2017: The Shape of Jedi (feat. Kevin Weir)

It's 2017, and it's time for space wizards and award-winning amphibian erotica! Guillermo Del Toro made a Creature From the Black Lagoon slashfic so beautifully realized it ends up winning Best Picture. Marginalized people in the 60s stand up to the US patriarchy to save a possible fish god, a fish god one mute outsider finds extra compelling. Then it's box office time, which means it's time for the most relaxing thing you can do on the internet... talk about The Last Jedi. Kevin Weir returns to help dissect what works about Rian Johnson's attempt to expand the idea of Star Wars, along with some issues, Erin finally gets her casino planet, Dan reassesses Rise of Skywalker, Claire loves a Porg, and Dan and Kevin share some probably entirely rational rank ordering of Star Wars. Which sci-fi fantasy epic was best? Find out!

Find all of our episodes and the rest of Writing Therapy Productions' various entertainments at www.writingtherapyproductions.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Since 1928, the Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences intended out trophies what it considers the best films of the year. Another ton of audiences have had their own opinions. This is Academy vs. Audience, where we revisit all the best picture winners and the corresponding box office champions. I'm Dan Gibbons with We S Always and Saren Weir. How's it going, Aaron?

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Dan, it's actually really good. I've had no chaos to report upon today. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 0:38

I've solved most of my chaos. I've figured out what was causing my tire pressure light to malfunction and constantly be on. It's that my tires were critically low on air. I who would have guessed?

SPEAKER_05 0:51

Who would have guessed? It was doing its job? Impossible.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

What's up, Claire?

SPEAKER_05 1:01

My chaos is I'm currently wearing a fully white linen dress and drinking a glass of red wine. So we'll see what happens by the end of this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Just taunting the whatever up on the top of the thing here. Now, as has been hinted in the back half of this episode, we drift into a movie, discussion of which tends to bring out the worst people on the internet. And it's even better if you're a woman or any marginalized group. So, instead of bringing out our usual Star Wars guest, let's uh let's double our allotment of cis white guys as a protective barrier against that. And welcome back, Kevin Weir. How's it going, Kevin?

SPEAKER_09 1:43

Yes, somehow Kevin has returned. I'm happy you did not introduce me, as adhere is the worst part of the internet. Uh, I like to think that I'm better than that. I also prefer to think about the internet.

SPEAKER_05 1:57

I think you're also better than that, Kevin. We are all in agreement.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

It's not just the cishet men that are the bad parts. It's the fan bros. But I'll get into that later. We have so much sexy fish man to cover before we get there. Speaking of, Kevin, walk us through our best picture winner for 2017.

SPEAKER_09 2:17

Oh, sure. Um, hey, Claire. Yes. Can I interest you in watching a Cold War romance where the leading man is an aggressive bioluminescent riverfish? Because I have a movie for you that's essentially Beauty and the Beast, but the Beast lives in a high-security government water tank, and the meat cute involves relentless hard-boiled egg consumption. The villain is a stressed-out middle manager played by Michael Shannon, whose severed fingers are actively rotting off on camera. The emotional climax features our heroine deliberately causing catastrophic uninsured water damage to her apartment building so she can flood her bathroom into a floor-to-ceiling romance aquarium. It's a very relaxing watch because the romantic leads share zero lines of spoken dialogue and communicate entirely through sign language, old jazz records, and sliding eggs across wet concrete. It's a deeply touching story about a woman who looks at a scaly carnivorous science experiment that recently ate a neighbor's house cat and confidently says, I bet this guy needs more protein. Do we feel like I hit all the main points?

SPEAKER_03 3:19

You did, yes. Yep, correct.

unknown 3:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Get through a lot of them.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

I feel like half of my notes are fingers.

SPEAKER_05 3:26

Oh my god, those fingers? So gross. Like the fact that they're actively decaying through the movie, and then he rips them off. He's just like, don't need these anymore.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

And you're like, I mean, he throws them at someone. He uses his rotting fingers as a weapon. As you do.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

Which I mean, they're a biohazard at that point in time, so if you're gonna rip off your tearing fingers or your rotting fingers, make it a power move.

unknown 3:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 3:56

You may as well. I have a question for everyone here. So I, despite this uh being uh one of the movies that we watched that's, you know, within my lifetime of being able to go out and watch movies by myself, I actually didn't end up seeing uh Shape of Water when it came out. Instead, I watched it for this, for the first time. But it was one of the things where not just because it was a best picture winner, but you definitely heard about it because it was the romance that involved the creature from the Black Lagoon, and it was Guillermo de Toro. So did everyone else watch it when it came out, or was this like No, I watched it today.

SPEAKER_05 4:35

My first watch of it was on a plane, and then I re-watched it like two days ago. But fun fact, Erin and I went to university with one of the actors in it, the guard that gets stabbed in the neck and dies. Uh, we went to university with him, and so he posted a lot, especially in 2017, when it was up for best picture than one, about about his time in the movie.

SPEAKER_09 5:02

Yeah. It's just it's interesting to have all of the essentially get all the feedback from it because it was it also came out during the time where a lot of the internet was doing its thing. It's interesting seeing something where I have heard the feedback so much and then seeing it and sort of having that kind of in my mind the entire time.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

Yes, Kevin, would you say, based on like the online discourse and general rhetoric of the time, you expected more fish fucking? I probably shouldn't have because it's Giro Del Toro, and obviously he's gonna do it in like a poetic lyrical way. But the way people talked about it, I expected more. And I was not disappointed.

SPEAKER_09 5:46

Maybe that was maybe that was in there somewhere thinking about that. Mostly I mostly I just like remember a lot of crit when I say criticism, it gives it value, which I don't know if these uh thoughts actually had value from uh these people, but a lot of weird criticism about them being like, well, it doesn't make any it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make it any sense. I'm like, but as soon as you watch it, you're like, oh yeah, no, I I get it. It's it's a fairy tale. Correct.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

It's a romantic fairy tale. It doesn't have to make literal sense at every moment.

SPEAKER_03 6:19

No, and it's like very clearly a fairy tale. She is called a princess in the opening monologue, yes, correct.

SPEAKER_05 6:27

And then her like walking out, the shots are beautiful, by the way, because Diamo Der Toro, but like her walking out of her apartment, which is above the movie theater, and then just having like the light from the theater. Yeah. Like it's so beautiful, but so fantastical. And then there's a fire down the street and all this stuff, but it's still like it's a fairy tale. It's fantasy.

SPEAKER_09 6:50

I mean, my my first thought was when I saw this was that this woman lives in the most Guillermo del Toro apartment I've ever seen. Correct. Um, and I I remember watching like he does have like Hellboy or Pan's Labyrinth and thinking like that's quite an aesthetic for these movies. Then I see this one, I'm like, no, that's just his style. It's like if Tim Burton read The Outsiders instead of, I don't know, the Raven when he was in school.

SPEAKER_03 7:12

It's true though, like opening opening image, you know who the director of this movie is. There is no question whatsoever. The man has an aesthetic and it is soaked in it.

SPEAKER_05 7:23

Yep, literally.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Literally, as we pan through the flooded apartment of our lead character.

SPEAKER_09 7:29

Well, like that's that's sort of what I remember just seeing uh criticisms that are that were things where they're like, both it doesn't make sense, and also at the same time, the same people being like, they say it's a fairy tale, but the only fairy tale things I remember is like the beginning and the end where there's narration. I'm like, well, it's well, so you don't think the part where she floods the apartment and then also has a hallucinatory dream about dancing with him, or actually just anything that happens in this movie doesn't feel fairy tale. It's just oh if you don't have a narrator, it's not a fairy tale.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

The entire sequence where she imagines them in a 40s musical dance sequence, wishing she could vocalize her feelings for him.

SPEAKER_06 8:11

Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Well understanding that he'll never be able to fully understand. Not knowing that they're gonna swim off to happier reef times together.

SPEAKER_03 8:21

They're gonna find their own way to communicate. Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

Not to mention, the the male lead is an Amazonian fish god.

SPEAKER_03 8:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Okay? Yeah.

unknown 8:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

So Yeah, you can't actually flood a bathroom by shoving some towels into the bottom of the door.

SPEAKER_05 8:36

Not that apartment, anyway. That apartment leaking from the roofs, those floors, they aren't gonna hold it. Those floors, nope, not strong enough.

SPEAKER_09 8:45

I mean, really, it didn't really hold it.

SPEAKER_05 8:48

No, really. It does.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Pouring water on the movie theater, but so it's just it's a little thing called magical realism, people. Yes.

SPEAKER_09 8:55

Well, and it's it's also that this movie is the most metaphors. Like it is so heavy with symbolism and color theory and metaphors, but also like this is this isn't a slight against the movie, they're really easy to like figure out. Yes. Like like Del Toro was like, I'm gonna have green be a thing. I'm gonna have a character say green is the future. Do you get it?

SPEAKER_05 9:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_09 9:23

He shouts at you, do you get it? But it because he's such like he's really good with the you know presentation of stuff, it doesn't feel ham-fisted. It feels like you're like, oh yeah, green's the future, so let's keep an eye out for these green things.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Yeah, you feel clever, yeah. Like her scars on her neck. So obvious they're gills from the first time you see them, but that's okay. He never hides it.

SPEAKER_09 9:46

Yeah, yeah, they're very evocative of it. I could I couldn't get over just the there's a whatever she gives him like one egg and just keeps bringing him eggs.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

It's perfect. I thought you were.

SPEAKER_09 9:57

I know I made a joke in my lead up, but just the amount of time is like, yeah, just keep giving him eggs.

SPEAKER_03 10:02

I mean, we want some hard-boiled eggs.

SPEAKER_05 10:04

I'm gonna make some after this. Also, I will say, her hard-boiling technique, I want to know because that first the egg she peels for him, the first one, she's like bloop bloop, and it comes off, and you're like, oh, frig, I wish all my hard-boiled eggs peeled that way.

SPEAKER_09 10:21

She's very good at timing things that happen in water.

SPEAKER_05 10:24

Yes, I mean, we we do see that. The eggs and her other activity she does every morning.

SPEAKER_09 10:32

Yeah, yeah. The I just very quickly, the intense in in the bathroom dub scene, the intensity she goes from zero to a hundred is very fast. Yeah, well, she knows she only has a certain amount of time.

SPEAKER_07 10:46

She does.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

The egg timer goes off at a certain moment. You're done. There's work work to be done until then.

SPEAKER_04 10:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

That's one of the subversions I like about this movie is that she is a fairy tale princess, but not a meek, demure, Virginia fairy tale pre-princess. She is a woman of sexual desire, and that is why she thinks, I bet I can there's something on this guy I can ride when she gets him home.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

And then she's right. It opens up like a clean cat. Nobody can see us, but that's what she does.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Oh, that gesture haunted my friend Daisy.

SPEAKER_03 11:21

And then Octavia Spencer's like, mmm.

SPEAKER_09 11:25

Is that it has this fairy tale thing, but it very clearly wants to kind of collide fairy tale with realism because you know, she fills up the bathroom and makes it into a big aquarium. But we also have people like it's happening, and then people are responding to it, being like, hey, like this action affecting the world around. And then it doesn't affect it for too long. Like it's it kind of like balances out that we are dealing with the realism side of it, but still undeniably fairy tale-ness. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:53

And it's a great set, like time period-wise, it's the early 60s, like Guillermo del Toro depicked a beautifully aesthetic time period as well. Because the costuming, the um general, like the lab layout, the underground sort of bunkerness of it. Like it's a very um the Russians are bad, you know, communism bad.

SPEAKER_03 12:19

Oh, except the Russian is the only good one. It's true, Dimitri.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

That's the other subversion I like is that our villain is the embodiment of 50s, 60s patriarchy, Michael Shannon. Yep, which is going so well for him that parts of him are literally rotting off his body.

SPEAKER_09 12:40

I just gotta say, like, like it's obviously a lot of good stuff with this, but Michael Shannon just is so good.

SPEAKER_07 12:46

So gross.

SPEAKER_09 12:48

The little things he does to be upsetting, like even when he takes his ring back from her, he it's like this weird, like jerky motion as he like snatches it. Like he's such a good actor.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

Well, and the like third note was Michael Shannon's glower game is top tier.

SPEAKER_05 13:04

Oh, yeah, he glowering all over the place. Also, his really gross hand washing speech when he uses number one, uses the urinal with two ladies there, but also does it with his hands on his hips. He's like, look at me pee, everyone, and then says, No, a man either washes his hands before or after, not twice. That's a sign of weakness, and you're like, after is after. Wash your hands after.

SPEAKER_09 13:34

Well, I this this goes back into like the whole thing where it's like if you really want to dig into this movie's like metaphors of things, you're like, yeah, Michael Shadding cares about himself. He doesn't want to get fish stuff on himself, he doesn't care about other people, though.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Like, it's he also wants to get his dick on other people. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

I mean, he did say you can tell a lot about a man by which what order he does it in, and we could, we could tell a lot about you from that. He wasn't wrong. It wasn't what he wanted us to tell about him, the character. Michael Shannon knows exactly what he's doing.

SPEAKER_04 14:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 14:08

Speaking of like the fact that I've heard criticisms of the movie before I forgot, just remember this one always popping up where people are like, I just like sort of unfortunate that the villain is like a car, like uh just a cartoon, cartoonishly evil bad guy, and he was just sort of like very flat. And I'm like, and watching him, like, I don't know what you mean. His character has a lot of depth, he just doesn't have a redeemable quality, and I think that's what it comes down to. A lot of people are like, like, oh, he's simple because there's like nothing good about him, but he's definitely a deep character. He's so easily manipulated by a salesman just being like, Hey man, you seem cool, and he went, I'll buy this car. Cool.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

Or then buy these cars, yeah. And like he does have a ton of pressure on him. There's that monologue where he's like, What what would a man like me do? And they're like, get the fish back or get fired.

SPEAKER_05 14:56

Yeah, he's not given a choice by general what's his face, or get the fish back or be destroyed, actually.

SPEAKER_09 15:04

Yeah, he's an he's an inside. He like this this movie's all about insiders and outsiders, and he is an insider, so he thinks he is like special. Yeah, yeah, he thinks he's safe. He's thinking he thinks like nothing can happen to him because he is an insider. He is, I mean, he has a whole thing about like the God's image, like he thinks that he deserves all these things that he isn't doesn't. I I really like his weird thing with Alina, where he and also with his wife, where he likes quiet women.

SPEAKER_05 15:32

Oh, yeah, and that sex scene is weird.

SPEAKER_09 15:34

Yeah, other than being like the least subtle indictment of like middle century masculine uh mindsets, it works really well because you have the fact that Alina and uh Fishman are bonded over the fact that neither of them can kind of like converse with each other, but like and so to avo to avoid having Alina because Alina does say like, oh, he like he understands it. He he doesn't he doesn't care about the fact that like I can't uh talk. Yeah, and you could argue that neither does Michael Shannon, but the difference is is that the fish man doesn't care she can't talk, Michael Shannon fetishizes that she can't talk.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

Yeah, he does like that she can't talk a little too much.

SPEAKER_05 16:13

He does.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Yeah, but one just to link Kevin's point about insiders and outsiders and my point about subversions is that all the likable characters in this movie are some sort of marginalized group. There is the mute woman, the black woman, the rapidly aging gay man, the literal fish monster, and a communist spy. And one of just the most quietly touching movies in this movie is when he stops in to check on how the thing is doing while they're in the change room, and they say you're a good man using his cover name, and he just gives a quick little bounce, says, My name is Dimitri.

SPEAKER_05 16:52

No, I really like him. And his d unfortunate demise is awful.

SPEAKER_03 16:59

When Michael Shannon's dragging him around by his mouth?

SPEAKER_05 17:02

Yeah, with the hole, like not just his mouth, everyone. A bullet hole that his own people shot through his face that Michael Shannon is now dragging him by. It's like he's a fish on a hook. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 17:15

Because the metaphors are not subtle. No, they're not.

SPEAKER_09 17:18

And the the fact that, like, so you have like him, his character as opposed to Strickland, Michael Shannon's character, is that Michael Shannon's character is like, I am part of the team. I am like, I should be untouchable. And our friend Dimitri, he is part of the team, like of the Russians, but he very early on is like, I am not safe with these people. Like the first time they visit him, he already has like a knife. Like he he, unlike um Strickland, he is not, he's not deluded himself into thinking that he is his position is unassailable. Which is like so cool.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Can I ask you guys a question that I think I know the answer to? Because I think something was going on with my recording. The Russian scenes should have had subtitles. They did.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

Def definitely. Yeah, it didn't.

SPEAKER_05 18:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

The sign language also had subtitles.

SPEAKER_05 18:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 18:09

Depending depending on where you watch it, if you don't have like the subtitles on for everything, they just don't give you the subtitles for sometimes that happens, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

I like the first scene, I was like, oh, interesting. I like that they chose not to do that. And the second one I was like, I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to know what they're saying. I can figure out the just the gestalt, but Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 18:27

Did you get subtitles for the sign language?

SPEAKER_03 18:30

No.

SPEAKER_09 18:31

Yeah, there were subtitles for sign language.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

Yeah, there was some important stuff in there.

SPEAKER_03 18:35

Could figure out what was going on.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

The one time there wasn't subtitles for the sign language I actually liked because it's when she's sign yelling at her best pal to s speak out what she's signing, because having Richard Jenkins recite everything she's saying lets you focus on her performance without reading anything.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 19:00

And also, like from her, it makes sense. She's like, I need you to say what I'm saying so I know you understand what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_05 19:06

Yeah, it's a beautiful scene because it is the it's the listen to me scene, but she can't verbally speak. And it's so beautiful to be like, no, no, no, listen to me by you saying the words.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

It's I will tell you all like I know it was a flaw in my recording, but I understood what was going on. I know I missed a beautiful nuance, but I at no point was like, what is happening? What is anyone even saying in this? Like, I knew. No, you can get it.

SPEAKER_05 19:38

The Russians want the creature for evil Russia purposes.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

And at one point they were going to deport him if he did not get said creature, which is fair within their rights in that deport dead.

SPEAKER_05 19:52

Deport is is a different word, yes.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

Yep. I mean, deport might be what they told him, but as we see.

SPEAKER_05 19:59

I mean, because he comes with his big pat.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

I love him so much. Even while he was giving them buttercake. See, I knew what was happening.

SPEAKER_09 20:09

Yeah, I mean, he was worried in that scene because he didn't actually kill the fish. They asked him to kill the fish. Yeah, I I could tell. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

But he didn't kill the fish, he helped the ki the fish escape.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

It's the early 60s, and the hope is that they can get something out of it for the space race. But frankly, the Russians were already ahead at this point. So they just needed the Americans not to get anything, and they're still coming out neutral.

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Yeah. They put a dog in space, they put a man in space. Right?

SPEAKER_09 20:41

When it's like, oh, you can't get you can't get him out of this secret government lab. Well then just kill him. Yeah. Yep. Just kill him and make sure that like they can't get anything off of his body.

SPEAKER_05 20:49

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

As long as the Americans don't gain anything, we're fine.

SPEAKER_05 20:53

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 20:55

I was gonna say I also love the the subtleties of a lot of of this movie in like what's happening behind the scenes, but like the smoking scene where they're all secretly smoking just by pushing a camera slightly up.

SPEAKER_07 21:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:11

And you're like, oh, it's so subtle. And you know it's coming back. You know that's Chekhov's camera right there.

SPEAKER_09 21:18

And also, just generally, it feels like this place. Once you're past the first layer of security, that's it. Oh, yeah. Because the amount of time that Alina's able to just spend with the fishman is absurd.

SPEAKER_03 21:32

Continually, she's like, Oh look her because she's a little deaf girl or blorry, mute girl. She is not deaf. She can hear. Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 21:39

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

Which they all keep forgetting. The cleaning lady aspect of it.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

Like they are not mucking out this fishman on their own. Okay. Security is one thing, high level stat clearance is in is one thing. But no one is cleaning up after this fish man. They hire people to do that.

SPEAKER_07 22:00

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_09 22:00

Well, and they they notably do not like like literally don't think of them at all. At no point are they ever suspects in the fishman's escape.

SPEAKER_05 22:11

And then he's like, Why am I talking to them?

SPEAKER_08 22:13

Why am I talking to them to help?

SPEAKER_05 22:14

I was gonna say, I love Dimitri's like the lies that he's spilling in there, and like all the lies of like, oh well, it's probably 10 people, and like there can't be like everything just be like, well, I I guess. And then everybody's like, well, obviously.

SPEAKER_09 22:30

That wasn't the what that wasn't Dimitri though.

SPEAKER_05 22:31

That was the guy.

SPEAKER_09 22:33

That was the other guy, the guy the the guy from Stargate. Uh the guy who drives him around. Yeah, with the with the with the very with the very spiky hair. He's the one who says he's the one who comes and goes like, look, I was looking around. If they did, if they did this, they must have had at least 10 men. Which I'm sure it's just it's just him covering his butt of like how easy it was to get.

SPEAKER_05 22:51

Well, I mean, he is head of security. He says that immediately. When Michael Shannon comes and he's like, Who's security? He's like, It's me. He's like, I don't know, it has to be 10 guys. Gotta be 10.

SPEAKER_09 23:02

10, 10, 20, 100 men.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

100 men with helicopters.

SPEAKER_04 23:06

Yeah. Tactically scheduled.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

In fairness, two cleaning ladies and an artist would not have fully pulled this off if they didn't have a Russian spy with a syringe full of poison and a blow-up.

SPEAKER_09 23:18

To be able to like knock out the power.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Knocking out the power was a big help.

SPEAKER_05 23:23

It was.

SPEAKER_09 23:24

Yeah. But that but that's like that's part of the that is part of the fairy tale aesthetic of all these things. Where it's like things happen because that is the story being told. Like there's there's a lot more stuff. Like I find coincidences are a lot easier to throw off of when you have like a fairy tale story because you're supposed to be like, well, it happens because it's a story.

unknown 23:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 23:43

And it was like very soothing because through it you knew that things would be monstrous and scary things would happen, but it was going to be okay. Somehow, some way. Maybe they were gonna become sea foam together. Who knows? But you knew that somehow it was gonna be okay because of how it was framed.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

Yeah. Because the and the opening monologue was melancholy but not laced with tragedy. And had, I think, a great bit of foreshadowing. He's right, as Richard Jenkins says, and the monster who almost destroyed everything. That's when Michael Shannon's name pops up on screen. Yeah, yes. Yeah, I can play.

SPEAKER_05 24:20

It's very well played. Very unlike. And the monster.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Michael Shannon!

SPEAKER_05 24:25

Michael Shannon! But it's it's like those little nuances of like the credit sequence being done that way. And like the the beautiful moment of the healing properties of our fishman aren't actually revealed by him healing himself, or any it's the hair. It's the hair. It's when Giles takes off and he's like, oh my, I have hair. And then he looks at his arm and his arm is healed. Like it's those little little bits that you're like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_09 24:57

I also think, weirdly enough, that's an important moment to clarify that the because it's worth mentioning, that the monstrous fish man can understand people's emotions because he doesn't, because it doesn't just fix like the it's easy to see, like, oh, you got a wound on your arm. That's okay. But he could tell that that man was very, very self-conscious about his hair. And that's not something that like an animal would cue onto. So I think it was a very important thing to be able for us to be like, yeah, no, it's this person can definitely feel like human, what we call like human empathy.

SPEAKER_05 25:35

And he learns very well, but here's the thing I was just gonna say about the cats. So, number one, cats like uh mythologically and historically, cats are not great. Cats are usually associated with evil and so on. So I always understand, I'm always really disappointed and sad, but I understand why cats are usually killed in stories like this. It's because of the like mythological signs that they're evil and signs of the devil and witchy in witchcraft and magic and all that stuff. But then the next scene is him playing with the other cats, and he's very friendly because he's like, Oh, wait, no, these are not evil creatures like burdening us with I don't know, dark magic.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

He gets it now. He's starting to understand what pets are as well. Or he just knows they're not foods. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 26:28

Like a mid-like, I think, I think this scene, if we're gonna talk about like like in the existence of just like why it exists in the film, I think the scene exists because it is important to every so often remind people like, oh, he he is dangerous. Because it's that's something you do in romances. You're like, oh, but it's like you know, beauty and the beast when the beast sometimes gets like gets upset about things. Those exist so you can be like, oh, this is can never work, or else it'll be too easy. And and two, I mean, realistically, when you look at it, we do have a lot, like, a lot of animals around, and some we eat and some we don't, and he had not figured out yet which ones are eating he's gonna he's he's eating a lot of protein. Like he needs eggs. He has not figured out which so is eggs. Maybe you thought like people eat these things clearly when they're hungry.

SPEAKER_02 27:13

Which ones are eating don't is based on the cuteness scale. That's a whole new thing he has to parse.

SPEAKER_05 27:18

I know, right? It's hard. It's hard. Maybe what's cute to fish is not cute to person.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

We don't know.

SPEAKER_05 27:24

Yeah, we also don't know what let's be real here. We do not know what his natural diet is. He's been fed weird green box pellets and eggs. We don't know what he would eat in the wild.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

Yeah, we don't know what the Amazonians were feeding him.

SPEAKER_05 27:42

No.

SPEAKER_09 27:43

Do we want to talk about the ending? Are there more things throughout?

SPEAKER_05 27:47

Well, this is the the lead up to that, but you go, Dan, about the healing. The healing comes back.

SPEAKER_07 27:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

Well, the healing comes back in the end. That wasn't uh one of my big points, is there are a couple things before the ending I have. Uh a fun fact and uh my favorite speech in the movie. They're separate things, but the fun fact is that apparently the underwater sex scene was a huge challenge for Sally Hawkins to film. But it was also her last scene to shoot in the movie. After which she got to fly to England to do Paddington 2, which meant immediately doing more underwater stunt scenes.

SPEAKER_05 28:22

Aww, Sally.

SPEAKER_02 28:24

Yeah. And my favorite speech is when Michael Shannon is trying to convince the general that he doesn't deserve to have his career set on fire for losing the fish man. Because what about decency? Just that moment of the other kind of decency. We sell it, but it's an export. We sell it because we don't use it. Is some of the best commentary on America that I had seen in movies in rears.

SPEAKER_09 28:54

I mean, the description that Gerald gives of what of what he will do to him is like, I will send you to a universe of shit. I'm like, what? What is this? Wait, what is happening? I will tear you apart and send you a universe of shit. Like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Okay, sir.

SPEAKER_09 29:10

One quick thing about what I'm saying before I get to get there. I do want to uh point out the Wat Tai scene where they go in. I think it's the Dimitri goes in and he's reading the power of positive thinking. And I'm like, man, if there's one person who doesn't who needs less self-encouragement, it's this man.

SPEAKER_05 29:24

Yeah, he does not need this book.

SPEAKER_09 29:27

No, this book's not for him.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

He has the confidence to infiltrate an American military science base. Dimitri has positive thinking as well.

SPEAKER_09 29:37

Yeah. But Michael Shannon does not need any more positive.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Oh no, he does not need any more positive thinking. He, if anything, needs to learn the power of self-doubt.

unknown 29:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:48

Just occasionally.

SPEAKER_09 29:49

Yeah. Unfortunately, he won't have a lot of time to um implement his newly learned doubting.

SPEAKER_05 29:55

No. Nope.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

He gets that brief moment of, oh fuck, you are a god.

SPEAKER_05 30:01

It's also such a beautiful, once again, fairy tale ending where the bad guy kills, quote unquote, the monster who is actually the good guy. It's Gaston and the beast fighting on the turrets. It's that. And then the beast, there's a creature coming up and rising out of the ashes and being like, nah, bitch. You suck.

SPEAKER_02 30:25

He gets a few seconds to realize that everything he's thought about the world was wrong, and now his world is pretty much over. Not quite as long as the closest parallel I have being one of the villains from the first crow movie, who got to realize that the person about to kill him was the guy he killed a year ago. So he really gets to marinate in Oh, the afterlife is real. And it hates me specifically.

SPEAKER_09 30:56

Michael Shannon held on for as long as he can. Hey, another another bit of a metaphor. He the with his rotting fingers. I mean, he held on to those for because he was trying to hold on to the old ways for much longer than he should have. Those things were rotting for a long time. He should have gotten rid of them sooner.

SPEAKER_05 31:14

Yep, people literally commented on that. Oh, it's not a good thing.

SPEAKER_09 31:17

Yeah, but he would he wouldn't let him go. He wouldn't let him go.

SPEAKER_02 31:21

They're bleeding when he has sex with his wife. The squeezing out the pus. His driver is complaining about the smell. Oh, and yes, where Chekhov's gun are concerned, the beautiful final knife twist of the fishman heist was the fact that they smashed up his car on their way out.

SPEAKER_05 31:39

Oh, it's glorious. Yes.

SPEAKER_09 31:41

His teal car. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:42

See a proud white man but buy a shiny new car for himself in a movie. That car is getting wrecked.

SPEAKER_09 31:49

It's the future. So, question about the ending for everyone, everyone's opinions, because I I think the ending is purposefully vague in many ways. Because I think you can see it in a few different ways. So what do you what's everyone's opinions on how the what happened at the end of that?

SPEAKER_03 32:05

I think she turned back into her true fish form and they live together under the sea. That's what I think as well.

SPEAKER_09 32:12

That's certainly what um oh what is that? What is the the neighbors? That's certainly what the neighbors.

SPEAKER_02 32:16

That's the way he's telling it. Yeah. But yeah, she was born with a vestigial gill. She's had an affinity for water the whole time.

SPEAKER_09 32:24

There there are definitely like hints out there because she was like found by a river. River, and like her the scars on her neck do look a lot like gills. So I just I just think it's it's kind of nice that the way that it's ended does kind of give you like you you can kind of look at it like it is this, like, oh, it is she gotta go off and live in the nice uh water, or maybe he just brought her down and then unfortunately she died under there. And when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter. That's true. It could just be a story he tells himself, but yeah, because in in in any case, the story is still like the story. And I think that's like a hard thing to pull off. I think this movie did pretty well.

SPEAKER_03 33:10

A reflection that I want to share that I think is interesting for both myself and Kevin is we are watching this movie now in the year of our Lord 2026. And though I've not read any monster romance novels, I know that they are like an extremely prevalent part of the culture now. And so the idea of a woman boning a fish fan is like normal when you have books where women are having sex with doors, sentient doors, doors with appendages. And so because of that, I was like, hmm. Whereas like I feel like maybe when this movie came out, people felt perhaps somewhat differently. I don't know.

SPEAKER_09 33:50

I I would say that maybe it was just like the part of the um internet that I I was on. I was very aware of the monster fucker subculture.

SPEAKER_02 34:01

We were years past Bella Swan having decide if she wanted the sexy vampire or the sexy werewolf. Okay.

SPEAKER_09 34:08

It definitely is not as like now. I think everyone is aware of it.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

The avalanche had started and it was too late for the pebbles to have a vote.

SPEAKER_03 34:16

I just feel like people were like, oh my god, she has sex with a fish. Whereas when I saw it, it was like, eh, that's a man. That's a scaly Doug Jones giant man.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

It could be both. He was a fish monster, but he had kind eyes. Didn't. This is around the time King Kong the musical was happening, at which point they dispensed with needing a human love interest to balance the chemistry with the ape.

SPEAKER_09 34:42

Yeah, the problem in 2017 is I already uh knew about the people who were like, I wish the beast didn't turn back at the end. Like, that was already a prevailant thought that I was aware of at the time.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

That was out there, so the time was now for Guillermo del Toro to pull the trigger on his creature from the Black Lagoon slash fic that he'd been writing since the 60s.

SPEAKER_09 35:03

I mean, he figured the people who were into Abe Sapien, like people are like, like he somebody told him that at some point, and he was like, good.

SPEAKER_03 35:10

It was like perfect. I'm just saying that I feel like like the Mormon housewives, like the girls with their Utah curl their Utah curls and their like big floppy hats were like pearl clutching in 2017. Whereas in 2026, they'd be like, oh no, no, no, I I read a book that's worse than that.

SPEAKER_05 35:26

Yeah, they're like the book I'm currently reading is about a woman and dragons.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

Yeah, the embegaverse hadn't happened. Like the line for romance novels has is not where it was.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

Yeah. Nothing about the fishband inflates and not.

SPEAKER_03 35:42

It's true. Or does it? We don't know. We saw her open the clamshell, close the shamshell, and then poke her finger out. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

She did not continue gesturing after that point. That was not subtitled, by the way, as sign language goes.

SPEAKER_03 35:54

Yeah, no, that was.

SPEAKER_05 35:58

Maybe she was just being respectful, you know, respecting her man's privacy. Yep. And then it we just have to look at Octavia Spencer's face after that, going, uh, uh girl.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

You can't trust any of them. Even the one smooth like a kendal.

SPEAKER_05 36:13

I love it because that is that is a girlfriend right there. She is like, you know what, Ian to some freaky deaky stuff. That cool with me. Thumbs up, let's go clean this toilet. Like, she they are girl bonded, and it's great.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

Like Ergay Pest Pal. It took her a second to get on board with we're stealing this fish man.

SPEAKER_05 36:37

It did, but she was there. Once the plan was in motion and her stupid husband spit.

SPEAKER_03 36:43

The one time chooses to talk.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

Now you start talking.

SPEAKER_05 36:48

Idiot.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

I mean, what's she supposed to do? Rip off two of her fingers and throw them at him?

SPEAKER_09 36:54

A little bit impressive.

SPEAKER_02 36:55

Yeah, not only did he get someone to produce this creature from the Black Lagoon fantasies, but he got it nominated for 13 Oscars, one short of what had then been the record. But it only took four. Picture, director, production design, and score. It lost lead actress for Sally Hawkins, supporting actress for Octavia Spencer, supporting actor for Richard Jenkins, original screenplay, cinematography, costing design, editing, sound editing, and sound mixing. It won the Critic's Choice Award, but it lost both the Globe and the BAFTA. Uh Rotten Tomatoes, time of recording. Well, when I wrote this down a week ago, had it at number 49 under Rocky and over Shakespeare in Love. I had originally placed it, I think, a little too high in the teens and have knocked it down to twenty-two under the sting and over the apartment.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_09 37:44

Yeah, feels right.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

Like there's fifty metaphors, and none of them are deep. Like, we didn't even talk about the bigoted pie merchant who is tragically the Canadian of the cast.

SPEAKER_04 37:55

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_09 37:56

Well, I mean, what once again, it's uh it's the neighbor thinks that he's part of he's free, he's part of the society. Then he gets his work doesn't care, and then in one very quick moment, he learns all the trash things about the pie man.

SPEAKER_05 38:11

Pie man sucks.

SPEAKER_09 38:13

But he kept eating the green pie.

SPEAKER_05 38:15

Well, he he put it in his fridge. He kept he brought it at home. He took the pie.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

Get another flavor if you can't finish one slice of key lime.

SPEAKER_05 38:28

Also, that key lime pie, that is not the color key lime pie is.

SPEAKER_04 38:32

No, that was incorrect.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

In the 60s, this is his 60s when housewives are being irresponsible with gelatin.

SPEAKER_05 38:43

I mean, they loved a jello mold, let's be real here, and putting meat in their jello.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

Yeah, I'm sure Michael Shannon's wife did a gelatin at one point in this movie.

SPEAKER_05 38:54

She did. She brings it into the living room. When the kids are watching TV, they want to watch bonanza, and she's like, this is a gelatin mold, and then puts it down on the side table.

SPEAKER_02 39:03

Our other nominees, ranked at number nine by me, is Darkest Hour, with Gary Oldman throwing on a fat suit to win every acting award on offer, as Winston Churchill trying to keep England in the fight with Germany, despite the army being pushed to the coasts of Dunkirk.

SPEAKER_03 39:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

At number eight, call me by your name, in which an emerging young actor named Timothy Chalamet is an American teen in Italy who has sex with both a peach and sex cannibal army hammer. We still haven't figured out which one we're less okay with.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

So this is the year of weird sex. Got it. Yes. Yep. Here for it? Question mark?

SPEAKER_02 39:38

It's not over. Number seven was the Phantom Thread, intended to be Daniel Day Lewis's retirement performance as a fashion designer who enters into an unorthodox relationship with his new model.

SPEAKER_09 39:52

Cool. Okay. Thanks. Thanks, movies for English professors.

SPEAKER_04 39:58

Yep. Deep movies, important movies. Oh, what's next, Dan? What comes next?

SPEAKER_02 40:05

I was just going to explain that uh Daniel Day Lewis just wants to control her as a muse. She wants to be care for him as a partner, and to make this happen, she will poison him with mushrooms.

SPEAKER_07 40:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

And the end makes it clear that he is aware that this is their new arrangement. That when she feels neglected, she's gonna poison him with mushrooms, and he's gonna need her for four days.

SPEAKER_05 40:27

You know what? How you show love. Yep. Just a little bit of poisoning. Each relationship has its own dynamic. Yep.

SPEAKER_09 40:34

It's like the Joker in Harley Quibb.

SPEAKER_02 40:38

That was from Paul Thomas Anderson because up until recently, there were two types of Paul Thomas Anderson movies. Movies set in the San Fernando Valley and movies starring Daniel Day Lewis in Never Shall Thy Meet. Number six. Less Sex Stuff. The Post from Steven Spielberg with Meryl Streeps and Tom Hanks leading an all-star cast as the heads of the Washington Post deciding whether to publish papers on the truth behind America's involvement in Vietnam. Not the movie I expected to get a Mr. Show with Bob and David reunion in. Number five, three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri from Martin McDonough, with Francis McDonald as a mother who buys three billboards to shame the local sheriff for not finding whoever killed her daughter. Took the Globe, the BAFTA, and every available award from McDormand and Sam Rockwell as a bad cop who decides to maybe be a good cop.

SPEAKER_09 41:27

What if what if my boss was racist?

SPEAKER_06 41:31

There is a lot of Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 41:33

That's all the premise of three three billboards that's having to say.

SPEAKER_02 41:36

Well, it more comes along because Woody Harrelson is the sheriff who has aggressive cancer and leaves a final note to his deputy saying, You're a piece of shit racist cop, but you're not that dumb. So if you considered not being a terrible person and just being a good cop, I don't have enough time to teach you how to do that, so I need you to experiment.

SPEAKER_09 42:02

Sorry, he didn't survive. We had more people who died from cancer telling them not to be racist.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Editing Dan here. Number four was Dunkirk. Sorry. Skipped that one. And now none of us get to know what Aaron and Clara think about it. My bad. Number three is where I put the shape of water. Number two, Lady Bird from Greta Gerwig with Sar Sharon as a dramatic teen in an ongoing feud with her passive aggressive mother. Yeah, good movie. And number one, Get Out, Jordan Peele's debut horror movie, in which a black man's introduction to his white girlfriend's parents goes awry in specific and unpredicted ways.

SPEAKER_05 42:38

I love that movie. Yeah, Get Out is so good. So good. So creepy, so gross, so good.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

That's what beat out Guillermo for original script and fair.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:50

Okay, with that, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:51

Yeah. We just weren't ready for a twin best picture, like a horror movie winning best picture in the mid-2010s.

SPEAKER_09 42:58

I also think like I would I also say shit shape of water, like like because picture has a lot of stuff involved in it. And I I don't know, I think Shape of Water did that very well, but I do think get out is a better script than Shape of Water.

SPEAKER_03 43:09

Yes. Yeah. And a warfun hang.

SPEAKER_05 43:12

Fun quotation marks. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're we're with you on that one. We understand what you mean.

unknown 43:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 43:19

Fun subjectively. And non-derogatory.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

Yeah. Well, if at the box office, it'd been two full years. Well, one year. So it's time for another Star War. And we'll see if Erin finally got her casino planet.

SPEAKER_03 43:35

I did it! Okay. Every time we watch a Star Wars movie, I'm like, this is the casino one. But this time, this was the casino one. Uh so the Last Jedi picks up basically where the other one that I forgot the title of left off. You know, the one where we met Kylo Ren and Ray and all our fun friends. So the resistance has once again failed. They are On the run, and there are like 12 good guys left. But don't worry because Ray is gonna go to an island and she's gonna bug Luke Skywalker until he eventually sword trains her. And then he implodes, explodes. He forces, he's gonna force. And Kylo Ren is gonna Kylo Ren. He's emotional instable. He is a whiny, dark-haired boy, and he has launched a thousand ships. And by ships, I mean just him and Ray. And there are gonna be so many books about them. And then meanwhile, Poe and Finn and Leia are doing things to evade the first order. And casinos. Casinos. Space gambling. We like it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 44:43

I did say before I I said decidedly to myself, which is I thought it beforehand that whatever Erin said during that synopsis, I was not going to cut in.

SPEAKER_05 44:53

And you did not. You did not cut in.

SPEAKER_09 44:56

I did I did not cut in. You did no, admittedly, you did. Yep. When you said a thousand ships, you did mean like the the relationships, like the shipping, not a thousand ships. Because I'm like not spaceships.

SPEAKER_03 45:11

Not spaceships, just romance ships.

SPEAKER_09 45:14

Romance ships, yes, yes, Ray Low.

SPEAKER_03 45:16

Yes. Kylo Ray is not going Ren. Kylo Wren is not going to lead anything, really. He's just gonna be a little baby all the time.

SPEAKER_07 45:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:26

Why baby with a hot man's body or a weird-looking man's body, but he's very tall and people like it. Yeah, because when he does try and lead, he's actually just thick angry.

SPEAKER_05 45:38

Like he literally tells them to just shoot everything they have at Luke. That is the end of the movie, pretty much. He's like, shoot him, shoot him with everything. And they're like, Are you sure, sir? He's like, do it. And then it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_09 45:55

He's bad at being in charge of things. That's like the fun thing about him. We need to avoid having this review of this movie recap of this movie take three hours, so I'm just gonna uh be here to jump in when moments come up. I like the last Jedi. I like Last Last Jedi a whole lot.

SPEAKER_03 46:18

This is my favorite one. This is why I kept thinking every movie was this movie, because it's my favorite one.

SPEAKER_02 46:23

I'm also very pro-Last Jedi. To be clear that I'm not signing on with the rage farming YouTubers, who I believe were summed up best by Nando V movies when he was discussing She-Hulk discourse. It's like we're we in Philadelphia, we know what these people are. They're jabronies. Which is the term I will be using. But also there is a problem amongst the jabronies who consider themselves cinephiles in that there are just a classification of them that is not limited to just Star Wars, but other phantoms and other movie analysis as well, where their uh media literacy begins and ends with is it badass, yes, no.

SPEAKER_03 47:07

Man, jabroni is one of my favorite words to describe a certain subset of uh man.

SPEAKER_09 47:13

To make sure we see all sides of things. Also, one of the one of the few like legitimate criticisms of Last Jedi that I will usually like actually let stand is that it doesn't really like it doesn't do what Star Wars norm movies normally do. But then I would argue, is that a bad thing? Like Star Wars by and far is not good.

SPEAKER_10 47:40

Like it's not good.

SPEAKER_02 47:43

We just come off two years of complaining that Force Awakens did too many things that Star Wars have done. Like, yeah, pick a lane phantom. This is why everyone says no one hates Star Wars like Star Wars fans.

SPEAKER_05 47:56

This is also the middle movie. Like, we didn't have to watch the Clone Wars, Return of the Clones, Return of the World War Wars. Attack going on Attack. I was like, no, no, no, I'm I'm wrong. Um Attack of the Clones, but we did watch Empire Strikes Back, and Star Wars has a middle movie thing, and this is middle movie. They're like, we got it. Here's middle movie. We're gonna put things in, and it's gonna be great or it's gonna be bad, but it's middle movie. We got other stuff we're gonna do later.

SPEAKER_03 48:25

I would say in a good trilogy, the middle movie is actually the best one because it's the one where they like hit their stride, they get to do fun hijinks, there's good character stuff happening, and someone might die, but you don't have to worry about having like world-changing events. Exactly. The middle movie. Yeah, that's like a single planet. Yeah. Or two towers. Love two towers. I love two hours.

SPEAKER_02 48:52

I've also heard that Canto Bite was an attempt to inject a little prequel energy in for the youngsters. But okay, so I do think this is one of the very best of the Star Wars's, as I'm probably gonna circle back to before we're done. And love Ryan Johnson. I was thrilled to hear that the man behind Brick and Looper was gonna do a Star Wars. And my only consolation for him not doing more Star Wars is that he gave us knives out, and Benoit Blanc means everything to me.

SPEAKER_07 49:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

And without knives out, I would not be able to say, and Joseph Gordon Levitt played the voice of the hourly dong. But I do have I do have some criticisms, and one plays in Declare's middle movie thing, and this isn't Ryan Johnson's fault. It's a little bit I'm not even gonna say it's his fault that well, as I said two episodes ago, you could either lean into nostalgia and try to recreate what people loved about Star Wars, or try to break away and build a new Sega for new generations, and maybe doing one of each was a mistake. But this wasn't supposed to be the middle of a trilogy. When Ryan Johnson wrote episode eight, it was assumed it was known that episode nine would be followed by ten through twelve. So it's kind of an Empire Strikes Back Return of the Jedi situation, where there's like four more on the horizon, but then suddenly there aren't. So uh several of what become my quibbles with this movie boil down to he wasn't trying to write a story that would resolve itself in the next installment.

SPEAKER_09 50:39

Well, I even then, like, I think it's a it it resolved the things that needed to be resolved, it set up things that could that could be set up. And I I'm also with people because we mentioned uh Force Awakens, which is the name of the last one.

SPEAKER_03 50:50

Thank you.

SPEAKER_09 50:51

I'm also a pretty good defender of that. I think that was a pretty good one because it came, it's been a long time since we had a Star Wars movie. It came back and it showed you a lot of familiar sights. It did them in different ways, but like we saw a trench run. We saw a lot, we we saw a lot of very familiar sites, and I think that is like a good use of the first movie back after. I mean, let's let's let's be it's been a while, and not only that, the prequel trilogy was not well received. Like people didn't like did like it.

SPEAKER_02 51:22

It's in its redemption era, but it was extremely controversial.

SPEAKER_09 51:25

I think it's a nostalgia era era. Potato potato. But this one then, so that one just said, hey, look, we here are things you recognize. And then this one said, Hey, let's be more. Let's be more than just the things you recognize. Let's not just be a ready player one march of familiar faces. Let's show you new things so you can get excited about the fact that there could be more. And then people saw that and went and said, I don't want new things. I don't want old things either, but I don't want new things.

SPEAKER_02 51:58

I want you to magically guess what exact blend of new old things in new ways I want, and we'll throw a tantrum if one of them isn't right. Luke isn't badass enough, thus, my life is ruined, and I will spend the next nine years whinging on YouTube about it.

SPEAKER_05 52:15

But here's the thing Luke, since a new hope, has never been a badass. Luke is just the little like guy that gets thrown into it and there's like, oh my god! He hunts him in that way. Yes.

SPEAKER_09 52:30

But Claire, you you forget he became a Jedi master and he uh married, married Mara Jade, and he had uh two children. Something that happened in the expanded universe that never actually happened, but every but there's uh there's not a nonstream amount of people who are just upset that the movies aren't specifically these books that were published, which also aren't good. Some of them are fun. Like the thing about Star Wars is I say Star Wars is bad. It's fun, it's a very fun thing, and this one tried to make it good.

SPEAKER_03 53:02

The thing with Star Wars is it makes no sense if you're watching, and I'm just talking about the Skywalker trilogies, the triad of trilogies. They do not have to be a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 53:13

Saga, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:15

If you think about them too much while you're watching them, you're like, What? How how is any of this anything? And yes, I have watched some of the supplemental properties, they explain a lot more. But it doesn't matter that they don't make sense because these movies hit like deep visceral familiar plot points that feel good in our body, and we like them, even though we cannot think while we are watching these movies.

SPEAKER_09 53:38

I I would also argue that I don't think like the main ones, it's not that they don't make sense, it's that they are heightened and they are dramatic and like like I like don't make sense like yeah, like space doesn't work like space does in our universe, but that doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_05 53:54

Like it's also a long time ago. Let's never forget this. In a galaxy far, far away.

SPEAKER_02 54:02

I was gonna ask Claire could also tell us where it was.

SPEAKER_03 54:05

Yeah, if I try to understand your political structure, my brain fractures.

SPEAKER_02 54:11

And of course, Patrick Willems immortally took on a lot of criticisms of The Last Jedi by just holding up a sign reading, this is a movie about space wizards intended for children.

SPEAKER_09 54:22

And and like if you look, if if you look at it as like the most lowest common dominator, this is a movie of space wizards for children. It's astoundingly good movie about space wizards for children. I would argue that also if you look at it like, hey, this is a sci-fi fantasy film that is a discussion on growing up and failure and moving forward, it's really good as that as well. It's hard to do a movie that's about failing. And like, because that's not like a fun feeling. It's not a fun feeling to fail. And so this is a movie that's about people failing over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_02 55:02

The protagonists fail constantly. Everything Poe and Finn and Rose are trying to do is screwing up, and people are dying, which brings me to my other complaint about this movie, which No Gibroni has brought up to the best of my knowledge, because your media literacy is bad and I was paying attention. And maybe this is also me not having the best at media analysis or anything, but I just that I find something unsettling, incongruous, unpleasant about sort of how this movie operates. Because here's it grows out of a strength of Ryan Johnson in this movie, which is that he makes you feel every resistance loss, every bomber, every X-Wing, every transport. Feels like a tragedy and an irreplaceable loss to the resistance. And that's good. That's where we should be in this movie. However, the first order loses a dreadnought, six star destroyers, their flagship, Star Killer Base, countless men and material on board, all of those things, and Supreme Leader Snoke. And that feels like it should be more than an inconvenience.

SPEAKER_03 56:25

Yeah, but don't worry, Dan, because in the next movie, they're just gonna run it all back, and someone who should be dead is just there with the powers of all of the bad guys of history inside his wizened body.

SPEAKER_02 56:40

I'll come, I'll come back to that.

SPEAKER_05 56:42

I was like, we're gonna talk about that later.

SPEAKER_09 56:44

I think we're gonna hit the point at the beginning of this movie because like if we think of how the last one ended, yeah, the first order lost a lot, but the the resistance lost six planets, which was their entire bank roll. Like the the the the uh the idea of this is that these two groups are fighting, and that's the sort of the big thing about the dreadnought scene. Because there's the whole thing with the beginning, um Poe uh decides to go after the dreadnought, despite people saying not to, and then like they triumphantly destroy the uh the dreadnought. But something I always note about that scene is that the music that plays when the dreadnought blows up, that's not triumphant. We've heard triumphant music in Star Wars. It's dramatic music, but it's sort of is supposed to be like it's putting you tonally in the in the mindset of when you see Leia look at the um the screen of all the ships. The screen that has shows all those ships that they lost doing that. So it's like yeah, they blew up, they did blow up a dreadnought. You're like, oh yeah, cool, they did this, they succeeded. They blew up a dreadnought. It's like the first order still has a lot of stuff. So like you and you have not a lot of stuff. Your your people are more important, like like just like value-wise than the first because the the first order just goes out and kidnaps people and turns them into soldiers. Yeah, you need to convince people to work with you.

SPEAKER_05 58:02

Well, and it's also they say they're down to 400, like in the scene right before they take their transport ships off their space, uh, their big ship, they say there's only 400 of them, and then the next scene is just the bay of the first order ship, and it's full of stormtroopers. Like there are way more than 400 stormtroopers in that bay. Yeah. And you're like, yeah, they have more people. But that's also we're it's an underdog. We're rooting for that underdog. We're rooting for the rebel like that's what it's all about.

SPEAKER_02 58:38

But so the first order still has ships to occupy the galaxy because they didn't send everybody to kill the resistance, they didn't need to. The first the resistance, the other hand, by the end of this movie, fits on the Millennium Falcon.

SPEAKER_09 58:51

Yeah, which means like what is it? What the next movie should have been is them rebuilding. And the idea is that you are reaching out to people. The people that you set up here from the fact that it's like, hey, there are people who've heard about us. Like the like the little kid just like sees like, and that's a little kid, but the idea is that it's supposed to be that people have heard about you, and so you you have gotten hit and you're down. This is this is the ending of Empire Strikes Back, except for on a grander scale.

SPEAKER_02 59:15

Yes, yeah, yeah. It's gonna take more than breaking into Jabba's palace to bounce back from this one. But the legends are out there, the stories are being send their distress signal, and they've now got race.

SPEAKER_09 59:29

And and it's and it's not the special bloodline of Django Fett's cousin coming in to help everyone. It's just like the normal people who get to like like Ray, who get to like stand up and be part of the rebellion. And then everyone who watched it said, No, how are they related to each other, though?

SPEAKER_02 59:52

I yeah, because of Jabronis. Because, yeah. Theoretically, I think now we need to rebuild would have been the next move if it weren't for the fact that the Jabronis threw a hissy fit for the ages, did, and then solo underperformed, and Disney panicked and said, Okay, we're gonna we're gonna wrap this on episode nine called the Skywalker Seg.

SPEAKER_09 1:00:17

Oh, yeah, them retroactively calling it the Skywalker Seg. Like it was not called the Skywalker Sky. Unless I'm crazy, it was not called the Skywalker Seg as we're putting it out. Oh no. And that's like for them to like couldn't like be like, it's fine that actually everyone is a Skywalker because like it's called that. It's supposed to be about it. That's the story.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:34

You're like, that wasn't your plan. That was not the plan.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:38

That was a Hail Mary when they started, when they got scared about the future of the franchise based on the hissy fit and not understanding once you have these non-sega filler movies, not everything is going to be a $1.5 billion hit. And if they'd just gone down the hall to the Marvel offices, yes, I assume they all share an office building in Burbank, Kevin Feige could have told them you don't get Infinity War money from Ant-Man and the Wasp. So budget accordingly.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:14

Yeah, JJ Abrams, go in there.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:17

As like a rando outsider who gets really caught in the weeds of how things work in this world. Is it not, though, like very on brand for Star Wars to be like, we're reacting to the audience? Like when the movie started, Luke and Leah were not brother and sister. They are forever pivoting, they're just like responding to fan discourse at all times.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:37

And like that's good. They were brother and sister because George Lucas got tired after Empire Strikes Back. Like, I gotta figure out who the Skywalker is. Who's the who's the girl in these movies? Leia. Uh George, they make out a lot.

SPEAKER_09 1:01:52

George, we already wrote this book novel where there's a lot of weird sexual attention between them. Publish it anyways.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:58

He's like, it's fine, it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:00

The So, yeah. And a lot of people will talk about the tug of war on this trilogy between J.J. Abrams and Ryan Johnson. And I think what I have heard recently that I agree with is that J.J. Abrams is great at beginnings and not great at endings. So he was given the first movie, and he just threw out all these possible story threads. Who are Ray's parents? What's Supreme Leader Snokes deal? What happened to turn Ben Solo into Kylo Ren? Who are the Knights of Ren? And Ryan Johnson did what anybody was going to do and said, I'll have that, I'll have that, I don't care about this. This one was dumb. This is a better resolution if it's a non-answer. Knights of Ren, someone will get to them down the line. Maybe when I do episodes 100%, I'll figure out what the Knights of Ren are supposed to be. Yeah. Nobody eventually cared about them ever because there wasn't enough time left to do anything interesting. They are technically in Rise of Skywalker, but you will forget that after watching it.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:05

That's before. I don't like JJ Abrams stuff. His stupid mystery box is bad. It's a bad movie theory. He's like, it doesn't matter what the answer is as long as the question is cool. It's like that's not how that works. That's not how riddles works.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:20

People want a resolution more than they want the question.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:23

The riddle has to be good.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:25

That fits into better at beginnings and endings. He's great at posing a question, terrible at giving a satisfying resolution. And then Colin Trevaro got fired off making an episode.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:37

He made a really bad movie called The Book of Henry.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:40

He did a terrible movie called The Book of Henry, and his uh script is allegedly out there. I will circle back to it.

SPEAKER_09 1:03:49

It's not better except for because there was one that was released, but I think also just somebody else said, here's what I would have done. I'm like, don't do this. That was somebody else. Somebody else, cool. The thing also, like, like people tend to forget that JJ Abrams did set up the whole, hey, Luke is off on a planet somewhere. So like that was something that he had to figure out. He abandoned everyone. How do you why do that? And two, why do you do that? What JJ Abrams didn't didn't set up who is Snoke. Like everyone just decided that Snoke must be someone. It's like, what do you mean? He's he's exactly who he is. Everyone was upset that he just died, being like, well, we didn't learn if he was Mace Windu. It's like what no one said that.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:32

He was just a guy. Yes, he's just a dude.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:35

Well, we mean I mean he's not just a dude, obviously. He's the guy who, but but he's not and he's exactly who he is. He's not secretly someone else or related to someone else. He's he's Snoke. Why can't you just accept someone can just be someone?

SPEAKER_05 1:04:49

Well, and that's the whole thing. Like, he's a supreme leader. You can just accept that someone they call supreme leader is supreme leader. Like, and he's also one with the force. Like, he's very powerful. He can control the force through a hologram. Like, he's very powerful. Let's just all accept that he's the supreme leader.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:10

There is a lot of holograms in FaceTime in this movie. I'm just saying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:14

Vader can also do some certain amount of darthing and using the bad force via Zoom call.

SPEAKER_09 1:05:20

It's hard to talk about this movie without talking about all of the backlash. But I have this one very clear memory in my head all the time, which is people complaining about Luke doing his like weird force projection thing, and then being like, uh, I don't think there's any point in time where they have confirmed that the force would allow you to do a force projection. And then Ryan Johnson replied by like going to the Star Wars compendium or something and like like opening it up and showing where the force projection was. But I would argue he didn't have to do that. Because do you know how we know that they can do a force projection using the force in Star Wars?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:50

They did it in the Star Wars movie?

SPEAKER_09 1:05:52

By watching the Star Wars film where he uses force projection.

SPEAKER_10 1:05:55

Like Yep, they make up a new force power in practically every movie. People

SPEAKER_09 1:06:00

People be like, people be like, what's the source for this?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:03

Yeah. The fortune exists mannequin.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:07

Liam Neeson.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:08

Yeah. They're not adapting the Bible. Like, this is the source material.

unknown 1:06:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:13

Nobody could come out of their fingers until Return of the Jedi.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:17

You also like, it's a thing of this is the balance of everything. There are no rules to it. Like, in the grand scheme of things, there are no rules to the force, because the force is everything and all things. And the balance between all of those things.

SPEAKER_10 1:06:34

It's a sonic screwdriver. It can do anything you want it to unless it can't.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:38

Exactly. So just let it do the things. No one was mad when Darth Maul showed up with tattoos and a double-sided lightsaber, I assume. I think that was the only thing people liked about that movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:50

Because he looked badass.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:51

Yeah. He wasn't a 60-year-old man doing FaceTime.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:55

But but the thing, the thing is, the thing is, Aaron, someone's gonna pop in and be like, well, that's he's a uh the Thurian. Anyway, he's this thing, and and I'll be like, yeah, but that didn't exist before he existed. He's not now because they're for this. And his brother's name is Savage.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:13

What about how every new Star Trek movie has a different cute um android and also a different cute alien species? Every movie has a new. We just keep getting more androids, androids everywhere. Cute fuzzy things everywhere. Every movie.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:32

The porcs in this movie. Cute. I love the scene where Chewie is literally roasting two of them, and they show up and they're like, Why are you gonna eat us?

SPEAKER_09 1:07:43

And he's like, ah, you always gotta have some creature custom made to sell toys in every single Star Wars movie. That's not that's not new. Nope.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:51

Exactly.

SPEAKER_09 1:07:52

That's not new.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:53

No, literally, Star Wars invented merchandising. Like that was one of their things. They invented the merchandising aspect of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:00

They haven't fully invented, they just showed up with 20th Century Fox had given up hope in merchandising because it was up until then it was like the equivalent of buying a souvenir program and a shotgun at the Broadway production of Wicked. And then that wasn't working for movies. So 20th Century said Fox 20th Century Fox said there's no money in merchandise. This Georgie Lucas kid, he'll waive his $500,000 fee to direct the movie in exchange for the merch rights. Sucker! We're gonna do so well off that deal.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:33

And who's laughing now?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:36

So I guess he did invent movie merchandise as we currently know it. Yeah, yeah, it it existed, but I love that porgs came around because the island where they filmed the Luke Ray stuff, which are my personal favorite parts of this whole movie, just gonna throw that out and move on. It was so covered in puffins that it was easier to invent porgs than digitally remove all the birds that are just on this island.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:02

I mean, that's what you get for filming on a remote island, they're gonna be puffins.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:07

Yeah, and they're puffins are cute, porgs are cute, it's perfect.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:11

I forgot to bring my shoulder-mounted porg to this recording.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:14

Well, you know what, Dan? Luckily we're a digital virtual radio medium. It would have made us happy, but all of our viewers would have been jealous. Listeners. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:25

Oh, he's vocal. He'd have shown up eventually.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:29

But sidebar on puffins, they just reintroduced puffins. I can't remember which island it is, but they just reintroduced them because they were extinct on this island on the Atlantic. And they did it by using the fake ones, like what you get the owls that scare away pigeons. So they're plastic puffins that they put on this island to trick real puffins into thinking that there's a colony to like attract morph puffins, and now this island has puffins, and it's really freaking cute.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:00

Anyway, it's a real Star Wars level plot there.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:03

Sidebar on puffins.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:05

No, that no, that no, they just honeypotted a bunch of puffins.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:10

They really did.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:11

Sometimes he got a can we talk for a quick quick moment about the whole-do maneuver?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:17

The hold on maneuver, first of all, that shot is gorgeous.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:22

I have a specific story about seeing that in theaters where the like did turn and then it hits, and then you get like the absolute silence and the light. And remember, just the entire audience, like everyone just was just quiet, so quiet. And then I just hear one person and I just go, Whoa. Yeah like it was in it, it was such a big moment that like no like that's hilarious to say now. No one laughed at that. Like, like that's so funny, but nobody laughed at the moment because it was just such like a image, like it was so cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:54

Yeah, it was such a spectacular moment that Chabronis winch about because a woman did it, but and it's such an incredible shot. Just the the lines cutting through the entire First Order fleet.

SPEAKER_09 1:11:08

The new thing I've seen people saying is them being like, Admiral Akbar should have done that. I'm like, why?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:14

Why? Yeah. When does he ever do anything but like make a quippy fun comment in a show?

SPEAKER_09 1:11:20

Yeah, I'm like, like, like if you're just in the main line, like I understand if you go into the Xavier universe, his daughter is a character. I don't care. He doesn't appear in that much. He's a character who is a very big meme, and he is like the lore-wise, yeah, lore-wise, he's important, and he you know, he does die in this movie, but like we needed the character that was introduced in this film to be involved. Like, it was set up, it's such a clear indication of how these people think of things. They're like, Akbar should have done it because he's a character I know, and this is an impressive moment, forgetting that there it is this moment exists in the encapsulation of a movie. It's not just uh a scene to take out of context and be like, Akbar did that. It's context.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:06

Now I know how it should have ended did have a bit where Akbar did that. But first of all, how it should have ended is a comedy channel that does not always want you to take them literally. And second of all, Admiral Akbar yelling at General Hucks over comms, What is this? I understand the question. It's a trap and then firing is a hilarious bit for how it should have ended.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:33

Not a good moment for this big, impactful, dramatic moment. Some of these are just funny jokes.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:38

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:40

This is Laura Dern's moment to sacrifice herself because we had been distrusting Laura Dern since she'd shown up and been put in charge because Poe didn't trust her, and we like Poe, and we haven't understood that the only thing Poe was technically right about was they probably did need to blow up that dreadnought because it also would have chased them and probably would have had an easier time shooting them from a distance.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:02

Yeah, but at the time they did not know the dreadnought could chase them. At the time they're like, once you jump some light. By the time we jumped some lights, we are safe. Like that was the that was the Yeah, they that's all they know.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:12

And then when they chase them through light speed, they're like, oh wait, what? That's impossible. They literally say that's impossible.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:18

At which point then they could have released the people to go blow up the dreadnought, but instead they didn't have any fighters anymore because they blew them all up before they jumped and actually knew the problem.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:28

Kylo Red blew up before they could launch.

SPEAKER_09 1:13:31

I remember one thing about the because a lot of this is tagging people with the criticisms where people tell me, like, well, if they were someone could do that, why wouldn't they just do it all the time? I'm like, well, because the movie shows you why they do it all the time. Because one, it actually didn't destroy that ship, it incapacitated it. Like it blew up a chunk of it, but like Ren and the Keller Wren and Ray were still in the ship, and other people were still in the ship. Like it it definitely a lot of people got off that ship. It would take them a long time to fix it, but you blew up one of your ships to try to do that. Straight up gone. And yeah, and two, the only reason it worked is because they chose not to shoot Holdos like as she was turning. They're like, who cares if she's turning? Let's keep shooting these guys. And when they did, it was too late already. So like it the movie shows you why it wouldn't work as like a main tactic that these things would use.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:23

Even Rise of Skywalker does that. Has somebody say to Dominic Monahan from Lost, it's actually not that easy to do. We can't just hold a maneuver away out of every fleet. Also, at that point, uh, the resistance didn't have ships big enough to do it. Like they rebuild by the start of Rise of Skywalker, but they have no frigates.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:46

They still have like 12 people in Rise of Skywalker.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:49

They all fit on that Millennium Falcon. But like, we're also gearing up towards the climactic end of this movie. Like, this is the latter half of the movie. Stuff has to also just happen. Like, we're in the point of a movie where we gotta get to the end. We know we're driving that way. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay that these things happen. They don't ever not every single detail needs to be fully explained. We're already at like two and a half hours. We gotta, we we gotta do some things. We gotta get to the end.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:26

It's cool when a movie says, Hey, yeah, you think for a bit. Right? Yeah. Although there's uh there's a trend where a lot of people will call out what they foresee as plot holes or something, but then in doing so, they'll be like, Well, how come they didn't didn't shoot her down? Did they not know what she was doing? It's like, well, if you think for a moment, they know they didn't know what she was doing. You said it yourself.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:49

If you know the answer to the question that you are asking, and you choose to pick the answer that's worse, that's you making that choice. Especially if you know that there's a better answer. That's you doing that.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:02

Cinema Sins has done irreparable damage to a generation's ability to watch movies.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:08

Sure has.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:10

Well, one criticism I will say is I do think like the crate scene, like that entire arc on there is like one of these words. I'm like, I feel like there's something off about about this. Like, I think there's too much, like, there's if it feels like they're there for just a bit too much, too long, but also maybe too short. Like, it's feels it's this weird in-between thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:30

Yeah, it does feel that way because we are over two hours before we get to crate.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:36

Or close to two hours, and we've just had the prettiest lightsaber fight in all nine movies.

unknown 1:16:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:44

It feels like the climax just happened, and then a bit more. But we also need the stuff that happens on crate.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:48

So, like, I Finn and Rose's triumphant battle against Captain Phasma, and we've had the holdo maneuver. That's all been really cool. And the the horrific sequence of just transport after transport getting blown up.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:03

Well, and and Ray failing to turn uh to Ray failing to turn.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:09

Which is the emotional climax of one of our major arcs in this movie. Yeah. And then suddenly we are setting up for another doomed last stand where we can pull out victory, but at what cost? And I'm like, oh my fucking god, can we give the resistance a break for two seconds, Ryan? And we cannot.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:29

No, we cannot. Because it's the second movie of a trilogy, and so we must get into the Dark Knight of the Soul. The entire next movie will be the Dark Knight of the Soul.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:38

Also, if we if we if we didn't have the crate scene, we wouldn't see my favorite character in Star Wars, that random soldier who eats the planet.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:47

Oh my god. I like salt.

SPEAKER_09 1:17:49

Yeah, no, Darren, we're gonna just shoot and he just goes, I'm gonna eat this. Ah, it's salt.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:55

I'm just gonna eat some of the dirt. Thanks. It's what I do, it's what I've done since hot. Obviously, Crate has some important stuff. It's got the second most thematically resonant line of the movie after Failure, the greatest teacher is the greatest teacher, failure is, yeah. Yeah. This is how we win, not by fighting what we hate, but by saving what we love, because Finn hadn't got there yet.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:22

No, he hadn't.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:24

Yeah. He was still about we just have to keep hitting the things we hate until they go away. And that was such a good line for Rose, who the Gibronis hated because they're they're bad people. They're bad at being people.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:39

Yeah, they are.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:18:40

No, they're bad at people. Yeah, I it took me a long time to figure out, like, because there the one of the weird conflicts is like, so obviously Rose saves Finn from sacrificing himself to try to stop the cannon from firing. And then also moments, and that's like it seems a bad thing. It's like, oh, you shouldn't sacrifice yourself, you should blah blah blah. But like moments earlier, we saw like Holdo sacrifice herself to do it. And for a while, I was just sort of like, well, that's just sort of a thing you have to have in the film. Like the different things, and obviously, like it's the difference between what a film is saying, what the characters are doing, because I mean Rose is not going to be able to knock Holdo off of a thing, so what she can.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:20

No.

SPEAKER_09 1:19:21

But something I thought of this time around was it's the difference between risking yourself when you have to, and risking yourself when you don't have to. Like, because that's the same thing at the beginning when they go after the dreadnought. Like, they don't have to do that. Yeah, they could have just left. Yeah, they they do it because like there's honor, or it's cool that they're gonna destroy a dreadnought, or they feel like they have to, versus like Holda, who's like, she already knew she had to stay on the ship, like she already was staying on the ship because someone has to stay on the ship. So her sacrificing herself is not her doing something that she doesn't have to. And then you compare that once again to Finn, who he doesn't really have to do this because even because if you think about it logically, even if he blows up that cannon, there's stuff in a like, yeah, they'll bring out another door knocker or or something. Like it doesn't it doesn't do anything, but it looks cool, and that's kind of a thing we get with a lot of the chuds who dig on it's like but it would have looked cool. She stole it from him.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:26

But she didn't steal it from him, she had her own moment.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:31

Sacrificing yourself because you're going to die anyways, and it may as well be uh on your terms and accomplishing something.

SPEAKER_09 1:20:38

And it saves other people.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:40

It saves other people, and then there's spite. And I gonna take out this door door knocker no matter what was spite. Because we don't know that taking it out would have like Death Star exploded all of the walkers who cute, cool visual detail, have reinforced legs to prevent anyone from tying a toe cable around their knees.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:00

Yeah, it's also the thing of like at this point in time, we don't have like there's there's nothing that Finn would gain from this. Like as a character, he doesn't, and we as the audience, he's not gaining anything. Everybody's like, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. And he's like, I have to. So it's that like dark side versus light side kind of thing where it's like, yeah, uh, if he does it, that's the dark side witty. Like there's no he doesn't gain anything from it. There's nothing.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:31

Whereas Rose's lesson to him cues him up perfectly for the arc that everyone except the actual makers of Rise of Skywalker knew he was supposed to have. Yes. Literally everyone. I am familiar with two alternate versions of episode nine, and they're bad, but they both figured out that Finn's arc in resolution is Stormtrooper Spartacus.

SPEAKER_09 1:21:56

Yeah, no, they the the the problem is that uh Beebom made Rise of Star Walker are cowards and their bloodline is weak. There's a lot to that, yeah. The last shot I for me is uh I think about it a lot, not like just because for me it was a moment, it was the first movie where I watched it and I had a very different feeling 10 minutes after I finished. Like when I was watching it, I was in the mindset of it where it's like, well, why didn't Holdo just tell Poe about what was going on? Why didn't he do why these things but was right? And then as I thought about it more and more, I'm like, well, no, wait, hold on. I'm I'm I was caught in the the idea of like what we would normally see from a something like this, and then seeing the response to it was also one of the first times where I was like really, truly uh like done with people and their bullshit. Like it was the first time, at least for me on a very like grand level, seeing also just like hypocritical response to things, not just people giving their opinion, but just like factually being wrong about like stuff that happened in the movie, and then also people being clearly obviously disgen disingenuous. Like, actually, the only answer for what you are doing is you are doing this because it gets you clicks on whatever social media you were talking on at the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:18

They're paying their rent rage farming on YouTube, yeah. Convincing people that every new Star Wars project is a desecration of George Lucas' sacred vision when they spent most of the time railing against George Lucas's vision on everything that's happened since Empire.

SPEAKER_09 1:23:35

Like, I I I Aaron Aaron would know some of this obviously because we grew up because I say Aaron specifically because we grew up in the same house. So like we our our lives are probably a bit closer than mine would be with Claire or Dan. But um we don't didn't necessarily have the same like interests, so I don't know if it was the same experience for you, but like because of my interests and my uh like friends group around me, growing up both between we had seen Star Wars when I was younger. Obviously, I was wasn't born when it came out, but uh like I seen it when I was younger, and then existing in an age where I could pretty much like remember as Phantom Menace and the other one, the prequel trilogy came out, then also being cognizant as this one came out is a very interesting thing because there's an entire movie made about how Star Wars Episode 1 is bad. It's called Fanboys, and it's a like the ending joke is that what if this movie like it's about how people did not like Phantom Menace, and then people now are would will be like looking at this one and being like, well, well, you know, it's the the the prequel trilogy was so much more devoted to what our Lord and Savior George Lucas did. I'm like, no, at this the time people like you were sending death threats to him.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:46

Yeah, you did not like it. It was shut up. It was bad, it was also bad. Phantom Menace was not good.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:54

Let's ask Ahmed Best how well people were responding to the purpose when they came out. Shall we?

SPEAKER_09 1:25:01

It's better than I think people's reaction to it was, but it's not good. They're not great. No, yeah, and also didn't feel like a Star Wars movie. Like which only based off of the three we've seen. Like there's three we've seen.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:16

All the Jedi are flipping around like Cirque de Soleil trampists or trampolinists. When could the force do that? Since it needed to.

SPEAKER_09 1:25:26

Yeah, which what what book said they did that?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:30

Right? It's almost as if when you are writing the canon for a series, you can make anything canon you want. Your characters should behave like internally consistently, but I think they do. Even in this movie, I like, yes, Ryan Johnson had to retrofit the fact that Luke was on a planet being a hermit, but like you kind of understand why Luke would want to go to a planet and be a hermit. He grew up in a desert alone, and his life's been hard and sad.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:02

And like all this stuff makes sense.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:04

Yeah. We get his story of Kylo Wren, like we get this, and now we get why he's like, I can't do it anymore. It's very well explained. Yes, him and Kylo Wren have differing versions, they tell Ray about it, but we get it.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:22

The fact they have differing versions is what is what tells you that, like, it's like that's what helps you understand what's going on there is that Luke bluk blames himself and and Kylo blames blames Luke, yes. Like like they both have this view of things because they could not see each other's brains.

SPEAKER_10 1:26:42

What is it Obi once said? You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly to our own points of view.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:49

From a certain point of view, he was trying to kill you. Thanks, Al Guinness.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:55

Um I did ponder at one point if sequel if prequel nostalgia had been slightly farther along, would we have gotten Ewan McGregor as a ghost Obi-Wan instead of Ghost Yoda? But I do think it needed to be Ghost Yoda because he's the one who's like, I told you pass along what you have learned, including the things you failed at. You learned something when you went to fight Vader in Cloud City, and it didn't go great. And I just love Ghost Yoda as a puppet again, and also he is back in his Empire Strikes Back Swamp Hobo Scamp era.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:31

Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:32

I can't believe they literally have a character who is known in the original trilogy as being like the wise teacher come in and just state the theme of the movie.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:46

The greatest teacher failure is.

SPEAKER_09 1:27:55

Why isn't he doing flips? Why doesn't he do cool? Why why did why did they go? To the casino planet and learn stuff. Why didn't they just do cool things? Like, did you not listen?

SPEAKER_05 1:28:07

He did flips though. He did, and everybody hated it. Everybody was mad.

unknown 1:28:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:15

And then we just forgot we were mad. Everyone just forgot how mad they were about it. And when we want cool things, more explosions.

SPEAKER_10 1:28:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:24

Like Luke satirically states, you think I was gonna stroll out with a laser sword and take on the entire first resistance? And the Jabronis are all like, yeah, man, that's exactly what I think you're gonna do.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:35

What I wanted.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:36

And then he kind of does, but it's it's a thing he does, but it's all a brilliant, beautiful ruse.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:42

It's not actually a thing that he always does. He never does that. He's always off on his own. Yeah, do what his thing is being emotional full and fighting his dad. Right?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:51

He barely fought us, he like fought three stormtroopers on Endor, and then he turned himself in to try to convince his dad not to Darth so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:00

Right.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:00

His arc coming to this conclusion of him figuring out the like the way to help people is just to like be the legend Luke Skywalker to such a way that it will distract um Kylo so that everyone else can escape. Like that is such a strong thing considering how what he was before was a kid who was like, I want to go to Tashi Station and would and almost beat his father to death and fell to the dark side before he saw Palpatine start cackling at him. Like he has always been this impulsive. What was he when he was training with Yoda and he heard his friends were in danger? Did he finish his training to help? No, he he jumped in a ship, he flew off, he lost a hand, and he went, Okay, well, that sucked.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_09 1:29:49

So this is him, he didn't do that. He realized, oh, I don't like I have to think, I have to be one with the force. Like, it's it is clearly the good arc, and the people who end up being like, Oh, I don't understand why he would uh why he's like this, so why he's a sad man on an island, is because they are real they the they're like this is wrong because I have an image in my brain, and my image in my brain must be more right than the film I am watching.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:20

This is not what I would have done with my action figures, so I don't like it.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:24

Also, Mark Hamill's like 60 at this point in time, everyone. Let's just like like yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:31

He did a cool slide though. He did a cool slide.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:33

He did, he did. Yeah, but like we're we're in a new era. Like, we killed Han Solo off in the first movie, Luke is doing his recluse thing, Leia is doing her general thing, but she's also not going out on the fighters, she's letting the young ones do all that. So, like, we've got a natural age progression, everyone.

SPEAKER_09 1:30:56

The purpose of this trilogy should have been to say, hey, remember Star Wars? Look how big the world is. Look at all these other people. Do they go, they go, do you wanna do you know why they go to the casino plan? Everyone says, Well, why do they do that? To show you that the world exists outside of these six characters that you know. So when they tell more stories, you can be like, cool. The world is big, the galaxy is big.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:22

It was such an important piece of world building for the franchise to say there are whole communities outside of this whole Empire versus Rebellion, First Order versus Resistance thing. There are planets full of rich people who just aren't that political. That's a line in Mandalorian season three, as someone's congratulating all the great works of the Republic as everyone leans over to him. Oh dear, that was the Empire. Is it I never paid that close attention. I'm not really into politics. Yeah. And only on Coruscant could someone have just not noticed the difference between the Republic and the Empire.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:59

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:00

Right. And so that we have like this place is filled with some of the worst people in the galaxy. Smash cut to rich people on a yacht.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:09

Yes. Once again, the commentary is pretty on the nose with that. Casino planet, they're not being subtle.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:18

Oh, they're terrible because they sell arms of the first order. Yet they also build all of your X-Wings.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:24

So, how's that feel there, Finn? Finn's got some things to learn about the world.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:30

He does. He does.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:31

Now, as uh my big extra credit, I did, for the first time, since it was in theaters, watch The Rise of Skywalker, because I'm very good at tricking myself into loving a movie I'm excited to see when I'm in a theater. And then on rewatch, all the things uh can start to fall apart. So I was clinging to having liked it in theaters as long as I could. And I just have one prepared statement of flaws and strengths I think it has. To be clear, Finn should have led the Stormtrooper Revolution. Palpatine's ritual would have worked better with Ray Nobody than Ray Palpatine, and Ray Palpatine is thus dumb and unnecessary. Because I think that really could have worked as the conclusion of the Skywalker saga. Because Step 1 for Palvatine was conquer the galaxy. Step but it took him decades.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:20

It did. It's a hard thing to do. It's a big galaxy.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:24

Even putting aside how long it took himself to get elected to Naboo Senate and become respected enough that he was a candidate when he was able to push out Chancellor Valoran. That's ten years from being made Chancellor to being able to get the Separatist Crisis going, four years of doing the Separatist Crisis before he can declare himself emperor, nineteen years before he can dissolve the Senate. Now he's an old man and he's been warped into a withered scrotum by his own power. So obviously step two is cheat death, because this is also the thematic difference between the Sith and the Jedi. Luke is so at peace passing into the force.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:02

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:03

And Palpatine fights tooth, nail, and clone body to not have to do it. So you establish that his plan is he has this ritual where he can move his spirit into a new body. He just needs that body to be strong with the force and completely corrupted to the dark side. And maybe that was gonna be Maul, but he got cut in half. And Duke Dooku's too old. That's a lateral move at best.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:25

Ugh, Dooku's so old. Dooku's name is Dooku.

SPEAKER_09 1:34:29

Now Maul has spider legs.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:33

Anakin was perfect. Anakin somehow Palpatine has spider legs. Anakin would have been the perfect choice, but he got his bitch ass triple amputated and set on lava fire. So now he can't use that. So he sits around for 19 years waiting for one of the kids to show back up. The kid turns Vader good again and gets his ass thrown into a chasm. So now he has to wait for Ben to grow old, but he can't quite commit to the dark side. As we see, he did kill Han. That only made his conflict worse, which is why he couldn't fire on Leia, and the other two TIE fighters had to do it for him.

SPEAKER_07 1:35:10

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:11

And it would have worked so good if he'd been like, I've almost got Kylo to the dark side and to complete the ritual. And then this scavenger woman showed up out of frickin' nowhere and keeps pulling him back towards the light. Who is she? Why is she? Fine, I'll turn her evil and use her body. I'm progressive like that. I was gonna use this horned devil man.

SPEAKER_09 1:35:35

I I think that what should have happened is that um after the Palpatine perished in 4 ABY, his spirit should travel the Bis to possess Jeng Droga, one of his Emperor's hands, the process that costs the ladder his sanity until he managed to clean a clone body, as well as contact Saint Pestage, who is also partially responsible for his revival, and then go on to create the Dark Empire. A part line that actually happens in the expanded universe.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:03

Of course it I never thought I would say there were too many books, but there are too many books. There are so many books.

SPEAKER_09 1:36:10

Oh, Palpatine returned. I'm like, you because remember how I said that people get very obsessed with, like, oh, but this isn't something that happened in the in the the books because they didn't have the expanded universe. They just took something from the expanded universe. Because then I'm like, people will like this. Yep. The people will like this.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:25

In addition, General Hucks should have spent Rise of Skywalker trying to convince Palpatine to give him the final order and not Kylo. And Richard E. Grant should have been the spy instead, and not just a Hoxier Hawks to replace Hawks when Hawks turns out to be the spy because JJ loves a twist, even if it doesn't make sense. He loves a reveal even if it's not earned or doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_09 1:36:48

I think Hucks should have spent the entirety of the movie trying to convince um Kyler Ren to give him an egg.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:53

Yes. Hard boiled. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:56

Because no one in this franchise needed a redemption arc less than General Hucks. Ghost Luke should have haunted Ben even once, and not giving Rose more to do was a coward's move. I appreciate that they didn't write her out completely, but she should have had more of a role in the main story, like helping Finn reach out to all the other indoctrinated, abducted child soldiers. But Ray, Poe, and Finn all work so well together. Their banter was often fun, they had great chemistry as a trio, so keeping them together for most of the movie was a good plan. I like that the first order is defeated by a plurality of citizens standing up to reject them instead of a small band of heroic rebels will do all the work for us. That's just a better message. I like that Ben is saved from the dark side by an act of compassion, that pays off Rose's whole thing. And I like that Ray chooses the name Skywalker because she chooses her own destiny and legacy and doesn't have to pick up where her grandfather left off. It's still dumb. I can't defend that.

SPEAKER_09 1:38:00

Based on the world we live in, here is the best outcome I could come up with.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:07

Yes. So I do think there are things that work. There's a lot of dropped balls because Colin Draviro got fired mid-stream, and then they were suddenly rethinking everything because they're like, solo underperformed. What if the Jabronis are right and their wrath can make or break our billion-dollar franchise?

SPEAKER_09 1:38:29

Yeah, sure, surely the nostalgia bait movie failing means we should lean harder into nostalgia bait.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:36

We'd gotta lean harder into the nostalgia bait. The other wrong lesson that they learned was we can't recast the original characters. We'll have to invest more money in creepy, deep, fake CG Mark Hamels.

SPEAKER_04 1:38:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:50

Instead of, I don't know, Aldrin Aaron Reich, Tom Holland, and Margaret Qually. There you go. There's your new trio to do post-Jedi movies. And um that left JJ Abrams, who had not intended to do another one of these, have to have to write the end to a story. Oscar winner Chris Terrier, a year and a half to conceive, write, shoot, and post-produce the conclusion of this trilogy, which was not in a place where it had been designed to be easily concluded.

SPEAKER_09 1:39:19

Now you have to show us what's in the mystery box, JJ. Now you have to tell me why it's cool you have a tiny plastic slinky. Why is that a cooler answer?

SPEAKER_05 1:39:27

He's like, oh no, shut up.

SPEAKER_09 1:39:29

But wasn't it fun that it was a mystery once?

SPEAKER_05 1:39:31

You're like, no, it wasn't. Tell me why it is. No, tell me. He's like, explosion over there. Look, an explosion. I did it. Did that answer the question? And you're like, no, no, it did not.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:43

I didn't know I needed to know where I was going to.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:47

Stop asking hard questions, guys.

SPEAKER_09 1:39:49

I'm gonna get in this car and drive around this roundabout for the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:55

The dumbest complaint I've heard that's not from a jabroni is obviously from Tumblr. People accusing Raylo shippers of being racist because they want Ray with Kylo instead of Finn. Which I can only say, well, by your own logic, I guess you're homophobic because you want Finn with Ray instead of with Poe where he belongs.

SPEAKER_09 1:40:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:17

Yeah. Man, these movies are so good at casting extremely charismatic people that you could put together in like any formation. And it's all a good formation.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:26

I will say I think Rise of Skywalker is the best Poe movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:31

Yeah, it is. Yeah. His flirtation with the uh outlaw who has no interest in him. And he was like, hey, kiss? And she's like, no.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:40

No. And he's like, uh, maybe next time.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:44

Fun little cameo for Carrie Russell. So before I move on to the factoids, does anyone else have of Star Wars ranking? And he definitely didn't say anyone else ominously.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:57

The Star Wars I like best is the one I'm watching at that given moment.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:01

That's a decent way to live, really.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:03

Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm a new hope girly, so I'm gonna live with that one as my top for probably forever.

SPEAKER_09 1:41:11

I made a list.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:13

Amazing.

SPEAKER_09 1:41:14

I can go through the list if you want. Alright. Um I have um Give me the list. A New Hope, The Last Jedi, andor, but just the scenes where the corporate middle managers are stressed out. The Empire Strikes Back, The Empire Strikes Strikes Back, but it's the time I gotta kiss my childhood crush Morgan during the credits. Uh, Rogue One, a Star Wars story, the novelization of The Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover, a 2004 promotional Pepsi Can featuring an inexplicably high-resolution image of Wato, the 1994 novel The Crystal Star, where Luke joins a cult and Han Solo fights a centaur, The Force Awakens, Revenge of the Sith, The Time I Tried to do the Jedi use the Jedi Mind Trick to get out of a parking ticket in 2014, Solo a Star Wars story, The Phantom Menace, the 1996 multimedia project Shadows of the Empire, the 1997 Fighting Game Star Wars Massive Terrace Kai, The Return of the Jedi, Attack of the Clones, the specific paralyzing drop in room temperature that occurs when you realize a white man in a pagonia puffer jacket is winding up to do his Jar Jar Binks impression, Jedi Rocks at 1997 CJI musical number inserted into Jabba's Palace, featuring an alien singing straight into the camera lens for what feels like an eternity, Caravana Courage and Ewok Adventure, a Wikipedia article explaining the complex geopolitical trade route taxation that started the Clone Wars, Clone Wars TV, The Clone Wars TV, The Clone Wars, the 2008 Theatrical Release, the 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special, but specifically the dream I had where my where Chewbacca's terrifying son Lumpy is sitting in the dark back seat of my car, his unblinking eyes reflecting the sodium streetlights moving past the ranged windows as he silently eats an entire sleeve of dry saltines. Every time I check the rearview mirror, he is slightly closer, his monolith of matted fur swelling, his very geometry somehow wrong, absorbing the dashboard illumination like a cosmic void. He does not blink, he does not speak. There is only the rhythmic, maddening crunch of dry saltines, a sharp, methodical sound echoing from some ancient, unfathomable abyss. With every terrified flick of my eye to the mirror, his silhouette is imperceptibly larger, expanding to fill the suffocating cabin. There is no escape from this midnight highway, only the hype hypnotic hum of the tires, the radio playing the cantina song at half speed, the scent of ozone and wet decay, and the creeping eldritch certainty that if I finally lose a nerf and look over my shoulder, I will understand the true shape of madness. And then the rise of Skywalker, which I actually didn't see.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:27

I mean, gosh. Quite the list. I don't know how I would follow it, especially since I did not have time to watch seven seasons of the Clone Wars, five seasons of Rebolts, let alone the Bad Batch, the new Darth Maul show, or to revisit the Ewoks and Droids adventure hour from the 80s. So I guess I just have my live action Star Wars rank ordering. So at number 28, Strap In! Number 28 is the Star Wars holiday special. It is fascinatingly bad, but also incredibly dull. Nobody wants to be in it. You think you'll pop an edible with some friends to have fun at its expense, but it will wear you down. Number 27, the Ewok's Caravan of Courage. In the 80s, it was possible to do both kid adventures and made-for-TV movies that weren't this dull or this badly acted. 26. Ewoks the Battle for Endor. None of it makes sense in series can, but I don't care. Like Alien 3, it makes a questionable choice to wipe out most of the characters from the last movie, except for the little girl who couldn't act. Wicked the Ewok speaking English now is weird, and Wilford Brimley brings the average active acting ability up a notch, which gets it to 26. 25. Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run. Everything cool about this ride is in the line infrastructure. Then it's just a motion simulator with bad graphics for you hope you get the fun janky video game. Number 24, Attack of the Clones. The one scene I like, I like because of how balls out ridiculous it is. 23, Phantom Menace, Misa Natsorry. 22. Book of Boba Fett. The two best episodes of the one the lead character isn't there because even the show's writers know we'd all rather be watching The Mandalorian. And it committed the unthinkable crime of casting Matt Berry than making him boring. 21. Skeleton Crew, which I watched last week for this list. Star Wars plus the Goonies was a solid pitch, and the mystery around why their home planet was cut off from the galaxy was intriguing. They didn't do much with the idea of an isolated planet devoted to minting currency for a republic that hasn't existed for over two decades. And the last episode and a half relied too much on if any protagonist is literally anything the pirate captain will do of violence, and how interesting did you think that would stay? Number twenty, Star Tours. It's still just a motion simulator, but the fact you never know which scenario you're gonna get and where you're gonna go has enhanced it. Number nineteen, Revenge of the Sith. As good as the prequels got, derogatory. Number eighteen, Rise of Skywalker. There are the bones of a good conclusion here, and it but he has a lot of problems, but since Last Jedi was actively fighting any sort of satisfying resolution, I will take what there is. 17, Obi-Wan. Kid Leia was good and nice to have you and McGregor taking the crack at it. This is where Prequel Redemption really took a hold of the franchise. 16 is solo a Star Wars story. They should have just let Miller and Lord cook. The 21 Jump Street LEGO movie version of this would have been an all-timer. Number 15, the Boy Zone Jedi Handbook by Steven Massikov. Trilogy of one act plays about the author's youthful love of Star Wars and sharing it with his best pal. Like Star Wars, seeing the original for the first time, and in my case it may have been the first time anyone saw it, was a stunning, breathtaking thrill ride like nothing else. Like Star Wars, the third installment felt like a phoned-in obligation, and I say this, Steven, because it has the exact same story as Steven Massicott's other one act play, My Life of Crime. And like Star Wars, maybe you just need to accept it'll never be quite as magical as that first experience. I assume. I literally could not tell you when I saw Star Wars for the first time. 14. Season 4, episode 17 of The Muppet Show, featuring Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker, C3PO, R2T2, and Chewbacca. Came out three months before The Empire Strikes Back. Crazy way to promote the official return of Star Wars, but I approve. The non-Star Wars bits aren't the best, but Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels are having a blast. Number 13. Colin Trevero's alleged screenplay for Episode 9, The Duel of the Fates, specifically as read on YouTube by Jenny Nicholson. It is good. They did have the Stormtrooper Sparta storyline that anyone could tell was missing and stuff for Rose to do, but oh man, how balls out dumb the Ray Kylo plot is featuring some giant squid-like super snokier snoke. And who, Colin Trevero, on God's great earth was shipping Rey and Poe? They had exchanged eight words in two movies. Number 12, The Rise of the Resistance. Now this one's a ride. It has gotten more money out of me through Lightning Lanes and Last Jedi and Rise of Skywalker combined. Because I cannot be in a Disney park and not ride it. Perfect combination of animatronics and thrill ride. Eleven is the Mandalorian, which at its best is an episodic space western about a jaded warrior and a traumatized warriorfin finding their place in the galaxy and learning that it's with each other, set against the backdrop of the galaxy struggling to recover from the Empire, while gradually sliding towards the first order, and at its worst, it was like six consecutive backdoor pilots for different characters, mostly from Clone Wars and Rebels, and I've kinda lost interest. Number ten is The Mandalorian in Groku, which would have been the second best season of The Mandalorian. Number nine is Alan is Star Wars novelist Alan Dean Foster's pitch for an episode nine, as read by Jenny Nicholson, because it's god-awful, but she has some fun with it. Who in the world thought that we would be invested in some planet's struggle to stay neutral between the first order and the resistance? Good lord.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:54

Dan, that is the plot of a man for all seasons, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:01

We sure did watch that.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:04

Did I say anything nice about that, or did I make Munziey watch it? Number eight, Rogue One. Do most of the casts have arcs? No, but that also applies to Kong Skull Island, and I love Kong Skull Island. It's a tight impossible mission movie, if no mission is impossible. Seven is Force Awakens, promising new beginnings, crime is opening too many doors while counting on someone else to walk through them, and then they didn't. Six is Return of the Jedi, five, The Last Jedi, four the Acolyte, which delivers on what Ryan Johnson told us Star Wars could be, not a constant battle of light side versus dark side with no nuance, mystery and adventure stories exploring the complexity, running a galaxy through the belief that your specific approach, the force, is the correct one, and how that leads to strategy more than triumph, and Manny Jacinto casually code switching in the middle of a fight to taunt his for his apprentice. Makes him a top tier Star Wars antagonist. Empires at number three, number two is Andor, one of our greatest modern works on the mechanism. Cruelties of Fascism, Nemik's Manifesto, and Skill Stell and Scar Guards, I burned my life to make a sunrise over C, Speed Should Be Taught in Schools, and at number one, call it New Hope if you want, but it'll always just be Star Wars to me, and I very nearly came out of the womb loving it. Alright.

SPEAKER_03 1:50:20

Star Wars gonna Star War.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:22

Seriously, I get it, Stephen Massicott. Your best friend fell in with a bad boy who didn't like you. Didn't have to write that beat for beat story twice. He said while kicking four place about his divorce under the couch.

SPEAKER_09 1:50:35

Sometimes things just stick with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:37

Elsewhere in our top ten, domestically, at number two, one of the most beloved Disney Renaissance films gets jammed full of girl boss moments and attempts to patch petty fan complaints in Beauty and the Beast. Well, we're talking about Cinema Sins ruining movies. Number three, a princess learns her true heritage and leaves her home to save a world she's never known, finding that maybe that world is creating its own problems in Wonder Woman.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:01

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:03

Number four, when the youths lose interest in board games, sinister jungle magic must reinvent itself to entrap four new teens as video game Alter Egoes in Jumanji. Welcome to the jungle.

SPEAKER_05 1:51:15

I love that movie. It's great.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:20

That is gonna be a great episode of recovery for me when we eventually reach it. Number five, the fate of the galaxy hinges on one man and one raccoon learning to embrace their found family in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume Two.

SPEAKER_07 1:51:33

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:34

Number six, Peter Parker tries too hard to prove himself the Avengers, putting him in the crosshairs of Arms Dealer the Vulture in Spider-Man Homecoming. Number seven, nineteen eighty-nine, seven young friends band together, take on the darkness of the heart of their town, personified by a bloodthirsty clown in it. We covered episodes 110 and 111 covered the Sega in thorough detail. I made Gina read a 1100-page book, and we were gonna hear all about it.

SPEAKER_09 1:52:01

It's a story about everyone's most familiar times when they were a kid, like and scared of bullies and beating up clowns and a sewer to death.

SPEAKER_05 1:52:09

I mean, he is an alien.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:11

He did crash to earth in a meteor. Yeah. As explained in greater detail in Welcome. Which makes it fine. Mm-hmm. It makes it perfectly fine. Yep. Number eight, two estranged brothers must join forces to protect their home when their father passes and the sister they didn't know comes calling for the inheritance in Thor Ragnarok.

SPEAKER_04 1:52:30

Mm-hmm.

unknown 1:52:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:31

Number nine, something something family and minions or whatever. Indespicable me three. I could not be bothered to look up what the hell happens in this one. Maybe this is the one where Gru has a brother. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:45

No, that seems correct. Minions. They get bananas or something. Or a baby?

SPEAKER_02 1:52:49

Something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:49

It's a baby, it's I think. I think so.

SPEAKER_09 1:52:53

The one where Grew gets arrested for tax evasion. I finally got him.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:00

Ah.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:02

Dull tricks are the best tricks. At number 10, the superhero equivalent of trying to turn the born identity into basic James Bond mid-shoot doesn't go great for Warner Brothers with the theatrical cut of Justice League. Recovered episode 36 if you need details. Internationally, the Justice League and Pennywise don't travel as well. Beauty and the Beast stays at number two. Number three, when a patriarch seems to turn to the dark side, the family must unite friends and foes to bring him home in the fate of the furious.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:35

Gold. Never not good.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:39

Family. You can tell Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson were never on set together. Number four Despicle for me three. Number five, Jamanchi Welcome to the Jungle, Spider-Man at six. Number seven, the Chinese market begins turning up harder for Chinese product as a special ops team finds their retirement interrupted by mercenaries in Wolf Warrior 2. I know, I couldn't explain Wolf Warrior 1 to you, and now you're lost. Guardians of the Galaxy at 8, Thor Ragnarok at 9, Wonder Woman hanging on at number 10. For preparing, I don't know that I've ever wanted a glass of milk less than after Last Jedi, so I'm gonna take Shape of Water's moist aesthetic as a sign to stay hydrated.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:20

You just need need some water. Good old water.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:27

With like a sprinkle of some very good salt.

SPEAKER_05 1:54:30

Oh yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Get some of that Himalayan pink Himalayan salt in there. I remember during COVID.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:39

Well, so this is my pairing. During COVID, Willow Park Wines and Spirits, which is a lovely liquor store that is a lot of events in Calgary, was doing videos on making the perfect various cocktails. And so Michael Bigatini, who is very charming and lovely, shared his GT recipe, which involved making your own tonic, having your gin, and then doing a couple drops of olive oil and a crack of pink Himalayan sea salt. And because of the shape of water, I had to do that.

SPEAKER_09 1:55:07

Of the quarter million fan fictions written in Star Wars on archive of our own, about 2,000 of them are Poe, Dameron, slash Ray. Uh, and at least this one has uh tags such as talk of body image, quiet sex, dry humping, and light ass play.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:27

But how many of those 2,000 were written by Colin Travoro?

SPEAKER_09 1:55:30

There's no way to know. Anyway, that was my pairing, I guess. I would pair it with light ass play.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:43

Glorious, yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:46

The last Jedi equivalent of getting to kiss a childhood crush during Empire Strikes Back.

SPEAKER_09 1:55:51

Look, this might be the last time I've been on this podcast. I gotta make sure I do it with the cuts.

SPEAKER_05 1:55:57

It's perfect, Kevin. Perfect.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:00

Terms of Academy versus audience, the thing is I don't need to watch an okay but largely disappointing final chapter to get closure on Shape of Water. So I fought Academy.

SPEAKER_07 1:56:13

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:16

Yeah, it's objectively a better movie. Even though I love the casino movie, I'm so happy I got to it.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:22

Would have been hilarious. That would have been Attack of the Clones.

SPEAKER_09 1:56:24

It's it's hard for a middle movie to be like award-winning because it doesn't need to set things up and it does need to end things. So it's like, what are you what are you basing it on?

SPEAKER_03 1:56:35

Fun and hijinks, which is not a best. Yeah, there's a reason Return of the King won the award. The everything.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:43

Even though some people say two towers is the best one. People who are wrong, the best one is still Fellowship.

SPEAKER_09 1:56:50

Depends on your criteria.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:53

So next time, we have spoken in the past about the Hollywood belief that black films don't travel, and we'll see why they keep getting that proven to them as two different Marvel movies battle for box office supremacy, and guess which one was domestic and guess which one was international? And also Green Book. We get to we get to talk about Green Book. We get to have a discussion about the motion picture.

SPEAKER_09 1:57:27

A nice nuanced discussion about Green Book.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:32

Good. Till then, uh, we are Writing Therapy Productions.com. Find all of our episodes there and other projects. We are Oscar V audience on Threads Instagram and Blue Sky. Feel free to follow us there. Yell us about what you think what should have been the best picture of 2018. And if one of you says Green Book, I will engage with you in good faith. Don't let me down. I am Dana Forth and all those things, plus Letterboxd, where you can see how I rank Last Jedi as a box office champion.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:02

I'm Aaron Weir. I'm over at a flimsyclan.com, and you can get to all of my other things by going to there.

SPEAKER_05 1:58:09

I am Claire, and you can find me by following Dan or Aaron.

SPEAKER_09 1:58:12

The tags for this one are Ray is a sweet, hardworking girl, and Rylo is a powerful asshole. Uh, I'm Kevin Weir. You can find me uh online. I'm usually Kevin Weir author. I'm on Instagram. That's where I am mostly. And you've got my books at Kevin Weir Books.com.

SPEAKER_02 1:58:29

That one had to be an AU. And until next time, we'll see you at the ceremony.