Solo: A Star Wars Story

[00:00:01] Okay, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side. Green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life. So, we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to, like, pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:00:24] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod. But we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore. It was made for The Lorehounds. And since we just finished recapping season one,

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[00:01:06] and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning. Welcome to the Star Wars Film Festival, where the Lorehounds are your guides to a galaxy far, far away. I'm David. I'm John.

[00:01:39] And this is our coverage of the 2018 film Solo A Star Wars Story. In this podcast, we're going to be discussing the movie's production and plot, followed by a discussion on the state of Star Wars and a ton of listener feedback,

[00:01:54] including stuff from Ahsoka and Return of the Jedi. A whole lot of big, big mail. Return of the Jedi? Wait a minute. No, it's the Revenge of the Sith. God, I know. What is wrong with me? My 77 brain just is stuck in the... Anyway. That's all right.

[00:02:09] Be sure to stick around to the end of the podcast too for programming notes about our podcasting schedule for the rest of the year. We can say that now. What the hell is going on? It's the end of the year? Anyway, for early and ad-free access

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[00:02:40] I should have changed it even to even on the Thessel run. Yeah, yeah. Thessel? Kessel. I'm sorry. I'm just saying things. They're coming for you. I'm just saying things. Don't at me. I see that. You can't at us on Twitter anymore. I see the pitchforks and the torches.

[00:02:55] Yeah. Yeah. We do love to respond to your questions, thoughts, and theories on air, even if they come with pitchforks. So send us feedback for the next episode. Send emails to starwarsatthelorehounds.com or head over to our website, and there you can use the nifty voicemail feature

[00:03:12] or the contact form, or you can post a message in our Discord server, and we can include those conversations as well. We've got links in the show notes. We've got a fun and engaging community there, and we've got channels for the book projects we're doing

[00:03:27] and general television chat, a whole dedicated Star Wars channel. So join us there. It's a lot of fun. Well, David, I think we are in an appropriately punchy mood for this movie because this movie is throwing punches all day. That's the whole vibe of the movie.

[00:03:47] So, you know, we've I think people by now, I have this bullet point in our outline, the brief Star Wars personal histories. I think people know by now we are light lore fans, right? We've watched some of the animation stuff.

[00:04:01] We know a decent amount, but certainly not everything. So if you hear us say something wrong or you want to add some context or depth to something, we say, yeah, yeah. All right, Kessel, we got it. You don't need to write that one in.

[00:04:14] Feel free to just write that in. That's totally fine. Anyway, let's do our overall impressions of this film. David, you're first. You know, it is not a film. I don't want to say for me, that's not the right way to say that.

[00:04:35] I'm glad that this film exists in the Star Wars universe. And I know there's a lot of people who really enjoy it. I think it's good that we have a little bit more wink and a tongue in cheek style, you know, movie in there,

[00:04:54] even though it's a little bit adulty in some regards. You know, there's some scenes of violence and exploitation and other fun adult themes like that. But it is a little bit more of a roly poly show. And it was, I think I described it this way

[00:05:14] when we did our live watch, which is a Patreon exclusive that we're doing right now for all the Star Wars films. It's two hours and 15 minutes of fan service. And I don't want that to be a negative comment, but it's just packed full of fan servicey stuff

[00:05:32] and the origin stories of things and why the Millennium Falcon has a cheeky navigation system and all of these kinds of things. And so I don't, yeah, it's fine. It's fine for what it is. It is what it is.

[00:05:53] And I don't think it's trying to be more than what it is. And I think accepting it on those terms, cool. Right? It's like the Marvels. We just saw the Marvels the other day. We just recorded a big podcast about it. It is what it is.

[00:06:05] It's a fun, goofy movie. It's throwing some punches. It does a little bit of emotional work here and there. Sets up some characters for some stuff. And it was great. It was a good time in the theater.

[00:06:16] And so I think Solo sort of fits in that box, I think, for me. Sure. Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. I mean, I think for me, I have to compare the two times I've seen it now. So I saw it first when it came out.

[00:06:30] I saw it in theaters. I was fresh off the first two Star Wars movies of the new sequel trilogy. Right. And I really liked The Last Jedi, you'll recall. So I was pretty hot on Star Wars at the time, but still a very casual fan.

[00:06:46] I really enjoyed The Last Jedi. I paid twice to go see it in the theaters. I willingly went back a second time because I liked it that much. I'm not saying anything. And it's fine. You can say it in a damn word.

[00:06:58] So I think I even brought my wife to go see Solo with me. And I think we both were like, that was a fun movie. For people not really interested in the deeper lore of Star Wars at the time,

[00:07:10] I think we both had a good time with it. And looking back, I had fond memories of it. And I watched it this time, and it held up, I have to say.

[00:07:18] I thought I was going to be a little bit more jaded about it and things like that. Honestly, my biggest critique of it is that there's too many action scenes that lack emotional reasons. But that is my only critique of it.

[00:07:35] And the fact that everything has a very specific reason, like the backstory, everything has a very specific reason. You really needed him to get the name Solo from an Imperial. Okay, there's a few cutesy things like that that I didn't like.

[00:07:47] But other than that, I thought that the main emotional arc worked. I liked Han growing up in the rough and tumble of Corellia and trying to be the scoundrel. But deep down, even Kira sees right to the heart of him and goes, buddy, you're the good guy.

[00:08:05] That's just who you are. And I think that that really cut through to Han's character. So I thought that they did a great job doing his characterization. I really liked Kira. I liked Emilia Clarke as Kira. I liked Woody Harrelson.

[00:08:18] I barely recognized him at first because he wasn't doing a bit part. And I'm just so used to him from White House Plumbers, just doing this gravelly voice. Right, right. But I really enjoyed Woody Harrelson.

[00:08:31] I thought that having the nod to Han shot first and actually having him do it this time for real was amazing. So there's a lot of those like, oh yeah moments. The thing that I mourn the most for this movie is what could have been.

[00:08:46] Because I think that this was a great movie to start the syndicate-verse, to start a series of movies or TV shows that followed. The Huts, The Huts, Crimson Dawn. Crimson Dawn. You've got the Pike Syndicate was mentioned. You've got plenty of crime families.

[00:09:06] We could have had live action Maul back. He was back for a minute in here. What a wasted opportunity. Completely. I think Kira would have been a great character for us to see that crime syndicate through the eyes of.

[00:09:20] It's a great hook at the end and then it just never goes anywhere. Right, and I think that if the movie had done better at the box office, it would have gone somewhere. So as you're saying that, I think that's really interesting. It's an interesting set of points.

[00:09:36] And what it makes me think of is this was a long movie. Two hours and 15 minutes. If this had been a tight hour and a half and we didn't go from here to there and the other thing, if we had just done a simple two-step heist, right?

[00:09:55] So he gets off Corellia. They do the initial heist. It goes bust. They do then the main heist and that's sort of it. And they didn't go off into this whole, into all these other things.

[00:10:12] If they kept it really tight because then there's that whole middle bit where they release all the droids and do all that stuff. If this was just a really tight movie with Han Solo doing a couple of key things and then you left a hook.

[00:10:31] And I think if, so it was overburdened with plot. But then I think it was overburdened from studio expectation. If the studio hadn't expected it to carry so much weight, we could have gotten two or three more of these hour and a half light movies, punch, punch, punch.

[00:10:52] Show us the syndicate. Show us Han doing more stuff. And keep doing these Star Wars stories in a really much narrower story frame and keep the plots much more simple. I think that would have been a really rich universe.

[00:11:06] And we could have had three or four or five films even by then, by now. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I think you cut out a lot of the unnecessary action in this movie and it's a really, really, really good movie.

[00:11:17] But I think as is, it's about an eight out of 10 for me as is. And I really liked it. And I don't want to, with these small critiques, I don't want it to get lost that I really liked this movie. I had a great time with it.

[00:11:30] I thought that Alden, I'm never going to know how to say his last name. Oh yeah, yeah. I think Alden did an amazing job as Han Solo. I think he really captured Harrison Ford. I saw you and Tulip Blossom going back and forth.

[00:11:44] Is he doing the bit too much? I didn't think so. I actually really liked how much he did it.

[00:11:51] You know, I thought that he did it just enough where I felt like I was seeing the same character, but not so much where I thought he was just doing an impersonation of Harrison Ford. He had the vibe. That's for sure.

[00:12:04] And then it just, for me, there was just a little bit too, and it just went into the overburdening of this movie. We've got to answer the castle run problem. We've got to question, we've got to do the Chewy thing. We've got to do this.

[00:12:16] We've got to get the Melanie Fogler. We've got to get Landon Cowhers. They packed the entire Han Solo backstory into one movie and it was too much. And so I think for me, it was all a little bit too on the nose. You know what I mean? Sure.

[00:12:31] It was a little bit too much of everything. It was just thick. Well, I know you're a noted cake hater. So it was like one of those multi-layer cakes, like seven layers of cake. Disgusting. And it's a ton of fondant and a ton of, you know...

[00:12:47] Listen to Second Breakfast if you want to know what David's talking about with the cake. And a thick cake. And so you're just kind of like, oh, this is a burden to eat. I think that's how I felt.

[00:12:56] I would have really enjoyed this movie if it had been just simplified in a lot of different ways. Because there was a lot of really great stuff. Paul Bettany's character was amazing. He was just chewing the scenery. It was like off the hook.

[00:13:11] Emilia Clarke, I liked the role. Oh, sorry. It was Vision, right? Vision Voss? Vision Dryden Voss. Yeah, I was saying Vision because he's Vision in the MCU. In the MCU, right. And I think this character is really interesting in the moral quandary that she has.

[00:13:28] There's a lot of great material. We haven't even talked about Donald Glover. I love Donald Glover as Lando. He has that arrogant smugness. I love it. Very, very in line with the character. But he also felt like he was playing it a little differently.

[00:13:46] I think if you thought that Han was playing it too close to Harrison Ford, I think that you were probably, I'm guessing, more pleased with Lando. Yeah, but they didn't have to load Lando up as much as they did Han.

[00:14:04] We only had to get a couple of glimpses of him and just have a couple of key transactions, the whole card thing. I think it was pretty simplified. I liked the card thing a lot. I liked him stealing the card from him.

[00:14:21] Because that really got to the core of what they were trying to tell me with this movie, which is Han is a good guy masquerading as a scoundrel. Right, right. Him stealing the card to make him play fair

[00:14:35] is such a good guy pretending to be a scoundrel thing. That's such a great microcosm of it. Right, right. And that chaotic good nature that Han Solo has. Right. And by the time Luke runs into him on Tatooine,

[00:14:53] he's so jaded and scuffed and roughed that that's been covered over. And it sort of takes this bigger than life event, saving Leia and getting involved with the Skywalker's... The Skywalker's are trouble. The Skywalker's are trouble.

[00:15:13] Getting involved with all of that to then push all that dirt and dust away so that we can see underneath, oh hey, yeah, there's a shiny hero underneath here rather than an actual bad guy, an actual scoundrel. So yeah, I think in the script they played that well.

[00:15:31] And when Kira says to him, dude, you're not a criminal, you're not an outlaw. Come on, man. Right. And they needed that whole thing with Ness, with Ephes Nest to show us that rather than just tell us that. But again, it was just so burdened,

[00:15:54] the plot was so burdened that I thought it got a little silly. Yeah, I think my biggest critique is just too much... Too confused in the tone and because of those lengthy action scenes. And I think we've done enough overall impressions.

[00:16:14] We're really getting into the meat of it here. Do you know anything about the production of this movie? Zero. I know Ron Howard was brought in at some point. And yeah, this is... I've been on record before about this and this is just more evidence in my career.

[00:16:32] I'm using this as evidence that leadership at Lucasfilms has a problem. I think they're too cautious. And how many times have they swapped out directors and how many times have we lost directors? And so just knowing that there's a cloud over Solo

[00:16:50] makes me just go, hmm, see, there is something wrong here. See, that's what I'm getting at here is that the tone being confused is largely because they reshot 70% of this film. 70%? 70% of this film is reshoots. Good Lord, that's expensive as hell too.

[00:17:09] So they had these two directors, Lord and Miller, and they were generally known to be comic directors, comedic directors. Sure, okay. They hired two comedy directors and they had them film for a ton of time and they shot a ton of the movie.

[00:17:26] They kept pissing off these people because they kept sending the writer, the script, the screenwriter to the set and the screenwriter would start barking directions at people and trying to take over. So they shot most of the film, I believe,

[00:17:43] and then they showed a cut of the film to executives and the executive says, this is too funny, this is too much comedy, we don't want this, you're fired, we're bringing in Ron Howard. And you'll recall Ron Howard was actually asked

[00:18:00] to direct The Phantom Menace by George Lucas. And so this is Ron Howard finally doing his Star Wars movie. Fun fact, George Lucas apparently came to set for the first day of Ron Howard's filming to encourage him. Okay, like Ron Howard needs encouragement. Yeah, right?

[00:18:18] Well, I guess Lucas was Howard's mentor for some reason, which is kind of interesting. Well, I mean, American graffiti, right? Isn't Ron Howard involved in American graffiti? I believe so, yeah. But anyway, so they brought him in, he shot, reshot 70% of the movie.

[00:18:35] It was apparently a big disaster. Yeah, Ron Howard was... They had to recast somebody because of scheduling now and it was not great. So yeah, Ron Howard and Harrison Ford were, those were early Lucas actor, you know, actors that found their footing with George Lucas. So in 1973.

[00:18:56] Right, okay. I have the recast here. It was actually Michael K. Williams was originally Voss, was originally Voss. And then they had to bring in Paul Bettany after... He just could not shoot the movie anymore because they were doing so many reshoots. Right.

[00:19:15] I got other commitments I gotta follow up on. Right, right. And he was in The Wire, I guess? He was Omar Little in The Wire, if you know who that is. Omar's coming. So he was gonna be Voss, he was gonna be the crime boss.

[00:19:27] That would have been a different movie. That would have been a very different movie. That would have been interesting. And he did play him for I think the whole movie basically. And then Ron Howard was like, oh... Yeah, this is a funny movie though. Yes, it is.

[00:19:43] So I don't know, it's a very light toned movie. The tone of this movie is very light. Right from the start when they jump in the cruiser thing, I'm like, oh, this is a Ron Howard movie. Like I forgot the fact that this is a Ron Howard movie.

[00:19:58] It's properly Howard. Yes, it is very properly Howard. Go listen to Steve and Anthony on our affiliate podcast network. When they jump in the speeder, when they're speeding around on Corellia, I was like, oh right, this is a Ron Howard movie because it instantly hit me that tone.

[00:20:17] This is a Ron Howard film. And it's light. The plot is mechanical and transparent. The twists are very easy to discern or you can feel when they're coming, even if you can't predict the action. So in that regard, it's solid, right? It's a solid block of entertainment.

[00:20:40] It tells a coherent story and all the gears and parts click together and the machine works like it's supposed to. I mean, I'll say that it works well enough that kudos to Ron Howard for making a coherent movie. 70% reshoots. Absolutely. It's insane.

[00:21:01] I want to give a quick synopsis here. I've summarized it in one sentence. For a two and a half hour movie to two hour 15 minute movie. Han Solo gets his name, his best buddy, Chewy, his signature ship, the Millennium Falcon, and a broken heart in this lighthearted dramedy

[00:21:17] about Han shooting first. Bravo. Thank you. Thank you. Bravo. Those are some, I think you win some bonus internet points there. That is a very tight log line. Yeah, that is. That's the movie. You got the whole thing. You have his origin story.

[00:21:37] And that's what I was saying before about it being fan servicey. And I'm not trying, I'm not trying to be offensive. Just simply pointing out that this, this movie is loaded with that. And at the same time, it did a bunch of cool world building,

[00:21:52] but then it never went anywhere with the world building. So you have a lot of the syndicate lore building within the Clone Wars, especially a little bit in Rebels, but more of the Clone Wars. And I really wish they had gone somewhere with that

[00:22:05] because I think that's so cool. I think it's so interesting to say like, okay, sure you have the Empire, but you also have this crime family, which has always been part of the DNA of Star Wars with the Hutts. Yep. And I wish they would have done that.

[00:22:19] Also, let's just make this clear. Han would have been a much better person to follow if you wanted to explore the Hutts than Boba Fett on Tatooine. Yeah, agreed. We could have just done a mini series on Tatooine with Han instead of Boba.

[00:22:35] And that would have been way better. Yeah, almost procedural in nature. He's got to go on this mission. He's got to go on this smuggling run and that smuggling run. Like the Bad Batch. Right, exactly. And it just sort of leads, the drama is built in, right?

[00:22:54] For as good-hearted and lucky Han is, he also doesn't, there's a kind of drama cloud that sort of follows him around. Because he's Han Solo. Right. And he's going to get into trouble. And that would have been a great little six episode, two season, 12 total, something like that.

[00:23:19] That would have been really fun. And crossing paths with all the different crime syndicates? Yeah, I could see that. I could really see that. It would be great. You learn more about the Pike Syndicate. Yeah. You learn about Crimson Dawn.

[00:23:34] You get to see Mullen action live action again. You've got the boot heel of the Empire, right? Squeezing down on everybody. Meanwhile, there's this thriving criminal, multiple criminal syndicates operating within the Empire. So how does that happen? They're maintaining order and law and order, right? We're keeping everything.

[00:24:00] But yet underneath there's this massive crime network operating. And that's an interesting question. That's an interesting space to explore. How does crime arise in a totalitarian style environment? Yeah. Because they'd be servicing the Imperial officers. There'd be a lot of bribing and backhanding

[00:24:21] and all kinds of using them as cutouts. The Empire could use them as cutouts in all kinds of situations. Right. We knew Tatooine was a little bit outside the Empire's grip in the original trilogy. Here we have this planet. I can't recall the name of it,

[00:24:36] but that they go to to refine and they go, oh yeah, that's outside the Empire's jurisdiction. Right. So we know that the Empire has not gotten every planet. You even have Han going like, it's funny because they kind of see that he's sympathizing with the rebellion right away.

[00:24:52] They're like, we're the hostiles. This is their planet. I did really enjoy that they went with a lot of, okay, he's a scoundrel and he'll just, he'll act like that to do the right thing or do what's right for him. But it won't always go his way.

[00:25:07] So you have him with Sabacc trying to hustle Lando. That doesn't work because Lando is one step ahead of him. You have him trying to, what was it? Blackmail Tobias in the beginning to blackmail Beckett and his crew. And they go, oh, I'm going to do this.

[00:25:26] Here's the deserter. Go feed him to the monster. Go feed him to the beast. That was great. So I like that he tries it a lot and it doesn't always work. I thought that that was a nice touch because largely in the original trilogy,

[00:25:42] it does work except when he gets frozen in carbonite. Right. Other than that, it works. Which were great stakes. We were just left like, oh my Lord, Han Solo, carbonite. Oh my God, Han Solo. Oh my God, what's going to happen? It was such a great hook.

[00:26:00] It was amazing. I did think that a great comedy beat too was the, oh yeah, I've got 30 men over in that ship over there. Yes. So again, that's just all that lighthearted Ron Howard style comedy. Right. Right. Yeah.

[00:26:20] So I think honestly there's not a ton to talk about here. Not really. Really, I would say I thought the casting was great. I enjoyed Paul Bettany as Voss. Oh, he was so good. Yeah. I enjoyed Emilia Clarke as Kira.

[00:26:33] And can we just pour one out for Emilia Clarke's luck? Because every big franchise that she gets a part in, whatever thing she's in ends up not doing commercially well. Getting messed up. She's had Solo with this. You did a great job.

[00:26:49] You know, bombed out the box office. And I'm not saying it's a bad movie. I'm just saying it bombed out the box office. But you have Secret Invasion, which fell very flat. And she was great in that. Another situation where studio stepped in,

[00:27:03] flipped over the table, brought in new people to clean up the mess, and sort of disavowed the first pass at it for whatever reason. And then ended up with a... At least in Solo they got lucky and they got Ron Howard.

[00:27:18] In Secret Invasion they did not get lucky. Right. Well, I think part of it is you piss enough people off and nobody wants to work for you. Right? Yeah, and it goes into that whole garbage in, garbage out. If you start with a flawed premise and you think,

[00:27:34] oh, we'll fix it in post. And I think this is what Marvel was getting itself into. It was like, okay, we'll just shoot everything and then bring it back and we'll rearrange the pieces. That's not storytelling. That's not... Actually, they also fired the editor in this movie

[00:27:48] when they fired the directors. Oh, really? Yeah, they were in-house with it. I think part of it too is people got a bad taste in their mouth about the studio here because they were leaking all of this. They were leaking that they saw a cut of the film,

[00:28:03] they hated it, and they fired these directors. And that they had hired Ron Howard because the first two directors failed. And that's... In Hollywood that's really bad. That's reputational harm. Right, exactly. Super bad reputational harm. And that's what I think is with actors,

[00:28:24] oh, it was so great to work with that person. Everybody's saying always nice things about each other regardless of what the truth is. It's because you don't want to blow up somebody else's situation or have them come back on you later. It's very easy for...

[00:28:41] Because actors are always out doing promo and studios are always trying to promote projects. So if you go trashing other people's relationships and reputations, that's just bad. That's just not cool. And fine, it didn't work out, okay, cool. But you know, yeah. You don't intentionally blow somebody up

[00:29:00] unless there's a real situation. And it sounds like there wasn't. It sounds like there was literally just a creative vision difference. And this just goes back to the fact that I think Lucasfilm are very nervous and they're working very hard to protect their brand.

[00:29:18] They're operating out of fear rather than a creative vision. Right, right. Well, I really enjoyed everyone in this movie. I even enjoyed Beckett and how he taught Han too well. Right, yes. He taught Han really well with the whole people are predictable, the whole...

[00:29:42] He's just talking until he can get a shot in at Han, right? He's talking to get Han distracted. And Han sees that and he's like, all right. Shoot first. That was a good move. I liked it because it also gave me an echo to Cassian Andor,

[00:29:59] who can make a quick decision. And in that situation, right? He's got to shoot him. Right, very episode one, right? Very, yeah. I did feel very bad for Chewbacca having to schlep all those heavy briefcases around on a desert planet when you're a fur, when you're a creature

[00:30:19] that has a heavy, thick coat of fur. They just treat treated him like a ballet, like lurch or something. I was like, come on, man. Let me ask you something else about Chewbacca. He's 190 years old. Yeah. And he's got like an eight year old in the holiday special.

[00:30:36] When was Lumpy born? Yes, I think Wikipedia has a whole bio on Lumpy. So I think that that will probably stitch it all together. He's flying around with Han as a fugitive of the empire. When is Lumpy born? I need to know.

[00:30:52] If you don't know what we're talking about, the Star Wars holiday special, which is now non-canon, but we're having fun with it. 45 years old this year. An absolute disaster. And it's so fun to watch. And it's so fun to talk about.

[00:31:08] And it's just chaos in a two hour movie. It's actually like 90 minutes if you take out the commercials. You can find it on YouTube. Just look for the Star Wars holiday special 1978. And we are doing a podcast on it. We already recorded it.

[00:31:22] That'll be out the week of December 5th when this documentary about it comes out. You know, I think is the cool thing is, is that unbeknownst to us, we actually recorded it on Life Day on the day that it originally aired on television.

[00:31:34] And I think the thing to remember about the holiday special is it was two hours of television in a format that was normal at the time, which is a variety show style. But the thing that it missed was having a host, which is a variety show

[00:31:50] that would have some sort of structure to it. And Lucas Films, Lucas himself, they were like, yeah, we got to do something. We got to keep the airwaves filled with Star Wars content. But they were too busy working on. Yeah. Well, the execs from the studio

[00:32:09] reached out to Lucas and said, can we do something with your characters? He said, yeah, sure. Yes, absolutely. Gave him access and then walked away from it. He's history. Did you see Mark Hamill tweet about it the other day? No, no, I miss it.

[00:32:24] I'm using the Denver site less and less. Yeah, me too. But he retweeted somebody who said what's your favorite part of the holiday special? And he wrote the ending. He said the credits. That's cute. Well, I think we can move on here, David, to our discussion

[00:33:01] of sort of the state of Star Wars. I think that'll lead us nicely into feedback because we have this movie that had a disaster of a production, but ended up pretty good. And it was on the heels of The Last Jedi, which was very divisive.

[00:33:15] Again, I liked it. A lot of people didn't. And that's part of why it did not pull its weight at the box office, unfortunately. Again, it was also five months after The Last Jedi. You got to remember it was a May release. And it was literally five months

[00:33:30] after the last Star Wars movie. And I think people were getting a little bit disappointed. And it's disappointing because we were expecting a whole like, oh, this is going to bring the new era, the new dawn. And we're going to have these things

[00:33:46] called a Star Wars story, right? You know, this sort of product line where they're going to pop these things out. And then, yeah, we heard an Obi-Wan was in development and then that became the series. Yeah. And they went to TV route. Yeah.

[00:34:01] Which I'm fine with the TV route, but I'm fine with the you wanted to talk about sort of how a Soka made you feel about the state of Star Wars last time. And you talked about that at the end of our events of a podcast.

[00:34:13] And then I cut it because we had to go and I didn't want to end on a bad note. So I'm giving you your your vehicle now to discuss how you're feeling about Star Wars. Well, I think I've I've already. Let some of those feelings in opinions

[00:34:30] out already in this podcast, but I don't want to belabor the point too much. I'll reiterate the fact that I think Lucas Film is. Lacking creative vision and an artistic focus. I think part of the problem is that Disney bought Star Wars for four billion.

[00:34:56] So that's a huge line item on their books. And that needs that that monkey needs to be fed. Right. That you've got to have return on value for that. I'm no corporate, you know, wizard with numbers or something like that. But I can certainly believe that

[00:35:19] a publicly traded company like Disney. Splashing out four billion dollars in cash, you better see some returns on that investment. And so I think what that gets into then in terms of corporate governance, as opposed to creative visioning, is that corporate executives who are conservative by nature

[00:35:48] are under pressure to return on that four billion. Every title that goes out has to be a hit and it's got to be a hit for the widest possible audience. We've got to scoop enough. We've got to scoop huge scoopfuls of cash every time we

[00:36:05] hit the streets with a new product. And I think when you see a film like Solo here, it's packed with stuff. It's just overstuffed. And I think that that's that's the evidence of the issue right there. And I think we were kind of, you

[00:36:23] know, we were even kicking around this idea a minute ago with, you know, oh, well, you could do stuff with the syndicate verse and whatnot. You've got to what I would love to see Star Wars do is start setting up these different content tracks, maybe

[00:36:42] a little bit like Star Trek does with animated series and you get Deep Space Nine, you get some different stuff. But you could say and Star Wars already does this with Lego and the kids stuff. They've already got a track there for that.

[00:36:55] And then you've got a little bit in the animated world for the tweens. But give us the adult and or track, you know, give us the general purpose audience track of, you know, Solo. The Mandalorian is great. You know, general audience kind of thing. Exactly. And and settle

[00:37:13] into that fact that you've got different product lines and actually recoup your four billion and actually start to make a profit by doing by giving showrunners and writers the creative vision and the room to maneuver in their lane, set up some lanes and let people create.

[00:37:31] There are people who are so passionate about this universe and this IP. Or Tony Gilroy, passionate about telling good story and find let's set it in the Star Wars universe that works. But let them do their thing, because if you

[00:37:49] if you sit on them and you give them notes and you tear it down and you go back and you reshoot 70 times, how many movies have we been promised that are now canceled? Things that have been developed. We hear all this director, that director. Oh, now they're unattached

[00:38:02] and they're not signed. That movie's not getting done. I think Star Wars leadership is in a pathetic state right now. And I would agree with that. I would agree with that. I think it's a leadership problem, not a not a problem of the writers or directors as much.

[00:38:17] No. Or do you think I think that they are they like you said, I think they need to let them have creative vision. And, you know, I was talking about Doctor Who on second breakfast. So I'm I think it has similarities and differences

[00:38:31] because it is a TV show at home, right? It's more it's closer to Star Trek in that regard. And it's generally had one track. There's audio dramas and all these other deep cuts. But like generally on screen, there's one track, which is the TV show Doctor Who.

[00:38:47] And there's a couple of spinoffs. But you know what I mean? Yeah. No movies. Except that in 1981. All right, I'm done now. I'm done. But. The point is, I was saying that I kind of enjoy Doctor Who more sometimes because it's willing to swing and miss. Mm.

[00:39:06] And it's willing to do something wacky and weird. Right. And then sometimes it hits and sometimes it doesn't. And there are some bad episodes of Doctor Who. But there are some amazing episodes of Doctor Who. So you get this. And I think it's the same way I feel

[00:39:21] about the prequels, right? Which is that the highs are just so high and the lows are so low. But I would rather have that than have something that's so vanilla that it never makes me feel anything. And then the vanilla is is because of this corporatization.

[00:39:41] And this shareholder value and corporate executives are concerned about conservatives by nature for a reason. They're trying to protect, you know, the bottom line. Creatives by nature are risk takers. They're willing to take risks, just like you said with the Doctor Who stuff.

[00:40:01] They're going to they're going to take big swings and sometimes they're going to miss. And so you have two inherently contradictory forces here. And if they're imbalanced, then we get amazing stuff. The Matrix, right? I've been on record before about the Matrix, an amazing creative

[00:40:17] vision that had tight constraints on it. And it told an incredible, you know, visual story. And then they're like, oh, here's the bags of money and go make some more for us. And then they just mush down into nothing because it was out of balance.

[00:40:33] The creatives were too far away from, you know, the tight. Business controls. So if those forces are in balance and right now, I think with Lucas Arts, it's out of balance. There's no for there's no balance in the force. Well, I think the point is that

[00:40:49] Star Wars in general, you know, when it began was something seen as not going to be a moneymaker as not safe for a corporate entity to invest in, which is why George Lucas had the rights. Right. Is that right? He had to go do the legwork for this.

[00:41:05] This was not handed to him. And you're never going to get the high of something that's never been done before by doing the same thing over and over again, even if it was once novel. So they need to have these new ideas

[00:41:18] come in. They need to have these creatives have a little bit more space. I think that's the point. I think that's great. But I do think that you can make good media that appeals to multiple audiences. I will say again, Doctor Who is made for kids and adults

[00:41:32] together and Star Trek, I think, to an extent to write. I'm less familiar with that industry. But yeah, I think that that generally Marvel, there are things that they've done well that are for both kids and adults. And I hope that they can get back to

[00:41:49] that level of quality with Star Wars. And I'll say I want to transition to a so good now because we're going to get into feedback in a second with a soca. I enjoyed seven of the eight episodes. I enjoyed seven of the eight of them.

[00:42:02] And the last one didn't stick the landing. And that was so disappointing for me because I wanted it to succeed because I want to be able to say I'm really loving this. I really like the full season of The Mandalorian. I really like the last season of the

[00:42:14] Bad Batch. So a lot of these things they are delivering. It's just a consistency problem. And like I said, I want a little bit of inconsistency and that I want risk to be taken. But I think the point with the soca

[00:42:27] was it fell flat for me because there was no risk taken because they went with the traditional. Oh, she can suddenly do the thing. Right. And I'm I the reason I said do the thing is because I'm now going to give a spoiler

[00:42:39] warning for a soca because we're going to move into a soca feedback, too. So now everything Star Wars. You will now be spoiled. So don't stay here if you haven't seen a soca and whatnot. But all right. Now that we've done that, having Sabine

[00:42:53] suddenly use the force, I think that was something that was very, you know, traditional Luke Skywalker in the den on Hoth, you know, pulling up the lightsaber out of the thing. It's just the same story I've seen a million times, and I'd rather not

[00:43:07] see that again. Right. Right. And I think this goes back to a point that I was making before, too, which is if every project out the door has to be precious and it has to hit your your you're loading too much expectation and value on every single property.

[00:43:30] So when something does swing and miss then, oh my God, it's catastrophe. It's terrible. Oh, and we have to rethink our whole strategy and whoa, we're going to Whereas if we're just popping stuff out and we're kind of letting stuff fly and this one failed

[00:43:43] and that one hit and this one was pretty good. And wow, that one was super interesting. It was a really unique take. I think, you know, we would have a richer environment and we would feel a little bit looser about everything. I think Ahsoka finale, the Ahsoka finale

[00:44:01] really was hard to get into. And I think that's the reason why the Ahsoka finale really was hard on the fandom because there are some people who were like, yeah, it's fine. You know, there's some flaws there. I take your point. Yeah. Okay, no

[00:44:13] problem. And then there are other people who are like, wow, I'm really disappointed. It was so it had so much potential and it fell on its face. And then that set up these sort of negative vibrations in the fandom, which is disappointing because I don't

[00:44:28] think either side was wrong. You know, I think I think the people who were really disappointed it like us were like, hey, we're disappointed in this because we want the franchise to be better. We wanted to be better managed. We want to hear

[00:44:40] we want to watch more interesting stories. I want to see the story of somebody who is not for sensitive or low for sensitive but can still do the job. I want to see the ordinary people like Cassie and Andor and like Sabine used to be before

[00:44:54] this random I can use the forest deal. Right. So that's that's really where I was at. I really don't want to belabor this too long because we have like three hours on the Soca finale. Speaking of a Soca. Yeah, and that brings in

[00:45:08] a feedback email that we got from Christine. Oh, who was kind of upset because when we did our wrap up podcast, I think you were a little bit more agitated than I was and people. Yeah, I know that a little bit for fun. Okay. And and that

[00:45:26] that set some, you know, that upset some people that upset Christine and some other people. It was profoundly divisive. I had people literally congratulating me on the discord and I had people like you are very wrong. So I apologize to those who thought I was wrong

[00:45:44] and I think those who congratulated me on my saltiness and I want to go back to this idea that when people complain about something, it's because they care about something on the on for every complaint the other side of the complaint is

[00:46:00] a sense of caring or you know a sense of it could be better or could be different. And so yeah, it's you got to hear that as well. And we certainly didn't mean to upset people but we were also upset in our own sure minds

[00:46:18] as well and that was an it was being expressed and it was trying to be expressed in a fun and jokey way but maybe it didn't come off. So jokey or you know, whatever it came off and that hit people wrong.

[00:46:30] And I think that it's important for us to say when we didn't like something because absolutely don't then we're shill you'll never know if yeah, we're sure you're never going to know if we actually like something or not. You're just going

[00:46:42] to be like well they want screeners. So they're going to you know, they're going to say nice things about this and that's how we're here to do something right? Yeah. Yeah, we're not going to do that. We are going to speak our minds. This is

[00:46:54] our side gig and we are going to just talk into the microphone like we have for the last year and a half. And I think that makes for a better overall experience ultimately is because we're being authentic and we're being we're speaking our minds and that's part of

[00:47:12] what people want. I know when I there are times when I go to other podcasts I'm like, oh I saw this movie or this episode I want to fix my reaction based on somebody else's reaction. That's part of what drives podcasts like our

[00:47:26] little cottage industry that we have. So I'll run to the ringer or bald move or post show recaps or you know, you name it, oysters, clams, whoever. You go, oh what did those people think? Oh do I agree with them? Do I

[00:47:38] don't agree with them? Because it helps us fix our positioning in space and time and stuff. And so if we're giving false signal on something that doesn't do you any good. It doesn't do us any good and ultimately it leads to a less fun

[00:47:54] product, a less fun podcasting community that we have. Right. Well speaking of podcast community we had Marilyn Arpachila write in with a Soka feedback David do you want to read it? Because my throat is not feeling great. Okay. Greetings gentlemen. Here are some thoughts in no

[00:48:12] particular order. I agree with John about Morgan. I found her to be very flat and thus had no emotional connection with her and a little understanding of why she did what she did. I think they were relying too much on assuming viewers knowledge of the

[00:48:26] character from earlier shows and even her appearance in The Mandalorian was not all that lengthy. Any thoughts or? Yeah I recall not caring for Morgan that much. I think my thoughts on a Soka are well established at this point. Right okay we'll just keep going. John's

[00:48:46] creation of jumping the gap reminded me of the Norse I can't pronounce this word that she wrote in here Ginn Gap G-I-N-N-U-N-G-A-G-A-P It comes from Norse and Germanic mythology and refers to the void in which the world is created known to be a place of frost

[00:49:08] lots of space for creativity there. On the question of character arcs I found myself wondering if we got a Soka's arc too soon? It was a tremendous inner shift for her but it was pretty much wrapped up in two episodes before the season finished. Perhaps this is

[00:49:24] part of why people tend to forget how much took place for her. I also wonder if there had once been a bit more material filmed with Balin Balin but they decided to cut it because of the actor's death or in order to maintain continuity

[00:49:38] with whatever changes they decided upon for the next time we pick up the story. I do, we have had this conversation before about length of episodes, what's good what's optimal and it's what does the show runner want to do to tell their story not what the studio

[00:49:56] you know I want to make 12 or 15 studios. But wasn't there production drama with this? Yeah they were six and then they stretched it to eight so they cut one I think two and three or one and two something like that. They

[00:50:12] yeah so I think you could feel that because I think episode two was kind of nothing happened in it something like that. I don't remember but it's been too long since Ahsoka we put this feedback off if you're confused

[00:50:22] as to why you're hearing Ahsoka feedback right now let me just say this we said that we would do it on Revenge of the Sith and then we had a family thing both of us did and we had to you know push feedback again. So

[00:50:34] now we are here doing feedback for Ahsoka Revenge of the Sith and Solo Yeah we were going to do this as a standalone pod but now we're doing it on Solo because yeah it's just Star Wars right? It's a Star Wars continuity. It's all the Star Wars stew

[00:50:48] Stew Wars Stew Wars I picked up and you know we should watch Hardware War sometime that would be fun I'm not doing that That was a fun parody where like toasters and and irons are being dangled on strings in front of a starry background

[00:51:04] and it's sort of a oh I don't even know that but I think I do think we should add space balls to I think we should do it in April. Okay. Oh yeah I like that. That's a good one Okay. Yeah. That's done. I

[00:51:16] picked up on an interesting though subtle difference in speaking of the Force by two masters Ahsoka tells Sabine to trust the Force Obi-Wan told Luke to use the Force. I wonder if that's a reflection of the real world time in which each show was presented

[00:51:32] or if it represents a difference in Fulani's philosophy vis-a-vis the Force or perhaps it reflects the difference between Obi-Wan and Ahsoka Okay. Yeah. This is interesting. I don't know if there is something going on with Fulani and what they're

[00:51:54] telling in terms of the Force story but I think it's interesting to contrast it slightly we just saw the Marvels and the Marvels ending I will not spoil directly I'll try to hint at it tells a story in a different way rather than a loss you have to

[00:52:16] have a loss to gain something you can gain something by you know operating in a different way and I'm wondering if Ahsoka is part of that story shift in the larger zeitgeist that saying well yeah we don't have to go from this trauma standpoint of like oh my

[00:52:36] family was killed and now I'm a superhero but like yeah stuff is tough and you know we're doing the best we can and let's figure out some things based on trust and mutual cooperation and rather than you know dominance and

[00:52:50] killing or something like that you know like I'm not trying to get too fuzzy wuzzy here but the idea that Ahsoka represents a different style of utilization which is why she's not a Jedi right she's not a jet she's not part

[00:53:06] of the Jedi order regardless of whether it exists or not I didn't train them I didn't load up my sounds a Jedi maybe not you'll see why yes we need to we need a more more original hits from from John Lorehound yeah we'll see the people are missing

[00:53:26] your music John I don't know what it is about Star Wars TV but it gets me going for my music well come on Lucas we need more TV because we need more John to make more music Marilyn continues regarding the elimination of the clone soldiers post order

[00:53:42] 66 I think that the Emperor and or Tarkin were taken aback a bit by the very success of the inhibitor chips and realized that someone could engineer something similar to backfire against them and their rule hence the obsession with the bad batch and the destruction of Camino that's an

[00:54:00] interesting theory I think also part of it is they want to have you know if it's just the clones it's very easy to remove yourself from the military and feel less patriotic less you know in with the Empire if your brother sister friend is being conscripted to

[00:54:22] the Imperial military now oh I know a storm trooper you know and now you're going to be a little bit more sympathetic to the Empire's cause and I think Brian 8063 had mentioned something about that too and in the history of like that's a good way

[00:54:38] to like you're saying is to insulate literally in yeah it's in his feedback later tonight so let's save it oh it is okay we have that I just saw that yeah all right so we'll get there when we get there all right Marilyn continues regarding Sabine's

[00:54:56] force energy or lack thereof I think it's a case of the force moves as the force wills there's an important mystical component here I really dislike the whole MIDI chloronization chloronizing which is not predictable or controllable breakthroughs in meditation practice are similarly and you do

[00:55:20] what you can to prepare yourself you open up and you wait Sabine's case I think it was a question of her dire necessity as well for whatever reason when the time came she reached out to the force reached back and that's all there was to it

[00:55:36] yeah but that's the problem is that when it only comes at the time you most need it that's a day or sex machina right right that's a story that we've and it's a story we've been told already we already have had right and the force

[00:55:50] is the deity of this universe right that is the holy energy of this universe it's literally a day who's ex machina if the force decides to reach back at the moment she most needs it especially when we have no hard and fast rules about how the force works

[00:56:06] or what you can do with the horse and you know force ghosts and you know working with animals or love it you know telekinesis you know there's there's a lot of different stuff that nobody really knows how how it can be wielded or shaped or

[00:56:20] utilized so it leaves the mechanics wide open which means that anytime you need something to happen though it's the force right that is a problem it is a problem going forward we'll see all right Marilyn wraps up and so now we wait for what exactly

[00:56:36] film tv series books I wonder if a lot of the frustration people have been expressing with the ending and the series in general is that it's over and we're left with so many questions and we have no idea how long it will take to get the answers

[00:56:52] I totally agree with this question that is a great point Marilyn I think that if they had said okay season two is coming in a year or two it would feel a lot better right we've got the script we've got some people directors attached

[00:57:06] you know blah blah blah great but part of it was this was right in the middle of the strike this was on true and then sadly Ray Stevenson passed away and so that adds even more of a gray cloud over a uncertain landscape right so right

[00:57:24] yeah and it doesn't do them any anyway I don't want to keep kicking Lucas film because I could do that all day all right Marilyn concludes but we do know that you'll be there to discuss the answers with us when the time

[00:57:38] comes and that is a comfort all the best Marilyn oh thanks Marilyn thanks Marilyn always great to hear from you we had a great time on the Marvel's podcast Marilyn guested came in as a as a guest and she brought in some really cool insights and

[00:57:52] it's always it's always great to have her around cool all right next up is Eric F I believe Eric F is a lore master isn't he one of our subscribers with some final Ahsoka thoughts hi all first off allow

[00:58:08] me to apologize for the length of this email when it comes to Star Wars sometimes I get verbal or in this case typed diarrhea L O L so we've already established that the statues carved in the mountain that Balin is standing on are the mortis gods at least

[00:58:24] the father the balance of the forest the son the dark which is the dark side and what remains of the daughter the light side statue which is I think is destroyed because the sister now resides in Ahsoka well the hand of the father which Balin is standing on

[00:58:40] is pointing to a mountain or maybe a temple something which a glowing flame something with a glowing flame atop yeah this is I got very Mordor vibes during this whole sequence of it and it can so familiar mortis all right I'm done yes exactly right

[00:59:00] Anakin saw some similar looking temple in the mortis gods arc of the clone wars the temple belonged to the father the hand of the father maybe pointing Balin to the direction of his temple on some people say is it possible that the father is using the temple

[00:59:18] to imprison a very dangerous character from legends continuity aka the mother sorry the mother aka Aboleth Aboleth I don't know who this is so you got to tell us Eric F in legends the mortis gods didn't always reside in mortis they once existed in

[00:59:38] our reality and we cared for the mother in legends the mother feared death and losing her family she was also afraid that her family would forget her this fear led her to drink from a dark side power called the font of power and to bathe in

[00:59:56] the pool of knowledge both were forbidden which led to her becoming an immortal god but it also corrupted her into the very chaotic and powerful dark side being very much like eve in the bible when she ate oh marilyn's gonna I

[01:00:12] I'm curious I would love to have the marilyn's reaction to this or anthony's for that matter too let's see where did I lose my place here very much like even the bible when she ate of the tree of knowledge Aboleth became so powerful

[01:00:26] and dangerous that the mortis gods had to imprison her and flee the planet the planet they fled to may have just been peridia in Ahsoka we see Zeffo a race of corrupted dark side users who fled the main galaxy ruins on the night sister temple

[01:00:44] that Thrawn was standing in in front in front of on peridia in legends the Zeffo named Kuthamir whose name also appeared that may be not sure about the pronunciation of that because uh eric had a question mark about spelling there whose name also appeared in

[01:01:04] Sith runes on that same night sister temple Kuthamir also had a temple on Dathomir and was very closely related to the night sisters whoo this is some deep lore we're diving deep here sure yeah I feel like I'm in the deep end here way further than I know

[01:01:20] if you're listening and you don't know what legends is legends is the non-canon track of star wars at this point when disney bought star wars they said a most of what existed before now besides the mainline movies are no longer canon and they call them legends

[01:01:36] so you can still buy them you can still enjoy them but they're not going to be considered part of the current canon and this is a yeah in the book mostly in the written books so right all right uh he continues I say

[01:01:48] all of this is part of a theory being that again in legends the Zeffo traveled to Peridia to learn about the force perhaps on Peridia something devastating happened and the kingdom along with the Zeffo were destroyed causing the mortis gods to flee that devastation could very

[01:02:04] well have been caused by the unleashing of Aboleth after Aboleth destroyed the planet the mortis gods imprisoned her between two black holes again legends perhaps this is the equivalent of the world beyond worlds and Aboleth is imprisoned there it does reside outside

[01:02:22] of time and space and would seem to be the perfect place to imprison such a dangerous being the world between worlds has various portals leading to various force sensitive planets such as Lothal, Peridia, Dathomir etc possibly even Dagobah so perhaps the voice that was calling out to

[01:02:40] Balon was the voice of Aboleth reaching out to him from the world between worlds using the temple on Peridia Balon could be seeking a way to control the world between worlds and is seeking that knowledge from the last living mortis gods, Aboleth. In legends

[01:02:56] Aboleth wanted to destroy the universe and remake it in her image this sounds very similar to what Balon wants to do he wants to end the cycle and restart things also in legends Aboleth has the power to possess people perhaps she could possess Shin

[01:03:12] Shin may have also finally heard Aboleth and is seeking her as well Aboleth could use Shin as her vessel to bring about her vision of Ragnarok and giving Shin the power she so desperately wants. Wow big theory here, Jon thoughts or ideas? I mean it's basically

[01:03:30] just opinion at this point what do you think of Eric's theories here? Yeah I like it I think that it could be a little bit too deep for and not deep in like people won't get deep plots but it's so into the weeds of established lore

[01:03:52] I don't know if Faloni will do it but I could see Faloni doing a version of this because that's something that Faloni does a lot is he takes a very complicated legends thing and he oversimplifies it and then he puts it in his shows

[01:04:04] sometimes people love it sometimes people say hey you kind of just took something and you know nullified it a little bit but I hope that there's something that's cool because I love your theory here yeah I think it's got to be something big like

[01:04:20] this because as you said Balin is trying to break the cycle he's trying to break the wheel here and it's got to be something big like this so I think it's interesting we'll see but it would be fun to bring in to go in this

[01:04:38] direction I like the general direction I'll say it that way yeah all right continuing a side note the night sisters may in fact be drawing their power from Aboleth it is after all dark side magic and it would make sense that a matriarchal society such

[01:04:54] as the night sisters would worship a female mortis god but now that the mortis gods are dead the bonds imprisoning Aboleth may have weakened and they fear Aboleth's return Balin did say that perhaps the night sisters were fleeing a power greater than their own yep I think

[01:05:12] all pretty consistent and yeah oh I really like this theory the more you talk about it it's just I'm wondering I think that you are on the right track because I think Filoni is going to do something like this he's just going to change it up

[01:05:24] to make it a little bit more digestible right all right he's wrapping up his email now I know this is a lot of theories and speculation based almost exclusively on legends material but Filoni has pulled from legends frequently and let's face

[01:05:40] it until we get more Ahsoka theories and speculation until we get more Ahsoka theories and speculation is all we have the purpose of this diatribe was to spark conversation and theory crafting regard regarding what we'll see next well I think you've succeeded in that sure

[01:05:56] yeah yeah you've that's a huge infusion of lore and interesting thought and idea and yeah it would be exciting to go in that direction I look forward to thoughts to the thoughts as well as all the content you produce please keep up the excellent work

[01:06:12] as previously stated this is the best $10 I spend each month take care Loremaster Eric F well thanks Eric it's always a pleasure to hear from you you even give us that trivia a couple Ahsoka episodes ago so thanks for that a lot

[01:06:28] of fun well I just want to say thanks to Eric F too for being a Patreon supporter and to all of our Patreon supporters really yeah this is our side hustle but there's a lot of cost involved and so it's just really great to have everybody's help and

[01:06:44] we'll talk more about Patreon at the end but yeah really appreciate it absolutely Aaron T writes in with a link to the Honest Trailer YouTube video I guess this is the account that does a bunch of you know like here's a jokey trailer

[01:07:02] where we summarize the whole movie and make fun of it Aaron T says just in case you guys didn't see it the Honest Trailer take on Ahsoka is pretty on point did you watch this David I did but you know

[01:07:14] it was a while ago and so I don't remember what it was because we didn't cover the feedback in a timely fashion so I know I know well I'm going to check it out right after this but take Aaron T's recommendation and go

[01:07:28] watch it yeah and it's just YouTube yeah just Honest Trailer Ahsoka comes right up so Brian8063 our friend and patron writes in with a follow-up comment about conscription as we were talking about before on the Ahsoka podcast you were asking about

[01:07:46] patriotism and the military I think it was related to moving from clones to non clones in the Empire Army the issue fits well into all the Star Wars material so here we are complex question especially in Star Wars universe where we don't know the full situation

[01:08:02] clearly the clones were all drafted into the Clone Wars and I assume the Empire I'm not sure after that though we know people were taken but did the Empire have a draft or volunteer non clone army I knowing this would help form the answer however

[01:08:18] families who do have members who serve tend to be patriotic they share this idea that their country is special and worth fighting for so patriotism is high to fight a total war patriotic enthusiasm must be high when Sabine entered the Academy she said she trusted the

[01:08:36] Empire which alludes to her being patriotic or maybe for economic reasons but she left the Academy demoralized Finn also felt demoralized after serving as a stormtrooper we don't know why he joined in the first place in both cases there was little left to do if you left

[01:08:54] the military service how former soldiers were are treated is an important element of society you see that after Vietnam in US history and China now the Empire saw their troopers as expendable which is a big problem you do have a disconnect between the government

[01:09:12] and the citizenry regarding policy if you are in a draft army situation it's more consequential in a volunteer force the effects of war may be more limited the Civil War draft riots versus Iraq Afghanistan during the war on terror I will stop

[01:09:28] here and let you know if this leads to further further questions so I do have thoughts on this so there's a couple clarifying questions Brian asked that I want to answer here I believe the original Empire Imperial Army and I could be wrong on this

[01:09:44] or somebody could write in I believe when they first started phasing the clones out they said hey we're going to offer great benefits great pay come join the the Imperial Army come become a stored trooper I think that originally it was that then after a while

[01:09:58] when that sort of got exhausted by the time you get to Finn Finn is not even an Imperial soldier right Finn is a first order soldier I believe they were actually like abducting children and what not because I don't think Finn actually knew who his parents were right

[01:10:14] Finn got his name from his number right it was like FN something yeah I think it changed quite a bit over time and again the first order it's like it is the Empire but it's not the Empire so we can't draw as many parallels but who knows

[01:10:30] David any thoughts? Yeah just this idea that it's a way to bind the citizenry to a government's you know policies and forays into war and using military might as a form of policy yeah it makes sense in a lot of ways people are going to feel

[01:10:56] patriotic and got to support you know little Jimmy and little Janie out there on the front lines doing their bit for us right so it works. I get it my brother served as a Marine and we went down to South Carolina for his graduation from boot camp

[01:11:14] and we went to a restaurant nearby and somebody handed him a phone card and was like thank you for your service son and it just really like having the military around really does create this sense of patriotism that I think that the Empire really

[01:11:30] relies on in the early Empire States it's why it took 30 years for the rebellion to really get going right and yeah it's interesting at least in the history and the culture of the United States of America post Vietnam we really went the other way

[01:11:48] so we stumble over ourselves to thank our service members and our veterans whereas post Vietnam the opposite happened so it does inoculate to some degree you know criticism or critique of do we really need another billion dollar bomber or this or that it's like well you're

[01:12:08] not being patriotic right? Well there's complicated thoughts about it now right which is like hey maybe if we respect our soldiers we don't send them to wars that they know to fight. There's that. There's very let's not debate the morality of war or wars

[01:12:24] here but the point is yes Brian thank you having this volunteer army is probably helping the Empire keep a hold on these worlds yeah and then I think was it Maryland previously who said that well what if you know somebody got a hold of the order 66 inhibitor chip

[01:12:44] control software and flipped everybody off you know flicked the switch and then yeah. Yep good question not great there. Alright thank you Brian always great to hear from you. Eric F is next which is yes again but this time talking about Vader and Moff Tarkin. Hey guys Eric

[01:13:04] F says hey Eric again first off allow me to apologize for not sourcing my Vader info everything that I spewed forth was from literally decades of reading comics books etc video games internet articles including wikipedia and youtube videos while some of the info may no longer be canon

[01:13:22] as John pointed out with Starkiller it makes interesting headcanon for me so I'm running with it this is from a previous feedback so don't worry about that if you don't know what we're talking about now on to the next first I heard you refer to Tarkin as

[01:13:36] Grand Admiral Tarkin is actually a grand moff which according to wikipedia is lower Grand Moffs oversaw the what did you say? Thessel Oh Thessel I thought you were saying I thought you were saying asshole which I thought you were referring to space balls oh okay

[01:14:00] everyone around me is assholes alright we'll get to it in April anyway so he's a grand moff grand moffs oversaw the day to day operations of the empire while Grand Admirals commanded the military they were the proverbial sword and shield of the empire which Sidious would obviously

[01:14:20] value more as for Tarkin's feeling towards clone troopers he stated in the bad batch that he disliked clones for two reasons. One, he questioned their loyalty without their inhibitor chips which he was obviously correct about he believed that conscripted soldiers were more dedicated to the empire second

[01:14:40] clones were more expensive than conscripted troopers Tarkin would rather repurpose those resources to other projects mainly the Death Star lastly my head canon can totally see Tarkin using a conscripted troopers loved one as leverage to ensure their loyalty there you go there getting a lot of consistency here

[01:15:02] in the series I think I've gone long enough very much looking forward to your future podcast keep up the great work gentlemen Loremaster Eric F Eric always a pleasure hearing from you I think we're on the same page on the conscripted or perhaps volunteer soldiers

[01:15:18] and good to know about Tarkin I like Tarkin in the Clone Wars I think I got confused because I think he is an Admiral in the Clone Wars and now you're going to tell me next episode that he's not it's interesting too about Moff versus Admiral

[01:15:34] because I didn't understand that distinction I didn't realize that Moff is something different as opposed to just sort of some generic rank or honorific it's like a Baron versus a Duke they have specific structure and meaning to them there you go he's either on or Moff DOOV71

[01:15:56] your kids are going to hate you with your dad jokes when they get older well the good news is they don't talk well enough to understand them yet DOOV71 re-Return of the Sith Revenge of the Sith hi David, hi John Return of the Sith?

[01:16:12] I said it correctly the second time yeah it's some moving we're getting punchy firstly thanks again for organizing the live watch, it's a great way to connect with other patrons and it was great to join last night and have a few others in the chat

[01:16:26] Marilyn even jumped on for 5 minutes all great stuff guys yeah that was fun, that was the Ruins of the Sith live watch you and I were chatting with DOOV most of the night yep and then we did a live watch for Solo

[01:16:38] and then up next is going to be Rogue One, that should be a good one I think we'll do that in January sometime I don't think we're going to live watch the holiday special right? what? I'm planning my entire holiday series around that my whole life

[01:16:54] I'm kidding, I'm kidding I'm not a great fan of the prequels mainly due to how fond my memories are of the original trilogy and how they are inextricably linked with my childhood. I can remember being so excited for the Phantom Menace

[01:17:08] the trailer gave me chills but then when it landed it was a bit of a clunker for many reasons, one of them being the mind blowing The Matrix premiering the same year the Phantom Menace just really disappointed this then got a bit compounded with some of the

[01:17:22] more clunky storytelling and dialogue in Attack of the Clones. Saying that though Revenge of the Sith is hands down my favorite prequel and it has some of the most iconic scenes and story that resonates throughout the Star Wars universe yeah, this is true I love the movie

[01:17:38] I love all the... of the prequels it is the strongest, it's the most consequential it's the most... mature is...is mature the right word? maybe the most developed or coherent? it just really felt like it knew what it was trying to do and it did it

[01:17:56] well he had finally decided what he wanted to do with Jar Jar so that really made the movie once he decided that Jar Jar should be a senator moving on rather than autopsy the plot and film I thought it would...I would focus my feedback

[01:18:13] on the section of the movie that gets me stoked every time it comes on and that is the final fight between Anakin, Vader and Obi-Wan I found it a very exciting and dramatically important section of the film and due to my long association with the original trilogy

[01:18:27] I had imagined the fight between our two protagonists for probably 25 years with rewatches especially after the Clone Wars the emotional resonance of the conflict between these characters takes on a much greater level of significance the dynamic between Obi-Wan and Anakin has always been a little fraught

[01:18:47] they are the traumatized siblings who lost their father figure when Qui-Gon was killed by Maw. It was further complicated by Obi-Wan being obligated to train Annie after giving Qui-Gon his promise as he lay dying. Add in the whole chosen one and Annie being a precocious brat

[01:19:05] I said it was a very complicated recipe for their relationship yeah I agree with this Obi-Wan was not equipped or prepared to handle Anakin he literally took his night he was a Padawan when he met Anakin he took his night test at the

[01:19:25] very end of the movie when they were like hey you're ready go ahead that's not enough time. You went from trainee to trainer right then and that's where their relationship was more fraternal you were my brother you were my chosen one I did like

[01:19:45] that they did that rather than having him be like you were like a son to me because I don't think he was I don't think he was and that was the problem is Annie needed a parent and he did not need a big brother and to

[01:20:01] be a parent to Anakin that would have been big shoes to give him enough room to grow and to feel important and consequential and to feel his powers but also keep him firmly pointed in the right direction that is a tall order for anyone what's his name

[01:20:23] Obi-Wan? Samuel L. Jackson oh ok, Mace Windu Mace Windu Yoda, like there was just nobody on the council who was A. wanted to do the job so they were like oh we don't know what to do with this kid we didn't want the kid in the first place

[01:20:39] and B. nobody you know who had the stature to do the work the day to day, the day in and day out work of keeping Anakin pointed firmly in a direction as Anakin is being groomed by Palpatine who chooses of course to be the grandfather because he

[01:20:55] doesn't want to be the dad anyway to turn his big brother little master little brother master apprentice dynamic with Obi-Wan heightens the conflicted feelings, the resentment and we see that repeatedly in Sulky Annie pouting to Padme about how he is more powerful than Obi-Wan and how unfair

[01:21:13] it is I'm cringing just listening to the description I can hear him jeez, having flashbacks to our kids being young teens I'm having flash forwards Lucas was probably leaning into the whole Cain and Abel, I scrolled fast and I thought

[01:21:31] it said Kanye and I was like are we doing that alright the whole Cain and Abel aspect of this relationship and it was inevitable that Anakin would have to confront and kill Obi-Wan once he began his descent to the dark side interesting, interesting, I don't know

[01:21:47] I almost thought that Anakin wanted him to join him I think he would have loved for Obi-Wan to join him I don't think that Anakin was as jealous of Obi-Wan as you think I think right I didn't see them as jealous, I thought

[01:22:05] he was more like mourning their relationship mourning who he wanted Anakin to be yeah, yeah and then Anakin is just trying to get out from under and just have people relate to him as a consequential person who has impact and import

[01:22:23] and he's trying to get out of his little kid shoes that everybody keeps putting him in you will try the fight choreography is just amazing in this and kudos to both the actors and I would imagine their stunt doubles for giving it 110%

[01:22:41] we see two of the most powerful and experienced Jedi of the Clone Wars era going toe to toe and it's genuinely gripping even as you know what the outcome will be. The location of Mustafar is brilliantly realized and is probably the best use of fully CGI'd environments

[01:22:57] of the entire prequel trilogy, definitely agree on that. Add into that mix the haunting music from John Williams with the battle of the heroes just up there with the main theme Imperial March and Duel of the Fates as the pinnacle of Star Wars orchestral themes

[01:23:13] yeah, the music in this scene is incredible great, great stuff when you get Anakin's inevitable hubris and Obi-Wan's almost casual ending of the duel it just hits really hard when Obi-Wan states how betrayed he feels how he loved Anakin as a brother

[01:23:31] and how could he have thrown everything away. Ewan McGregor justifies his inclusion in the universe and it was here that he totally, he moved totally beyond a take on the Alec Guinness portrayal and made Obi-Wan his, he is on fire as well as Vader and hits you with

[01:23:51] real grief for the brother he no longer has yeah, it's it really is heartbreaking because you have, you really do know that Obi-Wan would rather Anakin right here be like, hey, I'm really sorry for what I did, can we go back? and they just go off into exile

[01:24:11] together and they save people but that's just not gonna happen. No. Phew! That's some premium quality filmmaking right there and shows what the prequels could have been with some more input from a skilled writer and producers who weren't wed to the creator of the franchise

[01:24:27] I only got four hours sleep at the end and I am about to have my mum over for Sunday. Some people say Kip So that wasn't a typo, that's a real thing? Yeah, Kip, it means taking a nap or sleep, yeah. That's not a thing

[01:24:43] you know what, you Brits make shit up all the time I only got four hours of Kip. He was really knackered the next day in the end, I see, I thought this was a typo I can't that's why it said sleep. Knackered means tired

[01:24:57] I went with context clues but I get, alright and I'm about to have my mum over for Sunday dinner so am now slightly punchy have a great one guys, we'll skip solo not that I don't like it, and instead go all in on my favorite Star Wars movie

[01:25:13] second only to Empire Rogue One May the force be with you Do71Stu Thanks Stu, thanks Dove always a pleasure hearing from you and thanks for all of your support and all your chatter on here and on Twitter and on the Discord love having you around

[01:25:33] We'll have to be I think when we get around to scheduling for Rogue One, we've got to make that a friendly one in terms of timing and date, and I think that'll be probably one of the more popular live watches so yeah Okay, LoreHoundConnorM

[01:25:51] David John, I'm just getting caught up on your Ahsoka content, I'm currently listening to your episode on episodes one and two, you both have a brief interaction talking about how you don't understand how the Nightsisters use the dark side but aren't corrupted by it. I wanted to explain

[01:26:07] some info as well as some headcanon using some of George's info as well as some headcanon. George explained, Lucas that is, explained that the light side is the pure natural form of the force the balance is totally the light side. The dark side is a forced, pun intended

[01:26:27] corruption of the light side subduing it to your will he also explained that doing so will inevitably corrupt you. Right, so that's what they have to do, the kyber crystals, right? Is that John? Yeah, I think that the kyber crystals, like

[01:26:45] from your use of the dark side, they take on the red it's not necessarily a choice. Oh, not that you force the crystal, right, okay Anyway, headcanon time, I would say that the Nightsisters are using the dark side however, they are corrupting

[01:26:59] it in a truly unique way that affects them but not detrimentally the dark side of the force is like torturing the light side and forcing it into slavery. The Nightsisters' magics are like a very seductive voice subduing the light side but in a more polite way

[01:27:15] hopefully you can see the difference between the two just wanted to share my thoughts Boy oh boy Do you have thoughts on Connors? I have no idea I genuinely have no idea I mean, maybe that makes sense but they

[01:27:29] they don't have lightsabers so we can't see if they're Aurans like Balin That's true Only Ventress had a lightsaber and she was a Sith too so that would not count. I don't know This idea that the force is this energetic feeling or energetic power source and then that

[01:27:49] depending on all kinds of factors to be able to bend it to your will or tap into it a different way based on your unique existence or a school or a discipline that's kind of the way that I've always gone with it. It's just sort of a big

[01:28:09] untapped energy. The fact that it is say on balance more a positive thing and so you have to be intentionally corrupting it to use it for the dark side. I think that's more interesting than just having a dualism of a good and a bad

[01:28:27] Yeah, George Lucas has said as you said here Connor that the light side is the balance right? Is that balance in the force means light side not necessarily equal dark and light side Right I want to push back a little bit now that I'm thinking about it

[01:28:45] Sure yeah There is a novel called Dark Disciple which is canon and Ventress trains Quinlan Vos who's a Jedi in it in how to use the night sister type of dark side and he goes to the dark side like he goes through a time where he's

[01:29:01] corrupted by it. So I don't think that it's necessarily the night sister magic itself that is turning them to the dark side You could argue though that because she was Sith she probably taught him more than just the night sister stuff so I think it's debatable

[01:29:13] still. Right interesting Well you know rich story ground if they decided to ever you know be creative in that regard. Well they supposedly are with the accolade coming out next year Oh god please fingers crossed. Alright Marilyn writes in again regarding Revenge of the Sith. Hello David and

[01:29:31] John it was fun to reminisce with you about the third prequel film I'm pretty much in agreement with everything you said though it's been a while since I've watched it and I had forgotten a number of things so this was this email is in regards to our podcast

[01:29:45] about Revenge following the live watch. When comparing the prequels to the other films and particularly to the first three films that come out i.e. four five and six it's important to remember the passage of time and the ways our expectations shift depending on depending upon

[01:30:03] when we actually jumped into the Star Wars river as it were The thing to remember about 1977 Star Wars is that it was utterly unlike anything we'd ever seen before and we knew that it would change everything in film and I think this claim pretty much holds to this

[01:30:21] day. So in a sense to compare what we now know as A New Hope with any of the other films particularly on the basis of things like storyline or dialogue it's not quite apples and oranges though in a way it is. We're so

[01:30:37] focused on the other things particularly visuals and sounds music and our expectations for things like dialogue were so different than just some ramblings from someone from yet another decade. Fair enough. Yeah it's a fair call right I mean he threw it out he didn't expect that

[01:30:55] this was going to go do what it did and it makes for I think an ultimately interesting comparison of the decades the sensibilities the techniques of filmmaking which is why I almost don't like it when I turn on and I see like say original Star the original

[01:31:23] Star Trek series and they've redone all the graphics and the planets and the ships and all the stuff or in remastering Star Wars and changing the explosions and you know adding more street scenes and tattooing because it's contemporizing it when part of at least

[01:31:41] for me what I want is the transport back in time I want to reach back to another time and hear how they thought and what they thought and how they express that in the individual medium so yeah I don't like tinkering if you were to

[01:31:59] reboot it and reshoot it and do the whole thing great fine that's a whole different thing but modernizing older films I think does a disservice to us because it then takes us out of the time traveling perspective yeah agreed I think we should leave things intact

[01:32:17] Marilyn continues I think that in the sequel trilogy Luke almost killed his nephew out of guilt that he could have let him get so far into the dark without noticing I also think that Obi-Wan turned on Anakin out of guilt his own Padawan after all and I agree

[01:32:35] that it was very dark for Obi-Wan to leave him on the lava field to suffer such agony the plot kind of forbade him from killing the future Vader so what else could he do yeah I guess I guess the only other thing you

[01:32:51] could have do is you could do is give someone else the job of dismembering him right I mean hey droid kill that guy yeah I know I just mean like as the writer give a different that job not not in story yeah yeah so yeah

[01:33:11] I think if you're going to leave Vader alive that's really all you could do but then it sets up a moral that moral conundrum right if you could have stopped the worst you know somebody who's committing unspeakable horrors on the world you know should

[01:33:25] you stop them you know if you had the chance right I'll I'll it's a trolley problem thing I'll head cannon for you giving Obi-Wan more absolution for this let's have Obi-Wan carry Anakin back to the ship put him in a med bay they get hijacked they kidnap Anakin

[01:33:43] Obi-Wan narrowly gets away but that's another half hour to the movie that's almost a whole other movie right you cliffhanger that right you cliffhanger that you see him loading him onto the ship and then you roll credits on the question of precedence for order 66 someone

[01:33:59] in the discord already mentioned the night of the long knives hitler's extrajudicial killings to prevent an imagined coup by the brown shirts in germany I would also point out that there are a number of other believable parallels parallels particularly in scotland the black dinners of 1440 and 1692

[01:34:17] and the glen co massacre also of 1692 I think that those two dinners were also models for the red wedding in game of thrones yeah right some interesting historical comparisons yeah I guess what's crazy about the star wars one is the scale and I mean of course

[01:34:39] see I don't know the night of long knives I'm not sure how many people died in that but in the star wars order 66 it was about 10,000 Jedi right and night of long knives too is I think largely an internal you call it a push a putch

[01:34:57] trying to rack my brains here but it was an internal purge it was as much as an internal purge as it was an external thing so yeah so order 66 is an internal purge so right yeah all right I like that and order 66

[01:35:13] I mean how do you do order 66 galaxy wide that's a pretty incredible transmitters repeaters whatever it doesn't matter technology sure wave your hands it's magic it's all magic in the end I have always reviewed what they did to pad me she started

[01:35:27] out as a classic folk tale hero hero a young girl or woman setting out on her own determined to accomplish her goals and accepting aid from anyone who would give it to her to the fairy tale trope of the dead mother I realized that there are examples

[01:35:43] of medical death by heartbreak the imagery was just too strong drawn from that literal literally fairy tale tradition and I grieve for the loss of that bold courageous who is committed to her peoples and always chose peace first whenever possible. They really did Padme wrong.

[01:36:01] Yeah, completely wasted talented actor. Uh-huh. Good story character and the whole thing. Yeah, it's really a shame what they did. Although Natalie Portman says she'd be willing to come back. So let's hope that that happens eventually because she is a lot better in the Clone Wars, the character.

[01:36:18] I think that they're, you know, they did develop a lot of that. But she's always trying to make peace with the separatists and whatnot. She goes through back channels and talks to somebody who's like, hey, can we get you on our side?

[01:36:29] You know, can we talk about some kind of peace treaty? And then, of course, Palpatine is still scheming them. Right. Wrapping up, can't wait for the next two. I loved Solo and could not understand the negativity of the critics, professional and otherwise.

[01:36:45] And I will go on record saying that Rogue One is probably the best of all Star Wars films superseded only by that one unforgettable original 1977 experience, which I will always consider to be the first Star Wars film. Whatever names of the numbers they give it.

[01:37:01] May the force be with you, Marilyn. Rogue One ranking high in the feedback sampling. The hyper drive. Maybe that's what we should call it. The hyper drive is getting really high here. Getting hot here. We're going to inject some kawaii. Oh God. Now my brain is. Coaxium.

[01:37:21] Coaxium, thank you. Into our intake manifold. And you're giving me a hard time about Thessel Run. Come on now. Invert the flux capacitor. Figure in Dan B closes us out. Solo is so good. Got an undeserved bad rap. I think it captures the spirit of the OG 77 movie.

[01:37:43] More than anything to come out since the return of the Jedi. I think that's a pretty good take on like, yeah, it's it is. It is very close to 77 in the vibe of like it's kind of lighthearted but kind of serious

[01:37:59] and there's really stressful moments, but most of the time you're like, OK, everything's going to turn out OK. And there are there are twists and turns that, you know, having Alderaan be destroyed is a pretty shocking moment in 77.

[01:38:13] Yeah, but you also have here, you know, Kira's betrayal is another shocking moment here. And you know the the don't tell me everyone betrays everyone. Oh yeah, I 100 percent. It was coming from a mile away. She's like, I'm not I'm I'm owning this. And again, that's another thing.

[01:38:30] Like we never got the answer of like what did she owe the Crimson Dawn? But sure. What I did well, but that's part of the mystique and that's part of the inside. You don't always need answers for sure. In that regard, so.

[01:38:41] All right, David, we've done another Star Wars film fest podcast and I figured out it was fun. I think it was fun. Good. Shall we do an outro? We should. And just to say Star Wars at the lorehounds dot com. Join us on the discord.

[01:39:02] We have we'll probably be looking at Rogue one in January, probably of the new year. So but you'll have the holiday special to tide you over in December. That's right. A very fun and delicious thing.

[01:39:18] And then, of course, there is this new book and movie or documentary about the making of it, which will be released on December 5th. So that's great timing. Cool. Very cool. What's going on in the world of our affiliates, Alicia on the Walsh of Dust Channel and properly

[01:39:37] Howard movie reviews. Alicia's right in the middle of Beacon 23. That is the the Hugh Howie series. If you like to will shift dust, if you like the silo show, you'll probably like this. She's doing that.

[01:39:52] I know she and I are going to do something with the doctor who specials. We're not sure how many podcasts we're going to do on it, but I'm hot on Doctor Who right now. I'm excited to. I think we're going to have a lot of fun with that.

[01:40:03] We also did a follow the house of usher podcast and she did more coverage on her feed. So go check that out in the show notes. And her and Luke are picking up June again now. Oh, they are. Yeah.

[01:40:14] We've got an updated June release movie date for June to the Villeneuve. It's going to be on the first of March. They brought it up two weeks and her and Luke are getting back into sync and they're going to start rolling out their coverage.

[01:40:28] I think it's probably going to be sort of like a one on one a month type of podcast release on doing the whole 360 of Dune, you know, video games and all these sort of adaptations and other documentaries and just giving a wider historical context for what we're going

[01:40:46] to see on screen. Well, cool. I'm glad to hear that because I know nothing about doing as you know, too many, too many what? Too many, too many words. I always put the wrong the wrong emphasis on the on the wrong syllable.

[01:41:02] So syllable is the quiz at Tetrick and I got stick for from Wheel of Time folks for not being able to remember all the names. So a little fair play here in the Dune world. Yeah, I just I can't take seriously Willy Wonka in the desert.

[01:41:20] You know, it's just it's just an issue for me. All right. Billy Howard is on break, but they have a full season of remakes that you can watch and they are on the severance feed that we are sharing with them. They're covering the full season one.

[01:41:35] You can get I think the first six episodes now might be seven by the time this comes out and we will be on season two. We will be covering season two with them. That'll be a lot of fun.

[01:41:45] And you can only get our podcast over there about severance or on the page round if you're a patron. Right. So just Lore Hound severance and you'll find the feed. Yes. Yes. And you can get the show notes as well. Yep, yep, yep.

[01:41:58] So definitely go subscribe to that if you want our severance coverage and you are only on the public feed. Of course, we did the holiday. I was going to say we did the holiday special with him as well for the Star Wars. Yes.

[01:42:08] We'll be out in December on our feet. If you like them, if you liked them on the holiday special, you'll like them on severance. Anyway, for us, we've got a few things coming less so the next month, but I think we're

[01:42:20] going to pick up the pace in January with a couple of things. We have, you know, Earthsea is going similarly in stories going. We just put out another episode. We've got second breakfast is going to be going holiday special as we've been talking about this entire podcast.

[01:42:38] I think it is. Why are you going to do Napoleon? We might do a one shot on the Napoleon film. OK, cool. She's going to see that. So I think that'll be fun. Yeah.

[01:42:49] And then John and Jean and I were talking, you know, maybe doing something quick on Monarch, maybe just to dip our toes and check it out. So I don't know. And then Marilyn and I are cooking up something possible for Christmas. So we'll see.

[01:43:01] OK, we'll see if something's in the oven. So it's going to be a buffet table. It's going to be a holiday buffet table. And we're going to see. See, there's going to be lots of things out on there for you.

[01:43:14] Definitely our second breakfast podcast, which is our year in wrap up where we rank our top 10 films. And that'll be publicly available to everyone. Normally, that's a Patreon exclusive. But hey, you know, in under your tree or stocking or however you might celebrate the solstice

[01:43:32] winter solstice holidays, it is our gift to you. It's a bit of fun to look in behind the thing. Once Mariah Carey starts defrosting to sing all I want for Christmas, our Patreon exclusive second breakfast goes public for the one time a year.

[01:43:49] It's our Christmas gift to our public listeners. That's right. And then in twenty twenty four, we'll we'll keep you guys updated. There's a lot coming out. The schedule is starting to fill up. We've got to figure out what we're going to do. Severance for sure. Season two.

[01:44:03] And then in terms of television shows, we've got some things to decide. We've got a couple of things kicking around, right? So we'll we'll make some decisions internally and let you know what we're covering.

[01:44:11] If you are like really into something coming in the early part of the year, voice it now while we're still making the right on the discord or something. Send us an email, whatever you want. Let us know what you're thinking. Yeah, everyone. Cool. All right.

[01:44:27] Well, should we give a shout out to our Patreon lore masters? We have a Patreon. It's a great way to support us if you like what we do and all the different projects

[01:44:36] that we have and to support all of our other co-hosts, too, because, you know, they get to share in a little bit of this. And we've got three levels and we offer annual memberships which give a discount.

[01:44:48] So like as little as 30, I think 33 US dollars for a year. You get ad free access to all of this and to second breakfast and other exclusive content. But to our lore masters, we are top tier. We always like to give a named shout out.

[01:45:04] So John, would you please do the honors? Samartian, Cyrus, Mark H, Michael G, Michelle E, David W, Brian P, Nick W, SC, Peter O.H, Patina W, Adam S, Nancy M, Lavinia T, Dove 71, Brian 8063, Frederick H, Sarah L, Gareth

[01:45:22] C, Eric F, Matthew M, Sarah M, DJ Mewa, Andra B, Kwong U, Laura G, Dead Eye Jedi, Bob, Nathan T, Alex V, Aaron T, Sub Zero, Aaron K and Adrian who has requested to always be last on the list. And no one else has asked that.

[01:45:41] No one else is trying. So there you go. Yeah. It's yours forever. Thank you all so very much. We really appreciate all your support. I mean, this is an amazing group of names. They've stuck with us and we appreciate you. We appreciate everyone on in.

[01:45:57] Patreon isn't your thing. Totally cool. We're just glad to have your listens. So absolutely. All right, John. David, pleasure talking solo with you and learning about the Kessel run, learning about the dice and how he's he's alone. So he's solo. Yeah, there you go.

[01:46:17] And looking forward to Rogue One. That'll be fun. See you then. The Lore Hounds podcast is produced and published by the Lore Hounds. You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at the lorehounds.com slash contact.

[01:46:32] Get early and ad free access to all Lorehounds podcasts at patreon.com slash the lorehounds You can connect with us on Twitter at the Lorehounds. Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Thanks for listening.

[01:46:47] OK, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side, green or black. John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life. So we're not fighting. I thought this is where HBO wanted us to pick sides and fight and stuff.

[01:47:19] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod. But we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like this show. The politics, the drama, the lore. It was made for the Lorehounds.

[01:47:30] And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons. And with the season pass option in Supercast, listeners can get early ad free access to

[01:47:41] each weekly scene by scene deep dive, plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragon fire hot, but probably positive, takes. The Lorehounds House of the Dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption.

[01:47:57] Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a hardened conflict with itself and an inescapable urge to read the book Fire and Blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning.