to figure out how to make this a thing. We're going to do that instead. And I'll defend myself on mic, thank you very much. What? Hurry up. You're talking about the mess game. I had a good time at the game. And Ellen, I'm like, Ellen...

[00:16:39] You guys really don't want to talk about the mess game. We've gone through all of it. The game was good. Game was great. Yeah. And then we went to the movie and, you know, we're watching the movie and I would say, you know, we're chatting a little bit. We're sitting in the back row. And like, you know, a lot of times we're sort of like, this ain't really, you know, light my fire. And then the Grogu part, which we'll talk about more, where it's only Grogu, right? Where he's in the swamp alone trying to help. Like two minutes in, I whispered... I have massive thoughts on it. I whispered to Griffin, like, I'm not saying this is good, but I'm more interested. I'm leaning in.

[00:17:07] And like two minutes later, I was like, I'm officially declaring this part of the movie good. And I was with him. I came aboard. And up until that point... For how long into it? Basically, the whole Grogu alone segment, I was very into it. And it's more spoilers. Wow. And Mandalorian wakes up again. Now again, I know that anytime I'm... I don't want to lean in too much to my relationship with your guys' fans, but anytime that I have a counterpoint to you guys, it does set me apart. Don't worry about it. I got very restless during that stretch. See, I was restless during every other part. I would agree.

[00:17:36] And David and I were checking in. I did like hate this movie. It did not inspire enough to like make me angry. It is not the worst Star Wars movie. No, because... Can we agree? No, not even close. And Solo, I would argue. I think I prefer Solo to this. I do as well. I like... But I mean, it's probably kind of... Okay, I would say I liked this better than... Keep going. Are you going to say it? Most of the prequels and sequels? That's a little low. Yeah, I'm not there right now.

[00:18:06] If I had to sit down and watch one of them again, I might watch this one again because it's standalone and not tying me into a bunch of lore that I know is kind of a headache and confusing. I'll say this. This probably will end up being a Star Wars movie I rewatch a lot because I, of course, suffer from insomnia. And this movie was threatening to put me to sleep. When you guys hit it at a press screening, I will also say I saw it in Morristown, New Jersey, where I was in the theater and there were two moms who brought a group of about

[00:18:36] nine boys who all seemed to be about 11 to 13 years old. Yes. So I also got to watch it in that context where as I left the theater in a way that I promised was not too creepy. Yeah. One of the moms made eye contact with me and I was like, how'd they like it? And she was like, hey. So I'm like, I had this, I had the same exact experience. That's a lot different than seeing it with a bunch of professional reviewers. No offense to one of my favorite reviewers. Hey. It's Sims and Sepp and Wall. It's everybody else, baby. That's very nice of you, Chris.

[00:19:06] Sepp and Wall was at the screening. Oh, was he at the screening? I'm sure. He was. He texted me. Seeing it in a room with Sims and Sepp and Wall, I think sets a difference. Sims and Sepp? Well, Sims and Sepp and go right down the list. I would say. That's a different environment than eight kids in Jersey who like fucking monsters fighting. They want to see a poison snake. Live action. They want to see a dragon snake. They want to see IRL Dejaric. I very much was like, yeah, it's a movie. It's very much like a movie for kids.

[00:19:31] I don't buy that as a defense exactly, but certainly that's the tone it's going for. Experientially, though, I had that. I would say at a Star Wars press screening, yes, there's a few learned espresso sipping. I was going to say. There is a lot of people who work in this sort of fan and genre journalism world who are very enthusiastic about Star Wars. I would say it was majority like fandom journalists over film critics. Yes. Right. I will throw out.

[00:20:00] It was like pretty silent. It was very late in the movie. In that same section, I want to say where I turned to Dave and I went, I think that's the first joke that landed. Like that got a laugh from the audience outside of like one isolated. The jokes were bad. The dialogue was bad. The jokes were bad. The score was awesome. The score was awesome. The score was legitimate. Luda Garnson is beyond in a sense. The score was good enough that multiple times throughout the movie, I clocked. This score is fucking cool and weird and awesome. What's interesting about the score? It's different. It is.

[00:20:28] And it's like there's not a lot of stuff in this movie that felt too different. No. And obviously spoilers, right? We don't need to say that. Seeing a movie where Rogu establishes no new powers that we haven't seen in the show, to my memory. He does not. Healing and lifting. He does that already. And literally it ends with them getting just the two of them back in a fucking spaceship and flying away, which I've seen a thousand times again.

[00:20:58] I'm like, this reflects so much corporate boardroom. Yes. A little bit. Test grouping analysis in a way that's frustrating that, again, the refusal to meet the moment. Holy shit. I've just held the balance on a couple things. Having rewatched season three recently, they do at one point dub him Din Grogu. Yeah, it's like a family name. Din is the family name. They accept that they're training him as a Mandalorian, even though in season two and

[00:21:24] Boba Fett, both Ahsoka and deepfake Luke trained him. So the idea is that- Yeah, but they trained him and he kind of is like, but I don't want to be a Jedi. So the idea is that he's the first kind of hybrid. There's so much to talk about. That he's like the first Jedi Mandalorian, but they don't do it- He's a force using Mandalorian. They don't do it in this movie. Yeah. But season three, they're like, he is canonically Din Grogu. And when they start calling him Din Grogu, they don't stop calling him Din Grogu, which speaks to kind of what you're saying, which is this movie is in this

[00:21:54] insane damned if you do, damned if you don't place where the movies have just been on ice. The TV shows have become this unwieldy thing. Grogu as a character is the one thing that undeniably has been working for them. Selling toys for seven years. Making money hand over fist, right? Don't fuck with Grogu when kind of all we want to see is some character development from fucking- And you can just tell that this was a corporate mandate. Favreau has said this himself, that they had season four at least like broken down into

[00:22:22] outlines, if not like basic like scriptments. They had the season figured out. And Disney was like, can you make a movie instead? And they scrapped all of that and they wrote a new thing from scratch. And it was because he said, A, it felt like what we had was designed for TV and it wouldn't work in film because you need to tell one cohesive story and not be episodic. I would say this movie fails on that front. It is crazy to me that it's not just several episodes mushed together, that he claims all

[00:22:50] of that was thrown out and that would potentially maybe be a season four if they go back to TV, which is the real issue here. You're making a movie that is not like a finale to a TV show. It's not the graduation. It's just, here's another adventure. It's a little bit bigger in terms of length. We don't want to make it too tied into the lore of the three seasons of The Mandalorian, let alone the Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, what have you.

[00:23:17] So it's like basically not building on anything for the people who have watched that. But if you haven't watched that, it doesn't really like get you into the world well or make you care about these characters outside of just Grogu being cute. And I saw some- Poor Babu Fricks on a little dune buggy flight. Like they gave me that. There's stuff. There's stuff. But I saw someone- Sigourney Weaver in a Rogue Squadron. We're going to talk about her. How fit talk about that? I saw someone in a review say- Nothing else she did was good.

[00:23:46] Things already were getting out of hand when season three of The Mandalorian lost the intimacy of the lone wolf and cub dynamic and the standalone adventures. They did try to make this one kind of lone wolf and cub and cub where the second cub was Jeremy Allen White. As a slug. As a jackpot. He's sort of- It was kind of wild. Lone Wolf and cub and bub. Kind of wild. It's insane that that happened. I want to keep- I want to just be clear. That's like a bit we would do of like, they're going to make a movie with like Hot

[00:24:16] Jabba's son. He's played by Jeremy Allen White. I just want to be clear though. Even me saying like, I liked it better than the reviewers. I think being in a theater with a bunch of kids helped. My final feeling really was like going from a show that I loved that season one made me feel like maybe Star Wars is back on track. That the end of the movie as I walked out, I went, did I really just watch those two fucking assholes fly away in a spaceship again? Like that- To what end? Like I liked it better than the reviewers and I still walked away like, it's not how movies work.

[00:24:45] In movies, the characters are different at the end than in the beginning and they just copped out on the very basic narrative choice. At point A, things begin and in the end you see how characters change and how that affects the narrative. If this movie would even claim to have an emotional arc- Yeah. It would be- Well. Din Djarin, the Mandalorian himself- Who? Who learns that someday Grogu's gonna grow up? Well- That is, and like vaguely accepts it. Can I put something out there?

[00:25:14] If we know one thing about Grogu, it's that he ages so fucking slow- Well, he's not allowed to grow up that we can't sell him in toy form. A, we can't sell him in toy form. Right. B, timeline wise, I think Mando will be fucking dead before Grogu even hits puberty. Possibly. Yeah. Can I- There's a thing I do want to talk about that I wrote down. Please. Ties in directly to what we're saying right now. They're written in blood. Right, like a napkin. And what I don't want to do is dwell in the- Robert Grace with a file under his arm. I don't want to dwell in the air of fan fiction. It's boring. Okay.

[00:25:44] But to the exact point that we're saying right now of like this little Muppet sells toys, we can't ever have them change. Yeah. Is very frustrating corporate thinking. And there is a thing that I perked up for that I only want to put out there as like fantasy booking, so to speak. Okay. I wonder if it's the same thing I thought. Because, only because I have a feeling that if I say this out loud right here, the day

[00:26:12] after the movie came out on the Blank Check podcast, that I have a feeling it may be revealed at some point that corporate interference interfered with something I thought they were about to do. Okay. And I have- Just say the thing, please. What is the thing? Why are you already mad at me? David, this is our dear friend. You're already mad at me. We never would have met. I drove from New Jersey. I paid tolls and congestion pricing. We will absolutely cover your travel. Jeez. Just tell Ben. Drove very far. Business expense.

[00:26:41] You know, no one told you to move to the boonies. Hey! Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. He's happy. He's happy. He's got a canoe. He's got a kayak. He got a kayak. He got a kayak. So. It's our best episode. That dragon, the dragon thing scratches. Yeah. Mando. The poison-y thing. They established this poison's going to kill him. It tells Grogu to get lost. Yeah. Right. In the- Grogu comes back. Yeah. He puts him in the weird little mud hut he tries to build. Bonks his head a couple times. It's sort of cute, but I've seen it a million fucking times.

[00:27:10] The one bonk I laughed and then they kept doing it. And I was like, guys, you got me the first time. By the way, bonk was the laugh in the audience. That was the one. I'll also say, too, nobody loved Babu Frick's original appearance more than me. You guys heard it. True. I don't know that multiply it by four and put him on a fast little dune buggy is like, come on, guys. We're treading on why people hated the Ewoks. I posted a negative letterbox thing and people in the comments went, how was Babu Frick? And I'm like, this is the trick they're pulling in the marketing. People are like, Babu Frick's in it.

[00:27:40] And I'm like, no, this is set decades before Rise of Skywalker. At best, we are watching Babu Frick's uncles. Yeah. That's the best case. I know that some of what I'm about to say is tangled up in the existence of this timeline that they're bound to. But he's there with the fucking scratch. Yeah. They established that they have said so many times that Grogu doesn't speak, right? They explicitly say he doesn't speak. These all feel like choices here. Yeah. I will tell you, when I'm watching Mando with that scratch,

[00:28:10] I am brought back to one of the most influential moments of my entire childhood, which is Transformers the movie, which I did not see in the theater. I've only seen it once, but is Optimus Prime dies in it? Yes. Someone famous dies in it, right? Okay. Famously done. It's 1986. Spoiler spray 40-inch year old movie. Optimus Prime dies. Orson Welles was dying when he recorded it. But Orson Welles plays the planet. He plays Unicron. He is a giant Transformer the size of a planet. Right. It's incredible. That's great performance. Fantastic use of weirdo man. Optimus Prime.

[00:28:39] By the way, incredible use. But Optimus Prime dies. Dare to be stupid. Yeah. Dare to be stupid. Let me talk to you about this. Let me talk to you about this. Because I'm older than you guys. Yes. I was watching Transformers episode by episode as a six-year-old child. It was like one of your first genre properties. I'm hanging on to this thing. Half an hour, half an hour, half an hour. Is it the matrix of power? Is that what it's called? The matrix of leadership? The matrix. Yes. The matrix of leadership. The thing in the chest. Right? Yeah. Push the cube. My family didn't have money growing up. And that was the same year my parents bought a new house.

[00:29:08] So there was zero disposable income. Plus, I don't think anyone in my family wanted to sit through the Transformers movie. But also, you're not getting Hot Rod that year. You're not getting Hot Rod that year. I never had the big Transformers toys. I only ever had Minibots. Many of them bought a garage. Like Headmasters? Are we talking like... No, Minibots. Okay, Minibots. Minibots. Minibots. Point being, whenever we do Michael Baker... I don't see Transformers the movie. I'm also six years old. I think it was 86 it came out. You're right. Yeah. This is the anniversary. I'm six years... I turned six in May of 86. Okay? I don't see the movie. Thank you so much.

[00:29:39] The show comes back on in the fall. Right. For some reason, it was not on at 3.30. Yeah. I was watching it before school. The new season comes on and it is revealed to those of us who didn't see the movie. Because at six, you're not catching spoilers. Not in the free internet world. I turned on this show and realized they fucking killed Optimus Prime. And when I tell you without exaggeration, I remember distinctly falling to my knees and grieving the death of Optimus Prime as a six-year-old boy. That's not an exaggeration.

[00:30:06] It is widely reported as one of the greatest kind of like corporate boondoggles of all time. They went for it. On the level of like New Coke. Right. Where it really fucking damaged the brand. They were like, we're doing this. And then they were like, what have we done? They reversed crying in the theater. Right. They also sold a bunch of Hot Rodimus. He went from Hot Rod to Rodimus Prime. Yeah. They sold toys for him. Yeah. Fucking, what was the blue and red guy's name? Is there? Alpha of something. Is there a reason they did this? Like, what was their... They thought it was dramatically interesting. Well, there is a story too that...

[00:30:35] It wasn't like some like, we need to get rid of Optimus because we don't like the voice actor or whatever. I have read that they wanted to kill... No, he kept doing the Michael Bay movies. I've read that they wanted to kill Duke in the G.I. Joe movie. Yeah. Yes, I've heard that as well. But that it was flagged that it would be like really disturbing to kill a human. So they used the idea with Optimus. They were around the same time. I think they just... Point being though, it was a big narrative swing. And it was fucking cool. Can we end on a downer note? I think it was that kind of thing. Now, I'm watching Mandalorian and Grogu and I go, are they really about to kill fucking Mando?

[00:31:05] It did kind of feel like it. This gets interesting. And I have a feeling there was a script that he was going to die. And I have a feeling where then Grogu's going to come back and we're going to watch Grogu go fucking ape shit. We're going to watch Grogu murder those Hutts in a way that... You're just fucking... Listen, let me finish the thought. Let him finish. Let him finish. Let him finish. Let him finish.

[00:31:56] Son is witnessing it. And we're going to see a franchise that so canonically says that sons hang on to the... It is the responsibility of a son to reject the sins of the father and not carry them forward in generations. We're going to realize that Mando's refusal to have Grogu train fully with Ahsoka and Luke was about the emotional attachment, the most dangerous emotional attachment in this franchise since Padme and Anakin himself. And we're going to be left with a cliffhanger that suggests that perhaps Grogu is reactivating as the Jedi Master Yoda was.

[00:32:26] Or perhaps the Sith have been reborn because Mando was not brave enough as a dad to let his son go live his own life. And it's going to be one of the most... It's going to be the best and most intriguing heel turn since Hogan joined the goddamn NWO. And somebody came in and said, we can't do it. Grogu's got to stay a good guy. There is no way they were ever going to do that.

[00:32:49] I will predict that someone will hear this on Blank Check and it will eventually come out that there was talk of killing Mando and turning Grogu bad. I would bet money on it. I agree with you on two out of three things. I agree. David, let me finish before you make sticky poo-poo face. Don't make sticky poo-poo face. I'm making the face. I'm making the face. I thought there was no universe in which Grogu ever turned bad. No.

[00:33:16] I did think for a second, this feels like at some point someone pitched, can Mando die? It got shut down almost immediately. And they were like, what if he's out of commission for 30 minutes? It's a great... It's not great. It's a far more intriguing movie if Mando fucking dies. I agree with you. It felt like that was killed immediately. You guys are crazy. David Sims, you're letting me down right now. No, you guys are crazy. You're letting me down right now. You're calling me crazy.

[00:33:45] All right, I'm just getting yelled at, so I will actually shut up. You're literally calling us crazy. You guys have ranted for five minutes about how you think they wanted to kill the Mandalorian in the first Mandalorian movie. That is fucking nonsense. Okay. Let David have the floor. Okay. Sorry. But like, no, guys. That got weirdly heated. Yes, you guys were like yelling at me after blabbering on. You started telling a notoriously mentally ill friend of yours that he was crazy. I'm Mike.

[00:34:14] Career suicide 2017. Highly rated on Rotten Tomatoes. I raved it in the Atlantic. Thank you so much, but it's an insecurity of mine to be called crazy. Sorry. You're crazy. About this. No, it's just like, why the fuck would they kill? This is a dude bitch for children. To fucking grow and change and take a narrative chance and to meet the moment. We are not living in a time of happy fucking endings right now. I will say something different together.

[00:34:39] You guys are triggering me because I think the worst, worst, worst dramatic choice any franchise ever makes is that death is like a way of, you know, conveying storytelling like maturity and shit like that. But you don't think in Star Wars, a father dying is not? It's been done a million times. Boring. It's so boring. May I please make my case? Sure. Go ahead. I agree with you generally. Yeah. Oh, he died. Great. Now it's important. I think it was a thing that probably in sitting down ideation, oh, we have a Mando movie

[00:35:09] on the schedule two years from now. We just threw out our season. What's the movie about? I bet you it was pitched at one point and he is just asleep for 30 minutes was the solve for that. The reason why I am inclined to feel like Gethard, that there were seeds of intention somewhere, even if they were nipped out immediately, is that the movie is all trying to be about what happens to Grogu when the Mandalorian's gone.

[00:35:38] How is he going to be on his own? And the only good section of the movie, as we said, is him being on his own. It is different than just killing a character for emotional weight or growth because the whole notion of the movie is, can this thing survive on its own? I also think the only section of this movie that had any narrative tension in me was, oh, I'm a little bit worried about Grogu now. He doesn't have someone protecting him. You're Occam's razoring yourself. It's not that they were like, should we kill the Mandalorian? They were like, we need a Grogu section.

[00:36:07] I really think they just fundamentally were like- But they didn't do anything with it. Of course they did. This movie has the mandate of not doing anything. But they couldn't even say, give him a little fucking lightning bolt. Chris, this movie has- Let him go crazy because his dad's mom was dying. A little card with a blank head and a question mark on it of like, this is the real bad guy. And you're like, oh, okay. I turned to David, I go, it's Sigourney, right? They don't hire Sigourney. Because she's the only famous person they got. I'm looking at the opening credits. Double cross. There's no surprise cast members.

[00:36:36] Or there's some secret, you know, reveal they're going to do of either a new celeb. Dukus back. Dukus back. Or fucking- Dark Grogu. You know, Filoni will start- Or Dark Shack in it. And it's like Thrawn or whatever, right? Instead, they're just like, oh, that was just the bald guy you saw right at the start. That was just him. And that's that. And that's done. This movie absolutely is just kind of like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Stop, stop, stop.

[00:37:06] Don't worry. Nothing happens. I also- It's a close circle, guys. Outside of us getting heated, which I do apologize for. David, how much do you think that was from the start? How much do you think that was corporate interference? Because I think Griffin and I are both on the side of this thing tank to death. Filoni wanted to do a Mandalorian-Ahsoka crossover series. Can I set up- With Ron. Can I introduce the podcast and then I feel like we can do all of this? We haven't introduced the podcast. This is why I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to help you.

[00:37:35] Oh, well, sometimes you're trying to help me, but I am in the middle of saying something. And you say, can I do something while I'm in the middle of saying something. That's a conversation we're about to chip off. It's a massive conversation. Is this all still the intro? This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmography. And I'm Chris Getter, motherfuckers. They're buckled up. They're buckled up. They're buckled up. They're buckled up. They're giving a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy patent products they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. This started out as a Star Wars podcast.

[00:38:03] And then for the first five years, even when we moved on from Star Wars, new Star Wars movies were coming out and we kept talking about Star Wars. And Gethard would come on to talk about other movies and we'd still talk about Star Wars. And people loved it until they hated it. Some were calling a dark Grogu turn. And it has now been seven years since the last Star Wars movie. Now, to set up your point, in that time, here are films that have been announced and then canceled. Yeah. Patty Jenkins.

[00:38:33] Rogue Squadron. Rogue Squadron announced at Disney Investor Day livestream in 2021. She was in a video with an Air Force guy or whatever. Right. Rogue Squadron movie. Might have been cool. Who knows? Like, who can say? David. What's the matter? I'm going to share for you a horrifying tale. A tale of woe and suffering. Whoa, this is scary.

[00:39:03] It's a tale of human error. Of failing on my part. Tell me. We went to the Wisconsin Film Festival. Sure. Visited our dear researcher, JJ Birch. I'm scared already. Participated in a screening. We dined out. We had fried cheese curds. We drank Wisconsin beer. What was the mistake? Tell me. I forgot to pack my... Oh, Jesus. AG1. You didn't bring your AG1 to Wisconsin? This is a fucking... This is an ad read. This is a personal endorsement from experience.

[00:39:32] They got the travel packs because the thing I love about AG1, they give you different form factors. They give you different ways to handle it. I forgot to pack any AG1. I was there for 72 hours. It took a week to undo. A week to undo. I'm not going to get graphic about this. But it just goes to show, as I always say in these ad reads, AG1 has really become load-bearing within my life. Yes. AG1, of course, it's a daily health drink. It's clinically shown to support your gut health.

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[00:41:55] Go to drinkAG1.com slash check. Also canceled or announced and never realized, untitled Taika Waititi movie. Yeah. Ryan Johnson trilogy. Sure. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss trilogy. That was movies, right? Trilogy. These things are all canonically dead. Correct. Yes.

[00:42:21] And then at the Star Wars celebration three years ago, they came out and said, we're finally ready to announce the next couple movies. Yeah. Here are the three. James Mangold is going to make a movie. That's the earliest thing we've ever done on the Star Wars timeline. Right. It'll be said thousands of years ago. The cursed Jedi. Sounds so cool. Sounds like the old Dark Horse comics. It's like these things where they bring a guy out and they're like, he's got an idea. And he just signed the contract a minute ago. Right. And gave us one sentence. And everyone's like, what's it called? When's it coming out? And they're like, see you later.

[00:42:51] But yes, that is a thing. The second thing they announced was episode 10. Or something like it. They said it was episode 10. Did they actually say it? Daisy Ridley is back. Yes. That. This is episode 10. They had just fired. What's his name? Lindelof. Damon Lindelof. Or he'd walked away. Damon Lindelof had been on a secret movie that was then retroactively revealed to have been episode 10, which was announced with Daisy Ridley's coming back. That movie was originally going to take a different direction.

[00:43:21] Now they were like, it's the continuing adventures of Rey. That movie has had seemingly no public progress. Although it doesn't seem entirely dead. They keep trying to figure out what that is. The third movie that was announced is Dave Filoni has this master plan Feige style of all these series. They're building up to Thrawn as the Thanos. Right. And he is going to make a movie that counts as basically the phase one finale of the entire Disney Plus project.

[00:43:47] It's going to be Ahsoka and Mandalorian and Boba Fett and fucking everybody. Who the fuck is Thrawn? You know what, Ben? Thrawn's awesome. It's just a great question. Thrawn's from the Timothy Zahn novels. He's one of the only people from the extended universe they've brought into canon. Get the tan blue. He was in Ahsoka. Oh, he's the blue guy. He's great. Okay. Those old Timothy Zahn novels are fucking great. You know, people love those. I remember them being great. I read them, to be fair, when I was 12 years old. I also read them as a child. I don't really remember them.

[00:44:15] I remember Thrawn being cool, but right, they brought him into the show. That weird alien race. What was that species? Those like assassins that were under his thumb. They were cool. I wish I could tell you. I'll Google it. They brought him in. He's played by, what, a third Mickelson or whatever. Which Mickelson is it? Sir, we've located a third Mickelson. It's something Mickelson. Mickey Mickelson. And I think I already said this on an episode. I can't remember where. Lars Mickelson. There we go. He fucking has like Joe Biden energy.

[00:44:42] Where they're like, meet Thrawn, like the scariest. And he's just like, hello, you should get Ahsoka. I'll see you later. Like, he doesn't do anything. Well, this is the Filoni thing, right? There's no energy. Like, bring a character from an obscure cartoon that he also is behind. And it's just, okay. It's also here. There's a thing that's here. Look at him. Point, pointing. You know, just the way the Filoni shows brought back Hayden Christensen to play Anakin. And he's like, here I am.

[00:45:10] Well, the major project of the Filoni shows, of course, is that when Disney buys Lucasfilm, they go, here's the canon of Star Wars. The canon of Star Wars is the six movies that have been theatrically released. Indeed. And the Clone Wars cartoon show. Yes. End of story. And I think, was Rebels in the works? Rebels was the first thing started by them. And a bunch of comic books. Well, once those started. They basically said, all previous comics, Marvel, video games.

[00:45:38] The Marvel relaunched comics. But the prior stuff is now consigned to what they call Legends. Exactly. And is not canon. Marvel is now going to start a new comic series. This is the start of the new canon. We're going to do new cartoon shows. That is expanding that canon. I will just say the Lando series. Yep. Very good. And gives you a lot of background. Is that a comic book? Yes. It is a comic book that does a pretty good job of explaining everything you've ever wanted to know about Lobot. I would say, well, your dream. I do have a few questions.

[00:46:07] I will say, I think the first two years of the Marvel comics were really excellent. And I was reading all of them. And then like everything else, it got overwhelming. There was too much. I lost track. It's the exact same thing that happened with the TV. Yep. We all, the first season, The Mandalorian rocks. It's a triumph. And like, you know, I feel like even those early novels, like the new official novels that were being written in the wider people were like dialed into. The first High Republic novel people were all about. The reason is because they were really making an effort like to, you know, they were picking

[00:46:37] talented people and they were right. They were like, yeah, we have to make. And then as you say, they, you know, start to lose the thread a little bit. There's too much style. I also think Filoni's. They get too many wheels spinning. I think Filoni's major project from the outside has seemed to be, I want to salvage things and bring them back into the canon. It has felt like that is his priority on the work he does. He's a bit of a keeper of the flame. What is the world building?

[00:47:03] What is the extended universe stuff that has now been knocked out of canon into legends that I want to reintroduce? So like Thrawn was not on the Clone Wars. They reintroduced Thrawn on Rebels. It was a big deal. Holy shit. Thrawn counts again. And then live action Thrawn in Ahsoka. This feels like the pipeline of what he's been doing for the last 10 years is just, let me pick my people. Let me put them in a cartoon. Let me make them live action. They count again. Next, repeat, repeat, repeat.

[00:47:32] That movie is supposed to be the payoff of all this shit. And then as you are setting up here, the movie mysteriously kind of disappears, doesn't really get talked about again. And there's a sudden surprise announcement. Mandalorian and Grogu movie coming 2026. Standalone adventure. Does this negate or replace season four? There's a whole other aspect. And they were like, I don't know. Maybe we do another season after this or maybe it would just be other movies. And then we also have to point out, which I think everybody knows, Andor, which hits and is truly special. It's a miracle.

[00:48:02] It's a miracle. And we will talk about it. Of course. But just to also say, just to only tie it into what we're saying here, that with this thing that's regarded as phenomenal, that's getting credit with something that I bet drives them nuts, even if this wasn't Star Wars, it's just a fucking great show. How does this even come out of the Star Wars system? Like a lot of the praise is backhanded. Yeah. Like what? How do they pull the wall over there? You start to hear that there's bitterness about this and who knows how true it is, but the internet rumblings are that there's like a Filoni bitterness about the Gilroy of it all.

[00:48:32] Yeah. And you hear these rumblings. Filoni has his garden, the Ahsoka Rebels. He regards it as his. Yes. And is kind of left to it. And has apparently indicated that he's not a huge fan of Andor, which is only the more frustrating for all of us hardcore fans who feel like Andor is the thing that nailed it. And it's also just the thing that felt different. It's also, it's good. Entirely different philosophical approaches. Do you want to make things that are exploring the ideas already within Star Wars in new ways?

[00:49:03] Or do you want to just kind of circle back to what Star Wars has been? You know? And it's a lot of like, you know, can I make movies that feel like the old movies? And Filoni, it's like, can I reintroduce my friends? Well, and like Filoni, we should acknowledge is George Lucas's like apprentice. Yes. His Padawan learner of sorts. He was the guy that Lucas entrusted with Clone Wars. He's the Roy Thomas to his Stanley. Right. He brings him over from Avatar The Last Airbender. Which we have to talk about. I think it has major implications.

[00:49:33] We can very briefly talk about it. You brought it up. I was actually, I was, I was trying to be good. Yes, there is. You brought it up. Oh, I'm just going to get like a squirt in his seat. And like Gorman, his hands on the table. I don't know much about Filoni. Lord Johnny-style Jurassic Park. Who's always heard is like a lovely guy. You know, everyone's always like, he's a sweetie pie. But like, I do feel like he's the last like keeper of the flame of like the Lucas 2000s era of Star Wars a little bit. There is a feeling of, even though George Lucas is still alive, I'd say it's a little bit like Steve Whitmire with the Muppets where, you know, he was eventually pushed out of

[00:50:02] playing Kermit, but there was this feeling of Jim chose him and now Jim's gone. We have to all kind of follow what Steve says is right. Right. Because it's like he's still invested with Jim's energy and we don't want to like, yeah. And it's odd when George is still alive. But there is this feeling of like, I don't know, George picked Dave. Ralph is the most overrated. His name's Ralph. I feel like you've said that before. Respect. You like to bust that.

[00:50:32] Joe Boys has been doing a Muppets month and Weiger loves Ralph, but hates all of the electric mayhem. He has the exact opposite take, which is David, do you hate when I'm on this show? Not at all. Because the internet always says you do. And today's the first day where I really feel like it might be true. I do not. I do. No. We're having a great time. I low key, again, will just stress to you, Tuesday was very traumatizing for me. And I'm feeling a little anxious about the amount of branching things going on. But no, I love having you on the show. I know I've been there.

[00:51:00] To be fair, I won't do it. I have been threatening to the boys to make this entire episode about Avatar The Last Air But It Not Happening. I don't think you've seen it. Right? Have you never seen it? I've only seen the first three episodes for when I auditioned for the Shyamalan movie. I got to say one thing about it. Because it's... It's lore we said back in the back. You watched it recently. My son found it.

[00:51:31] It's the best. It's amazing. I will say it's a 2005 Nickelodeon cartoon. I think people know what Avatar is. Incredible. But Griffin doesn't. No, I know what it is. I just haven't watched it. But when you watch it, I kind of always lumped it in. There was a phase there where Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon, these things that either were from Japan or inspired by Japanese animation. Right. When it was on, I was in college. And I was a little bit like, eh. I was 25 years old when it came out. But my sister was the exact right age.

[00:52:00] She was weirdly into it because it's not her kind of thing. It's not weird. She tried to get me into it. And then I had... I got an audition for what was supposed to be Shyamalan's trilogy to play Sokka. You were going to play fucking Sokka? Well, I didn't get the fucking part. You almost played Sokka. I did not get anywhere close. If you're going to cast Griffin as one of the leads in Avatar, he can only be Sokka. They made Sokka like a fucking hunk on the movie. And he's not funny. He's kind of a crybaby on the show in a hilarious way. But I just want to say... But that's the...

[00:52:30] I've only ever seen the first three episodes. I've watched Avatar about, I would say six months ago. Okay. Instantly really, really fell in love with it. You've been texting me about it a lot. And I've been talking a lot about it with people, but... You have the steals. I had mine. And the steals of Korra. Wow. You're the one who told me Korra's underrated and it's worth the watch. I stick up for Korra. But David, I don't know if you had the same feeling. I remember watching it with my son. Yes. And the reason I want to tie it into today's conversation is that I had this feeling that

[00:52:59] was maybe slightly heartbreaking for me, but also made me really happy for him. Which was, oh, everything I got out of Star Wars, he's getting out of the show. Oh, like that you're not able to have the Star Wars shared experience with him? Or that Star Wars isn't meeting him where he lives today. Yeah, sure. Kids today can just go watch an adventure movie and be like, Star Wars, cool. Right. It's all of us who are old and who grew up with it, who feel like, why can't they fucking figure out the moral tales again?

[00:53:26] But since 2005, I legitimately think you could put, I'm not blowing smoke. I don't know if you'd agree with this, David, but I'm like, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Avatar The Last Airbender are to me the three fantasy epics that teach kids morals, right and wrong, good and evil, how to exist in a scary world. Avatar's very layered. So since 2005, kids don't need Star Wars to do that. Avatar's been doing that for a few generations of kids now. But isn't that fundamentally a good thing? Like, it's like, there's more options there.

[00:53:54] But I think it's part of why, I think it's part of why I can go to Mandalorian and Grogu and not be angry. Why I can, I can go, because... I don't think Griff and I were angry. We're just like, that was a bit of a nothing burger. But we're really doing nothing here. Come on. Like, I felt exhausted by it. I just think that as an adult, when you watch Avatar, and I watched it with a kid, but I do think there's something we said for like, okay, Star Wars, I'm sadly recognizing that Star Wars, Star Wars used to be something like for a lot of us.

[00:54:25] I think a lot of us grew up, and if you weren't that religious, Star Wars kind of gave you what religion gave you. Yeah. And we get mad that it's not that anymore. But like, maybe we can let that go. It does need to change. We do need to let things go. Let things go. As Kylo Ren said. Yeah, right. Let the past go. Like the first one came out. The first one came out a year after the bicentennial and like predicted Reaganism and good versus evil. And it was at the same time as the Ramones and this whole idea of like, look backwards while also establishing the future.

[00:54:55] You're not going to recreate that. No, well, no. We got to bring the Ramones back. New Ramones. You think about the cultural moment. Yes, yes. Like a New Hope metacultural moment that ties into looking back at the 50s and moving forward to the 80s. And Star Wars was part of that. And like the heroes we needed then were Luke Skywalker and Rocky. You know? Like it gave us these heroes that met the moment. I don't know if we want to bring back Johnny Ramone right now. Of course.

[00:55:26] Of course. Of course. really tried to do that. And instead it launched a culture war rather than becoming part of a conversation of what it was commenting on.

[00:55:55] No argument. Yep. End of my contributions to The Last Jedi. Great. And then and then and or I agree with you is sadly because of how fucking cyclical humanity is, is really in conversation with what's going on in the world today. And inputs into the original trilogy in a way none of this other stuff does. But it is fascinating to me that now having finally watched it for the first time, it's the greatest fucking TV show. It's unbelievable. It's an astonishing work. I have I thought to I think if you watch the two seasons of Andor. Yeah.

[00:56:25] Rogue One and the original trilogy. That's the perfect Star Wars experience. I finished Andor last night, so I have not done the Rogue One rewatch post Andor. I will let you know how that goes. I imagine because even like certainly I care a lot more about. Let's say Cassian Andor. Yes. But let's also say a little guy that I know you like Chris Gethard. Who's this? Someone who you've said is maybe the new Kit Fisto of the Star Wars universe. Oh, if you want to get into a Fisto discussion. We're talking Saw Gerrera?

[00:56:54] I have a million things to say, but thank you. Saw Gerrera. Saw Gerrera is the current Fisto of Star Wars. Kit Fisto is no longer the Fisto. Fisto is now the title. I'm down. I love Saw Gerrera. Saw Gerrera. It's an awesome character. Saw Gerrera is the most intriguing Fisto. I love the most intriguing Fisto. I'm playing ref. Okay. Give him the floor, please. I really need to talk for a sec. Please. Yes. Okay. David, go. On Avatar The Last Airbender. Very good show. Wonderful. I think it's good. I can't wait to watch that with my kid. That'll be great. I also can't wait to watch Star Wars with my kid.

[00:57:24] I think there's room for all of this. My kid was unimpressed by Star Wars. Well, I was going to ask. Okay. So maybe this is part of your- Oh, but you didn't take him to the movie yesterday. No. Yeah. But you're saying this is your emotional journey you're on. You're right. You tried to get your kid into Star Wars. I really, really hoped. You showed it to him and he was kind of like, eh. Right. And with Avatar, I saw him getting everything- He got it organically. Everything Star Wars gave me when I was his age, Avatar's giving him now. This idea. We live in a layered world. People are put up on.

[00:57:53] Your friends make it down. Okay. Wait, wait. I still need to reply. Okay. So Avatar. I watched that in the pandemic. My wife had already watched it when it was on. So she knew it. And it was one of those pandemic things of like, we got to watch something all the time, right? Like the TV's just got to be on because we're so bored. So I watched all of Avatar, all of Korra, like then. I remember I was watching election night 2020. Biden, Trump, when Trump tragically, I mean, he won. We all know he won, obviously. Right. When he was lied to and the public was lied to. No.

[00:58:23] Like I remember like we were really stressed out election night. And like, I was like, I'm putting on Avatar. Like we were not going to know anything for a few hours anyway. And we remember us watching it. It's sort of a cherish. Love Avatar. Got the steals. Griff. Love that. Love that. Haven't recracked that. But I have been kind of like, yeah, that'll be perfect for my daughter in like a year or two. Like pretty soon. And you haven't done Star Wars with your daughter yet. But we have several friends, mutual friends of ours who have kids around your daughter's age. Yeah. And they're into it.

[00:58:49] We have like a bunch of friends who have all in the run up to Mandalorian been like, is it time to show my kids Star Wars? Yeah. Who have gone through them and have Star Wars obsessed kids now. I would say. So it's not a thing that's completely bouncing off the entire generation. My daughter's pretty interested in Star Wars because the toys are around. She likes what she's seeing. He likes the toys. He likes the characters. Kit Fisto gave him some Kit Fisto toys. You did. You gave him a Kit Fisto onesie when he was born. That's pretty awesome. Thank you for that. And it was also a Coca-Cola onesie. It was soda and Kit Fisto. Gethard's two favorite things.

[00:59:19] Oh, that is true. Very thoughtful. He likes Boba Fett. Fizz Fizz. Sure. But the sense I get from the kids his age is like, I can look back and I didn't know this as a kid, but I'm like, oh, right. I'm going to wind up not being a practicing Catholic and Star Wars is a little bit more of my moral and ethical. Which is great. They're not getting that out of it. Yeah. It's a big ask. It's a big ask where you're like, I need my kid to essentially religiously connect.

[00:59:48] Avatar's a little bit closer to that. But that's fine. That's a good, at least that's good. It's great. At least he's not like, I love. I mean, I don't know what the bad version of this is. Yeah. He's not out here like watching looks maxing videos. He's not getting in on that shit. He's not like, dad, can I eat elk meat and get a jaw reconstruction surgery? Where do you introduce a kid to clavicular? I don't know. 12, 13. Just the second they sort of start asking questions about their body, you're like, oh, these questions can all be answered by Mr. Clavicular. Someone who has it figured out.

[01:00:18] Height lying. Re-saw-Guerrera-Kit-Fisto. Or Lymax. It would be awesome if there was a scene in any of the Star Wars movies where someone said to Kit Fisto, like, you come on pretty strong. You know what I mean? What I love about Saw Gerrera is that even fucking Stellan Skarsgård, even he's like, he's a lot. It's beautiful. We need every weapon in our toolbox over here, but my God, is that man tough to deal with.

[01:00:45] I fucking love it because it takes Star Wars from Rebellions Are Built on Hope and goes, no, they're sold on hope. Yes. They're built on fucking lunatics like Stellan Skarsgård and Saw Gerrera. What's that? Skarsgård's name is Lutheran Reale. Lutheran Reale. It's Lutheran and that's who, they're built on fucking extremist maniacs. And when you watch Rogue One. They're sold by Luke Skywalker and the branding around Skarsgård. I was going to say. When Andor's season two ended and I was like, I gotta watch Rogue One right away.

[01:01:14] You put it on. You're dialed into Cassian. And then there is Jyn Erso. Right. After watching Andor kind of like, I don't care about you or your dad. This is my exact concern. Now the movie is I really rocked. Yeah. I like that, that, and maybe I'm giving them too much credit because I love so much. And Cassian's like flirting with her and you're like, you have a baby. But I do like the idea that all these characters were operating in their own little vacuums to foment this fucking thing. It's nice.

[01:01:43] And they barely know each other and putting their lives on the line. Yeah, it rocks. And there's this implicit non-trust. That's the best stuff in that movie. In a better world too. So Andor and Rogue One retroactively make one of Luke Skywalker's lines in A New Hope so sad. Which one? I used to bullseye. Have we talked about this before? I'm not sure. That's the line. That line becomes so tragically fucking naive. Yeah.

[01:02:06] And you realize everyone else in that room must hear that kid say that and go, I hope he's not in my squadron because not only is he dead, he's going to get us fucking killed. Sure, sure, sure. Then like the contextualizing of that. Yeah. That Luke is legit on New Hope. Like optimism was dead. The thing that's crazy about Andor is that like, right. It feels like I know. We got to see what the Empire did.

[01:02:30] It makes original Star Wars even richer because it is not diminishing it by being like, well, that's like silly, frothy, surface level kid shit. It's being like, no, this is like religious myth. These are the sort of like figures that we can prop up as miracles that help sell a belief system and literally allow society to move on from a new hope. Right. And it's like, here's actually the historical account. Here's what was happening.

[01:02:56] Whereas the book of Boba Fett says, what if this character you've always wanted to see kick ass becomes a low level county level bureaucrat? So he effectively becomes a county's sheriff. Right. We should also mention, I think everyone knows this, but Dave Filoni is now in charge of Star Wars. He is now the creative head at this moment. And I like a lot of what he's done. Kathleen Kennedy's stepping down. Yes. I like some of what he's done. Have you watched all of Clone Wars? No. Right? I've watched a lot of it. Okay.

[01:03:23] He was announced as president of Lucasfilm in January, 2026. However, Lin-Win Brennan, who's a long time like ILM person, was announced as like co-president. It's similar to the James Gunn situation where she is sort of the business person and he is the creative person. Right. Because there is only one Feige who is seemingly good at doing both of those things. And anytime they've tried to make someone do both. Right. It's been a calamity.

[01:03:49] And I think part of the worry, if people trying to do an autopsy on the Kathleen Kennedy era, their takeaway was this is kind of one of the greatest producers in Hollywood history. Not kind of, inarguably one of the greatest producers in Hollywood history. But she worked with incredible creative minds and storytellers. She was never someone generating stories or even developing material as much.

[01:04:11] And do you need a balance between someone who understands the logistics of production and management and someone who can have the big overarching story view? And in theory, Filoni is now placed to... Well, he's not. Because it's over. At this moment. Yes, at this moment. At the moment we're recording, that is his position. Right. But like Kathleen Kennedy's obvious eye was for, you know, talent. Yes. She had a great eye for talent. Correct. And it paid off for her pretty well with Star Wars.

[01:04:39] Until I would argue she started getting the yips. I think, well, from what I'm aware, and I guess I have enough goss. Mostly from the audience. Last Jedi freaked out Disney, not Kennedy. Correct. Kennedy loved it. Iger, etc. We're just like, the fans are yelling too much. So no more of that. Whatever that was. Not only that. That it was like, that was the best production they had. That was the only Star Wars movie that wasn't riddled with reshoots and panic. And she was unbelievably happy with the final result. Right.

[01:05:09] And people like to erase from history. It made so much fucking money. It was a huge show. Because it was divisive, people like to be like, and that one disappointed. It did not. But in the year 2017, three of the 10 highest grossing films in history were Kathleen Kennedy's Star Wars movies. Right. Force Awakens was number one of all time. It still is domestically. Rogue One was in the top 10. Last Jedi was in the top 10. So it was working. Yes.

[01:05:36] I mean, one would argue, oh, but then the movies after Last Jedi didn't do as well. It's like, well, yeah, because they were so low. Immediate problem. Which was a shambles. Yes. And episode nine, which people are sort of like, you know, oh, that's J.J. Abrams' phone. It's like, fundamentally what happened with episode nine was Carrie Fisher died. Yes. And they had to completely dynamite what they were doing. They also had a director that they were losing confidence in. They fire a director. Yeah. They bring in Abrams two months before production starts or whatever. Right. Like so late.

[01:06:05] They push it back four months when they needed to push it back two years. Right. And Abrams is like, I don't know, I guess Velveteen Returns. Yeah. I mean, he's just... Which, you know, many people think, and I don't think this is a baseless conspiracy theory. There's actually a lot of evidence that points towards this, that Palpatine was entirely a reshoot thing. I mean, that... It seems impossible. I have no idea. Yeah. It's so crazy. I'm not going to go down this rabbit hole, but there's stuff that makes it seem somewhat valid. But yes, it does feel like they started to freak out.

[01:06:34] We should mention also that the first season of The Mandalorian TV show, a show we all love, or that first season we all love... Not two months before production, by the way. Two months after. It doesn't matter. Karen. Whatever. Yes. One month before Rise of Skywalker comes out, Disney Plus launches, and their big launch title is first episode of The Mandalorian. Right. It was before episode nine is when Mando started. By a month. Right. And in unison, the world says they put a little baby Yoda in a Pokemon. I mean, truly.

[01:07:04] We love this. They stuck a little Yoda in a Pokemon. We couldn't love this more. I remember episode one, which ends with the reveal of him. Yeah. I was like, a baby Yoda. I don't know. And by episode like three, you're like, baby Yoda's one of my family members. I love baby Yoda. A conversation I remember was... Everyone agrees. They were so mysterious about that show. Can you believe? It's weird. Jon Favreau, the Iron Man guy, he's making a TV show for Disney Plus. But they're saying it's not going to be cheap. It's going to be really expensive. It's going to look like a movie. Right?

[01:07:31] They got fucking Greg Frieser to shoot the first season. Right. Sure. High production. It looks incredible. Right? But they were also like, it's called The Mandalorian. And I remember at the time being like, that's nerd shit. That's nerd shit. Like, this is supposed to be like, you know, for the masses. That feels like deep lore shit. And the other part of it was, they kept saying, there's... This twist in the first episode, that's why they're being so secretive. I remember you and I saying, I'm going to be so annoyed if he's Boba Fett. Right. And instead, the twist is, we've cracked the code.

[01:08:00] We've created... We found fire. This is Grogu. This is like a new element on this earth that is infinitely powerful. And we all were like, fuck, that puppet's pretty good. What is this show? And then the show reveals... Bernard Herzog's in it. It feels fucking weirdly cool because of that. It's got cool, weird energy. The show reveals itself to be like a Western. A standalone. He's a bounty hunter. He goes out on a mission. You meet new characters every time. That's all we've ever wanted. And it's like, here's the cleanest new entry point to Star Wars in forever.

[01:08:30] Anyone can watch this. Actually, it is free of kind of lore shit. Yes. The only lore is like, it's after Return of the Jedi. Yeah. The Republic kind of exists. The Empire's still kind of, you know, hanging around. You don't even really need to know that. You don't even need to worry about it. Yeah. And I just loved... I was like, this is TV. This is not a 13-hour movie. This is... Every episode is 30 minutes of an adventure in a different style. I'm already getting upset, though. Because I'm just remembering when they're like... That's what I loved. But, you know, when they start being like, let's learn more about the Creed. Season two.

[01:09:00] Let's meet cartoon characters. Season two. Let's hear about the Dark Saber. Immediately. And that's Filoni being too protective of his own comedy. Yes. Yup. And the stuff he loves. It's both. It's like, what's the lore that I grew up on? And what's the lore that I made in homage to the lore that I grew up on? Right. Basically. I will say, in general, I think the Disney Plus stuff gets a real bad rap. And I understand all the disappointment and sharing it. I generally think there is something redeeming about most of the shows.

[01:09:29] I like Obi-Wan and Asuka better than average. I disagree on those two shows. Those two, I can't really go there with you. I watched them. I can say, with Obi-Wan, hugely disappointing to once again waste the potential of Ewan McGregor. It's just... Yeah. That's the only good thing. It is just... Him and Moses Ingram both give good performances. But everything else in the show is bad. I do think for the first time since his introduction, we get to see why the galaxy was truly scared

[01:09:59] of Darth Vader. And like, I'm not going to be mad at that. Yeah. No, it just was sort of like... What was he? He was like fighting with Inquisitors or whatever. Three of the shows. He was in town showing up as this cloaked fucking figure in black and people are fucking dying and getting their fucking shit torn up. Like, that's... I've wanted to see that my whole life. Arguably. All become the exact same thing. This was my big takeaway from grinding tape and watching a lot of these very close together, right?

[01:10:27] Because I got really turned off by Mando season two where I was like, guys, you're doing the exact thing I was praising you for not doing in the first season. Why is every episode reintroducing a character from lore and being like, look, it's Bo-Katan. Here's Bo-Katan's deal. It's Ahsoka. Here's Ahsoka's deal. And then it ends with the deepfake Luke. And I was like, I'm fucking out on this. The deepfake Luke is indefensible. You think so? Indefensible. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I mean, the deepfake... It can't give a good performance.

[01:10:58] But the idea of Grogu traveling to go train with Luke Skywalker... You can't do it. Do something else. You can't. That's how I feel. It looks like this. That's what they need to be smart enough to realize. It looks like this. And it's literally like a robot voice. And that's where it becomes... Let's fucking... Deepfake Luke. That becomes like, let's just show our dick in public. You know what I mean? This is like, take our dick out of our pants, basically. It's kind of the effect. You can't actually follow through on this.

[01:11:24] Do you know that they created a Mark Hamill soundboard? It's not even him giving a voice performance. Because the other thing that happens, and the Mando movie has a lot of this, is they become so obsessed with the tech of like, we're pushing virtual production, the pipeline, and the volume, and all this sort of stuff. We have our own proprietary deepfake thing. That rather than just bringing Mark Hamill, an incredible voice actor, into a booth, having him give dramatic line readings, and then putting a digital effect on it to try

[01:11:52] to make him sound younger, they like study every second of line delivery he's ever given as Luke, and put it into a computer, and then basically just do like text-to-speech. So every line reading fucking Luke gives is flat, because it's like, Brogu, I will train you now. That bums me out. But more than that, watching all these shows close together, I defend Skeleton Crew and The Acolyte. I think the cardinal family of both of those shows...

[01:12:22] Skeleton Crew got good reviews in general. Skeleton Crew is good. Skeleton Crew was like, let's do a Spielberg... Let's do a Spielberg-style thing in the world of Star Wars. I think it came so late that people had kind of tapped out and were tired on the whole thing. But I do think the people who... There's an upswing. I think it was under-watched, but I think the people who watched it appreciate it. No one was really against it. I just think people kind of shrugged it off. They shrugged it off, because it's also Skeleton Crew, sort of like this movie, is kind of like, we're just kind of doing our own thing over here. We're not really trying to mess with larger Star Wars.

[01:12:50] With Skeleton Crew, I genuinely appreciate that it's doing that. It basically works. I think both Skeleton Crew and Acolyte have the exact same core problem, which is they should have been movies. They both have like peak TV issues for me, where I'm like, this is a two-hour story that's now stretched to five or six hours. Acolyte, I genuinely like. I like a tremendous amount. Really? I do think it would have been better as a movie. I haven't even watched it. You should watch it. Acolyte is one of the... I watched the first episode. This probably won't sell you on it. I heard such bad things that I was like, I guess I want to invest in time. I think you would find it interesting.

[01:13:18] It is one of the only things in Star Wars since, you know, the Disney takeover that one engages with the prequels, which I think is like vital if unless, you know, we're not about to junk them. It's the primary mission is to engage with the weird stuff happening between the margins and the prequels textually, not in a lore sense. Engages with like Jedi rot. The ideas. You know, the idea of like what happened that like Yoda's like, I'm not seeing this coming. And then episode three ends up all dying.

[01:13:48] How did the Jedi become this bloated bureaucracy? Right. It's got witches. It's got witches. It does have witches. And it's got all this like interesting ideas about how witches are related to the force. But demonized. But like they stand kind of in between the dark side. Or like there's only one way to use the force. It's interesting. It's about the birth of the Sith. And it's also about how fucked up it is that Qui-Gon Jinn just abducts a kid. Like that's the starting point for the show. So clearly as you watch it and just be like, it's weird.

[01:14:17] Is this a thing they do all the time? It is so fundamentally insane. To this day, the Qui-Gon's like, I won you in the bet. So I get to take you. And he's like, can my mom come? And he's like, I didn't include your mom in the bet. And I don't want to hear about it again. Get on the spaceship, eight-year-old. The accolary schmie. In a way, I think people get pissed off by it. She's like, I can't go with you. I'm like, why? You are a fucking Jedi. Just take her. What's going to happen? What, Watto needs a 50-year-old woman? Like that badly? No, he sells her off immediately.

[01:14:46] Once he's gone, Anakin's gone. No, why? She wasn't in the bet I made with a bug Jew. Mom, a spaceship's a little heavy. We already have 80 astromech droids. I'm Jewish, I can say that. It's just, when you're a kid, you're just kind of like, of course. Because when you're a kid, every story is about a kid being orphaned or separated. But then when you're an adult, you're just like, my God, just take her. That is what Acolyte's about. Like, Acolyte is digging so deep into the text of what has been made and stuff that George did.

[01:15:17] And being like, what does that actually say? What is that reflective of? Right? And if these movies, the prequels are about like how the Jedi were taken down by their own arrogance, then like, where does that start? And what was going on big picture? I think it's a really good show. I think it would have been better as a movie. I think the exact same thing with Skeleton Crew. And Obi-Wan was supposed to be... Skeleton Crew really should have been a movie. Really should have been a movie. Obi-Wan should have been a movie. Obi-Wan was supposed to be a movie. Right.

[01:15:44] Obi-Wan, they had hired Stephen Daldry and they had started building the sets and it was going to be the next standalone after Solo. And when Solo underperformed, they were like, let's slow our roll and redevelop this for TV. And you can tell. You can tell. It feels so fucking padded. And Ahsoka, Obi-Wan and what Mandalorian becomes are all... And Boba Fett. And Boba Fett. But those... None of them are great, but I... Forget the book. But I was saying those three in particular, what kind of blew my mind is that they're all

[01:16:13] the same fucking show, which is like a stoic character has a younger ward that they're trying to protect while they're looking for one thing and one mysterious person is chasing them. It's all lone wolfing up. All that? Yes. And just the slider is slightly different. We've talked about this. I've never read the manga. I've seen a couple of the movies. They are a delight. I believe it. I mean... The Wolf and Cub is so fun to read. Animated.

[01:16:42] Maul's Shadow Lord is animated. It's Clone Wars continuation. I was just following along as we were talking through all of the releases in order. Maul's Shadow Lord? I've never even heard of them. They make Clone Wars cool shows that are also animated. I haven't thought of it. Bad Batch. Right. Right. Right. And this is a mini series that's following up on Maul. David, sorry you were about to say. I just had to answer Ben's Maul perplexion. And I forgot about Maul. I feel like they just got into this sort of...

[01:17:11] The Disney, whoever, Lucasfilm, got into this kind of endless trick on themselves of like, well, it can't be a movie. And it's like, well, why can't it be a movie? And the answer could be like, well, because that's too similar. You know, like Obi-Wan. Like, we've done something like that already. Or we don't want to do a prequel again. Why can't Skeleton Crew be a movie? Oh, it just doesn't feel big enough. Like, that's more of a kid thing. So we can't do...

[01:17:40] Why can't, like, Acolyte be a movie? It's too complicated. It's too dark. The tone and Bumpy, too weird. I almost feel like... So what can be a movie? And they're like, I don't know! I almost feel like that's giving them too much credit. I feel like they go, why should this be a show instead of a movie? And the sad answer to me is, because a movie they'll give us $20 once. And a show they'll give us $10 12 times per year. There's a little of that.

[01:18:07] But, like, if you have a hit movie, you're making ungodly money. One would think. But they had a streaming service to launch. They did. They did. But they started to move off of that. They're trying to unwind this now. And you're seeing all the tendrils of Disney where they had been like, please make more stuff for Disney Plus. Because all the money is going here. And now they're like, how do we train people off of thinking these things are unspecial and making them think once again that it's worth paying to go out on a Friday night?

[01:18:37] Like, you know, I think they just got in their head of like, well, the next movie's got to be something big, right? It's got to be something, you know, we've had a couple flops. Like, we kind of need something that's going to set the new tone. Longer the gap goes on, the more they feel the pressure of, well, now it's got to be even bigger to justify the return of Star Wars movies. And so they've sort of compromised with like, well, if we have a movie with Ryan Gosling as a star fighter, well, you know, that'll be good enough. And that's the next movie. That's coming out next year, right? You're aware of this. I'll buy a ticket. Sure.

[01:19:07] We'll all go see it. But like with Mando and Krugoo, it felt like Filoni was like, here's season four. And Filoni and Favreau, I guess. We're like, we've written season four. I guess we want to do it. And Disney's like, that's going to cost $300 million. It's going to suck. It's got, I'm sure the script has so much Thrawn and fucking God knows, Dark Sabers, right? Like, I'm sure it's like heavy on lore.

[01:19:32] Because they've said like, we pivoted from season four to something that had no lore, right? We want, we made sure the movie was going to be a clean entry point. You know, Favreau said like, we didn't want to do any of the lore. So Disney's clearly like, can you just do a movie? And Filoni's like, sure. Can it be a big movie? No, no. No. Can it just be fun movie with Baby Yoda in it? Yeah. That's for kids. That's for kids. It's for basically middle school. I mean, this movie is flirting with being a PG.

[01:19:59] It's a PG-13 because it's got enough kind of like gun shit, I guess. It feels PG. But it feels kind of PG. And I solidly aiming for kid reaction. Right. I think what you're saying. And it just has this from beginning to end. It's like, yes, sure. The bald guy is in season three. I guess I forgot about it. Which I did not remember even though I had watched it one week earlier. But it's basically just kind of like, all you need to know is the Mandalorian and Grogu are going to adventures together. They're going to go on an adventure.

[01:20:25] I do feel like fundamentally one of the questions we're circling around is it seems like no one in the Disney era is asking the question of what do people out there need? No. Because people used to get something they needed out of Star Wars. And that's why it's a franchise that for 50 years has meant so much. Well, like one thing that really stood out to me about Mandalorian and Grogu that I think is so insane. And I get it. I get what the world we're living in. I get the blend of visual. No, no, no.

[01:20:52] I mean like the Star Wars universe is one with creatures and masks and a combination of, you know, always the debate about practical effects versus digital. All this stuff. But I go, we are in an era where everyone's relentlessly talking about the loneliness epidemic and how much loneliness is killing us. And we literally have a movie where you only see human eyes for it's five to six minutes of a two hour and 15 minute movie. That is a good point. Everything is either a mask or digital.

[01:21:20] Like we're living in a world where everyone's fucking lonely. And I can speak for myself. I'll get weirdly vulnerable this deep into a Star Wars thing where I go, I am literally like a mental health advocate working to get kids less lonely in schools while also struggling deeply with the fact of, oh, I'm a living. I am so relentlessly lonely on a daily basis. You and I were saying this yesterday that we are people who for outside perception, people would be like, you got like a friend base and you're like busy and you're doing stuff.

[01:21:48] And we're like, you and I are both like burdened with the fundamental loneliness as a condition. Literally lonely. Like my birthday is tomorrow and I never have a birthday party and reached out to friends because I go, a birthday is a reason that people will actually come out and I need to fucking connect with people. I forgot that that was part of this planning was to do this the day before your birthday. My birthday present to myself is to be called crazy by David Sims on mic. I apologize for calling you crazy.

[01:22:11] I mean, you are, your notion that the Mandalorian would die and baby Grogu would turn evil at the end of this movie was a little crazy. All I'll say is this, when it leaks that that was proposed, we're going to see who is crazy. Excited for that leak. But I just want to say, like the idea that I watched a two hour, 15 minute long movie where I did not look at human eyes is just such a lack of grace of like, what do people need?

[01:22:40] Apart from Sigourney, it's like, you're right, right? Like his helmet comes off one time and he says, I'm going to kill you to the huts. And it goes right back on. And we've seen versions of that in the show before. And it brought me immediately back to fucking Princess Leia in that first movie with the blaster up looking around the corner and she's stone face and badass. Immediate humanity. But she's teeny tiny with these big doe eyes and she's a princess. It's primal shit. And you sit here and like, you don't even realize it in the moment, but then you watch

[01:23:10] it over and over again. You go, oh, for like a late teenage era princess, who's a tiny diminutive person to have that steely resolve is masking so much fucking pain and fear. And you immediately are sucked in by Carrie Fisher's eyes. Yeah. Totally. And now what they give us is a movie where Jeremy Allen White is playing a jacked slug yelling that he's not like his dad. I'm not like my dad. I just want to take another look at you.

[01:23:38] It's hard being in a hut sometimes. You're like, it's like all of it. Like, I want to love baby Yoda, but like, I kind of don't give up. He's a cutie. He doesn't have big eyes. But he's the only addressing the eyes complaint. But he's a puppet doing cute shit. And like, I just kind of need someone in my life to make fucking eye contact with me and tell me a story that explains to me what's good and what's bad. Wish you a happy birthday. And that's what Star Wars used to be. Yeah. Well, right.

[01:24:04] You are yearning for Star Wars as you keep coming back to this, is this sort of like moral force, which like, you know, that's right. That feels kind of long lost. And it's tough for any, you know, franchise to hold that burden or whatever. Part of the disappointment is that film fans and film nerds like getting vocal on the internet. Comic-Con nerds like getting vocal on the internet. Star Wars is a flashpoint for all of them. Like another big point of what's going on right now is like, this is a franchise that spoke

[01:24:33] to us on a deep level for a long time and just swings and misses and asks us to pay them for another shot. It's like the boomers who made shit like Star Wars, you know, had a sort of a more woo-woo. And I'm, you know, speaking positively, right? Like this kind of like post-hippie, you know, these interests, you know, this sort of expansive view of things. I think there's a larger issue. They're blending it all in there. They had the hippie optimism mixed with the punk cynicism. Cool filmmaking. It's a little different these days. I don't know.

[01:25:02] I think there's a larger issue, in my opinion, is Grogu needs cookie. Grogu doesn't need cookie and someone should address this. I've watched in the last couple of months, six seasons of Star Wars television and a movie for the first time. I want to formally congratulate you on doing that. You thought I wasn't going to get it done. We haven't even really started talking about Andor. I want to try to do something here. I want to try to do something here. Ben, can we, as an exercise. Ben's eating the cookies. Ben's eating the cookies. Do you want to bring this up? Do you want to mention this? Oh, I'm just hungry. Yeah. I just wanted a snack.

[01:25:31] By the way, there's a merch spotlight, including a food spotlight at the end of this episode. I got bags under the table. But Ben's snacking on Grogu. Wait, do you guys want some? There's plenty to share here. I do want some. I do want some. It's crazy. Ben, can you stick your tongue out quickly? Oh, man. That's a blue tongue. Ben, can you start a counter for three minutes? I think I can. And I'm not saying this is all we're talking about it.

[01:25:57] But I just want to, like, actually run through the entire plot of the movie in under three minutes. Of the Mandalorian and Grogu? Yes. Yeah, go right. Because I was practicing this on the way here. I think you can honestly do it now. Yeah, three almost seems roomy. Okay, ready? Start. Okay, we start with Mandalorian on a bounty hunter mission, trying to capture a warlord. He brings him back to Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver's like, cool, I got two more missions for you. One is find Radha the Hutt, Jabba's son, and free him, bring him back to his aunt and uncle.

[01:26:26] Secondly, here's a mystery warlord. Can you find this guy? Radha might help. He goes to find Radha. Radha's like, I don't need to be freed. I like fighting because my dad was bad. And so, but by the way, I know where that warlord is. I can bring you to him. But then Mando gets captured by the same people and he gets caught in the fight with Radha. They escape. They find the warlord, bring him back to Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver's like, where's Radha?

[01:26:54] He's like, Radha didn't want to be freed. She's like, this sucks because we work closely with the aunt and uncle. Can you go make things good with them? He goes back to the aunt and uncle. They're like, fuck you. They throw him in a pit. He gets scratched. He falls asleep. Grogu, who's been separated from him and started, was about to go gremlins to gizmo mode, like Rambo style badass, instead just learns to be alone, meet Stephen McKinley Henderson on a porch, then Mandalorian wakes up and they have to escape and all their friends come and help them escape.

[01:27:23] And then Sigourney Weaver's like, thanks for your work. That's the entire movie, right? And for some reason, that was a minute 14. Yeah. And for some reason, Sigourney Weaver decides they need to like nuke the hut, like house. They're already escaping. And then it's at the end of the movie. It's kind of like, I don't know, something's going to blow up. That was wild. That was fairly detailed. It was a bit of an Eagles and Lord of the Rings moment of like, if you go. She's like, hi. And he's like, I'm out of here. And she's like, don't worry about it. Let it go. Let's blow him up. She's also like, jump quickly because the bombs, it's shot already.

[01:27:52] I also was like, man, like you didn't even have to kill the Nazgul to get the Eagle. Like you could have done that the whole time. Look, look, the Eagles and Lord of the Rings is too complicated for this day. I would say. I was fairly detailed there. Was I not? Pretty. I mean, the only thing you left out was Scorsese. Star making turn by Scorsese. But Scorsese is not actually vital to the plot. He's just kind of like, rot is over there. But that doesn't want to give information, which is funny.

[01:28:18] That motherfucker went so hard that that character shines. Dude, that character is the other part of the movie we like. We were like, I cannot believe how locked in he is. He's giving this his all. And it has personality and humanity. Does it speak to something that Martin Scorsese, who has sort of, you know, grumbled about franchise filmmaking, right? In interviews. Ben prepared all of us a little dish. Ben's giving me some Mando cookies. That's a lot of cookies. I don't know if I'm going to eat all those. But thank you, Ben. I got five other food items in my back.

[01:28:47] They make a real cool banana pudding with these blue Nilla wafers. That's true. They call it like space Nilla wafers or something. Like a guy being paid, you know, like a shill in this movie. I just run a flat meat stand. I don't know anything. Don't ask me about it. I don't know. Maybe. An incredible impression of Martin Scorsese as that streetcar operator. Thank you. Specifically. I ate it. It tastes like a Nilla wafer. I guess there's no like blue flavor. No, but the cognitive dissonance of it not being blue flavor does fuck your brain a little bit.

[01:29:17] Well, we should properly name it. It is Grogu Nilla Nummies. Mmm. Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom, nom. It says right here in the box. Nummies. David. Yes. You look like a man who doesn't know that fast growing trees is America's largest and

[01:29:42] most trusted online nursery with thousands of trees and plants and over 2 million happy customers. I had no idea. Yeah. Well, David, they have all the plants your yard or home needs, including fruit trees, privacy trees, flowering trees, shrubs and houseplants. My home is littered with all of these. And they're all grown with care and guaranteed to arrive healthy. It's like your local nursery, but anywhere you live with more plants than you'll find anywhere else.

[01:30:09] And whatever you're looking for, fast growing trees helps you find options that actually work for your climate, space and lifestyle. For me, all inclusive. I'll take any kind of tree you got. Griffin, I know you're, you know, a green thumb. Yeah. And I think you're going to... I got 10 green fingers. Yeah. I think you're going to agree with me on this that, you know, you go to a garden center and you just find it so overwhelming and inconvenient. You took the personal statement out of my mouth, Ben. That is how I feel. And then here's the other thing.

[01:30:38] You try to hire some landscapers. It's too expensive. I am so tired of spending every day of my life on the phone with landscapers. Listen, with fast growing trees, it's just so reassuring that you know you're going to order plants and they're guaranteed to be healthy and to thrive. But let me guess when the trees arrive, it takes a really long time for them to grow. They have their alive and thrive guarantee. It promises your plants arrive happy and healthy. No green thumb required. Just quality plants you can count on.

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[01:31:35] Better plants have better growing at fastgrowingtrees.com using code CHECK at checkout. Fastgrowingtrees.com code CHECK. Now's the perfect time to plant. Let's grow together. Use CHECK to save today. Offer is valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. David? Yes? They say that the eyes are the window to the soul. They do say that.

[01:32:03] What does that make our glasses? The windows? The window frames? I don't know. The curtains? Yeah, the curtains. The point is, if you are a glasses wearer like I am or like our own producer Ben is. True. It's a big decision. Sure. Because this is how you introduce yourself to the world. This is how you engage with other people. You make eye contact through the frames. Sometimes it's just time for a refresh. Totally agree. All right. Well, so what about Zenni Optical? Oh!

[01:32:32] The Fine Folks' Zenni glasses. The eyewear. They got fun shapes, sizes, and colors. They got a lot of colors. Right. Statement pieces. Bold statement pieces, they call them. And they're inexpensive, I would say. They're an online eyewear shop with prescription glasses, sunglasses, blue light lenses, all starting at under $30. That's crazy. That is very low. I feel like glasses often cost more than $30.

[01:33:02] Way more. But you go to Zenni.com, you pick a frame, you upload your prescription, they ship it to your door. No appointment, no store, no upsell at the counter. Easy. At that price? Yeah. Something kind of shifts. You're not like, do I need new glasses? You're like, why don't I try something fun? Right? Sometimes you got an old pair, they got a scratch on them. It's annoying, but you're like, am I going to go through the hassle? Or the screws start to get loose and you find yourself taking out that microscopic little screwdriver over and over again to tighten them up.

[01:33:30] At this price, why not just get another pair? Ben, I ordered a pair of the Magoo. I think this is funny. Okay. We all know from Mr. Magoo, the cartoon character who can't see. And Zenni is saying, let's solve that problem. Let's give you glasses called Magoo. They're blue and green. Two of my favorite colors. A nice boxy frame. You're not agonizing over one pair that has to do everything for the next two years. Get the ones for work. Yeah. Get the fun ones. Get some options.

[01:34:00] Get the pair that only matches one outfit at under $30. You don't have to justify it. Exactly. They've got 150,000 five-star reviews. Yeah. And if you've never run glasses online before, they have a virtual try-on so you can see how it's going to look on your face before you commit. If your glasses are overdue for a refresh, now's the time. Go to zenni.com slash podcast and use code podcast15 for 15% off your first order. The styles sell out, so don't sit on it. That's Z-E-N-N-I dot com slash podcast promo code podcast15.

[01:34:40] David and I, as he said, are sitting here at the theater. And I want to be clear. We're considerate moviegoers. We're not talking the whole time. But occasionally we turn to each other and whisper one sentence. And I would say about every 20 minutes, one of us would turn to the other and go, Is this really all there is? Because like we kept being like, there must be some story idea that the trailers were hiding. Not a big twist. But it's not that I wanted that. No. Like it's not like I wanted the third act of the movie.

[01:35:07] I was basically like, is this movie going to be what it looks like? Which is just kind of like a disposal. They got to find one guy. Except they find the warlord halfway through. And then you're like, what is the movie now? You turned to me and said, I actually don't know what the rest of the movie is. Right. And so then I'm like, right. Will the third act be AI, Luke and fucking, you know, take your pick, shows up. Is there a bad surprise behind the mystery door? You know, Grogu shoots some lightning or grows wings or... You really don't think Dark Grogu would have been a more interesting third act? No.

[01:35:37] You really triggered me there because it's the kind of shit I hate the most. Do you know what I... We're actually screaming at each other. I really hate the someone needs to die for a movie. Can you guys say that you love each other just so we can... I love you very much, Chris. Here's my pitch that hit me when we got to that section. I was like, are they going to do some slop? Yeah. But they didn't. No. But instead it was just kind of like Mando's... Why did you even make this? What was the idea? Just got to get away from the Hutts. What's your pitch? My pitch is... Can I just say one thing to close out that thought? Please.

[01:36:05] And I think this actually is truthful. This does feel like the exact Star Wars movie you would make at a cultural moment where it feels acceptable to people to remove Stephen Colbert and replace it with Byron Allen's comics. I mean, just kind of like let's not hurt anyone's feelings. A society where it's like we're looking for something and we're not getting it any. It's beyond that. I heard you just traveled over here from New Jersey. Anything you want to share about that?

[01:36:33] We need to be talking about this Lincoln Tunnel traffic, Byron Allen. And we got to be talking the Lincoln, the Holland, the George Washington. Gethard, you're like one of the great comic figures of our lives. Gethard, that is a brutal comparison. Yeah. It is 100% on point. It's not even about inoffensiveness. It's about this sort of like the whole weirdness of Comics Unleashed is you're like, this looks like comedy, but something feels off.

[01:37:03] Everything's for sale. Everything's leaseable. It's a comedy, but it's in a hollow way and it's so packaged and strategized. And they're acting like this is organic conversation, but it's neither stand up nor interview. And it's getting an 1130 slot, which used to be sacred. We're treating this as if it's the legit thing when this used to air at four o'clock in the morning. And this was only watched by people who were struggling. People who should not be watched by drug addicts. Yes. Literally. The core demographic.

[01:37:31] The core demographic was men in hotel rooms debating whether they wanted to live through the night. Some of the worst nights of my life had been watching Comics Unleashed and it wasn't because of Comics Unleashed. Comics Unleashed was meeting me where I was. You and I both just revealed that we watched that show while having suicidal ideation. I just also want to. The core demo. I just want to shout out to you that while we're all talking right now, everyone has a blue tongue. This is true. My punk crew immediately.

[01:38:00] He didn't grow you, Nilla Wapers talking about killing ourselves. It went blue immediately. Nilla nummies. Nummies? Num Nums? Numbies. Numbies. Right. Thanks for the Nilla Nummies. Griffin, can you get back to- I got my flag, my own mental health concerns. Your pitch. I hope you're doing okay, Chris. So like minute 30, 40. I love you, Chris. I love you, Chris. You're doing all right, right? You're all right. It was a very funny dissonance for us to do that bit while eating these treats.

[01:38:26] I got to say, you're making a little sinker face while you're eating Nilla Nummies. We've never stopped talking. We never stopped eating Nilla Wapers as we talk. We're good. Look, it's the most respectful way to honor the movie is to just keep snacking. Keep buying the product, baby. We don't give a fuck. Say whatever you want about our movie. You're literally eating our tie-in product while you talk bad about our movie. We're giving you what you want, Disney.

[01:38:54] We were underwhelmed by the movie and thank you for the blue Nilla Wapers, you fucking corporate fucks. Minute, like maybe 30, 40 of the movie. They go to get Rada. Rada's like, I'm not like my dad. And Din Djarin's like, okay, I guess I'll leave. And then they gasp them. Yeah. And as he's starting to pass out, he's like, Grogu, run. I'll find you later. And I was like, oh, is the core idea of this movie?

[01:39:22] Because I'm not asking in going from TV to film, make the movie really big in a all plot threads connect. Thrawn comes in deepfake Luke kind of way. I'm like, can you tell me a story that could not fit within an episode? Ideally, that's a story of greater emotional range. Right. That's what I want. Not necessarily even scale that's bigger than the TV show. A lot of this is the murky, uncanny valley of the more that TV has become like movies. Does movies feel like TV?

[01:39:52] And how do we make this distinction? We saw it in IMAX. Because weirdly, anytime it went to the IMAX ratio, what is closer to the traditional old school TV ratio, it felt more cinematic because it didn't look like Disney Plus, which is now super widescreen. This whole weird backwards thing we're living in, right? All I want is for this movie to be like, we came up with a story that is two hours long, that has an emotional through line. Sure.

[01:40:19] That's not an episode and doesn't feel like a couple episodes smushed together. And when Mandalorian's getting gassed, you're like, they're going to make him do the Dejaric fight, which for the listeners who don't know, is the hollow chessboard that Chewie has at the Millennium Falcon, where he plays against C-3PO and then leans back and looks fucking awesome. Let the Wookiee win. Let the Wookiee win. We see like the real version of that in this. It's like a pit fight, right? With all the big creatures. And he's like, Grogu, go, I'll find you.

[01:40:49] And I was like, oh, is the big idea of this movie that they get split up? Yeah. That it is. Grogu has to fend for himself on his own and Mandalorian has to deal with the emotions of feeling what that's like. Now, we've already split them up. Season two ends with Luke taking him. Mando's really upset. And it's the first major boondoggle in the greater Mandalorian experiment is they resolve that not in a movie, which would have been a storyline fitting for a movie or season three.

[01:41:19] They resolve that in the second half of Boba Fett, a different show. So then season three starts and it's like, this is resolved. Now I'm training you. And then season three becomes basically a Bo-Katan show. As you said, David, it's largely Mandalorians talking about politics and caves. Right. They're in a cave. Many caves. It's like dark. Yes. There's like a big lake with like a, what, a serpent or something that they're like. Sure, big fish. Right. We maybe don't believe that it exists.

[01:41:46] It's the skull that's on our shoulders except that we think it's fake. And they're just like, and they're just, there's like a lot of like, to what extent should we wear our helmets? And I'm like, guys, shut the fuck up. I'm watching it and I'm like, this show is barely about the Mandalorian or Grogu at this point. Right. They all kind of just sound like Emma Thompson. So I can't like tell which one is which. Right. This movie still makes a big point of like the disgrace of his helmet being off.

[01:42:13] And I'm like, I thought all of season three was litigating the helmet thing and sort of going, eh, maybe we're not that serious about the helmet thing anymore. I can't chill with the helmet rule. Truly. Literally. To the extent that I was almost like, is this, was this written before season three? Like, but like, no, like it was not. You also have a very famous actor who has famously, infamously not done most of the physical performance for this character across the previous three seasons. Plus Boba Fett. Credit to him.

[01:42:41] Like his stunt performers are second and third billed. Single card billing. Like, like big ups for the transparency on this. Yeah. But it is fascinating that this movie is like we had Pedro Pascal do one sequence. Right. We had him do one sequence that starts with a little emotional dialogue and then is one big action set piece. The rest of the movie, I'm like, did he ever meet Sigourney Weaver until the press? Yeah, right. Definitely not. But after the Dejarik fight, he just immediately reunites with Grogu.

[01:43:10] And then the movie has them split up and get back together like two or three times until it finally does the thing where he's asleep because he was scratched by a space slug or whatever. And then there's 20 minutes of him having to fend for himself. And I'm leaning in because I'm like this. I mean, this is the thing. Grogu is the star. This is the thing they like. And the biggest reason. And this is the exact point where I would actually say, I mean. It's also puppet stuff, which I like.

[01:43:35] One of the things that I was most disappointed though by, I'm like, at least we'll see Grogu finally level up. And instead, I just saw him continue to be able to just lift. I cannot deny that they consciously clearly were like, we're not going to have him level up. It's also a conceptual fuck up that they have him level up way too fast when he starts training with Luke. And when they start showing him do the Jedi shit, it always looks dumb. I think in your words, he looks like a fucking idiot jumping around.

[01:44:04] You said that about someone in the prequels, maybe Grievous back in the day. I said that about many people. I think so. But it looked silly and they gave him too much power too quickly. And they've already set up this thing of he ages really slowly. When the Mando meets him, he's already hundreds of years old. So he's, but he's a baby. So any growth is going to be so slow as to be indistinguishable. And the money is this character needs to stay in this exact form.

[01:44:30] I agree with you that it feels like dramatically, he should say at least one word by the end of this movie. Just do this thing in the style of Yoda and watch every theater go nuts. Totally, but they're too terrified of fucking with the magic of whatever the sanctity of characters sell t-shirts. Literally have him say, dad, wake up, you must, when Mando's passed out and watch everyone cry their eyes out. Or nummies. Could have said nummies. He could have said daddy. Yeah, daddy, I want more nummies. Daddy nummies.

[01:44:58] Have him do one new force power or say one thing. Yeah. Yeah. And, and satisfy everybody. But that would, that would disrupt the status quo. I don't think, I don't think I would like that. Would like what? Him talking like Yoda. I think that would annoy me. So he just says daddy. What if he just says daddy at the end? That would obviously wreck me. Exactly. Well, because I'm a mark for this sort of stuff right now. But even that's risky for them. Not sure I want him talking like Yoda. Sure.

[01:45:27] I mean, the two major reasons they greenlit this movie. He has to talk like Yoda when he talks. He's a Yoda. He's a Yoda. I mean, this is the debate, right? He's a Yoda and a Yaddle. All due respect to Yaddle. Like it's like, we don't know Rude, they don't call him Baby Yaddle. That's true. Did Yaddle talk that way? I know Yaddle eventually made like a cartoon appearance or something, right? Do you remember the first season? Yeah, Bryce Dallas Howard played Yaddle. Do you remember the first season? I mean, that might be true. It is true. I'm not joking. Love her. Love her. Same. Very pro Bryce Dallas.

[01:45:55] First season, we all call him Baby Yoda. Disney's like, please call him the child. Don't call him Baby Yoda. His name isn't Baby Yoda. And we're like, okay, so his name is the child? And they're like, no, he has a name. But we're not telling you yet. I remember when the Ahsoka episode dropped in season two. She calls him Grogu. And the internet was like, do we like this? Did they just fuck it up? Is the sanctity, the purity of just little cute thing eats things? We have a name we like for him ruined.

[01:46:24] Eventually, everyone comes around to Grogu for a name. This movie refuses to even make a move as strong as his name is Grogu. They're like nothing new about this guy. And part of it is, as they've said, their strategy in this is a movie now is they're like, there is one thing that the current generation has grown up with of kids under 10 as their Star Wars that feels proprietary to them. It's Baby Yoda. Even if they don't watch the show, Baby Yoda is just omnipresent culturally.

[01:46:52] My son has a Baby Yoda water bottle. My daughter knew who Baby Yoda was before she knew any other Star Wars thing. They point, they say Grogu, they like. My son is by far most familiar with Baby Yoda as a Star Wars thing. And that probably doesn't know much about Yoda. No. Right. It's the second thing, which is the Cars effect. Every Cars movie made less money than the previous one. They made three theatrical films and two planes movies and they all dropped. Right.

[01:47:18] But the merch was insane and they kept being like, I guess we got to make another movie to keep the merch relevant. And at some point they're like, do we? Maybe the merch is the thing. That merch still flies off the shelves. Totally. For that. Right. Maybe we can leave it alone. There hasn't been a Cars movie in almost 10 years. But they're just like, do we got to do it again just to like the brand deposit? And that's some of their math.

[01:47:43] I don't think they were responding to a false notion of the public is demanding this. But it was a real path of least resistance thing. And also, if our majority shareholders are freaked out about our lack of action on Star Wars, is the promise, hey, I bet we're going to sell twice as much, five times as much Grogu shit in 2026. Is that good enough? And it feels like that's the only justification for this movie.

[01:48:11] And I feel like if in that scene where he's gassed outside the Djarik scene, they are actually split up for the next hour plus of the movie. And that's what the bulk of it was. That Mando's trying to figure out how to get back to Grogu and Grogu's trying to fend for himself. That's different than what they've done on the show. And that is a story that I feel I could sustain a slightly longer narrative. Would give us something. And instead, what I saw was them get back in a spaceship just to do it.

[01:48:41] You're so mad that they get it. But it is. How about the scene where they just Grogu, Mando's like, I need to take a break. And they like go back and they take a break. And they're just like, OK, let's go again. And I'm like, did we just do like a commercial break? Like, isn't this a movie? There's a scene in this movie where they listen to our episodes with Gethard talking about Star Wars in the past. And I'm like, why are we watching them listen? It's not even a video podcast.

[01:49:07] It's just like, it felt like television the whole time. The final moment back in the spaceship. Yeah. He lets Grogu push the button. Yeah. And you went, you sighed and you went, he gets to push the button now. And that to them is their notion of like, look at the character growth. Because they're like, we planted the seed. In the first act, he was like, don't push the button. This is probably an elemental storyteller. I want to say one very nitpicky thing.

[01:49:37] Please. And Griffin, you just rewatched the seasons of the show more recently. Believe me, I also found myself feeling very not into how often Mando uses dog language to tell Grogu what to do. Yeah. I don't like that either. Telling him heel. Yes. The heel thing they think is funny and it's not funny. It's like, is he your kid or is he a dog? It is. It is clearly that. It's bad comedy instinct. It ended up being funny a couple times.

[01:50:04] And I think when it used to happen, when it happens earlier, mostly in the first season, the joke is this guy doesn't have bedside manner. He doesn't know how to be a dad. But at this point, he's made choice after this is his child. And as a dad, I watch it and I'm like, that's child abuse. It's just when parents treat their children the same way they treat their animals. You know better. It's because they're bad parents. Yes. Obviously, the Mandalorian is supposed to be, you know, whatever. A man of few words and so on and so forth.

[01:50:33] But yeah, there's not much of a connection that you can detect because of how muted and flat the character is. But this is also the seasons lost their way. I mean, you have the end of season two when Luke comes on the ship and takes him. Right. So season one is perfect and is the one that ends with the Taika Waititi robot saving them and everyone, like all the characters they met from all the episodes sort of come together. And it just felt like great TV. Exactly. Does that also, though, Mark? I don't want to say. No, let me just let me finish before we. Right. Okay.

[01:51:03] See, I'm just trying to remember. And basically ends with him being like, I'm going to keep the kid. Yeah. And then season two ends with like Giancarlo Esposito wants the Darksaber or something. And then Luke Skywalker shows up to rescue them. And he takes Grogu and it's like. And he nerfs them all. But then he takes Grogu. I have to train him. And Mando takes his helmet off. And season two had. A tearful goodbye showing his face to Grogu for the first time. Right. And the emotional growth is he cares more about connecting to this kid. Than the creed. Right. Than the creed. And he's showing his emotions. The stoicism wall is over.

[01:51:33] And Ahsoka's in season two. Like she drops in somewhere in there. And she tries to train him a little bit. And I guess she's the one who tells Luke to go find him. And then Book of Boba Fett was in between those two seasons? So like the first half of Book of Boba Fett is Boba Fett being like, do I want to be a sheriff? A mayor? I'm in charge, I guess. The fact that he just becomes a sheriff, which is an elected county position. There's never been. You know what's so wild about Boba Fett? Let's leave Tatooine. Let's go.

[01:52:01] And the season ends with him kicking fat Bib Fortuna off a throne and going, I like that chair. Are you taking his position? No, maybe just the chair. Say your thing. I got to say this. On this show, we have created, honestly at this point, our own language, which is ludicrous. But the idea of a Fisto as represented by Kit Fisto in the prequels, the character that you see. And you go, I want more of that.

[01:52:26] And we said today that the current person holding the crown of all Fistos is actually Saw Gerrera. Who is dead. But in the Star Wars universe, even Fisto has been out-Fistoed by Saw Gerrera. We've never talked about the fact that the most famous and iconic Fisto is Boba Fett starting in the Star Wars Fisto. The original where fans are just like, what's the deal with that guy? Interesting. And then Vader says no disintegrations. And you're like, so he's fucked up, huh? So he's done that moment.

[01:52:55] We've been begging them to get him right when we haven't. He has to be specifically told. They have mishandled him so much that we've never even addressed that he's the original Fisto. Right. But he's actually, he's the most mishandled, the attempt to Fisto, to give the fans what they want. Yes. In an incorrect way with a Fisto. Yeah. Leads to what we have now with Boba Fett, which I would actually argue should now be phrased, a swing and a misto. It was a swing and a misto. It was. He's the ultimate swing and a misto. Swing and a misto.

[01:53:25] You have a Fisto, which is Fisto himself. Yeah. The absolute representation of what this should be. Right. Tease us with some intrigue and then don't give us too much. Make us watch some deep cut cartoons to find out more. Yeah. Saw Gerrera currently there with, I would say, we're probably not the only people. Ben and I clearly kind of begging, like, if you can get fucking Forrest Whitaker to recommit to a prequel about how that asshole came to be. Yeah. I will put. But you know, his backstory is great too. I went down a rabbit hole reading all about his shit. He's a Clone Wars character, right? He was a cartoon first.

[01:53:55] The weirdest thing is that Saw Gerrera, not looking like, you know, Forrest Whitaker. Because like, they didn't have that idea yet. But he is in the Clone Wars cartoon first. You know. Shit. That's disgusting. And like, is a minor character that they decided to recycle for Rogue One. But then obviously Forrest kind of just transformed the character. And everyone kind of forgets that now. That character is so good. It's a rare example of a jump from the cartoon being interesting.

[01:54:25] Yeah. And done in a very considered way. You also have to imagine that you're going to an actor of that caliber who, whatever you tell him to go, says, thank you so much for your input. Right. I've got this from here. And you actually shut the fuck up and listen. Well, I think also Rogue One is crazy where it's like, because like, he was going to be in more of it. There's the scene where he like rescues her. And I think there's stuff. The trailer, he has two different haircuts. Right. One of the haircuts never shows up in the film. Decided to cut of their relationship.

[01:54:51] Because like, in Rogue One, he's a little weird because you only really see him, you know, in the last days of his life. Yes. And he's crazy. Yeah. And then Andor gives you much more seasoning on him. But it is still basically like, you need to understand how this person became such a fan. He's an anarchist. Right. Yes. He's kind of like the weather underground. Right. We're just going to blow shit up. He's the dirty work. He's the one who's getting shit done. And they all love to pretend it doesn't have to be that bluff and love machine. Mon Mothma's the least, like, she's the most like, we need to win over the people, hearts and minds.

[01:55:21] We can't just be blowing shit up. And he's like, he's the IRA that's like, actually, we need to kill fucking Mountbatten. Yes. We need to, how about we bomb a boat and kill an ancillary member of the royal family? I don't care about that, but also I don't care if, right, if we're going to kill some civilians, like, they're all culpable, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean? Like, that kind of thing. It's dirty. And Luthen is more on that side of things, but Luthen has some control, whereas Saw likes to, like, huff. But where Saw is the inverse of Vader.

[01:55:49] Yeah, well, they kind of do that in Rogue One of, like, he kind of sounds like him. Even down to the suit and shit. I mean, I love it, though. And Luthen is one of the most psychologically fucked up characters in Star Wars. But what I love about Luthen is he's like, I'm a bullet casing and I'm going to be spent. Like, I will be done and I know I will die. It's an incredible character. And I know, like, that it's in service of something important and I know that I'm like a sin eater. Like, I will do the bad stuff. I know I won't be remembered. That's fine.

[01:56:19] Like, you know, this is my purpose. He basically shows up at the end of episode two in the first season, I think. And I was watching the first two episodes and I was like, yeah, this is good. But there are a lot of great TV shows that people tell me for years to watch. And I watch them and I'm like, I get this. This is well made, but I don't like TV this much. Or, you know, that's just not my temperature. And you've been hearing for years from people like me who watched it. You love Star Wars. This is the greatest thing ever. You don't understand it actually rocks. Like, it's actually, it's not just good TV.

[01:56:48] Where do you think it stands up in? It's the best thing they've ever done apart from the big two. I mean, I don't think that's really interesting. Big two being Empire and Empire. Yeah. I basically, I'm inclined to agree with that. My only regret is that they didn't do five seasons. I think I said previously on the show about Rogue One. And I think, I think if you view Andor and Rogue One as a package deal, I think time will only perhaps elevate them even more. Possibly.

[01:57:11] Yeah, but I also think part of its power is that it's building something underneath the foundation of the original Star Wars. It's in conversation with the original in such a smart way. It's in conversation with it. It serves it. It makes it better. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't feel like it's like, you know, messing with it. I'm saying this as a callback, but also really, there's so much eye contact. It truly is. There's so much fucking demand. I mean, there's people making choices in spaces. That's what's incredible about it.

[01:57:36] The idea that like, it's not digital that you go like, oh, sometimes the way a street revolution starts is someone takes a spoon and bangs on a fucking frying pan. So you have time to lock your door. That's the most human real ass shit. You know, those first two episodes, I'm like, this is well done. Yeah. Second episode ends with Skarsgård on a train. I lean in a little bit. I go, oh, Skarsgård's got interesting. Okay. Third episode starts with him introducing himself to Andor. Like two minutes in, I text you guys, Andor's the best shit ever.

[01:58:06] I get it immediately. I see the whole thing now. Just the entire conception of his character is so perfect and so smart. And then his performance on top of it. And then everything feels like that, where you're just like, oh, my God, I'm watching them practice rebellion runs in the mountains of how they're going to infiltrate these things. They're doing their play. Right. This is like the fucking Cuban revolutionaries.

[01:58:32] Like, it's so smart about like commenting on human history and also the text of Star Wars. And this is a big thing I felt watching all these shows and watching this movie and you saying, David, like the 70s creatives, more woo woo and all of this. There's a bigger thing, which is the magic of Star Wars is that George Lucas put basically the entire history of storytelling into one container.

[01:58:55] He was like, what if you could make a three in legend exist with Saturday morning cereals and religion and samurai and westerns and all of this shit? And he put it all in a blender and then he kept pulling from different genres. What if you have an alien kind of mob boss? That's Jabba the Hutt. What if this? What if that? And you kept building and building. And the longer Star Wars goes on, Star Wars starts to become more and more about itself. The prequels for all of their faults are not about themselves.

[01:59:23] They are him saying like, this is actually what's like the foundation of this world I built. You know, it's about me commenting on the cyclical nature of how, you know, fascism rises and falls and all these sorts of things. The human instincts and structures and governments, you know, and people and power. And the Disney era has had this really uncomfortable relationship with are we trying to comment on Star Wars? Are we trying to make a new Star Wars for the current audience?

[01:59:50] Or are we just trying to point backwards for the things that the fans love minus any of the deeper meaning? I have not watched much Clone Wars, but the people I know who love Clone Wars, and I'm sorry, I'm forgetting who said this to me. But someone recently was making the case for why Clone Wars were so good and what the problem with the live action shows and specifically the Filoni led ones have been. And they said this thing that Filoni did that was really smart on Clone Wars. First handful of episodes, rough going. That was the stuff that felt a little more passed down by George.

[02:00:19] And then Filoni starts to find his own voice. And what he did was he clocked into George was pulling from so many movies he had watched, so many stories he had read, books he had read and stuff. Filoni just starts watching like Turner classic movies and going like, oh, here's like a B Noir from the 40s. This is kind of an interesting plot line. Could I transpose this onto Star Wars? And part of Star Wars to me, the magic is that.

[02:00:45] It's taking a different mode of storytelling or a different genre and finding how to put it into this universe. Andor's doing that. Andor's like, what's the Star Wars version of Battle of Algiers, right? Yes, totally. And it rules and it's in conversation with everything and it's deeper and more meaningful for that reason. I think Acolyte does that. I think even Skeleton Crew in a very superficial way, while not being self-burdened with seriousness. It's not an Amber movie or whatever. It's the Goonies. It put Goonies inside Star Wars. We said that in unison. We did.

[02:01:14] And Mando, smartly, why the first season works so well is it's like, wow, what if you just did, do Lone Wolf and Cub, do Gunsmoke. You know, do like Have Gun, Will Trout or whatever. That's a question that I have for you, Griffin, having just watched it though. Because we've talked so much about how, and again, I'm the one who liked the movie the most, had fun watching it, saw shit I enjoyed and still kind of rolled my eyes. But like part of it feels like don't change a thing about Grogu. He's our moneymaker.

[02:01:41] This is about Star Wars and beyond that, it's about Grogu. It's like about, like it's so myopic. But then we also talk about, you know, from Force Awakens to Last Jedi to the Rise of Skywalker, how they're constantly unwrapping what's been done based on overthinking fan reactions and this and that. How in the world in an era where it's clear that the creative and corporate culture is leading to so many moments like that, let alone the number of high caliber filmmakers that have been announced and then it's been pissed away.

[02:02:10] How the fuck does Tony Gilroy get two seasons of a show on that so clearly meet the moment in the way no other Star Wars is? In which he does a show about regular street level people trying to deal with the encroachment of fascism at an era where the news is so heavily dealing with all over the world, street level protests of people trying to fight back against the idea of no kings.

[02:02:36] George Floyd, Minneapolis, last year. So I can answer this very quickly. How did he pull that miracle off of getting it on? He pulled it off in the way that most miracles happen in this level of like corporate art, which is like something slipped through the system. There was a mistake and it was actually it solved a problem to let him do this. That same deep pandemic Disney investor conference day where they announced 87 projects and these things that used to happen behind closed doors were suddenly live streamed. And none of us had stuff to watch.

[02:03:06] So many people were watching it and it was being reported on. They announced these movies that didn't happen and they announced like eight TV shows and half of them never manifested. There was some new droid show that never happened. There's the Gina Carano show that never happened. There's the Lando show that never happened. Oh boy. And Andor is part of that lineup. Andor was of the things they announced that hadn't actually like been going. And Ahsoka was part of that as well. Andor was kind of highest priority. A they have Diego Luna on a contract.

[02:03:36] They're trying to negotiate his holds. He's a busy actor. They're like spending money to keep him available to do a show. Right. They hire writers quickly. They start developing it. They put months of work and money into it. I think there's some amount of pre-production. Well, Jared Bush. It was Jared Bush's show. And it was also Stephen Schiff who had come off of the Americans. There were a couple different teams. No, but Jared, no. Jared Bush develops the show. The Zootopia guy. He writes a pilot. The guy behind Zootopia? That's the original. Yes. He writes a pilot.

[02:04:05] He writes a Bible. So it wasn't Gilroy at first? No, not at all. Then Schiff is hired as the showrunner. Yes. And then Gilroy joins in a little later. And that is how this all happens. It's what happened with Rogue One. Where he's like, I have a few notes. And then it's like, he seems to have just kind of taken over in a good way. But my understanding is, you know, Rogue One, they said like, the movie has problems. Can you come and fix it? And he was like an assassin. And they credit him with solving a lot of the issues, even though it costs a lot of money.

[02:04:35] It was a lot of panic late in the day. And so they're like working on this. And they're like, the Zootopia guy, Stephen Schiff, who's coming off the Americans. Oh, let's hire a spy show guy. None of this is working. And they're like, can Gilroy come in and give us the three fixes? Right. And he sort of says like, I think you sort of don't have anything. And Kathleen Kennedy challenges him and says like, OK, if you could do anything, what would you do? And he goes, let me think on it. And he comes in and pitches it.

[02:05:03] And basically, there was enough money sunk into it that it was prudent to do something with it. And then I think they got excited by it. Yeah. And they were like, let's fucking support this. But he never could have pitched that from the get go. I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so. And it doesn't seem like there's any part of them that's going to look at it. I don't know about the actual subscribers, but the critical praise and the fan. It matters.

[02:05:29] Well, they listen to the negative fan love to the point where they have. I think that. Abrams unwrapping giants as movies, but they don't listen to the positive fan love to go like, what's our next political star? But how do you replicate Andor? They're like, that's like. Well, Saw Gerrera. Well, you know, people. The book of Saw. Hell yeah. Buzz buzz, motherfucker. Yeah. Guerrera from the book of Saw. You know, like it's like this weird series of accidents that led to this thing. It cost a fortune.

[02:05:59] They don't want to do that. You know, I mean, partly it's COVID. Partly it's screaming TV, you know. But also Gilbert was like, if we're doing this, it has to look real. We need like bodies in places. They said it in like real places. Nando was shot entirely in LA. Which they keep saying. And people have been making fun of Favreau for trotting that out. And obviously it's like Favreau is saying. He's doing right by the industry. Exactly. He is doing right by his people.

[02:06:51] In Hollywood. Because I didn't shoot this in fucking Bulgaria, guys. You know, like. That's what he's saying. They weren't going to shoot this in real places anyway. Favreau has basically become a guy who seemingly doesn't like fresh air or daylight anymore. Right? Like, you're right. It was a binary. It was either they go to Eastern Europe or they shoot this in stages in America. But it was going to be shot on stages. That in and of itself is not a death knell. But it's like every decision on this movie is a version of that. And there's even a story.

[02:07:20] There's a Vulture article that came out yesterday at the time we're recording this about like. The clown scene in LA. I read that. No one's talking about it. Everyone's normal about that piece. Did you read it? Yeah. I was just jumping in to make a joke. No, no, no. Anyway, you're the Vulture piece. You were saying. It was asking the question of why is this the thing that they made? What was the strategy here? Is it going to work? It's not opening well. Right? The reviews have been bad. Everyone's kind of shrugging about it.

[02:07:50] And they call out this movie was very cheap to make, especially for Star Wars. It cost $175 million. LA was so grateful to get production entirely there. They gave a $25 million rebate. It costs less than $150. Which for Star Wars is nuts. I know it's an insane amount of money. It's nuts. It's money that was spent to put a lot of people to work and create jobs and fucking whatever. But they also have this anecdote that two friends texted us yesterday. Yeah.

[02:08:18] And I was like, there's the review right there. And they go, Disney just trusted Favreau because he's like a smart, steady hand. He launched the Marvel Universe. He launched Marvel. He kind of launched live action Disney in a way. He doesn't stress out. He gets things done. He works fast. He works quick.

[02:08:34] He's such a multitasker that one day when they were filming easy interior shots of Mando and Grogu in the cockpit, he also spent his time grilling up 500 grilled cheeses on a griddle for the cast and crew. And I'm like, this feels like a movie made by a guy who's also making sandwiches at the same time. Chef callback. There are TV shows that feel like, you know, we joke, this is a show you're supposed to watch while you're folding laundry.

[02:09:01] This is a movie made by someone who's in the act of folding laundry. And it's like, it's the whole thing that we're like, it's great that he brought production back to L.A. That's nice that he made sandwiches for everybody. I don't know. Maybe the scenes in the cockpit should be better. I would not be shocked if this movie outpaces the financial projections that the reviews are dismal about because people are going to bring their kids to it. The Thursday numbers, which is not a kid thing, right? Obviously, the kids will come in the weekend matinee, the afternoon. Just wait to watch it on streaming is now also.

[02:09:31] It's also a problem. But the Thursday previews, when you went to see it, are lower than what Solo did. And Solo opened on this exact same Memorial Day weekend and made $100 million for the four-day and like $80 for the three-day. And this is looking to make less than $80 for the three-day. So it's coming in below the low watermark. It's coming in at Solo or worse. Yeah. It could, you know, because it's a family movie, you know, you could see some improvement. It's kind of like a rainy weekend.

[02:10:00] Yeah. That's sort of good and bad, you know, like that can help drive people to theaters. But their triumph would be we did the exact same number as Solo. The idea of them doing demonstrably better than Solo is basically out of the question. But also, wouldn't they make a bunch of money from all the toys and the nummies? They're fine. They're fine. They're fine. And it's cheap. It wasn't that expensive a movie. They shot Solo two times. Solo costs like $400 million. Sure. They're going to be fine on this.

[02:10:27] But like, what's the long-term gain of it's fine? When Star Wars is kind of in crisis and Andor is starting to feel like an aberration. Yeah. And like, I guess Filoni's hope is next year we have this other movie comes out. It'll work and it'll do well. Yeah. And my skin is saved. Yes. But if I'm in charge of Disney, I'm seeing this go over so poorly. This is going over poorly. It's going over poorly.

[02:10:56] It got bad reviews and it's not doing well financially. Blank check's barely even talking about the movie itself. Blank check's mostly just talking about Nilla Wafers and Avatar The Last Airbender. They're saying it's a good episode. I can't tell if people are going to be upset that we're not talking about the plot, but I did do that three-minute challenge thing and that was 1-14. Our editor's struggling a little bit with the screaming, but we'll make it work. Oh, I didn't even think about that. Thank you. Thank you, Alan Smithy. We can just cut that part out. No, we can keep it in and triple it. Nope. Appa's Last Days is the best. Appa's Lost Days. That's the best stretch of Avatar.

[02:11:26] That's very good. I mean, I love all the Ba Sing Se stuff a lot. Oh, the Ba Sing Se shit is amazing. I think that stuff's really, really special for kids. Especially, like, you know, like teaching them about totalitarianism and about like propaganda. Displacement and refugees and all this stuff. Avatar Rocks. And a Nickelodeon cartoon. Yeah, Avatar Rocks. No, I need to watch it. I don't question it for a second. You will love it. It took me years to watch it. The Potalorian and Kasku. Oh, sure. So I sent a text to you. But I was just saying that is... Sorry, I just finished with it. Is Filoni fired? Right? Like, is there a world where someone above at Disney is like,

[02:11:55] Star Wars needs a very strong hand at the hill now. Star Wars is a little lost. Yeah. We need to do the James Gunn thing that DC did. We need to bring in a respected creative force. I have no idea if they do or don't. I don't know. But like, if I'm in charge of Disney right now, Kathleen Kennedy has gone out into that good night. And Filoni with his cowboy hat. He's in this movie. He's wearing a stupid hat. Trapper Wolf. God bless him. Do you think Whitey's performance at that robot is when he said, I'm the shit and I won't take notes anymore?

[02:12:25] I think so. I think it's all part of it. I think, I think a lot of things contributed to Taika Waititi. And he was really feeling himself girdling sandwiches. I was so wrong about, I thought that Thor movie was going to do the God Butcher stuff. That's one of the funniest runs you've ever gone on in this podcast. Well, a lot of your fans are making fun of me. I would say, if you read the comics. No, you're right about this. The comics is good. He betrayed it to have his own character make jokes. Yes. He betrayed everything amazing about the storyline, so he could keep coming back to life and personally making jokes.

[02:12:54] Thor Love and Thunder, which, did you ever catch up with that? I still have not seen it. It is the only MCU movie I haven't seen. I haven't seen Iron Man 3, obviously. So good. One of the best ones. I regret to inform you, it has one flaw, but otherwise it is maybe our favorite Marvel movie. It's the one flaw that I was cut from the film. Yeah, correct. Obviously, it's the only thing that could have improved it. I acted opposite Don Cheadle, and it got hit the cutting floor floor. Great actor. Fortunately, he could not overcome the massive deficit I brought. Oh, sure. No.

[02:13:23] But Thor Love and Thunder is one of those things where I'm like, that kind of slipped under a bit of a sort of post-COVID radar. It doesn't get enough shit. It's not like people liked it, but I think it actually does not get enough shit, how fucking bad it is. Well, if you're dealing with that level of riffing, that's freaking sublime. Then the source material goes out the window. The riffing was freaking sublime. The riffing was freaking sublime. What did you want to say, Ben, about the Mandalorian, Pascu, or whatever? Excuse me. The Pah-da-lorian and Castgu. I sent you a text. Right now? Yeah, look at it.

[02:13:53] Just take a quick look. The great Pat Reynolds, our longtime Photoshop artist, titled this episode, The Pah-da-lorian and Castgu. We give him no... Oh, I don't want to make you hear it. I'll just show you the picture. Yeah, show it. Wait, I know. I found it. I found my phone. Okay. Because I do think there's some powerful stuff going on here. He doesn't, you know, we rarely even give him notes. Sure. But he usually drops the thing like a day or two before it needs to post and we just trust the process. He sent this photo yesterday and it did have us reeling.

[02:14:23] I even showed it to my wife and I don't show her every, you know, Photoshop that crosses my desk. And was she smiling? She was laughing. I like that you came to Castgu's defense because Marie... Yeah, they were all like, oh, cursed. And I'm like, cursed with awesomeness. This is good. We've really landed on something. And in fact, maybe Blank Check's first movie is the podcast Lorian and Castgu. Because I think we could sell a lot of Castgu merch. I think so. I mean, look,

[02:14:53] I know we're being critical of this movie, but we can do it right, right? If we sold like Castgu cookies and shit. Yeah. Are you looking at this, Gath? This is really strange. It's kind of an achievement. I wish I wasn't in the room with you. You wish you weren't in the room. Are you saying you want to be Photoshopped in? Do you want to be Zeb or Relius? I mean, I did, I did, I did think maybe I would be in there, but that's okay. Do you want to be Zeb or Radha? Me as Radha. So, I think Radha's the right pick. Gath is Radha and you're Zeb or Relius. There's, you remember Zeb, our dear friend.

[02:15:22] I'm going to email Pat right now and let him know. Griff, Yeah. Until this second, I forgot about Zeb. Yep. And they told you not to forget about Zeb. Obviously, you know, Eminem said that. Yeah, right. But, so Zeb, who's in Star Wars Rebels, who's like, Which I love Rebels. Rebels is a show I actually watch. Love is too strong, but I watched most of it. I felt it somewhat disappeared up its own ass eventually, but I enjoyed it. David, the exact same relationship. I don't remember if it was three or four seasons in total.

[02:15:52] I loved the first season of that show, much like Mandalorian. Yeah. At season two, I was like, I still like this. Season three, I'm like, it's getting really into tying back to Clone Wars shit. And then I never finished the show. Yeah, I loved the start. Well, did you love in Ahsoka where, you know, all those characters are flesh and blood now, and they deliver lines like this. We have to go get the guy. I liked it fine. I mean, I also just, you know, I like Rosario Dawson. I do too. So much.

[02:16:20] I'll watch her be pensive and exist in this. Mary Elizabeth Winston, I love. Rosario Dawson existing in a liminal space where she rejected Jediism, but can never be human again. Basically taking a nap for four episodes of that season. You guys are so harsh. I'm not harsh. I watched all of that TV show. It was a lot of hours I put into it. It was very low energy. It was very, very low energy. But her face is lit up by the lightsabers. I was watching it. And it's a white lightsaber. That's cool. It's a white lightsaber.

[02:16:49] I was watching it and I was like, what is this acting style? Why are they like this? What does this remind me of? And then I cracked it. I went, this is children doing Shakespeare. This is when you see a high school production of Shakespeare. And it's like, no one knows what they're saying, but they know that it's supposed to be performed seriously. And so you just make an acting choice that is serious. I liked Ahsoka. I liked Ahsoka fine. And I'm watching actors. I liked Obi-Wan fine. I like just be so juiceless.

[02:17:20] Quite juiceless. Can I share my joke with Chris? Oh yeah, it's time. Yes. I've heard that there's a joke. I struggled to watch Ahsoka. I was really struggling. And I made this commitment to, I'm going to watch all the shows before this episode. And Ben was a real friend and he helped me. Well, because in a little more context, we're... Just say the joke first and then give the context. I think this is the way to do it. Fine. Okay. So Griffin's struggling. I say, do you want me to come inside and jump on the bed while you're Ahsoka-ing? Got it.

[02:17:51] Got it. No context needed. Okay. So the context is, we workshop this joke a lot. It's been in the works for like two months. I pitched it. I mean, I said it in real time when we were on our trip. We were drunk in the back of a car and you said, is Ahsoka-ing anything? Is there a way to make that mean something? Yeah, that's when the Mormons, they jiggle the bed to... Yes. Because they can't move, but maybe someone else moves them. You can insert. But you can't... When you say, you can insert, it's like,

[02:18:21] I think already some rules are maybe being bent here. What they do is they insert. Yeah. And then they go, well, I'm not thrusting. And then someone else jumps on the bed like a bunch of monkeys. I believe Jury Duty did a famous joke. Yes. So Ben was joking that I was holding my finger over the play button, but I didn't want to press it. And then he started jumping on the bed. Ahsoka-ing. And that's Ahsoka-ing. So Zeb. Yes. Zeb. Now, I like all... Rebels, I think every character is well-conceived and fun.

[02:18:51] And the way they've translated to live action, all of them have become so boring and sad. And Zeb's thing is basically, A, he's based off of like the original Ralph McQuarrie Chewbacca design, which is fun. He's OG Chewbacca. Right. Right. Which most of Rebels is original McQuarrie designs back to the drawing board. I like that. His character is basically like, what if the pilot is kind of like a big kind of monkey bear alien who's almost got like a football hooligan vibe. Right? He's like a bit of a tough guy.

[02:19:21] But he's funny and he'll give you shit, whatever. This shows up. They just act like everyone's going to be cheering that he's back. He's from a TV show that's now over 10 years old. They brought him in for one scene, basically a like blink and you miss a cameo in one episode of Mandalorian season three, where he never interacts with Mandalorian or Grogu. And now he's just like their friend who pilots their ship, even though Mando famously loves piloting ships. Is a pilot. Skilled.

[02:19:51] And they don't do any work to introduce him. They don't do anything to make you like this guy. He no longer has the traits that made him likable in his previous show. Yeah. And they just act like we're all like, thank fucking God Zeb is here. And he's there. It's like, don't push the button Grogu. And like Grogu pushes the button. Twice you think he's gone from the movie. And then he's like, oh, Zeb's back. I do have a follow-up question for something you said, David, and it ties into this, which I think you said, like, is there a chance Filoni gets fired? Yeah.

[02:20:20] Or maybe fire might be too strong, but like exactly pushed again. Right. Over to the side of like, you know what? You can be in charge of cartoon. But I kind of, I think one of the things that seems clear about him, and I don't know him, is that it seems like his greatest strength and his greatest weakness is that he really, really cares on a granular detailed level about the things he cares about. This is true. And that's what made so much of his early stuff feel so great and connected. Right. And is why we're all sitting around like, who the fuck is Zeb? Like that's,

[02:20:50] clearly it's, it's good and bad. My question is, if someone is brought in to share that load or to become the Feige of Star Wars that he is maybe proving not to be, fundamentally, is that better if it's someone who really loves Star Wars or someone who doesn't give a fuck about Star Wars? You know who doesn't give that much of a fuck about Star Wars? Who's that? Tony Gilroy. Could you hand the whole thing to Gilroy? Would Disney ever? No. And he wouldn't do it. They wouldn't do it now.

[02:21:21] Right. Because it is, right. The challenge is it's like, James Gunn was, I guess, down for it, but it's like, right. Do you want that job? It's like kind of this weird executive managerial job. You always need someone that's like, I just want good stories. Totally. And then the Star Wars stuff will come in. Or at least a 50-50 split, you know, versus Filoni's interests feel 90% maintaining the tenets of Star Wars. Yeah. In a very kind of like literal way. You say, you know, do they bring someone else in? Do they push them aside?

[02:21:50] The question is beyond who would even want to do that because it feels like such a poison chalice and the fandom has become so impossible to please. I feel like the fandom speaks as if they're monolithic, even though it's like a shattered, like 40-part fandom with different feelings. You know, it's like modern Christianity that's like a bunch of different sex. And then they're speaking as a monolith. And then Disney reacts to them like they're also a monolith. So you're never actually making something that pleases everyone. And everyone's like, no,

[02:22:19] Star Wars is for me. And why are you not making the thing that I want? Which is a struggle. I'm not against the idea of this being a movie that's just for kids to get the new generation in. And if kids are loving this, I'm happy. The screening we went to, our buddy Matt Singer brought his daughter, who I believe has not watched the show. Sure. I don't know if she's ever seen the original Star Wars movie. I think she's seen some Star Wars. I'm not sure. But she's certainly not specifically a big Star Wars fan. You said you brought her to the press screen? Matt Singer brought his daughter.

[02:22:50] Oh, got it, got it, got it. And he, you know, I thought you did have a press screen. I did not. He brought his daughter, who I think is nine, and was just kind of like, I want to see that movie because I like Baby Yoda. And he said that she enjoyed it. But she also enjoyed like her green colored Sprite as much as she enjoyed the movie. And it was just sort of the general celebration of Grogu was enough. I'm not going to be like cynical of that. I like anything that like makes people happy.

[02:23:19] That isn't aggressively harmful to society. We will all be dead sooner than those children. Totally. They need those children spending their money when they are in the workforce. Yes. But I question, is there even an obvious or semi-obvious person to point to of, should that person take over Star Wars? Because when people were angry about the movies four years ago, everyone would have said, probably makes sense to hand it to Favreau. Sure. And if not Favreau,

[02:23:49] Filoni's the bad fan choice. And now both of these guys have kind of like stepped in it. Well, but I mean, I personally would never have wanted Filoni to be in charge of Star Wars. Favreau, I could have seen that happening. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's more got that kind of like vague exec. Yeah. Kind of status. Now I would rather see him be in charge of a Cubano truck, for example, because it feels like that's what really makes him happy. It's so funny that he made one great giant franchise movie,

[02:24:18] one franchise movie that was a mess, then made his self-referential. I'm struggling working within these corporate demands. I just want to be doing my little thing. Food truck. Got that out of his system. Has become the ultimate like studio hired hand guy. Has become the like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I figured out how to take all difficulty out of the filmmaking process, and I will do nothing controversial.

[02:24:49] David. Yeah. Quick question and be honest. Uh, I solemnly swear, I will tell the truth and nothing about it. Thank you. When did you last actually think about how much fiber you're eating? Can't say. I can't say I think about it enough. Actually think about it. I don't know. I not, not recently enough. I'm not talking protein. I'm not talking calories. Fiber. Fiber. It's important. Fiber. In the US, fewer than one in 10 adults hit their daily recommended intake, and fiber isn't a bonus nutrient. It's foundational. Fullness, gut health,

[02:25:18] something that certainly affects me, energy, blood sugar, it touches all of it. And as someone who struggles with, let's say, I do too. Digestion issues. Sometimes I try to be mindful of fiber, and that's where Huel comes in. Sponsor of the podcast, H-U-E-L. Huel! Huel! Huel. Huel Hauser. Here's what Huel actually is. It's not Huel Hauser, who was himself California gold. Huel is nutritionally complete food.

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[02:26:16] oh, I forgot to eat a meal. Grab a bottle of this out of the fridge. It hits just right. Some days I'm locked in. I go to the gym. I meal prep. For me, those days are called never. It literally never happens. Other days, and I call these days every day, I look up and realize it's 2 p.m. and I've had coffee and nothing healthy. That actually is a little bit too accurate. Huel is the first thing that's actually helped me stay consistent instead of falling off every time my schedule blows up in the way I just said. The ready-to-drink I grab on the way out the door,

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[02:27:53] Can I ask a question? Yeah. Please. And I just also want to say I think you guys would agree. Yeah. I think I've put the bad boy of blank check bit on hold for this episode. I think we've had a thoughtful discussion with a lot of good points. I think you're blank check's good boy. Some passion along the way that maybe led to some early moments of contentiousness, but I think all in the spirit of the debate. Yeah, it's an emotional arc. And I think that you and anyone listening can hear that we are, I believe, two hours in, and I'm only bringing this up for the first time now. Yeah, I'm 17.

[02:28:22] You know, I hope that that's a reflection that I'm asking this genuinely and not trying to force any past divisiveness back into the spotlight for real. Sure. When I watched Andor, and I watched Rogue One, I mentioned before that I did have that, it's not that much harder than shooting womp rats in the T-14 back home. And you know, Luke was so fucking naive. So innocent. And it actually, like, A New Hope is obviously, you kind of know this,

[02:28:51] but it just underlines. He's, oh. Yeah. He's a farm boy who represents this idea. Like, not only, not only does he step up in the face of people like, who know the history of Cassian Andor, killing someone who's like, you're on my team, but you're making too much fucking noise. Blau, you're dead. But also he's a vessel. He's an idea to believe in. He's a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy with optimism. How? And I don't. Oh, boy. You see where I'm going? I know where you're coming from.

[02:29:21] I just want you to say it. How do we, like, I sink my teeth into that, Luke, and it actually gets me choked up thinking about the beauty of like, oh, right, any, there is no revolution in real life that can lose sight of hope and optimism. And Luke is the reminder of that in this universe that we love. But I think the other thing that Star Wars is about is that history repeats itself. But when we get to The Last Jedi and Luke himself is cynical, that's not even slightly heartbreaking. No. It is heartbreaking,

[02:29:51] but that's the point. That's what it's using. That's the story engine, is that it's heartbreaking. I just don't have this relationship with Luke that you do. I just don't at all. Then why do you like Star Wars? I don't want Luke to be Jesus. Fucking Hulk Solo! You seen that motherfucker? Why are you yelling at me? Because you're like, why do I like Star Wars? I'm being so gentle about even bringing it up because I think it's a valid question in light of Andor. But I'm trying to respond. It's just like, it's just not what I feel about. I just don't care about Luke in that one. I care about Luke,

[02:30:19] but I think it's more interesting to have these things tested. It's also just so funny to me. It's the same as Yoda. Forever and ever, everyone's like, I can't believe Rian Johnson did that. And I'm like, episode seven begins with he has vanished. That's the exquisite corpse he was handed. And number two, George Lucas's entire plan for his secret trilogy was the exact same thing. It was the exact same thing. It was going to be more Wills focused, but it was going to be heavier on Wills. Correct. Luke on his own island.

[02:30:49] I really am not trying to have a fight. Yeah. I'm really not trying to poke a beehive again. I'm not doing a bit. I just will say, the dismal nature of Andor building up to the dismal ending of Rogue One, linking right to Vader on the ship and throwing you into Luke's story. Right. With the new context of like, this world is fucking falling apart. This kid's aunt and uncle got killed. He's leaving this world

[02:31:16] and he somehow still fucking believes that like he has the fucking idiocy, the audacity, if not idiocy, to think he can actually blow up the Death Star, but then he does it. Because it's page 20 knowledge. He's a young man. He hasn't experienced anything. All I'm trying to put on record is that that's the Luke I love. And I'm just leaving it at that. I'm not trying to have a fight about it. That's the Luke I love. Sometimes you love your dad and then he gets old and he's like racist and you're like, how is this the same guy?

[02:31:45] Not speaking of my own father. But they don't make a movie. The credits can roll before your dad gets racist. That's why it's fiction. But then you're questioning the entire enterprise of making these movies. Which ties into do we need more Star Wars? Maybe not. Okay, but here's the thing. We're going to have more Star Wars. It's happening. No matter what. You guys can feel it. I'm being a good boy. All these debates died with episode nine. Yes. Any chance to sort of properly resolve whatever you felt about the Luke story or any of the other sequels died with episode nine,

[02:32:14] which had no story. They whiffed in a way that pissed off both sides. Because in episode nine... Everyone was unhappy other than Chris Getherd blank checks. If episode nine... The ocean fight looks cool. Some things... The episode nine looks all right. It looks great. If episode nine had successfully kind of given you a satisfying conclusion to the stories of Rey and Finn and Kylo Ren and maybe Poe but like those big three... I like Poe. Oh, Poe. I like Poe. No, but I'm just saying like... If you really want to have a fight, I don't.

[02:32:44] I'm going to bring him to a tree and chop his head off. Hey, come on. Let me talk. Sorry, dude. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Please. Forget it. No, no. I just run out of energy, guys. You're smart and I respect you. You're smart and I respect you. Please. I'm just... Dudes, I'm so out of energy. And I just like... It's too late. It's gone, guys. No, we're begging for it. You cut me off so many times. We're making a joke. I'm going to chop a Poe. I'm sorry. I'm going to be honest with you guys. I'm not mad, but I get cut off so much that I just... My brain can't fire anymore. I don't remember

[02:33:14] what I'm trying to say. You were saying if it had given satisfying endings to the main character. Then the Luke and Leia and Han stories in the sequels might not hurt your feelings as much. They might be a fun debate then instead of a... It would be like Luke did that and had all that in service of what happened to Kylo, which made sense and Rey, which made sense. And instead it was like Rey decides to be Skywalker because she thinks that's nice. Kylo died. He was all right the last 20 minutes there.

[02:33:44] It is ultimately... And Poe... What is... Where does Poe end it? I don't know. He's around. He's flying and rolling his eyes because Palpatine returned. No, but I mean like after that, is he around? He's around. He blows up the Empire or whatever. And Finn, I guess, maybe meets his sister or his friend or something else. No, he wasn't his sister and she's not Lando's daughter but she's... But she's like... I don't know. She's like him or something? Yeah, because she also was a stormtrooper or something. But maybe they have force powers.

[02:34:13] We'll deal with it later. And it's just kind of like the movie just kind of ends with like, I don't know. Everyone's all right. Can we talk around... Sorry. Any other elephant in the room. It is tough to be like, oh, right. It could be an interesting debate but like, we don't even... But they just blew it. We fundamentally don't trust that anyone's at the wheel of this entire thing. Like Luke's in episode nine, right? Yes. Like he's like... And Han Solo. They bring both of them back as force ghosts. That's true. Han Solo I remember

[02:34:41] because that moment is fine because he doesn't even speak. But Luke has like... No, he talks. What does he say? He's like... That's some shit. Son, I'm sorry. But Luke has like the scene like Ghost Luke sits with Ghost Yoda and they're like... Sits on a log. Hey, Rey Skywalker. I like the sound of that. Yeah. Drink Schlitz. Yeah. Like what a... Like I just... Schlitz. You know, it's just like if there had been it then maybe you wouldn't be so mad. Or mournful. I'm not mad.

[02:35:11] Or whatever your emotion is about the sort of the later arc of Luke that they blew. It's... I don't even care to relitigate it. I'm sorry that it got any of us this upset. I just really... Star Wars is touching. I just really think Andor underlines the naivete of Luke in a way that I think it really underlines what I always liked about the character. I agree, but that's the naivete of a young man and also a white man who's not being challenged in the same way that Andor is. I mean, that's part of what Andor is about. It's kind of a nice fun part

[02:35:40] of the juice of Andor. Totally. And even down to him being... Not in an over-the-top way. Not in a lecturing way. He is, like, coded as immigrant within the universe of the movie. And he's never going to be the poster boy. He's hidden in the shadows. Can't be the poster boy. Yeah, it's cool. What I would equate it to, Geth, is part of the enduring power of Jesus as an idea for people to believe in is that he died very young. Right? As a pure symbol. Kind of have to die to...

[02:36:10] And there's also, you know, the promise of he's going to come back someday. But if he never comes back, we can all project how helpful he would be today. And I think there was a similar thing because you make this trilogy. It ends with Luke settling the universe, right? And now he's become the Jedi Master. And then George Lucas is like, I'm stepping away. And by the way, if I were to do more, they'd be prequels. It just takes Luke off the board where it's... We all have our headcanons

[02:36:39] of how great Luke could be. Sure. And then he does the prequels and people are disappointed and then they come back. I will say not another word about it. I'm just putting on record Andor made me like the Luke I met when I was young. Totally. But that guy can't live forever. Like, life experiences are going to change him and test him. I mean, the thing that sucks and then we should just, of course, return to... Well, we should be done soon. Just tuck a little rata. There's some toys we need to have. A little rata. A little bit of rata. But it's just like,

[02:37:09] that was your shot with Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher. That's the thing they absolutely fucked up is never putting the three of them in the same frame while they had the chance. And that's a J.J. fuck up. It's a bit of a J.J. fuck up and it's just kind of a like, you know, you had all those guys. They all look great in Force Awakens. It's like, you know, the energy could be there. Carrie dying is a tragedy. No one could have anticipated that. That was a force majeure disaster. But just generally, it's kind of like, we saw old Han Solo, that kind of rocked. Yes. We saw Luke Skywalker,

[02:37:39] old Luke Skywalker, people have complicated feelings, but he gave a big performance. He did. We saw old Leia, you know, there's little bits where you're kind of like, that kind of rocked. But like, there's not much of it and it's sort of, you know, and it's like, and now if they're like, hey, we're going to do episode 10, it's like, yeah, but you're not going to do it with them. So that's that over. So now what are you going to do? Our friends who've been watching Star Wars with their kids are all like, Rey still fucking hits. Oh yeah, Rey rocks. Like, kids watching this today, you know,

[02:38:07] born after these films ended, that trilogy ended, are like, I'm buying Rey. I'm buying Rey like I'm buying Luke. Both of these work for me. Like I'm buying Anakin. I mean, that's the interesting thing about our friends with kids under 10 who have shown them all three trilogies are like, they're in on all three of these arcs. Yeah. They like the innocent. They like seeing the innocent go bad. They like seeing the different versions of what the innocent becomes. That all works. The elephant in the room, I think we should just talk about very briefly. The rata in the room.

[02:38:36] The rata in the room. The hut in the room. It was revealed earlier this year that they had been deep in development and had greenlit and Lucasfilm internally was ready to go on a movie that was going to be directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Scott C. Burns, one of his regular collaborators that was the Kylo Ren movie that was basically Adam Driver being like, we got to fucking undo this Rise of Skywalker. Clearly Driver just being like, that character rocked. Yeah. Yes. Like, and we didn't do it right

[02:39:05] and can we just bring him back and like do a better thing? Right. And no one knows exactly what the take was on how he's back or what, you know, it was, but it was going to be set after episode nine and it was going to be called The Hunt for Ben Solo and not be episode 10 proper, but it be this Kylo Ren, Ben Solo movie. And Lucasfilm greenlights it, Kathleen Kennedy greenlights it. It went along some amount of time. Yeah. And Disney says no to it. Yeah. And Kathleen Kennedy did an exit interview earlier this year

[02:39:35] where she was like, that's the only time that's happened, that we wanted to make something and they overruled us and the argument that was given to us is, we don't think you've justified in the story undoing his death. It's like, I just don't see how he's alive. Right. Versus like, Mando and Grogu, I got no questions about, they're on another adventure. And it speaks to like, what a mess this thing is where kind of what everyone wants is a movie that could undo the damage of nine.

[02:40:04] And I accept some pretty stupid logic if it leads to a good movie that is functional on its own terms and leaves me feeling like these characters are in a better place. But then it's like, what, you're going to make a whole movie that exists to fix continuity, right? And it's like, on the one hand, sure. On the other hand, should you just do something else? Just forget it. Maybe. Just like lob the ball to another field. But then I'm also like, if Adam Driver wants to do it, that's already more of an argument in favor. That's the thing. That's the baffling part

[02:40:34] that you have an enthusiastic Adam Driver and Steven Soderbergh that want to play in this sandbox. That's an energy that Mando doesn't have where Pedro Pascal is like, so what, five days total, right? It speaks to the Disney thing where they are not hearing Soderbergh, Driver, that's, they're hearing like, they're going to be expensive. They're going to have notes. They're going to push back. You know, like they're probably hearing just kind of like, those are artists. We don't want to deal with that. We just want to make something that's like, you know,

[02:41:04] we can control. The thing with Soderbergh was part of his big pitch was I figured out how to make this movie cheaper. I think these movies got too expensive and that created a fear around making big creative decisions. He's been figuring out how to shoot movies on fucking iPhones. This wasn't going to be that, but he was like, I think I can apply some of what I learned to make a movie that costs half as much as what these other things cost. It's closer to probably the budget of this movie and said like, it would be great if we could free Star Wars up to have different budget levels.

[02:41:33] You know, this is the thing that fucked Marvel eventually is that the movies got so big they couldn't make a smaller film. So everything has to be $300 million worth of justification. And I, to some degree, commend that Mando's small. Sort of. At least he's not trying, right, to be the star to something new. It's not cacophonous, but it's like, it really places a lot of its bets on Rod of the Hut, who is ripped, ab laden,

[02:42:03] Jeremy Ellen White with a pitched down voice whose characterization is just, my dad was shitty. I'm trying not to be like him. Not like my dad. I'm like a muscle break. He's kind of looks-macking. Now let's fight the chess pieces from the chess thing. So, Chris. Yeah. This character. I'm actually watching a Twitter video of it right now. Rod of the Hut? Rod of the Hut. This character sucks. This is like, it's really rough. This is like hard

[02:42:33] to watch. Can I ask where you saw the film, Ben? You actually, I know you saw it with some kids, but I saw it at the Cobble Hill Theater. Oh, that's kind of a fun place to see it. And what actually, I think, enhanced it for me on an emotional level is that the 15-year-old kids that were there were talking throughout the entire movie. Yeah. And that helped me get distracted from the film. Sure. Because I could then lock in on my anger at like this kid

[02:43:02] whispering to his friend that that's Jeremy Allen White up there on the screen or whatever the fuck. What did you ask me? Oh, just, uh, were they, yeah, were they into the movie? Were they like, this rock? They loved it. They were laughing at everything. Every bad fucking joke, they were like, rolling and fucking in the aisles. Maybe we're the old heads and we just need to let it go. Every time Grogu came on screen, there was a group of like girls. They were just like, they were just like, ah! That's what I mean.

[02:43:32] Grogu. I understand projections. Thank you. But I watched a movie where I'm like, it's not for me. Yeah. I have to let go of the idea that Star Wars is going to give me anything to actually chew on like it really legitimately used to. But like, the kids in that theater walked out. Is Andor almost a problem because it demonstrated that that can still be done? And we're like, why don't you do this all the time? Yeah. This is the fascinating thing is I've been so deep in Star Wars and the closer we've gotten to this, the more I've been watching,

[02:44:02] right, to make my deadline, my self-imposed deadline. And the majority of the stuff I've watched I have not liked. And a lot of it I found kind of a slog to get through and kind of boring. And I'm not a binge watcher in general. So that notion of being like, to stay on schedule, I gotta watch three tonight has like often felt like true homework. In a way, this job of doing the podcast and having assigned viewing usually does not. Yet, the more I'm watching the stuff I don't like, as much as watching

[02:44:30] the stuff like Andor that I love, I've come out of it just being like, fuck, I'm remembering how much I love Star Wars. Like when I see Andor, it reminds me everything that makes me love Star Wars. And when I watch the stuff I don't like, it reminds me of what it's not doing, which reminds me of what I do like about Star Wars, where I've just like, have bought three Star Wars shirts in the last two weeks. Because I keep being like, fucking Star Wars. What'd you buy? They're like old comic art shirts, which I kind of like. Like it's the Marvel comics. Isn't it funny

[02:45:01] how all these like bespoke t-shirt shops online and stuff and like, you know, like with these sort of like indie designs of shit we like, like X-Men or Star, are basically just kind of like, you know those guys on the street who would just have weird t-shirts that were kind of like bootleg? Bootleg stuff has become official. Right, where that, it's $45, please. Nightcrawler. Do I have a $98 deal for you? And by the way, you don't know

[02:45:30] if this is a dropshipping company in China that might take eight months to send it to you. Or is it like a hypebeast company run by VC people? I almost think to speak to what we just touched on, Andor almost feels like a really profound accident that it ever slipped through. Yeah, yeah. Like, I think that a lot of the explosions of nerd entertainment when you look at them historically actually maxed up with points of major societal anxiety. Yeah, totally.

[02:45:59] And we're living through one of those moments. Right? Like, superheroes were invented by young Jewish creators as Hitler was rising in Europe. This is when superheroes were invented. And feeling empowered as survivors making it through the other side. Well, on 60s Marvel was a combination of those same Jewish creators now also talking about survivorship and nuclear anxiety. Right? All the origins of the Marvel. Right, a lot of civil rights. But you look at Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, X-Men, all nuclear anxiety leading into social movements.

[02:46:29] Children of the Atom. Feminism, racial anxiety, all of it, right? Mm-hmm. The same years that race riots were happening in major American cities are the same years Marvel's exploding. And Star Wars about the Vietnam War. It's about another era, a new form of fascism on the horizon. It's about all of these things. And now, we don't, like, I don't know what to point to that's doing that now and then and or maybe it seems accidentally or Trojan Horse

[02:46:58] did in a way that feels like such a tease compared to everything else which is like now they fight a big dragon snake. Now they fight a couple robots and now they fight this and that and now they fight the whole fucking chess board and now they fly away. Oh, the chess board are the monsters? Yes. Yeah. Oh. Yeah, you didn't love that, Ben? Well, because they just looked like nothing. Yes. They just looked like moving, monster, monster. They looked like goop. Ben, thank you for calling that out. I have a thing

[02:47:28] I want to say about this. So, the chess board was done by Phil Tippett who's like one of my favorite film artists of all time. The original Star Wars movie with the little puppets. Yeah. It was the first moment that Phil Tippett really kind of shown in the process because he was brought in as sort of an additional guy to do stuff. They had shot the Dajaric chess board as actors in costumes and it didn't look good. And George was like, can we get a Harryhausen type thing? And they were like, Tippett's good at stop motion. And he does that and it leads to the breakthrough

[02:47:57] of him being the guy who cracks the tauntaun and the AT-AT and all these sorts of things, right? And then Robocop and Ed 209 is like a legend to me and like a genius. And I watched this documentary about him that was called, let me look it up quickly, but I watched it recently. It's a documentary made by two French guys. That's mostly just kind of like informational about the entirety of his career and his worldview and whatever. And a lot of his compatriots were talking about him and what makes him so great. And they said, the thing about Phil

[02:48:27] is a lot of people start with detail and build out a design from there. And Phil always starts with really elemental shapes. He lands on a shape that's interesting and then he lands on a personality connected to that shape and then he works into the finer detail. And it's like, right, you see the Dejarik Tress board for like seconds and the different shapes on that board beyond being different colors feel so distinct and recognizable. This movie shows them for 10 minutes.

[02:48:57] It does. They move all around. They fight. It covers them in a way where you basically never see them full body. You can't distinguish between them. And these are very honed designs by a genius. They brought Phil Tippett into work on this movie. He did work. A lot of the special effects feel like they are CGI trying to approximate Phil Tippett's stop motion, especially the little walker that Mando's on in the snow at the beginning of the movie. They did that. But I sucked. Really? But then I felt like the big robots at the end might have actually been some version of stop motion.

[02:49:27] It certainly, they felt very Robocane. So he's involved in this process. Like this is a guy that Favreau idolizes and yet he's not getting what made this guy's work work. What I didn't like about the opening sequence, apart from just generally kind of low energy, the weird thing of him going up and down the mountain in the walker, it just felt like a video game where you like, one of those open world games where you like end up. No, it's like you're like, I'm going to go this way and then you like climb over a mountain

[02:49:57] by the snake. Like it just didn't make any sense of the physics of it. Well, why would they be walking in the monster? He is a character who flies. Yeah. But there is still a part of me that's a sucker for like Empire starts with a big dumb battle on Hoth. Totally. And it's a smart battle. It's a big smart battle. It's literally a cold open. Yeah. It's a physical open and Ben has quit the podcast. I guess I'm still just a bit of a sucker. Like there's still just enough of a kid in me that's like, maybe they didn't nail it in every way, but like I'll watch

[02:50:27] the heroes climb into a Star Wars Walker machine. I'll watch it. I was there five out of ten. They got a convertible chicken fingers. They got a convertible AT-ST. They got an open top AT-ST. Okay. This is me being 100% honest. I still am charmed by that. I wanted to feel that so badly. And because I was like feeling so ramped up on Star Wars, I go into the screen with David and I'm like, I'm not excited for this, but I bet when it starts, some of the key jangling is going to get to me. Right. I bet they're going to

[02:50:56] start showing me things that are Star Wars. By the way, I like these characters. I love that first season. I like Grogu. Grogu's like a marvel, right? Like they nailed the execution of this character on a technical level, which is half really fucking high-level puppetry. And the genius of Grogu is when he's digital, they make the digital look like a puppet. They use the limitations. And like Grogu fucking just works visually this whole movie. And I sat there and I kept waiting for anything to give me any feeling of joy. And I wasn't sitting

[02:51:26] there with my arms crossed. I wasn't like, this sucks. I just felt bored. And I don't know if it's that I like maxed out on Star Wars, if coming off of Andor, the bar was set too high, it being so fresh in my mind, or if I just am like, guys, we can't be doing this. Like there has to be something new. I see the trailers for the He-Man movie, which is another dumb baby thing that I love so much. And like the trailers have not been great, but I'm like, I guarantee you I'm going to sit there and they're going to show me characters

[02:51:55] and I'm going to point at the screen. I got hope for Ram Man. People are starting to say it's kind of good. I'm starting to be some okay responses. Whereas the Street Fighter movie. Yeah. You're out on that? I don't know about that. Interesting. But yeah, I'm like, I don't know about that. If I see Ram Man ram into a bunch of guys, I'm probably going to like, my heart will... And you have real connections to He-Man. I have been Orko. You've been Orko? What a wild thing to be able to say. Isn't that insane? Yeah. It really is. It is a... Orko and Arthur

[02:52:25] are the two things where I'm like, it's actually crazy that there are characters that meant that much to me when I was young that I got a chance to play. And I think about this stuff where it's like, in both of those cases, I want to do my own thing, but there's a legacy of these characters. I want anyone who grew up with them to recognize, not that it's identical, but that the spirit of the thing is captured, but how do you do something new with it? I spent years professionally thinking on this stuff so much in a microcosm, only how it relates

[02:52:55] to these characters. And just be like, it's got to be new, otherwise you're just doing an impression, but also, don't try to make it your own thing and disregard the past entirely. And I just, this movie to me felt like it was just like Snow, right? Like Hoth stuff? Yeah. Like, you like that? You like Walker? I do. I do like Walker. I do like Walker. Like I said, I'm like, five out of ten, I ate my chicken fingers. If my kid was older, you know, old enough to see it,

[02:53:25] I would have taken my kid and been like, yeah, it was all right. You would have had a better time with your daughter than me because she would have gotten a little something out. Totally. And I'm not like just gripping my hands to go, that's so fucking bad. But I am just kind of like, this ain't really getting my blood pumping. Yeah, I was tired. All right. We ought to be done talking about that movie because I know you have toys to show me or whatever. Like, we cannot ignore the toy. Can we at least shout out Embo? It's crazy that we didn't even mention that. There's a fucking assassin, the skinny assassin character

[02:53:54] with the flat hat. Who basically becomes the antagonist for the second act of the wolf. I kind of like the character design. I thought he looked cool. Apparently he's from one of the animated He's a Flowney. He's from the Clone Wars? He's a Flowney thing, right? Oh, he's a Flowney creation? I briefly thought he was what, Constable Zuvio? You did. And you went, that would be what do they make him Zuvio? You were like, that would be the coolest move. I did. I just, I thought he was cool. He's like, I'm going to be a Constable. I like that he has a dog. I thought that wolf was cool. Yeah. No, I thought this guy was cool.

[02:54:24] Can I say, wait, what's the wolf? He has a little dog. He has a wolf. Oh, I didn't want to. That's like his Grogu. Yeah. I'm going to say something. It's going to make me sound nuts. Yeah. You either. Here we go. Uh-oh. No. Never mind. It's the type of thing that I say. You have to say it and then we're going to do food. And toys. I think if you're going to have the wolf pick up one of the Babu Fricks with its mouth, just kill the Babu Fricks. I agree with you. I agree with you 100%. Just crown the courage for Babu Fricks.

[02:54:54] Kill one of the Babu Fricks. I think it's okay if maybe one is maybe. Much like like two Ewoks like die in Return of the Jedi. And you have it roll over and go like, and it's kind of sad. It's kind of sad. It's good. It brings you in. Again, like the corporatism is showing when it's like, well, we can't possibly, we can't possibly kill one of the Babu Fricks. The children will be sad. It's like, then don't have the wolf ever put it in its mouth, but don't go halfway. Kill the Babu Frick. Is there, like,

[02:55:23] I just like the Star Wars thing of like the Anzalians. That's the Babu Frick aliens. Where it's like, so do they, do they just all like being mechanics? Is it a world of mechanics? This is where Star Wars gets weird with its like races sometimes. Like are there no Anzalians who are like, I make fucking pizza. Like someone's gotta eat it. I'm working on an EP. Dad, I like music. Maybe they're like, just all guys with a bunch of goggles. Maybe, maybe they're like Cornish miners. Maybe it, maybe it happens to be an industry they have excelled in culturally for decades. Let's, let's go with that.

[02:55:52] So we bring them to Michigan and have them, they're like the Cornish miners of the Star Wars universe. You remember how Carrie Russell is in episode nine as like a lady with a helmet or whatever? I'm sorry, she's a spice dealer. Right. And like, I've forgotten that. But there was Babu Frick and it was like, Babu Frick. Babu was on her shoulder and we forget that she existed. And like that Babu Frick fantastic actress. Incredible. Don't she her face? Incredible. She wears a helmet the whole fucking movie. Maybe one of our best living actors.

[02:56:22] She's up there. Yeah. Babu Frick only survives because Spielberg at the end was like, what, where's Babu Frick? Where the fuck is Babu? Are you guys idiots? So they have him like pop up and go like, hey, hey. Okay. I know we're trying to move on and I think you should do your thing. I want to, at least because we've been slamming on this movie, I want to call out some good stuff quickly at the end. I went on record from the start that I liked it better than I thought I was going for it. The floor is great. I want to shout out is I like all of the shady droids that work for the twins.

[02:56:50] I think there's awesome design there. And even the assassin we've been talking about, Embo, he has some other guys in his crew. Yeah. Including the one that's headless. I think that shit's cool. This is the stuff that felt very tippet to me. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the stuff he worked on directly. Okay. He's got a pretty major credit in the film, I noticed. Yeah. But I just like the idea that there's mercenary droids. Yeah. No,

[02:57:20] but that's been in Star Wars before though. But I guess it's cool. It's cool and it's different. Yeah. Sure. I'm trying to, I don't know why. And speaking positively about most of the Disney Plus stuff, like I said, I liked Obi-Wan more than most people. I liked Ahsoka more than most people. I found Book of Boba Fett. I watched it all. Yeah. I found it disappointing. I didn't hate that. It was a little disappointing. I didn't. I think it gets worse. I think the Mandalorian, like the stuff on the Mandalorian world, it got away from what I liked about the first season.

[02:57:50] But on its own, I liked it well enough. Sure. But I think I've had to kind of almost start treating Star Wars as like, that's someone I used to date who I was deeply in love with. That is how I feel right now. It's a great way to, and I'm buying a t-shirt with my ex. I'm buying a t-shirt with my ex's face on it. But we can still text, like it's an ex that I'm still friends with, but we don't love each other anymore. But we can still text. There's a reason you fell in love, right? Is Andor when you had like a week long, like vacation with them later? Like it was like back to the glory days.

[02:58:19] And Or is when you had to leave it, you know, like behind. And Or is when you are frustrated in your current relationship. And then while you're on the toilet, you check your ex's Instagram to see how they're doing. I don't know, man. Yeah, maybe that's why I like Andor so much. I also, I feel like my relationship to Star Wars is closer to it being the ex where I'm like, we're friends and it's good. Is she still dating that guy? You know, I want to believe. Is she going to disappoint me again? No, no, no, no, no, no. The opposite. I want to believe like, maybe there's like a universe where it could work out again.

[02:58:49] Even if it seems unlikely. Yeah, we've got to get past that. Because the base of emotions is so strong. Culturally, we have to get past the idea that we're ever getting back together with Star Wars. David, I bought this toy. For George Lucas talk show. We were in Pittsburgh and Connor wanted to do the George Lucas pitch show, which is an insane idea. So I was like, oh, can I get a Grogu that does something? Sure. So I can act like Grogu is a patient. This toy is called Galactic Snack and Grogu. He's got a weird open mouth. And if you push his tummy, his cheeks flex.

[02:59:17] And the idea is that he comes with little snacks. Little nibblets. And you feed them into his mouth and he chews them sort of. Let's see. Yeah, there you go. They go down there. Oh, they go down. Yeah. And then how do you get them back? Pretty far back. Now this was... It's more of... I was just doing it for visibility. It's more about... You can do it facing up. I bought this for the show and then the theater had bad eye lines. So, or sight lines. Yeah. So it didn't work at all. I'm gifting you this for your daughter. Oh, sure. She will have fun with it. The food's in the backpack.

[02:59:48] And this is what Mandalorian and Grogu is all about. It's about merchandise and it's about snacking. So I found four different food items. We don't have to eat all of them now, but I at least want to just introduce them. I have a feeling I know where you bought them. I don't think you can guess. I'm holding a big Target bag. These are... So many toys. Oh, fuck. No, they're not toys. They're food. Oh, you're saying your box of toys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you get these as well? I did. Great. We have two bags of trash. Okay, great. Okay, Fan Foods.

[03:00:18] Officially delicious Outer Rim Ranch flavored chips. The cutest chip in the galaxy. The chips are shaped like Grogu. I find this pretty morbid. There is a part of me that this is bringing me back to growing up in the 80s where Mr. T's face was just on everything now. Yes, it does feel like that. So we have two boxes of Nilla wafers. We have two boxes of Fan Foods. Ben, did you buy anything else? Ben was late to this. I mean, not late, but like, you know,

[03:00:47] delayed because he was buying these at Target. Yes. Yes. Ben, did you have... Yes, I have one other thing. Did you also purchase Muddy Bites cookies and cream filled waffle cones with green vanilla filling? No, I didn't say that was the Target I went to. Okay, so that's the proprietary item to the Griff bag. Did you purchase this? What is that? What the fuck is that? It's like a... It's called a Pop Pulse. Oh boy. At Home Movie Theater Popcorn Kit. Does it make popcorn?

[03:01:16] Uh, it's three buckets and two bags of microwave popcorn, but most interestingly, Galactic Stardust Popcorn Seasoning. Oh, sure. I don't know what that tastes like. Ben... The stars, of course. What was the other item that you bought? Well, because I knew it was Chris's birthday tomorrow, so I thought it would be nice to at least get him a gift. That's so nice. Thank you. So here, I'll give it to you. One sec. Okay, here's the Galactic Seasoning. It doesn't have ingredients listed on it.

[03:01:45] This unit is not marked for individuals. Whoa. Whoa. This is really kind. And this was worth you being delayed. This was worth that. This is a Mandalorian and Grogu electronic Mando mask. Wait, so are you saying it's a voice changer mask like the one my sister had? Is this going to make you get Jeremy Allen white voice? It does seem to have a thing that if you hold down the button on the side and speak... Speak. This is a way. Oh, there you go. Okay, so it says Mando stuff.

[03:02:16] So it's not like you can put it on and be like, Donald Trump did nothing wrong in Mando. Like... Griff, can I ask why there are two Star Trek poster things on my desk? Yes, you can ask. Okay. Why? I'm not mad. I'm just wondering. Yeah. They're little pictures. I thought you might like them because they're interesting little promotional paintings. Yeah. I found at a vintage store... I think it was when I was in Pittsburgh. Action figures of the Malcolm McDowell villain from Generations. Of course, Tilly and Soren.

[03:02:45] And Alfre Woodard's character from First Contact. We love her. And they both came with these posters and I thought you might like them. I like them fine. I thought they're nice little original art. I just like that they're anything with that kind of 90s feel. That's what I'm saying. That's why I thought you'd like it. I thought it was your aesthetic. I'm pro. I'm pro. Okay, I'm putting the ears on this popcorn bucket. I think this has been a good episode. I think we've gone on a journey. There have been ups and there have been downs. Look, if we just literally like broke down... Okay, Chris. Okay, someone get a picture of this because this is pretty good.

[03:03:15] Okay, this is really good. Although it is underlining that the Mandalorian is the most quotable guy. Okay, he's just saying lasers. It's just not even worth it. The Mandalorian. What was that? I am the Mandalorian. It's a mask that literally says I am the Mandalorian. What if the next one is I am not Boba Fett? Some of these are just sounds. I don't think the sound effects were a good call.

[03:03:44] I need some information. I need some information. This is what he talks like. Where is Ron? Hi. I didn't get a lot of sleep. Thank you, man. You look great, Jeff. You're so welcome. Truly a kind present. This definitely feels like the most thematically appropriate way to sort of wind down this episode because this is what it's all about, folks. Yeah. Unfortunately, this movie exists to create these bags of bullshit. It exists for toy.

[03:04:13] And for snack. Yeah. For nommies. But we'll make sure to post pics of all of this stuff on social. Oh, you better believe it. God, this thing is freaky. It is weird, right? The cheek movements are weird. I thought it was going to be really funny and then you just couldn't see it from the stage. But I'm sure... It's kind of cute. It's kind of cute. The cheek movements are weird and I thought they'd be... The creepiness would play more visually. Right. So we think this is going to end up at like a 74 day. 75. Oh, you think it's not going to make

[03:04:43] a 104 day? That's where people are projecting right now. Let me see what the... We're doing, I guess, sort of the box office prediction game. Yep, yep, yep. So it opened... No, it had 12 million previews. That's the exact number that Captain America Brave New World had. Okay. That made 104. Okay. My guess is that Manda will be slightly over that because it's more kid friendly. Uh-huh. So I would guess that it's like low 100. Okay. Four day. But obviously, the word of mouth is not great.

[03:05:13] Although, nor was it great for something like Captain America Brave New World. That's true. But I just think the kind of like... Dude, it's a fucking rainy Memorial Day weekend and Baby Yoda is on a screen like, take your kids. Like, what's good? It's the worst that could happen. I'm gonna say 85. Obviously, the other contenders at the box office right now are Curry Broker's Obsession, which is already like a kind of a breakout hit. It looks like it's maybe gonna go up this weekend. Yes.

[03:05:43] It's certainly gonna... Crazy word of mouth. It feels like it's number two dethroning... It's a horror movie. ...Dubborn's Parada. It's a very good film. It's good. I liked it. It's quite effective. I shouldn't say very good, but I liked it a lot. I had a good time. It's effective. It's very effective. That's a good way of putting it. You're a good film critic. Oh, Jesus. And a dear friend. Please relax. I'm sorry if sometimes this show gets annoying to do. It's quite hard. This is the way. We kind of got a Mando-Grogu relationship. Sometimes you have to tell me to kneel. It's funny how Griffin's kind of trying to apologize for cutting me off. I mean, it's a somewhat self-aware bit.

[03:06:13] It's pretty good. Thank you. Devil Wears Parada 2 is doing fine. It's holding fine. I mean, yeah, exactly. It's good. Mortal Kombat 2 is doing the kind of 60% drops one expects of a Mortal Kombat movie, but like, hey, everyone's happy. You see Mortal Kombat 2? No. Not bad. It's a lot of fun. Do you like Kitana? Sure. Do you like Baraka? All of our friends are here. This is probably the best. Kitana's been in a movie. There's Raiden's there. Raiden's in there. Maybe I'll take the flyer out of it. Sheep Detectives,

[03:06:43] that's holding on. Is there anything else new this week, Griff? No. No. There's no counter-programming. I don't. I mean, oh, no, there is counter-programming, right? Because there's... There's what? Fuck. Isn't there one thing? I'm going to look it up. Yeah, there's I Love Boosters. Oh, sure. But I assume that'll be a little low. It doesn't... Right. Yeah. And then there's this horror movie, Passenger, which I haven't seen. Oh, Andre Orvidal. Whose movies I kind of like? What else did he make? He did Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and he did Autopsy of Gene Doe, I want to say. Oh, yeah. Those are both kind of interesting. Yeah, he's kind of stylish.

[03:07:13] It's just funny, because it's like Deadline is referring it to as like the Melissa Leo horror film Passenger. Sure thing. And I'm trying to imagine how many people are like walking up to the box office being like, I hear there's a new Melissa Leo movie. Next week, though, I think this is something Mando didn't see coming. I think Backrooms is going to eat its lunch a little bit. I mean, they're saying Backrooms might open to 50 now, which is crazy. Backrooms is one of those things where it's like, you don't understand. Every 20-year-old is very locked into

[03:07:42] like liminal spaces. This is an A24 movie directed by a 22-year-old? He's 21. No, he's 20 years old, and he will be turning 21 in a month. He cannot drink. I interviewed him recently. Illegally. This movie is about to open. Incredibly large. It's an adaptation of a viral YouTube video. It's like a real changing the guard moment for Hollywood. It rocks. It's a good movie. And I liked him a lot. He was really smart. Just a kid self-taught

[03:08:12] during COVID how to make visual effects shit and started making YouTube shorts and kind of rocks. Yeah. Like he was housebound by both the pandemic and arthritis. Well, I can't read it to that. Taught himself Blender. Yeah. Yeah, except I didn't learn Blender. I got a faulty bucket. It's got two right ears. Yeah, that doesn't look right. This Grogu bucket. So we'll post a picture of... I've been fussing with it trying to figure out if I was thinking that wrong. It is. Yeah, it's a rare variant. Chris, is there anything

[03:08:41] we haven't covered that you wanted to? Very thorough. No, we did. Are you sure? No, we got to all my notes. I haven't watched Cora yet. It's next up on my list. Avatar is very good though. Has your son watched Cora? He started watching it, yeah. But then we decided to watch it as a family. Okay, okay. So he put it... What else is your son into? That's been the big one lately. Jurassic World has been very big for him. World. The whole Jurassic World cartoon. Oh, yes. I've heard that show's kind of fun. The films are too scary for him. Yeah, Jurassic World. I can say that Jurassic World

[03:09:11] seems to be very big with kids in his age group. Yeah, dinosaurs. Yeah, dinosaurs are back in a big way. And what else? That's about it. He went through an Italian brain rot phase. I'm really glad that's over. I don't know what that means. Asa Ehrlich was really into Italian brain rot. What the fuck is that? It's so funny that David Ehrlich was like, my child will never watch Western animation. It will make you feel... It's feebly only. It'll make you feel worried. He did get very into... How we got him very into

[03:09:39] Totoro and Miyazaki stuff. Yeah. These AI generated ADHD cartoons called Italian brain rot. Tongue, tongue, tongue, tongue, Sahor, Crocodilo, Bombardillo. They all have insane names and they look like nightmares. Chimpanzee, bananini. Is this on YouTube that they find it? with a hot dog dick. YouTube nonsense. I don't know if it's like Russians influencing my child to betray America someday. Yes. It's one of those things where it's like, oh, this is just like random AI slop and you're like, no, it feels like this was made by a human hand

[03:10:08] for some nefarious purpose. There's also like rap songs that have 55 million views on YouTube that is AI generated rap song by the Telling Brain Rots. But I will tell you, I'm glad that phase is over. In the beginning of first grade, my son would often say to me, who's your favorite brain rot? And I would go, I don't know, man. Tongue, tongue, tongue, tongue, tongue, Sahor. And he'd go, who are your favorite 17? And would not stop until I named 17 brain rots. And when I tell you this happened like three times a day, every day,

[03:10:37] it was starting to drive me into madness. Chris, I congratulate you on making it through that period and I hope you never have to look back. Although some of the songs are catchy. Some of the AI generated rap songs. I'm sure they are. They are. Beautiful Anonymous. I mean, I still have the... Tra la la la, tra la la. The Pink Fong Lion song. Anyone out there, get at me if you also listen to that a hundred times. I'm never going to listen to that. I don't want it affecting my brain. Beautiful Anonymous is still one of the best podcasts out there. Yeah, Beautiful Anonymous

[03:11:07] just celebrated its 10 year anniversary. Hell yeah. Oh, shit. We have a sister show to us in a way. Yeah. Around the same time lines. I will ask too, all bits aside, I know I've been the bad boy to blank check facts, but go listen to an episode because I'm trying to get that show to survive. Truly. We have a contract of 2028 and I'm trying to just like get people back into it. It's an incredible show. Thanks. And it's like a good thing you do. Not to be self-righteous about it. Thank you. Yeah, I feel good about it. And then also on June 11th, we're doing a

[03:11:36] What's in the Dumpster live stage show. We're paying homage to the 10 year anniversary. 10 year anniversary of the one episode of my show. Everybody universally liked. It's going to be live at UCB. Paul Scheer will be there. This hasn't been announced yet, but Mandzuk has arranged his schedule. He'll be coming in. Hell yeah. Nice. I've reached out to, spoiler, person from the first Dumpster. I won't say it to see if he wants to be there on stage. And yeah, it's already sold out, but there will be a live stream ticket for 10 bucks.

[03:12:05] So you can watch that live. And what's the date on it? Sorry. It's on Thursday, June 11th. Nice. And if you're in New Jersey, my beloved New Jersey, I've got tickets on sale in Red Bank, June 19th. Oh, where Chris and Kevin Smith's. Yeah. Oh yeah. The Secret Stash is down there. Places, right? Yeah. Red Bank, New Jersey. You guys, you've been to Smide Castle. I've been there with you. Yeah. Yeah. We did a GLTS there and then I went to a Dogma screening there. And did you go there one other time? It's pretty great. I really love it. I really love him. Like the Smod Castle.

[03:12:35] The fact that he owns a movie theater. He bought his childhood movie theater. The Smod Castle Cinemas in Atlantic Highlands. Is that correct? Yes. Yes. I know you know him better. You've worked with him and you know him much better. On the He-Man show. I know. Yeah. But I do have to say, meeting Kevin Smith and you realize he's just exactly who you hope he is. He's just like this. He really is. He's exactly who you want him to be. And it's good. You know, I weirdly get asked about him a lot. There's something very special about him.

[03:13:05] He looks so large. Yes. Especially for our generation. But people are like, you're friendly with him, right? Like, you know him. Like, what's he actually like? And I was like, he's actually everything you want him to be. He's wearing a suit jacket and denim shorts and down to tell stories. And I think the people who are the most cynical about him are completely disarmed when they meet him. When you see just like how thoroughly genuine he is. And he's incredibly thoughtful and smart. He is. As you can imagine, as a DIY Jersey creator, he looms very, very large in my history. I mean, we were. And I'm one of the biggest

[03:13:34] Mallrats defenders you'll ever meet. Geth, we were only going to have him be the guest for that show. And I threw out the flyer and I said, I think we should ask Chris to be honest. That was very nice. I think beyond the fact that it's like a mitzvah to have you two guys like engage on stage and connect as people, I was like, I think it will make for good entertainment. I think you guys are going to get into it and you did. You started just naming locations and the audience was applauding. It was fun shit. It was great. Thanks again. No, you're the best. And I said it before very cleanly with no crosstalk.

[03:14:04] The three of us would not know each other. without you. On the most fundamental level, there's no universe in which the show exists without you. Maybe Griff and I are acquaintances, but like obviously these bonds were forged. But I meet Ben in the basement because he's assigned to become the second producer of Talking TCGS, the podcast I do with Riley Salmer. I was thrilled by the assignment. No, I was. A weirdly popular show and it's time from what I remember. It was bizarre. And David and I only meet because Alyssa Stonoa tweets that the two of us should be friends because we're both

[03:14:33] active in the Gethrer community. Well, I will say at this point in my career, which has slowed down a lot, it is very strange for me to be in rooms sometimes and realize I am just strangely a person who can sometimes walk into a room and realize, oh, most of these people know each other because of me. Yeah. Which is strange to say for a guy who is generally pretty socially uncomfortable and sort of off in the corner. But it's a point of pride that I've been able to work with so many great people and smart people such as yourselves over the years. You're the best and we love you. We do love you. And it's always a pleasure

[03:15:03] to have you on. You were never shadow banned. I need to communicate that very clearly. Why did you think you were shadow banned? Because you felt like there was a gap post-Spider-Man 2 that was pointed. Because I'm mentally ill. Brother, I feel you big time. My brain is so bad. It's crazy. A lot of people like being on the show, we're always just trying to like match guest to thing well, you know? We'll say like Matt Singer is about to come back on the aforementioned Matt Singer and he was like, thanks for having me on. Like, I hope I can be on again sooner than three years from now. And we were like,

[03:15:33] shut up. You were on six months ago. We checked the calendar and we were like, three fucking years later. What the fuck are we doing? And this has been the way. Oh God. Clearly. We talked about the movie a little bit. A smidge. Oh, the one, this was the one connection. I'm not like my dad. The one connection I was going to make, do you know who was the DP on this film? The who? The man who shot Clerks. Is that true? Yeah. Is that true? Kevin Smith's Jersey buddy who like, that was his first professional. And Malrats.

[03:16:03] And Chasing Age. Malrats. Yes. Malrats underrated. But I'm just saying like this. You guys don't like seeing a spaceship that looks like a turtle? I like the ship. I like the Anzellians. It's okay. Turtle. I like Stephen McKinley and Anderson the best part. What was the best part? Oh, Stephen McKinley and Anderson the rocking horror chair. Right. And yeah, grilling some sandwiches because and then Scroogey. I guess the only two good characters are the ones who grill meat. Are puppets grilling meat? I mean, I know Scroogey wasn't really a puppet. Yeah. Voiced by esteemed members of the artistic community.

[03:16:33] But I'm just saying, is that what is really kind of activating Favreau the most as an artist is being able to tell the story of people making sandwiches? You're so right. I'm seeing here David Klein shot a bunch of The Book of Boba Fett. Yeah, he's become the default Disney Plus Star Wars guy. I just bring it up because he was a guy bootstrapping it with the Kevin Smith thing, learned how to be a DP across those movies, and now is shooting Star Wars. And I know that Kevin's been doing

[03:17:02] screenings all weekend with him talking to the audience afterwards, which is really fun at the Smodcastle Theater. So shout out that if you're in the area and you need to still see the movie. Sorry that we ruined it for you. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Next week is an episode. It's a movie that I kind of hoisted upon David. It's called Master and Commander The Far Side of the World. Right, that's next week. David very quickly sets the rules in place that it is his episode. Yeah, you're like, you try some like, I did one bit at the beginning.

[03:17:32] And I'm like, we're not doing that today, sir. You were in tears. I was like, no, it's best step off, sir. But don't worry. It is absolutely you and John Hodgman. We have fucking Andrew Stanton coming up. There's plenty of Griff material in the future. No, no, no. I was saying, don't worry that you go off. No, I think we had fun on that episode. John talks a lot about boats. Hodgman talking boats. Yes. It's a good episode. So yeah, we're finishing that up. And then yes, we've already sort of soft announced it, but Andrew Stanton is coming right after that. We will be covering

[03:18:02] Disclosure Day as well. Yes. Yes. There are a couple summer releases that will take some breaks. Odyssey obviously comes in the middle of Stanton, but we'll be doing Finding Nemo through Toy Story 5. Yeah. And then Scorsese starting right after that. Martin Scorsese, I don't know if you know this, the guy who plays the flat meat dealer in the Mandalorian and Grogu movie. His name is... He also directs movies. Warp or whatever. I'll have to look him up. And we're going to cover him on the podcast. We also have a Patreon. We're currently... We just recently covered

[03:18:31] Mortal Kombat and we're going to soon kick off our Robocop series on June 1st. Yep. You can sign up for that at patreon.com slash blank check. Guys, I'm so excited to take a nap. I'm like... I'm really... Don't worry, Griff. We have like six ads to do after we stop recording. A post ad nap is the sweetest nap of all. I'm so excited to pee. Yeah. I love... Rada. His abs. His body. His brain. His sparkling wind.

[03:19:01] What do I love from this? His dad. You love his dad, right? His dad's a good person. Yeah. And he's just like him. I miss him. He had some riz. Again, I'll shout out a lot of the images we've been talking about will be posted on our social. Also, sign up for our newsletter. We have a substack called Checkbook. Yes. Where you also have a lot of that stuff if you don't engage with social media. And I'm sure Marie's going to have a lot of Mandalorian and Grogu thoughts, a movie she has many times said she is excited to never see. Can't really argue with her. And as always, David, you were trying to remember

[03:19:31] things you love. Yeah. And I just want to end this episode on a positive note. I love you and I want to remind you that you love Coaxium, which I think is best served cold? I think, isn't it actually best served cold? I think you did it wrong. Fuck. Yeah, you did it wrong. It has to be cold. So good job remembering the Coaxium should be cold. Okay, so I'm responsible. Nice. I guess that's how we're going to end it.

[03:20:02] Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel. With additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick.

[03:20:32] Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at blankcheckpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions. Ben, are we recording? Okay, and what I'm about to say

[03:21:01] is going to sound like it's pre-roll, but I both want you to keep it in and actually do what I ask. Okay, Ben? Yeah, of course. It'll make sense in a second. I'll do what you ask. Okay. Kayfabe. Not like blanket statement. No, no, no, no. Okay. Okay, so Kayfabe starting now. Ben, can you put a filter on my voice? And post. Thank you.