Hey, Star Warriors. Oh man, I'm a little nervous. Are you guys nervous?
Speaker 2:You're shipped man, let's do this.
Speaker 3:Oh wait, yeah, we are live.
Speaker 1:Daddy Louie, you said you're not nervous.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, excuse me there, cool Roy.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to find the damn share button so that I can post it to our friends.
Speaker 1:All right. So it's showing that we have one viewer. Post it to our friends, alright. So it's showing that we have one viewer. I think that viewer is you, alright? So, coming up this week, this is the Clone Wars For everyone that said there's not enough clones, there's not enough war in the Clone Wars, guys, gals, non-binary pals did we get it? This week it's the Clone Wars, season 4, episodes 4, non-binary pals did we get it? This week it's the clone wars, season four, episodes four, five, six I'm reading off the wrong notes episode seven, eight, nine and ten this week on your star wars, safe space. Stick around, all righty.
Speaker 1:I don't have the actual intro done yet, but if you want to see a dope intro, check out some of our past episodes, because it is a bomb intro. I just couldn't get it to work with all the live setup, so so, anyway, thank you for joining us live for a very special edition of Star Wars, safe Space. Why are we doing this live? Well, because it's the Umbara arc, and why not? We need all of the joy that we can get out of that one. So let's see, can I do this? Hey, it's T to the Oni. He's joining us today. See, can I do this? Hey, it's t to the oni. He's joining us today. Hey guys, knock him dead like so many clones in this arc tony. Too soon, spoilers too soon. I'm still, oh, anyway, all right, howdy star warriors.
Speaker 1:Welcome to star wars, safe space, your non-toxic, low sodium star war show. That doesn't make you feel bad for not knowing that arc trooper fives had the rishi eel painted on his helmet. So I don't know if you, if you watch this and if you didn't really quite catch that design, it is the rishi eel that ate our very first clone trooper that we put on the wall of remembrance. If I'm not mistaken, I think that was, uh, our first thoughts and prayers to rookie eel trooper because, uh, he went out like a boss. And who, uh, who one-shotted that eel, our boy captain rex, with a well-placed, uh, blaster pistol shot right into the eyeball anyway. So, whether you're a hardcore fan or just a little swarzy, curious, this is your star wars safe space, welcome. We are the circle of nerds and in fact love Star Wars, even if we don't always like it. So let's meet the gang, shall we? Let's see if we can do this right. There we go From the Outer Rim territory of Bostween, it is Daddy Louie.
Speaker 3:Hello children.
Speaker 1:That never stops being creepy.
Speaker 3:It's not supposed to, so how's it going?
Speaker 1:What's happening?
Speaker 3:With me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're up, we're introducing, that's you know going around doing.
Speaker 3:What's up? How's it going? It's good. I don't know. You didn't tell us to have something to say, like usually. You just go hi, it's louis and then hi, it's crash and I'm tommy. You don't ask questions like how are you doing? I do I? I've asked questions how's it going like? What is this?
Speaker 2:a star trek, for how do you feel?
Speaker 1:I didn't add I don't care how you feel. I didn't ask you that. I don't give a shit about how any of us feel nothing is new and exciting all right, thanks, that was great. All right and, uh, hopefully a little more energy. Pilot of the infamous parma Flyer it's Crash.
Speaker 2:Hey guys, how's it going? Things are going well as always. S4 is locked and ready to roll. Let's do this, let's get into it.
Speaker 3:I didn't ask you, I told you how he was doing and you didn't ask him. I didn't ask him.
Speaker 1:He went for it.
Speaker 1:You didn't even have to ask Because I wasn't going to. After the berating that I took from you about it. Then I'm too embarrassed to even ask. I wasn't gonna do it. What for what's the point? Anyway, let me get the buttons right here. That's the one I'm looking for, all right. So what are we doing here? Well, we are on a mission to watch all of the star wars, canon tv shows and films in chronological order, and breaking them down, connecting the dots and learning a little more about Star Wars, and maybe even about ourselves as well. Who knows? We'll see what happens. So a word of warning to all you would be Star Warriors out there. There will be spoilers. So if you are not hip to to these particular episodes that we're watching, maybe hang back a little bit, because it's going to get funky. So, season four, episodes seven, eight, nine and ten Holy shit, did things get dark. I've seen this. I haven't watched a lot of the like, rewatched a lot of the Clone Wars, but the Umbara arc I've watched many times. It never gets easier.
Speaker 3:No it doesn't Now.
Speaker 1:Louis, was this your first time? I know Crash and I have seen it. Was this your?
Speaker 3:first time. Yes, it was.
Speaker 1:Okay, so Crash. You and I are probably going to hang back a little bit, because I run. I want to pick daddy Louie's brain, and if he brings the same kind of energy he brought from the intro, we are in for a wild ride. I'm ready.
Speaker 3:Brace yourselves YouTube here we go Brace yourselves. Here he comes.
Speaker 1:Hide your wives and daughters and small pets, because daddy Louie's bringing the heat alright. So, umbara, umbara, tell me your thoughts. I want to know your thoughts on the opening. I have my thoughts, the vibes that I got from it, from that first episode, the whole landing in that first battle. I'm really curious. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3:um, well, first I'll say that, like, as far as like action sequences go, yeah, across the we'll talk about this throughout, I'm sure, this episode. But throughout this arc, the action episode or the action sequences were just so, so good, like top tier star wars action sequences, every single one of them. Um, and I'll be honest, like I'm not super big on the star wars animated shows in general, I'm just not like big on not that I'm big on animation, I just I think that I was so turned off in the beginning because of how kiddy it was right, um in the early seasons, that it's been very difficult for me to get on board with the you know, cartoony, star wars stuff, right, um, this.
Speaker 3:So usually I said that because usually when we're doing these, these episodes aside from when we did it in person I'll usually play the episodes like on my computer here while I'm also painting, you know, and like it's. You know I'll look up and I'm paying attention, I'm listening to it, but my eyes aren't on it. Um, this arc, once it started, like 60 seconds in my face was up and it didn't go back down until the arc was over. Like I watched the whole thing in its entirety. No, look, like I put the stuff down and I was like watching the show.
Speaker 3:Um, good, yeah, so I mean, as far as, like the intro, I mean that was like a really good intro into what we were about to see and, to be honest, I was the whole time I was kind of expecting, like Anakin to come back Right, like Anakin always comes back straight up. Like you even see Anakin. The rest, you don't know what Palpatine wanted from Anakin. Like you don't you never even find that out. Like, because this arc is not about Anakin, this arc is about them clones we got clones and we got war, we got the clone wars.
Speaker 1:so you, you bring up, you bring up an interesting point about Palpatine, because that's one thing that we, we do try to do, every episode, if we can, is try to connect the dots back to Palpatine, because we know that he is the architect, he is the puppet master of everything. So I'm curious, what are your thoughts, you and Crash? What are your thoughts on Palpatine's involvement in this? Not so much the actual war, because we know that he's involved, but do we think that palpatine engineered this particular scenario by pulling anakin out and sending krell in? Was that was a calculated, orchestrated step from Palpatine? Do we think, crash, what do you think?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We've talked about this in past episodes where we know Anakin's weakness is his ability to love, and especially with Padme Palpatine exploits that relationship, drawing Anakin in. I think this was the first episode where we saw Palpatine Papa Palpatine, as you like to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Papa Palpatine.
Speaker 2:Pulling the string with Rex. In the first episode, anakin and Rex are like a well-oiled machine, throwing ideas back and forth. You realize this is the first time we've seen the clones fighting an indigenous human force. Yes, instead of just wave after wave of dumb droid and the locals were giving it to them. Yeah. And I think this was the first test of Palpatine to say okay, anakin's attachment to his men, to his soldiers. I have to pull that string too, to cut him off, because him and Rex are so tight. Him and the boys in the 501st were so tight. To take him away at such a crucial point and basically bring in the worst substitute teacher you could imagine was just pure evil cinema.
Speaker 1:And you bring up an interesting point too. You know, by by pulling him out, by pulling pulling anakin out, it really doesn't do anything because we, we know that palpatine's always trying to push anakin a little bit closer, a little bit closer, a little bit closer. The dark side. This doesn't necessarily directly impact him, because we don't know what his reaction was to all of this, but if anything, it did impact rex and the boys and really opened up their eyes. And if anything, it may have backfired on palpatine. He wanted them wiped, maybe, but we saw them, we saw rex especially. We saw rex grow in a direction that, uh, up to this point we didn't think that he would go in. I mean, at the very you know, he said you know, I, I, I honor the code. And then he's second guessing everything by the end.
Speaker 2:And then he's second guessing everything by the end. Yeah, and that was as a character building story for Rex. This was where you know the good soldier, the guy that does what he's told. This was the first time you saw doubt in Rex yeah. About the mission and the losses they were taking. I mean, every episode we have clone about clone bow, Somebody goes up on the wall Remembrance. This one was just like we can't.
Speaker 1:There's no room. There's no room on the wall of remembrance for every there. I don't have enough walls to put this was. We're just remembering everyone who fought and died during the battle of Umbara Um. Salute brothers, because yikes Um Louie, let me ask you this because I was when, when I first watched this and when they first hit the planet, um, I was getting a lot of uh and crash. You brought this up too. I'll go back to that. But I was getting a lot of uh like vietnam war movie vibes yeah to, you know great vibes and and crash. You had mentioned that they were just getting hit by the umbarnes left and right and they would just disappear. I mean, there was. There's a lot of vietnam in this a lot of vietnam a lot of, a lot of.
Speaker 2:Yeah I. The thing I found interesting was as each new wave of attacks came in, you know, first it was the uh centipede tanks yeah, I'm thinking of the old centipede video game.
Speaker 2:As it got closer to you, you're like oh my God, we're screwed. And as the mechs got bigger and bigger and more, the rocket launchers are useless. This is useless. You want us to walk up these narrow canyons and open fire. Krell was just feeding these guys into a meat grinder and the boys just had it go. They had to go through it but you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Talk about the bravery I mean these, these men. No droid has ever exhibited that level of courage. I mean, we see, I mean battle droids are, you know, comic relief for the most part. But you know, we haven't seen anyone exhibit this level of courage up to this point.
Speaker 1:And it really is a testament to the clone troopers and to what rex said to krell, when rex got in krell's face and he said these aren't just clones, these are men and it's my job to keep my men safe. And krell was like, oh, you've got a spark of tenacity in you, don't you shut the fuck up, krell, um louis. So when we're, when we're talking about, you know these, these different, these different parallels, we saw trenches, like World War One type trenches. We saw the roads mined, similar to what we've seen in the desert theater of Iraq and Afghanistan, and all that. So you know and Louie, you're a veteran, so, like, from your perspective as a service member, you know, we got to see kind of like what was going on in their heads. But, as a service member, like, what are? What are your thoughts on this as in terms of like, how they're portraying these soldiers?
Speaker 3:Hmm, well, as someone who is not a combat veteran, I can't really speak to the combat portion of it, but I think throughout you can see how much, how much, the individual relies on the team. You know what I mean. So, like they, they're not letting people fall behind, they're making sure that everybody is staying together, everybody is following orders. They're not.
Speaker 3:It's not like every man for themselves, you know what I mean and it's not like with star wars in general and I'll say this from like a person who's primarily a movie and live action TV show watcher, as opposed to the animated these stories that were told through Star Wars are primarily individual heroic character stories, you know what I mean Like an ensemble cast. Right, right right right Doing their own thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah right, um, and, and what was really great about this episode, um, which is kind of related, not really is. There was no other little side missions going on and all these other arcs. Right, you've got anakin's over here doing something that correlates with up in the next episode. It's about obi-wan, who's on the other side of the galaxy, but it kind of correlates to what anakin did in the first episode and then the third episode we never even cut to obi-wan right obi-wan was there in the same battle, exactly exactly once, anakin left a few hologram, you know right calls, but that was right, yeah
Speaker 1:but at some point were you expecting to cut. You know, to see Obi-Wan was doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, or Anakin to come back, or you know like, yeah, or Dooku to reveal himself, as this was. You know his whole plot, like, but none of that happened. You know what I mean. And when Krell at the end was, you you know like, oh yeah, it was just cause I wanted to do it. And you know like that's not what I was expecting. You know like I think it was at the end of episode two at like, kind of like the camera kind of pans to his eye, and you know you can tell like okay there's, there's something going on, right.
Speaker 1:It's. He's not just a dick, he's is that. Is that? When is that? When you, when you picked up on the fact that he's doing more than just because initially they, the way they played it was, he's just really strict, almost he's got like drill sergeant vibes right.
Speaker 3:You know, we know anakin's a little loosey-goosey, but uh you know, like I think it was episode, trying to remember the episodes, I think it's episode. What was the episode with? I think it was rookies, where they go through um, where they go through the training protocol and they have to, you know, get like a certain time is that what it's called rookies?
Speaker 1:no, no rookies, I think was when they, that's when they were that was on rishi yeah, that was the reason okay. Well, you know what episode I'm talking about when they're in their like white and green armor and they're going through that right, right, right.
Speaker 3:So the characters that were like intentionally trying to make them fail, like that's kind of what that reminded me of initially. Right, like when this jedi got here and he was being hard, like at first, it felt like he was just being hard because he was wanting to toughen them up. You know like kind of like how that guy was trying to toughen up the, the, the recruits and stuff like that. Right, but then, um, but then yeah, the. As the episodes progressed, I was like, so, like at the as the episodes progressed, I was like that's like, at the end of episode two, I was like, yeah, this has got to be like like a dooku thing. Next episode, dooku, and, and, and, ventress, and.
Speaker 3:And then it didn't come and I was like, wow, this is yeah and then the lightsaber, when, when, homeboy, he's a savage two folding double-ended lightsabers and he's a four-armed creature.
Speaker 1:Four arms and he's like the same same species as as as dex. Yeah, is it dax, dax? Right, dex, dex? Yeah, I was like oh my god, because again, I was watching it with Sherry and Sherry said she said what a waste of potential. I mean like what a waste of potential. You have this four-armed giant, scary-ass motherfucker with two double-bladed lightsabers that can just drop. I mean, he's basically like a Grievous, you know, going ham on anything that gets in front of him, and he did. But unfortunately he went ham on our boys and it hurt my heart, like everyone that went down hurt my heart.
Speaker 2:And you notice just his pure anatomy. Those hands are not human-sized, those are big hands. He's a baseball bat, tree trunks and his lightsabers matched his proportion. So those things were like tell them like.
Speaker 1:I know that, like if they didn't, if, if, if it wasn't I know this was this was still before the Disney buyout, so they were still on cartoon network. I think, right, this was still before the Disney buyout, so they were still on Cartoon Network. I think Right, had they been on a different type of network, we might have seen Motherfuckers Chopped in Half, because I mean to be fair. I mean when, krell, we'll get more into that episode.
Speaker 3:He freaking, broke dudes back. He just like stabbed his spine Right Like Backbreaker stabbed him backbreaker In half.
Speaker 2:Who's that guy from Mortal Kombat? Oh Goro yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, a quick, quick, little, little little trivia piece here. Barriss and Ahsoka were in the first episode. They were there in the space battle, so you'd have to like stop and freeze, frame it, because they just fly by in there. They're Jedi star fighters. But yeah, um and sherry mentioned that too had had had ahsoka come, you know, to replace anakin, it would have been a whole different story. But let me ask you this but would it have been?
Speaker 1:successful. Would it have been worth it, like we did? Did rex need this? You know what I mean. Did rex need for this to happen? Because he's so. I don't want to say that he's blindly loyal, because he's not, but at the same time it's like his name is rex. That's a common, very loyal dog's name, you know and so you can't help but to draw those parallels.
Speaker 3:But now it's like it's funny that you mentioned that, because I actually made I actually made a note. It's the only note that I made was and, and I wrote it down when it happened as opposed to waiting oh, oh, is that another echo?
Speaker 1:do you hear an echo? I do hello, hello, hello okay no as long as you hear my echo.
Speaker 3:That's cool yeah, um what I saying Lost my train of thought. You wrote a note.
Speaker 1:You wrote a note.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, my note, and I wrote this before watching the end. I wrote it and this was like five minutes into the first episode and I didn't write anything else after it. Anakin looks to Rex and they're talking about Shoot what is that? Looks to Rex and they're talking about shoot what is that? Oh my gosh, what's the name of the clone? The other, the other main clone in this, in this series, Cody?
Speaker 1:five.
Speaker 3:Five was the other art trooper with him no, the, the one that kind of like was too loyal.
Speaker 1:Oh Dogma.
Speaker 3:Dogma, thank you, I didn't write that down, so Dogma had said something. And Rex said, oh, he's tight knit but he's loyal. And Anakin looks and says, kind of like you, yeah, he reminds me of you, right? And he said and. And rex said turned to him and said maybe a long time ago yeah and.
Speaker 3:But he says that before this even happens. So he's basically it. To me it felt like he was telling anakin like, oh no, I've already matured past that. And then we see, no, he really hasn't, because in the beginning he was still that blind loyal, he was still following krell, even though in the beginning he knew that krell was wrong.
Speaker 3:You know, and he just kept following along, like, like, kept justifying it in his mind that it's, it's just an order, it's just an order. But my question is, and I'll ask this to you guys you know, had Rex really had matured, like, could Rex have stopped this from happening? Could Rex had Rex said something or done something earlier in the missions you know, episode one, episode two when he knew that things could go really wrong? Why wasn't he using that maturity of battle that he was referencing to know when he needed to step in?
Speaker 1:I think, at this point, I think rex, rex started to develop a lot of conflict, I think, in my opinion, um, when he met cut, I think that's when a lot of his conflict and his doubt started. You know, here we see a clone, who, who made a life for himself, you know, with, uh, with his fine little twilight, um, but I think from there he started, he maybe not second guessing his position, not second guessing his, his purpose or his coat of honor or anything like that, but I do think that it started to weigh on him that, you know, there's, there's more than just what we were bred for, like you know, and you know, and we see, there's so much individuality and we see it more in this episode than we have ever seen. I mean the haircuts, the tattoos, you know. I mean this is the first time, I think.
Speaker 1:I think this is the first time that we're seeing Rex in his phase two armor. And it's not regulation, it's a, it's a Frankenstein chopped up up version of, you know, phase one and proper phase two. And you know he's, of course, he's got his, he's got his hash marks on for all the kills he's had. I mean, you know, and so we're seeing, we're seeing all of this and, but he's had his hair chopped and and and dyed blonde, you know, since, you know, episode one is in the very beginning, so that it that that need for individuality is there, and it seems like whether the cam and owens meant to bake that into them or not doesn't matter, because they've got that sense of individuality. So I don't know, I, I think that he because that's a great question, louis I, I just think that he has been trying to tow that line, you know, trying to be that good soldier, you know, but it's just gotten to the point even in the end, he couldn't x, even after everything.
Speaker 3:He couldn't execute him. He knew he went there to do it. You know he was like this is you deserve this?
Speaker 1:He is incapable of shooting an unarmed man in the back, even though Jedi are never truly unarmed. But Rex can't do it. He can't do it. Yeah, it's crazy, yeah.
Speaker 2:And contrast that with Krell skipping procedure and going straight to executing the two clones for having a successful mission with the ship. They take the captured ships in, pull an Anakin, blow up the ship from within and he still orders their execution. And when the clones deliberately miss because they just couldn't bring themselves to do it, it shows there's just that line that Rex wasn't ready to. Even when it was just personal insults by referring to him by his number and stuff like that, he bit his lip and he was being the good soldier as long as he could and he just couldn't cross that last step to. As you're watching the whole arc you can see some of the men were like we're going to have to kill this guy before he kills us.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and I think, like, as we're, as we're watching this, you know, I want, I do want to go episode by episode, but I mean it's, it's, it's, oh god, it's so good it all.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the thing with this. It's because they never cut to anything else. It just feels like like. Like tony said, I think in his second comment. He said he usually likes to watch an episode and then kind of processed on it before he does it again.
Speaker 1:And here he said for this arc he couldn't wait, he just had to go right into it if, if they, if someone makes a super cut like of this, like cut out the intros and the outros and and all that, you could legit watch this all the way through as a standalone movie, and it would. It would still be so good. So, oh my god. So let's, let's talk about, um, that second episode, and uh, that's when I there was. There was so much frustration, like that's the one where they're, um, they're going, they're going for the airbase, and it's just like I. And I think that's when, when Carl said you're going to take the road in, right, yeah, you're going to go straight on taking the road and we're going to capture this airbase, um, no, no, no, no, no, going down the road was from when they were attacking the city and they got fucked up.
Speaker 1:This was that little gully he was like you're gonna go straight down. Yeah, um, I was getting frustrated, like every time they took a breath the um barns were on them again. Every time, you know, first it was that little, that little electric oh yeah, the critter electric critter and then they got.
Speaker 1:They got jumped. They, they swept the road for mines pulled back. While they were pulled back, they got jumped. It was just I was like guys, oh my god, like I felt it in my, oh god, I feel so bad for you guys. So we're, so we're getting into this and and this is the episode, the General and we had some really, really cool scenes in that, and that's when the realization begins as well, when they're starting to see, like you know what there's something going on here. We're not just fodder and that this. I think this was the episode where um, no, it was the first episode where rex stood up. But you know, they're really there's, there's some dissension there, especially between fives and rex. Fives is is on it, but Rex is still. He's still just trying to hold that line. Crash.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and having Fives there was a great addition because he's worked with Rex before. He's an advanced trooper. He's probably seen other styles of command as he's moved around from campaign to campaign. So for him to literally be telling rex, this is not right, this is not how we should be treated as soldiers, as men. And rex again just couldn't break the line. He couldn't step over, you know, because fives was it? You know we saw him in the in the early stages of their. You know, their knows what it's like to have a commander or somebody not pulling for the home team, as it were, so that you realize that when they're out in the field like that, they're on their own and all they can rely on. I love we'll get later on. There's an iconic shot of the boys as they're walking back to confront Krell. Finally, iconic shot of the boys as they're walking back to confront Krell. Finally, and you know the correct puts it, and there's just, it's just the bad-ass walk of star Wars.
Speaker 1:Love it.
Speaker 2:I love it Like that moment.
Speaker 1:That's such a great scene. That is such a great scene. I mean it's like the boys are back and they're getting ready to fuck shit up. And how, how much courage does it take, as clone troopers, to face off against a jedi like krell? I mean, we've seen, we've seen rex go toe-to-toe, you know, against asajj, you know, knowing he can't compete with force, powers and abilities, but he won't stop, and the other clones won't either. And that's it Even. You know what let's talk about. Let's talk about dogma for a second Misguided yes.
Speaker 2:Perfectly named, though, for what he represented.
Speaker 1:Yeah, misguided, yes, but a different type of loyalty, like what are your thoughts on on dogma here? Because it's like, on one hand, he was hardline being a good soldier, but then, on the other hand, he was going against his brothers. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Do you want to go?
Speaker 3:Louie. No, you go, cause I got to think on that.
Speaker 2:Okay, to me he was an interesting. He reminded me a lot of the interpreter from the saving private Ryan crew. You know, he was sort of supposed to be the, the doughy eyed rookie being thrown into this impossible situation with guys that have already seen it. Yeah, and and and when the when the moment came and he sort of flinched under fire and you know his friend got killed because he was afraid to go in. Dogma to me represented that that, that following the orders too much, you know, listening to bad leadership too much, and it was just it. It was a great one time.
Speaker 2:When they're in the in the clones are in their barracks and you can tell when he walks in the room they stop talking because they know he's the snitch, he's the one that's going to go run to krell and tell them what they're talking about. And just the dynamic that clones who think of themselves as brothers, even they know who the weak link in the chain was, as it were. I found him a com, an interesting character, and and that at the very end he's the one that pulled the trigger. Yeah, because he just all of his faith in, in the system and and what krell betrayed them just came to a head and where rex couldn't do it, he just had enough that was very cool.
Speaker 1:He needed that redemption. He felt like he had betrayed his brothers and got his brothers killed and he needed to to make it right in some way. And one thing that, uh, that I liked the interaction between dogma and krell in in when, when they were, you know, in the brig together and Krell laughing at him saying that, um, you know, I needed you the most. I needed people like you who are just blindly faithful and will believe anything.
Speaker 1:And I was like, oh man, I don't want to say that that sounds like the republican party, but I mean that kind of sounds like like that line like you know, I don't I'm not gonna bring politics into this, but but I am but it's like that that really hit different, because it's like krill was like if kr isn't Trump, he definitely would have voted for Trump and he needs those, those blind, ignorant loyalists to legitimize his crazy, stupid plans.
Speaker 2:There's a. There's a great Easter egg. I don't know if you guys picked up on this or not. Krell had his little entourage, you know his two troopers or so that always flanked him wherever he went and he kind of referenced to Sergeant Apo In the comics and later, after the canon got flipped around. But even later on, apo ends up being the head of the 501st when Vader's in charge.
Speaker 1:Order 66.
Speaker 2:After Order 66, because when this show came out immediately, people's first thought was well, what happens to Rex? And we'll find out later. I don't want to give that away, but it's interesting that one of Krell's bootlicking tag-alongs ends up getting command of the 501st around Order 66, because he would probably blindly follow orders.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you brought him up because you know what let's, let's do a little, let's let's sidetrack and and and do a few little easter eggs and things like that. There's a lot in this arc. There was a lot. But uh, sergeant, oppo the um, the arrow that's on his, his, his helmet. I don't know if you guys noticed that he's got a white arrow on his helmet. That was a callback to Avatar, the Last Airbender, and Filoni was the director on that.
Speaker 3:Oh interesting.
Speaker 1:So people always complain about Dave, like, oh man, he always brings his characters into live action, not just from Star Wars, not just from the Star Wars franchise, he's bringing it in from everywhere.
Speaker 3:I guess I didn't realize that Dave Filoni worked on Avatar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think he was the supervising director for that.
Speaker 3:Like the whole show.
Speaker 1:I believe so yeah.
Speaker 3:Didn't know that.
Speaker 1:And that's why Avatar the Last Airbender is so good, because it's a Dave Filoni joint. So T Deoni here. He commented. He said I loved that Krell used Palpatine's line of it's treason then when the team confronted him, I love that Absolutely. But there's also a few other little things that happen. Most of it happened, I think, in like the last, the last episode of this arc. But um, when hard case and fives were going into the um, the airbase, and hard case he says you know, I prefer straight up fight instead all this sneaking around. I was like all right, han solo moment, okay. And then we have another han solo moment when they're in the hangar and krell calls down what, what's going on? Oh, yeah, yeah that what's your ct number?
Speaker 1:right, what's your ct number? It's like when, when they do things like that, that is, it's just delightful because in in those moments, that's when you know that we're watching something that's created by fans. Like whoever wrote that dialogue I don't know if it was dave, I haven't like really deep dived into the episode like that but, um, whoever it was, bless your soul because you are star wars.
Speaker 2:You love star wars, you know oh go ahead, even even the part where they you know they talk about how. Yeah, general skywalker told us about how he blew up a trade Federation ship, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, story about when I was.
Speaker 2:I remember when I was eight and I like blew up a trade Federation ship all by myself Like you can see Anakin and the boys in the barracks on a ship and like trading. Oh yeah, I blew up a ship when I was eight years old. Top that.
Speaker 1:And I can totally see Anakin doing that, because Anakin does have a bit of an ego yeah that, because anakin does have a bit of an ego.
Speaker 1:Yeah just a little bit, a little bit, and I'm pretty sure, and he loves his guys. So I I agree with you. I think that's exactly what happened. They were probably sitting chilling somewhere waiting, because, like we know, in the military it's always hurry up and wait and wait, hurry up and wait. So that's probably what was going on and, like you said, they were trading some war stories. He's like yeah, you know, when I was like eight or nine, I blew up a trade federation droid no big deal, big deal in a stolen naboo starfighter save the day save the day again.
Speaker 1:I don't want to. I want to see that conversation.
Speaker 3:I want to see that conversation he was 9 he was 9 and I think Padme was 14.
Speaker 1:I think there's like a 5 year age difference.
Speaker 3:Weird Al says 14, so that's what we're going to go with, alright we'll go with that.
Speaker 1:So at that age it's weird and creepy. But once they're in their 20s I guess it's cool. But you know, 9 years old and a teenager, it's like ahhh, but it's the. But you know, nine years old, the teenager is like ah, but it's the outer rim, so you can do whatever the fuck you want. I mean, if you can have slaves, then a little bit of mild pedophilia isn't gonna isn't gonna hurt anything, so it's, it's fine.
Speaker 1:Um, I did just read something interesting I don't know if we have any um robotech fans. I am a huge robotech fan. I love robotech. Robotech was my uh, my first introduction to anime when I was a kid. Um the uh, the umbaran soldiers I'm reading here were based off of the zentradi from robotech and the uh sardukers from dune. Is that how you say it? The sardukers from Dune? Is that how you say it? The Sardaukers?
Speaker 2:Sardukars.
Speaker 1:Sardukar, I don't fuck with Dune, so I don't know, I don't know. I only saw the original Dune with David Bowie and Patrick Stewart.
Speaker 3:You haven't seen the ones with Timothee Chalamet Chalamet.
Speaker 1:No, I have not.
Speaker 3:They're good.
Speaker 1:I'm not like a big dune person, but they're good okay, um, so let's talk a little bit more about about fives and uh and hard case and that first ride in the, uh, the umbarfighters. They were having the time of their lives, they were man, their boys were getting beat up by those. Was it the tanks at that point? Yeah, it was the tanks.
Speaker 2:Like the scorpion-style tank with the big gun on the back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were getting beat up, their boys were getting beat up and we and this to me anyway was this was joe's, this was this was military guys. That's exactly that's exactly how a couple of joes would react to getting their hands on enemy equipment, like a hundred percent, like without fail. So, and that makes me wonder too, like do they have you know military, you know veterans? Do we have veterans on staff helping out with some of the writing or the consulting or whatever? Because that was just like spot on. So I don't know. So last episode, this was the heavy one, right? Last episode, this is the one we're going to. We'll talk about this. We'll probably end the show after this, because I don't have the emotional bandwidth to go on after.
Speaker 1:So things with Krell are starting to pop off. Rex is very, very angry. Rex is very, very angry. We're seeing we saw the boys drop their weapons and refuse to execute their brothers, which was great. And then the 501st are sent out to fight the enemy, who are dressed like them. And that's when she gets real. Rex learns what's happening, goes out there and drops to his knees like broken, like Louis, what you had said earlier about, about him, like you know, yeah, that was me, you know, maybe back in the day, you know now, when, when you, what were your thoughts like on that? Because, again, you, you know, crash and I have seen this before. But when, when you saw that whole, that whole thing played out, what was, what were you thinking about?
Speaker 3:I was. At first I was trying to, like I, I guess I didn't, it all happened so fast, like I didn't realize. I guess, like I like I knew what they were doing. But when he said oh you know, they have our clone armor on, I was like, yeah, dumbass, because they're clones, like I guess. At first I just couldn't understand why they didn't get it, you know um but yeah, because they trusted in krell.
Speaker 1:They trusted in krell. Krell said that they're using they're disguised as clone troopers. Yeah, so they had no reason to not believe a jedi, you know, yeah I guess supposed to be trusted?
Speaker 3:yeah, there was definitely um, we had talked about this earlier where we were saying you know that rex always, you know kind of like, found that line. You know what, I and he rode that line as much as he possibly could and we saw that in this arc right, because every time he was given an order as insubordinate as he could without you know, calling for an execution they weren't supposed to take out those centipedes they weren't supposed to take out they weren't supposed to retreat on the road.
Speaker 2:They weren't supposed to.
Speaker 3:Yeah right, right, um, but this was like a like a switch, right, like this was like a switch flip. This is when I think that old Rex was gone. That was the moment that I think it would have been cool if this arc would have happened and then his armor changed to kind of show that.
Speaker 1:To show how broken he is.
Speaker 3:Right, right, him coming into this arc with the new armor that I feel like that's a missed opportunity, dave, um, but yeah, so there's, this is him ascending next level as a character. I think this arc really was him, like we're just seeing his character progression go to the next level. Right, he's now. I, I would say now he's main character status. You know what I mean, like, and and I mean I guess to other people maybe he was main character status earlier, but I mean for me in the clone wars, like ahsoka, main character immediately. Right, like some of these jedi, main character immediately.
Speaker 3:Um, you know, rex, for me, had to earn his main character status. I guess, um, this, this arc, was it? This, this is, yeah, this was where rex is now. Like, oh, I love rex, you know what I mean. Like, I now have, uh, an attachment to him. Um, and that's one more thing I want to say and I'm not going to talk anymore because I feel like I've talked too much this episode you're on a podcast, I hope you talk yeah, well, um, usually, when it comes to things like prequels and side stories and stuff like that, um, I'm a huge person against characters with plot armor.
Speaker 3:Like I hate, like what.
Speaker 3:The more that we see anakin and the more that we see obi-wan and the more that we see these other characters, personally, for me, I don't care so much about their stories because I know what happens to them. So, for me, watching this show is about the clones, right, because these are the characters that don't have plot armor. As we've seen, our wall of remembrance, you know, like tony just said, ptsd from this, like this, these are the characters that we, as fans, are going to attach ourselves to because they are the characters without the plot armor. We know what happens to Anakin. We know what happens to Obi-Wan. We don't know what happens to Rex. We don't know what happens to Cody. We don't know what happens to Fives. Fives could have died in this, which would have killed me, because Fives is like my favorite, but like, yeah, if they touch Fives, look, I'm writing this down right now. Okay, all right, so you know, you know how Game of Thrones, right, like you never see it coming, all right, right, as soon as you fall in love with a character.
Speaker 3:They're dead Right, Don't fuck with fives.
Speaker 1:Please, that's fair, that's fair.
Speaker 3:Please.
Speaker 2:That's fair. Please Don't fuck with fives, dave. I agree totally. I'm a big Rex fan from day one. This was literally the leveling up of that character from just a recurring character to go with Anakin to you could literally base entire story arcs off of him. And the the master class of voice acting that was Dee Bradley creating different personalities just with his voice in for the clones. But the thing I really yeah, we haven't touched on yet and it just it's got to be Krell, you bastard, is just a brilliant bit of script flipping in that. He would be the perfect Karen Travis Jedi. He hates the clones, he doesn't think of them as human and he just throws them out there to get slaughtered. All you had to do was betray everything, yeah.
Speaker 2:He betrays everything the Jedii stand for. You look at, like yoda and obi-wan and anakin. We see these guys, they, they honor these guys, they respect these guys they go into battle with. So to see a guy like krell come along and literally, like I said, purposely insulting the, the clones, but using their, their number, not their name, which is, you know, we can talk about gender identity and people, treating people with respect from a leadership standpoint. I mean, he was pulling Dick move left and right and he was doing it deliberately and at the end he even flaunted it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause, and yeah, and that's, that's just a tactic used to minimalize the people that you're talking to.
Speaker 3:You're yeah, you're yeah, you're absolutely right and tommy you and I know, like, as, as veterans, like that's, that's a leadership. I mean that's a leadership thing that we see, you know, in our military, like there is leadership out there, that that they take that power to the extreme and and and yeah, they only refer to you by your rank right, you know, come here private.
Speaker 1:come here, sergeant. You know they never refer to you by your name or it's always prefaced. You know with come here private, you know so and so come here, sergeant, so and so you know whatever, and it just shows that you're not anything to them, you're not that human element to them. So I really do, I feel like this really did show a lot of the reality of being in the military. It showed the camaraderie, it showed that brotherhood, it showed how you deal with loss on the battlefield. You know like how you know there was that part with the with kicks and it's rex like you got to leave him, you got to leave him out there. If you go to get him those, those creatures are going to get you and we need you. You're our medic, you know you're. You're our corpsman, you're our doc, we need you. Right, and it's like that's're our corpsman, you're our doc, we need you. And it's like that's one of those tough calls that Rex had to make. And and I agree with both of you 100% we haven't seen Rex until right now. He's been there but we haven't really seen him.
Speaker 1:This was Rex. We saw Rex. Rex was born. This is Rex, this is Captain Rex. So I loved it. Can we give thoughts and prayers to Waxer please?
Speaker 2:Oh, that was just the biggest dick punch to the fans because it was bad enough to have the crossfire, something straight out of Platoon where it's just gut-wrenching scene but to then afterwards, oh, it's like, oh, that was some of the 212, and to pick out a guy, one of their face characters, as it were, that we, we know, you know people have come to know and love and go. Oh, yeah, we don't know who shot him. Yeah, they thought he was a droid. Yeah, there was no mal, it was just. It just highlighted the tragedy from both sides of that skirmish that neither side knew what was going on until it was too late and thank God Rex stopped him Right.
Speaker 1:But I like man seeing Waxer, because it's like with Waxer we've we've been there with Waxer. He hasn't been on a lot, him and Boyle haven't been on a lot, only a few episodes. He hasn't been on a lot, him and Boyle haven't been on a lot, only a few episodes. But we've been there with him for critical moments in this character's life when him and Boyle meet Numa and care for this little girl and take her to safety. Seeing the humanity of the clones, you know they're not just soldiers, they do have individual personalities. Like you said, man, hats off to you know, to d, for giving them all different personalities. That can't be easy. It's good writing and it's fucking outstanding voice acting. But the fact that he had he had had a little, a little cartoon Numa on his bucket Are you fucking kidding me right now, dave? Dave, are you doing this to my heart, seriously? Um, and then the tear. The tear because it's like what did we do? And, oh my God, tonyony's weighing in on this stuff. What's it's like?
Speaker 1:I want to see a death battle between krell and grievous and then shoot the winner I would and then shoot the winner and, uh, I thought rex's episode with cut was a revelation and good character growth. This was a whole other level that came from uh t to the oni as well.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, and he's right. This, this was you know, for as much as the mortis trilogy did it for the main face character, jedi. Yeah, this you know. We've talked about this before in episodes. We every time we was like, oh, wait till you get to ambara, wait till you get to ambara. This is why this was really the birth of a deep Dark, is not, I don't want to say it just because the environment was dark, but gut-wrenching, I think, when they realized the clones were shooting at each other, I think the word gobsmacked comes to mind there was just you just stand there staring. Even this week I watched it again and I'm just standing there open-mouthed like I can't believe this is happening In a cartoon, which is fine.
Speaker 2:I understand people have issues with animated show versus live-action show. But as far as you couldn't do this with a live-action cast I mean imagine shooting a Band of Brothers level show with clone armor but what they could do with anime you couldn't make a world like Umbara. No, no, of course not, so they do it in animation, but if you just take that aside and just go on what the story they're telling you is, this was gut-wrenching from start to finish.
Speaker 1:And I know a lot of people like to make fun of people who say who, who, uh, compare this to band of brothers, you know, and shows like that. This is not everybody's like. Oh, it's dark and gritty, you know, and they're saying it sarcastically. But is this as heavy as band of brothers? No, absolutely not. No, I, I agree, um, but the subject matter for the demographic that it was made for, this is heavy. This is, this is heavy stuff and to present that to you know, teens and pre-teens you know, think about the audience, like who this show is geared towards.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like I'm actually glad ahsoka or barris or you know, you were saying they're briefly seen in the space. I'm glad they almost weren't.
Speaker 1:On this on the ground level it's too much this would be traumatizing oh yeah, for all the battles they've been through for all the.
Speaker 2:You know everybody loves seeing, you know lights, the kids with lightsabers doing their thing. I think a story like this, where it's just pure carnage and and just you know, like there's stuff that happened we find out later in ahsoka relevant to this, there it's like this would weigh on her for the rest of her life.
Speaker 1:Going through at a moment like this and she's already got a lot going on. I mean, ahsoka already has a lot on her shoulder. Yeah, she's 15 going on, 40 I, you know I was. I I went live for a few minutes before the show tonight on on tiktok and we talked about ahsoka and I have to say that ahsoka is probably I don't want to say she's my favorite character necessarily, because rex is my favorite character, but the level of development for ahsoka you know what we know about her based on what we've seen so far and louis, you haven't seen shit yet I mean, we get there's still so much more to go with ahsoka, like you've seen at this point. You've seen the beginning of her story and you've seen the live action where she is now in her story and we still her story's not done yet. And I'm so excited about that because we saw her as snips coming in like okay, sky guy, you know, and and just like this bright-eyed, full of hope.
Speaker 1:And then there's the whole middle part that you didn't see yet. There's the whole middle part and by the time you see her again, she's just fucking burnt out. I mean she's, she is world weary, yeah, but you're about to fucking see the middle part and how she got to be that way, you know. So it's like, ah, strap in boys, because it's uh, it's going to be interesting and we're not done with the heavy. There's, uh, there's, there's some, I mean there's. You know there's going to always be the filler, the comic relief episodes, but it's gonna, it's gonna be a ride. Fella it be a ride.
Speaker 3:I really do like the episodes where there's less jumping around and more like focus story. Like I said, this is the. I mean this arc is my favorite of what we've seen on the show so far.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad. I'm so glad because I I feel the same way like out of out of every, everything in star wars. The ombara arc is my favorite thing in star wars it's very good it was very good I'm glad you like it. So, because I know like prior to this you had been saying that you know you were like two weeks like struggling.
Speaker 3:Oh, I haven't watched it, it's like, like oh I mean just read the cliff notes and right, you're like, it's like.
Speaker 1:Look, I didn't watch it.
Speaker 3:I was like I'll have it on in the background and I'll be doing something else and I'll follow along with the story.
Speaker 1:But like I'm not locked in man, 60 seconds into this episode I was locked the heck in and now you're invested and it only took you three and a half seasons to get there and you're invested and it's going to be. I don't think you're going to be disappointed with the rest of it because we already know the direction the Clone Wars take. So you already know things are going to start getting more and more serious as we go.
Speaker 2:And the good thing. I don't know if you've heard of this, tommy. I've heard Sam Witwer and people talking about their work on the show as actors and they always say the same thing where they would go to do other things and people. You know, this was the time when Clone Wars was sort of as a show was getting credibility for their cast. It wasn't just a, it just wasn't a Star Wars cartoon for kids. People were going, wow, there's some good storytelling going on here, there's some depth to it. And by the later seasons I remember Katie Zakoff and a few other people would say that people were coming and asking what was it like working on Clone Wars? It was becoming a talking point within the industry because the show had just done so much good work right the writing was getting so much recognition.
Speaker 1:It was just it's a great show and I'm I'm so glad that we're we're experiencing it this way in order because, as we start watching other things, once the clone wars wrap and we move into rebels, good googa mooga, and I hated rebels. When it came out, I hated it, I did not like it. So, um, I didn't even get through the first season of rebels because I was like, oh, I was one of those. You know the animation style and ezra just as annoying as shit, and it's just like. I was like I appreciate the art style because it's all based on ralph mccorry's original concept art, so I appreciate it I it was.
Speaker 2:It was a hard night. 90 degree turn from what you got used to with clone wars and sort of the dave filoni style. And then to do something drastically different was it felt it it was jarring, okay, and then to do something drastically different, it felt it was jarring. Rebels is actually my favorite show of the animated and even some of the, I'd say my favorite show of the Disney era, just because not just the art style but that's the era of Star Wars. I like that pre A New Hope era.
Speaker 1:Because that's when there's more desperation there, because there is no hope.
Speaker 2:At that point we're all Rebels on the run.
Speaker 1:Right, and as I watched more Rebels I never finished the series, but as I watched more of it, the interactions that we're seeing between the Rebels characters and the Clone Wars characters talk about heart-wrenching. It's just. It's such a great show. And speaking of heart-wrenching, tony says also rip to hard case. Hard case coming in clutch with the uh the sacrifice play, taking out the command ship, sacrificing for the, for the team. And uh, man, I love hard case. He was so fun name. Oh, but it fits him, he's a hard case. It's like, dude, shut up, calm down. He's like, nah, I'm doing this for the fun. Um, he reminds me a lot of um, god, I can't remember his name from Bad Batch.
Speaker 2:Oh Wrecker.
Speaker 1:Wrecker. Yeah, he reminds me of Wrecker Same personality. Alright, that is going to be it. Thoughts I think we've already gone through thoughts, but closing thoughts on the Umbara arc, daddy Louie on the Umbara arc.
Speaker 3:Daddy Louie, yeah, I wish that I could recommend. I wish that there was a way that people could see this episode earlier than you're going to. I realize that that kind of makes the impact of some of the character stories less impactful because we hadn't had that growth. But I will say that if you're, if you're listening to this now and you haven't seen any Clone Wars, so why would you be listening to this now? But I guess if you happen to stumble upon this moment of this episode right now and you have seen no Clone Wars or you're just starting Clone Wars and you're like this is a struggle, like I did, I promise you Just.
Speaker 1:I agree.
Speaker 3:I mean, play it in the background if you have to. But get to this point right now because I told you that was good star wars I told you it was good, good star wars. I thoroughly enjoyed it good.
Speaker 1:I'm so happy. That makes my heart feel good. I'm so happy that you enjoyed it. I know that you enjoyed it, but didn't enjoy it at the same time because it was fucking brutal emotionally yeah, but sometimes those are the best things to watch, right?
Speaker 3:who knew that?
Speaker 1:on the heart who knew that you could feel emotionally connected to a fucking clone trooper? You know, and I'm getting more emotional.
Speaker 3:Like I said now, I'm emotionally attached to fives. If they fuck with fives I'm gonna be fucking pissed off, you know. So it's like, it's not even just like. And I like Rexx now, like I've never really been a rex fan.
Speaker 2:I didn't, I, I didn't, I because you haven't seen him before you know what I mean I told tommy, when he came to cleveland and I saw his rex armor, I said dude, you are going to be a rock star if you wear that thing, because rex was the man yeah when this show was came out.
Speaker 2:You know he was a fun character, you didn't? He didn't have that plot armor even though he's wearing armor that you could latch on to and just like what is going to happen to him and he's been, and this is really a a growing up moment for him in this arc but I gotta tell you I I had the phase one rex armor and then I had the phase two armor.
Speaker 1:I never got mobbed until I was in the phase two armor, like it. When I wore the phase one armor out, I mean it was cool, it was fine, but I was like a, basically a background player. I was a stormtrooper. You know, if anybody, if vader or chewy were there, I might as well have just been invisible, but people would say you know, stormtrooper, you're a Stormtrooper, you're a Stormtrooper, whatever. But in Phase 2 Rex it's like You're.
Speaker 3:Captain Rex.
Speaker 1:I'm fucking Captain Rex, Like sometimes I would get a little more love than Vader. Never as much as Chewie. Chewie stops traffic Like it doesn't even matter. Chewie fucking stops traffic like regardless, it doesn't even matter. If it's a screen-accurate, full-size Chewy, it could be a half Chewbacca. Hey, look at this. We got someone calling us shills because we like something Melvin's known, because we happen to enjoy something. So I guess that makes us shills. Thanks, Melvin, for not knowing shit about us.
Speaker 2:Glad we reached the basement. Is that even like?
Speaker 3:a slang for something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, people that use that terminology Basically, it's like, if you like, star Wars, current Star Wars, which we're not even talking about, current Star Wars, we're talking about fucking Clone Wars. Yeah, this was still Cartoon.
Speaker 2:Network what?
Speaker 1:a dumbass. Yeah, this is pre-Disney. We're talking about pre-Disney Star Wars, which everybody loves, but we're shills for enjoying something, but that's all they can articulate. People like that, that's all they can articulate. And it's like but you're here, you People like that, that's all they can articulate. It's like shouts. But you're here, you're interacting with us. Live Melvin's known. Tell us why we're shills. But they never will, because they don't have an answer for that. They never have an answer for that.
Speaker 2:It's just because it goes straight into personal insults. By the way, Mickey Mouse, if you are listening, my check has not cleared yet.
Speaker 1:I am a paid shill for Disney listening. My check has not cleared yet I am for real right. You don't usually get paid for shit. We're not getting paid for any money. Mickey, look at he said that he's triggered now.
Speaker 3:He just put in I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry that we're really sorry, melvin he's still, he's still watching melvin. Thanks for watching, melvin, thanks for the view, appreciate you so and that and that's another thing I do love ray. Actually she's quite attractive ray love see.
Speaker 1:And again you've got some chucklehead. That has no idea. I do like ray, I don't. But that's not. That's like ray. Come on, man see. And that's another thing. So, melvin, see. So this is. This is why you're an idiot, because you have no idea what you're talking about. I don't like Rey.
Speaker 3:I don't like the prequels.
Speaker 1:I think the sequels are. They're not as bad as the prequels, but they're up there.
Speaker 3:I mean Tommy, if I may hot take.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Rey in episode eight is better than Luke in episode 4. Oh sorry, I meant 7, 7. Sorry, I take that back. Melvin, I'm really sorry.
Speaker 1:Melvin doesn't care. Melvin doesn't care. I mean, really, if we're going to go that route, ahsoka, you want a hot take? Ahsoka? I'll just say ahsoka, you want a hot take? Ahsoka is the best character in star wars and in current star wars I would go with that. No, not even current of any character. If you're talking about like layers and dimensions, ahsoka has been through it more than anybody else has. I don't care what anybody says.
Speaker 1:Like you want to talk about anakin's redemption arc. In my opinion, fuck anakin skywalker, fuck darth vader, baby killer, you don't. You don't redeem yourself from killing, murdering children. It doesn't happen. So no, you know, you were a whiny little bitch. You lashed out, you threw a temper tantrum, you killed a bunch of kids because you're afraid that your wife is going to die. Okay, fine, but I, I could justify everything, I could justify the turn to the dark side up to that point, but when you start murdering innocent children, I'm done with you. I could even let the tuscans go a little bit, but even that it's like come on, pad me, that's red flags, like that's red flags all day. But so no, his, his redemption arc is is garbage. You know it's just. You know it's, it's just the privilege of the skywalker family. So no, I'm not, I'm not dealing with that. So so I'll I'll agree. I can't agree that ray is a better character than luke. I feel like they're both just the meh type of hero journey.
Speaker 3:I agree, I mean.
Speaker 1:I can see your argument for.
Speaker 3:Ahsoka and. I'm not even done with her story yet.
Speaker 1:You haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 2:I think she's had more content to be covered in. I'm sort of looking forward to seeing what they do with this new Jedi Order so-called movie with Ray, where I'd like to see some progression from just the conflict about her past. There's room to grow and I will trade in all my Disney shill money if we can get Finn a proper story.
Speaker 1:I'm just I'm not excited about it. I'm not excited about anything. I'm having a meltdown, melvin. You've never seen one of'm having a meltdown, melvin, you've never. You've never seen one of my star wars. Meltdowns, brother, you have no idea.
Speaker 3:We don't have time for that melvin.
Speaker 2:Melvin missed my my karen travis reference that that's the closest to a meltdown I get.
Speaker 1:So yeah, go frag yourself, but it's okay, melvin, melvin, if, if you're okay with it, crash doesn't like Karen Travis, and I mean he. You know he shits on Travis and I read the books.
Speaker 3:Louis doesn't know who, who that person is.
Speaker 1:Karen Travis wrote the, the, the, the, the oh my God, the Republic commando. It's basically everything that we know about Mandalorians that we're seeing now in the TV shows. It's being pulled from that. So, Karen Travis, she had a language made Mandoa, like all the, all the customs and traditions.
Speaker 3:She's an.
Speaker 1:EU writer. Yeah, and people shit on her like Crash. I consider her the mother of Mandalore.
Speaker 2:She's the mother of Mandalore. I will give her credit for that, but I honestly I keep my with receipts. By the way, I got the passage from her star wars in trial essay yeah he literally contacted ryan kaufman who was coordinating when she was starting the book series.
Speaker 2:Right, he had to explain that, what the clone army was about. And she says, like, okay, let me get this clear. Somebody created a secret clone army. Then they maneuvered the jedi into using them to fight the separatists. And he's like and ryan goes, that's right. So my journalistic brain starts working and she really just kind of cooks up this whole excuse for, like, the jedi using the clones as cannon fodder I think she referred to like a slave army and the worst part, we've seen this in Clone Wars. Filoni completely contradicts that with the way Yoda and Obi-Wan and just the way a true Jedi should be. They see the individuality of these guys, just like we talked about tonight with the Umbara arc and the clones. These guys are individuals, they have personalities, they have soul, they have, you know, they command respect. So she writes great mando. She wrote the. You know it creates a great subculture for the, the spot of boba fett what's your point?
Speaker 2:I'm getting there, but the problem is it was all centered around justifying the clones killing the jedi later it's okay to kill a jedi if they treat you like shit wait, hold on one second.
Speaker 1:I don't mean to interrupt. We've got, yeah, yeah, something going on here. So so tony says poor melvin apparently still needs more attention. Wasn't loved enough as a child, I guess go cry. Here's some blue milk. And then melvin melvin replies with your asshole stinks. I feel okay, that's whatever. He's like 10. Melvin is like 10 or 11.
Speaker 2:I kind of recognize the avatar from Twitter, which is why I got the hell off Twitter, because it was just trolls like this who just waste my time and my patience with Star Wars. It wasn't worth engaging.
Speaker 1:But crash, I cannot. I cannot have you bad mouthing karen travis, I cannot have you doing it, I can't no I can't, I can't listen to it all right, what's your favorite?
Speaker 3:karen travis book go, you can only have one I can only have one desert island hard content, hard contact.
Speaker 2:The first one hard contact, hard contact I only made it through the first one.
Speaker 1:I couldn't stomach it after that, oh jesus, although, although order 66 is really really good too, well, and that's my point it's setting up the clones and the and the the clones.
Speaker 2:Was it just because you needed to justify murdering children later on, when they go in the temple, like the Jedi, treat us like garbage. So it's okay that we slaughter children in a school. Is that the point? Was that the point of Order 66? I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking about Order 66. I'm talking about the book Order 66. So am.
Speaker 2:I. I feel like that whole series was just sort of justifying the clones betraying the Jedi.
Speaker 1:Well, I think a lot of times you'll have, and we saw this a lot in the Acolyte. So if I mean, honestly, if Melvin's going to get triggered about anything, I know Melvin's going to get triggered by us talking about the Acolyte. So that is the trigger warning. But we'll wrap up because we're already 15 minutes over. But the one thing like a lot of writers will do that, because we've been, we've been faced with the jedi like for fucking 50 years right, you know 1977, the jedi have been it.
Speaker 1:I mean the jedi and politics, that's what's synonymous with star wars. You can't have one without the other. I mean that is the skywalker story, that is star wars. So I think a lot of authors and writers, they will take any opportunity that they can to differentiate themselves, because everybody wants to tell their own story. Obviously they just want to play in the star wars sandbox. So how do they do that? What's the best way to do that? We're going to separate ourselves from the jedi and the best way to separate yourself from the jedi is to make them look like assholes, you know, and to look like the flawed cult that they actually were. But like the acolyte did that a lot.
Speaker 2:That was one of the major complaints about the acolyte and I think they did that better than karen travis's books did, where they show the corruption with of the jedi did a great. Yeah, it was a great look he's writing stuff down.
Speaker 3:No, I'm looking for the book. I don't have the book. I never said no, all I got.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:She was manipulating the politics of the Jedi to cover up this crime, which is a shady thing to do. But for a rank-and-file Jedi, they're just trying to be good knights. They're trying to do their job.
Speaker 3:You're not wrong.
Speaker 2:And I'm not wrong for that. But her corruption of the cover-up, I feel, was better than the Jedi were expressed. I don't remember the Jedi that was assigned to Omega Squad in the book, but she was just a terrible flat character.
Speaker 1:I think it was a teen yeah.
Speaker 2:And I even quit my alphabet squadron Because it's getting to the point where certain books again, like you said, to create a differentiation, like I'm reading this New Republic Starfighter Squadron book and the entire squadron split up and hate each other. Right now I'm like what's the point of this book?
Speaker 1:So now everyone that's turned off from reading the Republic Commando books thanks to Crash let me be the voice of reason here. If you are a fan of anything even remotely related to Mandalorians or Mandalorian culture, read the books. It's worth it.
Speaker 2:Oh, read them.
Speaker 1:I think that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:Then just say that I don't think I'm reading them. I think it.
Speaker 3:say that I'm reading on the whole thing here.
Speaker 1:Travis Karen gave us Melvin, are you still here Now? I'm melting the fuck down, Now I am triggered. Now you're fucking with my mandos and I cannot have it. I can't have it.
Speaker 2:Karen crawled so Dave Filoni can run. I think that's the point. Okay, books that dave has taken parts of and has just expanded on, and you will see that later in the show I'm adding more buttons to my my I've only got this, I've just got the trombone to say I don't have anything else.
Speaker 1:So, like everything else in star wars, you don't have to love it. I know you don't. You take, it's like a, it's like going to like a chinese buffet. You take what you can and what you want and then you leave the rest. Right, they talk about. If you've ever watched big trouble in little china I think uh talked about that you know it's like we take what we want and leave the rest. What? What is that about? So now we need to do a whole show just on Big Trouble in Little China, one of the greatest non-star wars you want to trigger somebody.
Speaker 3:trigger Melvin when I say Big Trouble in Little China is overrated.
Speaker 2:I'll go with that yeah.
Speaker 1:Tony, the crash is living the motto even when we don't like it, we love it. There you go, tony. Okay, exactly, but here's the thing. But there you go, tony. Okay, that's very true, exactly, but here's the thing. Take what you like from Star Wars, because there's more than enough of it. There's more than enough of this galaxy for us to play in. There's so much more so, even if there are certain aspects of Karen Travis's writings that you don't like and I agree, I don't like all of it either I don't like all of it either but she gave us this amazing look into Mandalorian culture where, previously, all we had were little armor and it was never and even George was super coy about it.
Speaker 1:Well, I never said he was a Mandalorian, I just said he had Mandalorian armor. I said, fucking, come on, george, come on. Never said he was a mandalorian, I just said he had mandalorian armor. I was like, fucking, come on, george, come on. So you know so. But now, with karen, we got a language, we got traditions, we got lore, we got history, you know, we got to look. We got a really good look into the mindset of clone troopers too, you know. And, louis, it's a good read. I know you don't read, but get the audio book.
Speaker 3:I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't. I know I don't either, like I, I wish I would have gotten audio book stuff. I mean, I got like these really cool star Wars books. I don't know if I'll ever read them, but if I can find them on. Anyway, find what you like in Star Wars and then just pretend like the rest of it doesn't exist. That's how I do with the prequels and the sequels, you know, but we were going to have to finish watching them and I'm going to, I'm going to smile and I'm going to take it, just like I'm sure Melvin does at home with his stepbrother.
Speaker 1:So where's that and with that, when? With that and the show? So, uh, yeah, so time for the obligatory pimping. Check us out on all social media soon to not be all social media. We're gonna be probably pulling ourselves out of uh x and uh facebook here shortly, uh, so primarily, check us out on youtube and tiktok. That's where we're going to spend most of our time for as long as TikTok exists, at the SWS show all over the place. Please subscribe to the podcast, either on your favorite platform or on YouTube, or why not both. And if you want to get some of the sexy merch that I'm actually wearing this episode the Swarzy curious shirt, which is my favorite. So if you do happen to be a little Swarzy Curious, and Louie's wearing that same busted ass sticker.
Speaker 3:Look, I have a hoodie on.
Speaker 1:Is it the Circle of Nerds? Hoodie? Yeah, it's a Circle of Nerds, hoodie, it's a Circle of Nerds, hoodie. No new Star Wars, safe Space nerd. Jay, you know what? You can still get this one on our shop too. Circle of nerds, no, no new. No new, yeah, but no new, uh, no new star wars, safe space nerd jay.
Speaker 3:But you know what? You can still get this one on our shop too yes, you can.
Speaker 1:So head on over to circle of nerdscom, slash merch and pick up your very own circle of nerds and or star wars safe space apparel and, uh, make your friends jealous and your uh, your enemies even more angry, like Melvin. Melvin, seriously, if you're still around, I keep seeing someone pop in and out. I don't know if it's Melvin, but Melvin, if you watch this later, seriously, send me your address and I will personally pay for some of our merch and send it your way. I'll send you a whole care package. I'll get you a hoodie, a couple shirts, whatever you want, just so I can see if you wear it and, uh, maybe trigger you even more, but hopefully not. Hopefully we can change your mind, because we're not shills, we just we like what we like and we don't like what we don't like. So I mean, that's just human nature. So, um, I will leave you. I will leave you with this, though I saw, I saw this quote earlier and I absolutely love it and I was going to put it up on our social media, but since I've got all of your attention here and I know everyone is just, uh, I've got like hundreds of thousands of listeners listening to us right now, maybe I, if I can find it here right here we go. So this goes out to all Star Wars fans and the haters, and whatever else, whatever other franchise you're into or you're not into, whenever you decide that you want to shit on something, I found this and I want to put this all over the place.
Speaker 1:The next time you see someone enjoying something that isn't hurting anyone that's not your cup of tea instead of saying something negative, train yourself to think to yourself I'm glad they're happy and carry on with your life. That's it. That is it. You won't be annoyed, you won't get triggered. Have an opinion. By all means. Please say that you don't like something, but don't come into somebody else's world and call them names because they like something that you don't just like.
Speaker 1:Melvin did here. He's a perfect example of that. Melvin could have just spent the rest of his life not even acknowledging our existence. He could have said you know what these guys are loves. They love star wars. They're up mickey mouse's ass. Whatever. All right if they're having fun, who cares? That's what you do. You just you know what. If someone else is having fun, who cares? That's what you do. You just you know what. If someone else is having fun enjoying something that you don't enjoy, just shut the fuck up and move on. You don't need to shit on that person because what's the point? It doesn't serve any money. So next week, homework, episodes 11, 12, 13 and 14 and, of course, as always, do catch up on our past episodes. Be sure to tell your friends, tell your enemies, especially your enemies, because clearly we've triggered at least one person already this week, and I love it.
Speaker 3:I mean right now we're 50-50 with enemies and friends.
Speaker 1:We are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've had a nice split.
Speaker 1:We have a nice split, I'll take it.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 1:So again, everyone, thank you for joining us and tuning in this week. We really do appreciate you. Very special thanks to all of our active duty military personnel and our veterans for their service and sacrifice. We 100% appreciate you for everything that you do. So thank you, thank you, thank you and, as always, remember if no one does anything nice for you, do something nice to yourself, and we are going to see you all next week. Are we going to go live next week?
Speaker 3:I won't be here next week, sad face.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's too bad.
Speaker 1:All right, I don't know, crash, are we going to go live next week?
Speaker 2:This is going to hurt, but I'm not going to go live next week.
Speaker 1:This is gonna hurt, but I'm not gonna be here next week, so we're gonna go. We go live next week. Yeah, why not? Let's go, we'll be live next week, why not? Good, someone will be around. I don't know, I've got, I've got pub. You know what? I'll get my rex helmet and it'll just be me and rex. We'll talk about it. But anyway, thanks, thank you everybody for joining us and uh, yeah, you.