Celebrating 20 Years of "Revenge of the Sith" with ALEX DAMON From 'Star Wars Explained'!

This is the podcast crossover you're looking for! Jon and J.C. sidequest to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith and they're joined by Alex Damon from "Star Wars Explained"! The three of them talk about seeing the movie in theaters for the first time back in 2005, how the perceptions of movie & the prequels have changed over the years and where they rank it amongst the Skywalker Saga films. This is truly where the fun begins!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think I was born at the right time to
become just the right kind of Star Wars fan for
me that I got to grow up with the originals,
but I was still young enough to love the prequels,
and I felt like I kind of grew up with
the prequels because obviously Revenge of the Sith, this is
the most intense one.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Hello that.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Yeah, there's a reason I'm channeling Obi Wan Kenobi to
start off this bonus episode because Obi Wan Kanobi once said,
your eyes can deceive you, do not trust them. However,
today you can your eyes do not deceive you. You
can trust them. Because this is indeed a pot of
rebellion bonus episode on a Monday, because this is no
ordinary Monday. This is May nineteenth, twenty twenty five, twenty

(00:55):
years ago today Star Wars Episode three, Revenge of the Sith,
was released in theaters, and we are here to give
a twenty year anniversary retrospective. But of course I'm not
here alone. This is the first of what I call
the JLB and JC siquest. I'm with a man who
does not need the Jedi Temple Library, because he is
the Jedi Temple Library.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
What's up, jac Hey, how's it going.

Speaker 4 (01:17):
I am really excited to be on the show right now.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
As opposed to the fact check at the end.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Well, you are a big hit during our bonus episodes
when we did the Q and A two, so like
people are. I'm glad people are get to know your face,
You're awesome mohawk along with your voice and the epic
fact check. So it's just a couple of dudes from
Chicago hanging out.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
You know, yeah, and you you set me up so nicely.
But I mean, I feel like I am Obi Wan
Kenobi episode four. I feel like we also have today
like Mando season two, Luke Skywalker when it comes to

(01:59):
Star Wars lore now like the Ultimate Guy.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
We certainly do.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
And that is a great segue to introduce our special
guest today because you probably already read the description and
everything on Apple Podcasts or Spotify wherever you're listening to
this podcast. We do indeed have a very special guest
to join us and enrich this twenty year anniversary retrospective discussion.
I'm Revenge of the Sith. You know him from Star

(02:26):
Wars explained. He also does not need the Jedi Temple
Library because he is in fact, the archives and the library.
They say you shouldn't trust somebody with two first names,
but again there are exceptions to the rules. Please welcome
for the first time, hopefully of many mister Alex Damon.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Hey, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
But also, that's like a lot the season two Mando
Luke is that's a lot, and I should point out
you very kindly gave me a shout out on the
pod a couple of weeks ago and said I was
like the guy, and I just keep thinking, you know,
the last time I competed at Dragon Kong Star Wars Trivia,
that was in twenty twenty four, I got stomped. So

(03:07):
you know, I'm I'm also aging out. I'm like Obi
Wan Kenobi obi Wan as in the series. I'm like
ten years in between Revendo, the Sith and a New Hope.

Speaker 4 (03:18):
I mean, look, I want to say, like just up
top something that you you made Star Wars lower your
job and as like a little kid, that's the that
was what the job that didn't exist because when I
was a little kid, the internet didn't exist. That I
always wanted and you figured out a way to do it.

(03:41):
And I'm just so like, I'm such a cheerleader for
that where you're just like, hey, I'm going to like
my my living is going to be disseminating Star Wars
to the world, Like how awesome is that?

Speaker 2 (03:59):
It's pretty awesome. It's a lot.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
It's something that I never really expected would get to
this level. Like I started the channel to get better
at Star Wars trivia, like that Dragon Con trivia contest.
I just wanted to win it and started making videos
and then people really responded to it.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
So it's been very strange this whole time.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
I also, I just up front, your channel's also like
very positive and like celebratory of Star Wars, which you know,
in this world, I think it's easier to grow a
fan base and a channel in a lot of ways
just like going the other direction. So I want to
applaud that as well. Just how how you lift it up?

(04:43):
You know, it's funny.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
I'm sure we're going to talk about this in a
second when we talk about the prequels. But when I
started my channel, it was twenty fifteen and prequel hate
was still pretty big at the time, and I just
decided for myself that I wasn't going to make videos

(05:05):
for the people who hated something. Anytime I was going
to cover a character or a planet or whatever, I
was going to make that video for the person who
loved that thing, because I've always been big in the
now we call them the glup shadows, the background characters,
but every character in Star Wars is somebody's favorite. So

(05:29):
I didn't want to make a video about one character
and then have like that character's biggest fan walk away
from the video feeling like, well, I feel bad now
for liking that thing.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
That's such a great way to put it, Alex, And
you know, and it puts it in perspective because I think
people will see a successful channel like yours and think
it just came out of nowhere or it was an
overnight thing. This is a ten year hustle and journey
for you. And you could have taken the route of
being the contrariant, being the one that has the hot takes,
being the one that's gonna gaslight people into these responses,

(06:02):
which is a look that's a Statistically speaking, that's how
people really go viral. But I love that you came
from a very genuine place and that's why I know,
that's why your channel is successful. That's why you're successful
because you really are about that positivity, seeing the good
in the art. But you are an artist who cares
about art, which unfortunately we're in an ag where that's

(06:23):
kind of going away. But the fact you've stuck with
over ten years it makes me excited to see what
the next ten years of Star Wars explained look like,
because look, when we were growing up, it was returning
to the Jedi, and then that was it. We just had
to come to terms with this is all we're going
to get. We may we got, you know, Dark Empire,
We got some of the tim they's on novels, which
helped get us through the Star Wars withdrawal, but we
never thought we'd see a live action again. And now

(06:44):
it's like, I don't think Star Wars will ever go
away in live action, and it's nice to know that
somebody like yourself is out there to always highlight the
positive stuff. It was another moment that I had when
when they announced that more Star Wars movies were coming.
Well before I started my channel, I was like, Oh.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
They're gonna do a new movie every year, And my
first thought was like so excited, And my second thought
was like, I'm not going to love all of them
if they're going to do that many and I like
had already accepted you. You know what, I'm grateful for
more Star Wars and that's it. And it's true, like
everything that comes out, I don't love it, but I
always want to treat it with the same level of

(07:21):
respect for the people who do love whatever I'm discussing, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
I want to touch on that too.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
I obviously get asked a lot about Star Wars and
playing baseball again, and one of the guys in the
baseball field asked me about the Force run at the
beginning of episode one and how much it drives some
nuts because they never use it again. Why didn't they
use it to go and chase after Darth Maul. Why
did Obi Wan Nutt? Why did he only selectively use
it that one time? And I was like, I don't

(07:48):
have an answer for that. But what's cool is, with
as much Star Wars as there is, when we were
all growing up, you had three movies and then you
had six, so you had a grand total of, like
you know whatever, twelve and a half hours of Star Wars,
and you held that so precious and it became part

(08:10):
of your identity. Now you don't need to do that.
You can pick and choose the Star Wars you love,
and you can let go of the Star Wars you don't,
knowing that six months from now, twelve months from now,
you're going to get another twelve hours of Star Wars
that you are either going to love or hate. But
then there's more down the road, don't You don't need

(08:32):
to be so precious with your fandom anymore, because it's
they're making something for everybody all the time, and so
I think that a lot of people who who consume
all of it and feel as if they need to
love all of it, It's like, that's not what this
is anymore. Star Wars is a commodity now, and it

(08:53):
was a precious mineral before. Treat it like a commodity, Like,
consume the stuff that you love and let go of
the stuff you don't. It's not worth getting upset about.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
I've heard many times the metaphor of like Star Wars
being a restaurant of just you go and you order
the dishes you like, you don't order the dishes you
don't like, and you're always kind of the.

Speaker 3 (09:13):
Staff like, I love that. How you should handle it.
That's a great way to put in and to expand
on that, Alex and JC. You know Star Wars as
a whole, especially the you know, literally episode one, episode two,
episode three, And we all know that Georgia Lucas loved television.
He loved the action serials, which is he loved Flash Gordon,
which is where the look of the title Carawl came from.

(09:34):
Star Wars as a whole is almost like an episodic thing.
And I know we have episodic television within the Star
Wars universe, but I consider the movies as like two
hour long episodes, you know. And then we had the
actually episodic like the Mandalorian and Acolyte, and then we
had the animated series Clone Wars, and of course Star
Wars Rebels, which is what we primarily cover on Pod Rebellion.
And when you think of your favorite television shows, very

(09:56):
rarely do you say every single episode was amazing, unless
it's like a very tightly put together a limited series
where you have to make every single episode incredible, like
that limited series Adolescence. Yeah, every all four of those
episodes are incredible. In a masterclass in cinematography and directing
and acting. But when you have twenty plus episodes, which
were pretty much at that point now of Star Wars,

(10:17):
you're not gonna love every single one of them. There's
these in procedures, there's bottle episodes, and I love the
show Smallville, but not every episode is great. And that's
not dumping on the show. That's just how it goes.
And whatever the reason it may not be great, it's
just it may not resonate with you, or maybe it
wasn't well done, which to me, I don't think any
Star Wars thing has ever been poorly done on the

(10:37):
technical side. I just think for whatever reason, you may
not personally resonate with it. And to expand on both
of you guys points like that's totally okay, and that's great
because that just means that you can there's something about
the things you do love that's personally resonating with you.
And I think that's what we should focus on as
any sort of fandom, but especially Star Wars agree, especially

(11:01):
like in this day and age, where it's just there's
so much going on, it's so chaotic and you just
want to focus on the joy, or at least I do, like,
especially when you're dealing with your entertainment, Like, I want
to focus on the things that say something powerful, like
and Or has been, or the things that make me

(11:22):
happy instead of being like, you know what, I haven't
liked Star Wars in a long time, and now I'm
just going to sit here and hate watch it and
complain like, no, do something constructive, Yeah, keet a.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Hobby, or do some pottery or something, you know.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
And let me just say really quick on a Andor,
and I want to segue us into episode three, which
is the reason we're all here today. And Or feels
like us who grew up with Star Wars because it
was made for kids. It's like all of us outgrew
our Peter Pant syndrome, and now this is the very
grown up Star Wars that we're getting.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
I say that all the time.

Speaker 4 (11:54):
I'm like and Or, So I was eighteen years old
when episode one came out. And Or was what I've
wanted to see in episode one, and I didn't get.
I got a kids movie. And I think that's where
a lot of the disdain for the prequel started. I
will say again, thank h building on what I said before,

(12:17):
and Or, what is the Star Wars that like old
man me wanted to see Skeleton Crew was the Star
Wars that ten year old me playing with action figures played.
You know, So I have been fed in the last year.
My child has been fed by what they've put out,

(12:38):
and my adult self is being fed right now with
and Or of what they're putting out.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
It's wonderful.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
I think a lot about something else that I loved
growing up, which is Legos. Like I still build Lego sets,
and I think they've done such a great job of
continuing to make sets for younger people to get them
into Legos. But you also the black boxes that are
those are for adults that a child might not want
to sit down and build a giant Star Destroyer that's

(13:07):
all gray and then just put it out for display
and you never touch it again. But but I want
to so, like I feel like and Or is the
black box Star Wars set.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
That in the video games for sure?

Speaker 3 (13:20):
And I think that's where a lot of the discrepancies
come in with the fandom, because if your introduction was
the video games stuff that really wasn't geared for kids,
and then you watch the prequels and the Legacy trilogy,
you're like, wait, this is a kid show, Like I
thought this was this, and I think this is why comparison.
They say comparison is the fepa true joy, because you
can't you can't even compare a New Hope to Empire

(13:41):
strikes back you and you really shouldn't. Like they are
two they're of the same umbrella of Star Wars, but
they're two completely separate stories that serve each other. And
I think when you're setting yourself up from massive disappointment,
the moment you're like, well, it's not like this, Well yeah,
of course it's not supposed to be like super Star
Wars isn't supposed to be like a New Hope. Superstar
Wars is awesome on its own, and so it was

(14:03):
a New Hope in which I think that it's it's
about a natural be segue we can get to in
terms of our main subject here, which is episode three,
Revenge of the Sith Again at least twenty years ago today.
I remember seeing this at the AMC South Barrington thirty
a JC might be familiar with that theater with my
buddy Eric Joe Hanson shout out to Eric Johnson, and
I think our buddy Jim Winstead Jim Winstead was with us,

(14:26):
and I think Brendan was with us. It was just
me and a few of my friends. And this is
my whole thing with it was everyone was hating on
the prequels. Then I'm gonna say this, I didn't even
hate Phantom Menace. I didn't. I didn't love it. It
wasn't my favorite. But there's when I first saw Phantom Menace,
I was very happy to get a new Star Wars movie.
I liked it. I really liked the attack of the Clones.

(14:47):
Like I know, the Yoda thing was weird for people,
but I was like, this is awesome. I never thought
Yoda would ever wheel the lightsaber and live action. But
then episode three was like, this is an awesome movie.
But it was at a time where I almost like,
I felt like I couldn't say it out loud because
the hate or whatever people not liking the prequels are
so present, and me, admittedly being a bit of a

(15:09):
people pleaser back then, didn't want to rock the boat
and I didn't want that confrontation, so I kept it
to myself for many, many many years of this is
a great movie. So that's my first impression. Alex I'd
love to hear from you, and then JC will wrap
up with you in terms of the first encounters with
episode three, because I know you have a great story JC,
with how it was a very seismic, life changing thing

(15:32):
for you.

Speaker 4 (15:33):
Yeah, I will right before we start. South Barrington thirty
is where I saw the trailer for Star Wars episode
one in November of nineteen ninety eight, so our pastor
I saw just years earlier.

Speaker 3 (15:47):
Yeah, I saw episode one there too, and this is
before you could reserve seats in advance, so we none
of us sat next to each other. That's how we
saw episode one and all the prequels pretty much. But
so Alex, tell us about your first time scene episode three,
because you did see it in the theater as well.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
Right, Yeah, So I was twelve for episode one, fifteen
for two, and eighteen for three, and so I kind
of went from like middle school all the way through
high school. It was right around my graduation that episode
three came out, and I was definitely known as not

(16:25):
the Star Wars kid, but I was known for liking
Star Wars in high school, I read all the books,
I was watching the Clone Wars micro series and discussing
it in class and stuff.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
So there was a group of.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
Some of the more popular kids that were going to
go see it at midnight, and they were like, Hey.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
Do you want to go see it with us?

Speaker 1 (16:44):
And I was like, yeah, sure, I was going to
see it probably alone, so I'll go with you. And
I showed up with a Jedi robe and a lightsaber
and they were all like, oh, we're.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Doing that today. Okay.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
They were cool about it, but they definitely weren't expecting it.
But I had kind of a similar experience of you
is you know episode one and two. I was young
and my peers were young, and we all just saw
it and enjoyed it. But I do remember a shift
between when we were fifteen and eighteen, when all of

(17:18):
a sudden, the narrative just became the prequels are bad,
and all of the kids that were just like, yeah,
episode was two was neat, Yoda fought.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
With the lightsaber.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
All of a sudden, we were seeing the trailer for
episode three and everyone was just like, it's going to
suck too, and I was just like, come on, guys,
like why are we being so pessimistic about this? But
I remember walking out of that just over the Moon.
It was so much fun. I feel like I just

(17:50):
I think this all the time, but I think I
was born at the right time to become just the
right kind of Star Wars fan for me that I
got to grow up with the originals, but I was
still young enough to love the prequels, and I felt
like I kind of growed grew up with the prequels
because obviously Revenge of the Sith this is the most

(18:10):
intense one, but being eighteen for that just felt right,
felt good.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
Thanks for sharing that, man, and like that's what And
I feel like episode three is like the gift that
keeps giving too, because it just it hits you different
each time. And we're going to get into this more
because of the supplemental material we've gotten in the universe.
Uh and then we just grow as people. So you
know this happens with any sort of art. When you
grow as a person and you start seeing the world differently,
certain things that art will hit you differently as well.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
But uh, yeah, I was just gonna say the thing.

Speaker 4 (18:46):
That you see all the time, especially with Revenge of
the Sith, is I and I don't have any statistics.
This is anecdotal, but I bet you it is the
most memed Star Wars movie on the internet terms of
unlimited power, in terms of Anakin and young lings. I
mean even two days ago, you know there, Revenge of

(19:09):
the Sith was re released in theaters and somebody came
into my restaurant and they were like, oh, the guy
dressed as Anakin Skywalker has two kids with him.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
I was like, you let Anakin in with young lings?

Speaker 4 (19:26):
You know, Like it's still like it's the most talked
about almost I would bet you today on the Internet,
Revenge of the Sith is probably discussed at like a
high level, like high level, meaning like high concept level,
more than any other Star Wars. This is how Liberty

(19:48):
dies with thunderous applause, Like everything relevant in Star Wars
that we talked about today was birthed in that movie.

Speaker 3 (19:57):
That's such that's such a great way to put the JC.
And then also because we just discussed and or I
feel like, because that's such a dark moment in the
Jedi Temple with the younglings, it almost feels like George
was towing that line between maintaining this as a kids
movie but also showing like, hey, I can go there
if I want to. He decided to not fully go there,

(20:17):
and just we had to use our imagination and there
are some images that we're looking back, I'm like, wow,
like they really like you weren't expecting that, and now
like and Or's fully realizing it's the Star Wars fans
that grew up with the originals grown up.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
So that's such a really cool way to put it.
And I do know this.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
I know that Revenge of the Sith has the most
Star Wars signature like wipe transitions out of every single
one of the movies, and it's I've got like two
hundred of them or something like that.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
It's pretty insane.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
And I just I did go to the re release
in theaters and I kept seeing like wow, like he
really went ham on these transitions, and it was it
wasn't just the wipes, it wasn't just the circles. There's
like barn doors and it was like different shapes. It
was like, wow, George, you really just like, yep, give
no apps. I'm just going for it because I know
it's the last one.

Speaker 4 (21:04):
I rewatched it last night and there was one where
it was like multiple boxes closing in on this screen.
I was like, what are you doing? Did you just
discover Final Cup Pro at this point? What's happening here?

Speaker 3 (21:17):
He probably did, Actually, you know, I think didn't. Georgia
pretty much invent nonlinear editing, like he was part of
the Abbot editing system, and I think this was one
of the first major motion pictures to be all digital
and George never wanted to go back to film after.
I think it was this movie or Attack of the Clones.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Clones was yeah?

Speaker 4 (21:34):
Was that?

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Yeah? Again?

Speaker 3 (21:36):
It's great that I got two real time fact checkers
with me to make sure that I got my stuff right.
But Jase, I really want to hear your story because
I know the broad strokes of your first episode three encounter,
But would you please share with us in our listeners
what that was?

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 (21:50):
Yes, I'm going to try to keep it brief because
I could talk about this for three hours, but very
quickly so. Episode one came out in nineteen ninety nine.
I was a senior in high school. I was I
from the last semester of my senior year of high school.
I wore Jedi ropes to school every day, so I
was not the cool kid right up until the point

(22:12):
that Rosie O'Donnell brought me on the show to do
Star Wars Trivia. And that was on May nineteenth, which
also is when Revenge of the Sith came out years later. Anyway,
then I was the cool kid because I had been
on Live TV. I was in college for episode two
and then episode three.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
I was living in New York City.

Speaker 4 (22:34):
It was like right after I had finished college and
I just left my job working at Midtown Comics in
Times Square, which is one of the biggest comic book
stores in the world. And my boss called me and said,
this is in September of two thousand and four, that
somebody from trl MTV's Total Requests Live had been in

(22:55):
looking for the world's biggest Star Wars fan, and he
gave me her email address, said you should email her.
So I did, and they brought me in for an
audition to be on trl to do Star Wars Trivia.
And I think I was the only one to answer
all of their questions to get onto the show correctly.

(23:19):
And the one I got right that nobody else got
right in New York City was and we'll see, We'll
see if Alex can get this.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
And the beginning immediately, I'm like, oh boy.

Speaker 4 (23:28):
At the beginning of episode two, Anakin and Obi Wan
have just returned from what planet?

Speaker 2 (23:36):
A border dispute on antsy On? There it is, yep,
that was it. Everybody else said.

Speaker 4 (23:42):
Uh, something else because they at the beginning of episode two,
they're in an elevator going up to Padme's apartment. It's
the first time you see them. But later on or
either later on or earlier, Mace Windu in Palpatine's office said, yeah,
they've just returned from a border dispute on Antian. So

(24:04):
it's kind of a trick question anyway, I have.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
To say, like immediately, like my adrenaline just rose, my
blood pressure spike, and like.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
I feel so alive.

Speaker 3 (24:13):
That reminded me and sorry, I mean in a row,
that remind me of in the movie Fanboys, when the
you know Ethan still play Plane, you know, Harry Knowles
or whatever is asking like curveball question like well what
planet is Chewbacra from. He's like, well, that's not fair,
that's not actually in the trilogies. It almost felt like
that's what that kind of took me back to. With
that sort of you had to really be paying attention

(24:34):
to the movie to get that, and that's I would
have not gotten that. And I know what I know
with Star Wars. I'm not a complete white belt, but
I'm probably not a black belt either, probably like maybe
like a red brown. You know, I didn't quite do
all the trials if you will, to get the group that.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
They've put you on the council but not granted you
the rank of Master John.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
I I think if I'm on the council, it's on
like a probationary period.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
I'm not being solved there.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
I'm just saying, like I know what my strings are,
and I think I'm on the council because maybe I'm entertaining.
I'm helping with boarding discussions with the council, Like yeah,
this guy kind of keeps the conversation going.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Let's ask you.

Speaker 4 (25:12):
So I went on MTV's TRL. I won the trivia
contest and the prize was to for a trip to
Skywalker Ranch that May to see Star Wars Revenge of
the Sith. So fast forward to May. I think it
was May fifth, two thousand and five. I was busted

(25:35):
from San Francisco to Skywalker Ranch, which, like growing up,
I was like the only thing I ever want to
do is go to Skywalker Well not true. Growing up,
I was like I want to be Steve sand Sweet
or now Alex Damon. But the second thing I wanted
to do is I just wanted to get to Skywalker Ranch,
no matter what it took. And it was an impossibility.

(25:59):
It was like either like you have to be invited
that you're just never going to go. And because I
had won the contest, I felt like I had made
my dreams come true. And we got there and I
was with an MTV Europe winner and my friend that
I got to bring in his friend that he got
to bring, and we watched Revenge of the Sith in

(26:24):
the Stag theater of the Tech Building with the cast
of that seventy show, and then right behind them was
George Lucas and his daughter Katie watched the movie with us.
And I mean, even outside of Star Wars, to watch
a movie with the filmmaker is really a special kind

(26:46):
of thing. And then watch the movie, and again I
really liked episodes one and two. It wasn't what I wanted,
but I am somebody who loves Star Wars for the story.
I'm not there for this scial effects. I'm not there
for the lightsabers. I want the mythology of it, and
I don't think you can. There's a lot of stuff

(27:08):
with the prequels that if you want to be very critical,
you could criticize the direction, or the acting, or the
special effects in episode two weren't quite there or any
of those things. But the mythology is rock solid, and
so I was so into that. And then to see
Revenge of the Sith, where it all kind of ties
together and you get to see the things that you

(27:29):
had read about for twenty years or I guess fifteen years.
At that point, it was It was magic. It was
literally a dream come true. And then after the movie screening,
a standing on the patio talking to one of the
executive producer of TRL about the movie, and George walked

(27:49):
out the back door, passed me, and I paused my
conversation with the MTV guy and ran over to George,
and I got to have a what seemed like a
two hour conversation but in reality was probably fifteen second
conversation with George and just tell him how much Star
Wars meant to me and how much it changed my life.

(28:11):
And then he said, oh great, that's so nice, and
I said, I have a hug. I'm getting teary I
just think about it.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Yeah, no, no, I mean I'm getting emotional listening to you.
This is amazing.

Speaker 4 (28:21):
George gave me a hug and then said, all right,
I gotta go. I have tickets to take my son
Jet to see Triple X two. And he got in
his Mercedes and sped away. But that was the moment.
That was a life changing moment for me. And I'll
show you, guys. We can put this on social This
is the picture of me.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
That's incredible, man.

Speaker 4 (28:45):
The picture of me hugging George Lucas. And this again
was two thousand and five. It was three weeks before
the movie came out. That was a screenshot of a
video that Bonnie Burton, who used to run Star Wars.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Monny shot out to Bonnie shown of.

Speaker 4 (29:01):
Me at Skywalker there and then so now I had
seen the movie three weeks early, so like I was,
I was like all over it, like, oh my god,
you're never gonna believe what happened. I was probably really
obnoxious about it. And then, because I was living in
New York City, on release day, I saw the midnight

(29:23):
showing in New Jersey, where I lived, and then I
heard that they were doing a four am screening in
Times Square, so I took the train to New York City,
got tickets, watched it at four am, got home at
like seven, slept for two hours, then went and saw
it again at because I had had tickets for ten am,

(29:46):
one pm, four pm, seven pm, and ten pm the
next day. So I think I had seen it like
eight or nine times within the first twenty four hours
of release.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
That's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that. Man,
and I, George Lucas and I don't really get starstruck.
I've met my fair share celebrities, and I think all
three of us have met our fair share celebrities and
public figures. But George is one of those guys because
he's not very out there publicly. You don't know a
lot about him. He's not on social media. There's a
lucasfilm social media acount, but as far as I know,
George Lucas doesn't have social media. He's very off the grid,

(30:22):
and which is on brand a long time ago. He
pretty much is in a long time ago, a galaxy
far far away, as far as we all know, but
he is someone that feels so mythologized, so to see
him in person, and I'd be curious of your take
on that, JC to the best of your recollection, but
I'm sure it's a very vivid memory, like what's going
through your mind when you actually see him in the flesh,
because I remember when I met Michael Jordan for the

(30:42):
first time. That guy walked on air, and again, I
don't get starstruck, but there's certain people who have that aura.
I would imagine George had that for you too, right.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
I'll tell you what I was.

Speaker 4 (30:53):
I was so nervous, I remember that, but I remember
all I remember being so nervous that I almost didn't
want to go and talk to him.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
But I also.

Speaker 4 (31:03):
Because I had conquered that fear to be on the
Rosie O'Donnell Show, and then I conquered that fear again
to be on TRL and get through that trivia contest
and get here. I was terrified, but I was like,
I have to do this. This is this is my
childhood dream. I have an opportunity to make it happen,
and I'm not going to let my fear get in

(31:24):
the way of that you know, the actual conversation. I
just I remember telling him that I was a young
filmmaker and I loved that he could be a role
model to me because he did not bend to become
what Hollywood wanted him to. He did it out of
the Bay Area. He did it on his own terms,
and he was the most successful person ever to do it.

(31:48):
And that, oh my god, I get so emotional thinking
about it. Yeah, that having somebody like that to look
up to, to model after was the most important thing
to me. I didn't ask him like y C three
Bo's leg was silver, you know what I mean, Like
it was deeper than that.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
Why George?

Speaker 4 (32:11):
And then after he got in his car, I mean
I had a complete breakdown, Like I couldn't talk, I
couldn't breathe, because like that, to me was the hurdle, right, that,
to me was the thing. And like you know, and
I know I'm talking forever, and I'm so sorry to
everybody who has to listen to this.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
This is a story. Man.

Speaker 4 (32:33):
You know, John, you and I grew up, Alex. I'm
not sure where you grew up, but John and I
grew up in like the suburbs of Chicago where like
nothing remarkable ever happens. The famous people are athletes, you know,
and then there's John Hughes, right, And that was it.
Like it was so far removed from Hollywood that the
people surrounding you, like your mom would be like, oh yeah, honey,

(32:54):
you can do whatever you want if you just put
your mind to it, right, But nobody ever believed that,
like some young kid from the suburbs of Chicago was
going to go off and do this impossible thing at
Skywalker Ranch. And I think deep down even I didn't
believe it, you know, But that was the moment in

(33:16):
my life where it's like, oh my god, I could
do I'm twenty four years old. I did the thing
that I thought would be the hardest thing that I'd
ever do, like the thing that I would reach for
my whole life and never achieve. I've done it twenty
four and everything else I do for the rest of
my life will be easier to achieve than this. And

(33:39):
it's allowed me to live my life in a way
without fear, without fear of taking a jump and opening
a restaurant with no experience, without fear of getting on
stage before Kevin Smith and doing warm up in front
of a crowd of two thousand people in Australia and
like it's you know, there's the meme. It's like, what

(34:01):
would you achieve in your life if you could go
forth without fear? It's like Revenge of the Sith in
kind of like a parallel way gave me that in
my life, and it's it's I mean like again, I've
lived all of my little childhood dreams because of my

(34:21):
passion for Star Wars, and in that moment with George,
it's almost like that's the nexus point of my life
right where it was like I was this kid trying
to achieve this thing, and that hug from George Lucas
like unlocked my future.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
Yeah, as you said that, that sounded like like like
Gwenni Paltrow movie Sliding Doors, that was a Sliding Doors
moment for you. Had you not when it said hello,
who knows, so we may not be doing this podcast,
I feel like knowing you you would have found a way.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
But that was the catalyst.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
And also there are exceptions to the rules I say,
don't meet your heroes, but it sounds like George Lucas
is one percent the antithesis of that, like meet George
because if you can, which I have not had that happen, Alex,
I would love to hear your journey with episode three
because during that you did start Star Wars explained. So
we just talked about the first encounter of it. How

(35:14):
did that evolve for you as the years one on?
Then as we got stuff like Clone Wards, which to
me changed everything. That just made me love episode three
more because you got this substance and meaning of Orders
sixty six. It wasn't just these stormtroopers blindly following orders
like they literally had no choice because of the microchip.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
In their brain.

Speaker 3 (35:33):
But I'd love to hear about your perspective again, Tim
Brace Kutusow as Rashamong, you know, give me your perspective
on your episode three journey as real quick I wanted.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
To say to jac I think it's beautiful that episode
three you feel like taught you to live without fear
when the movie is about what happens when you let
fear control you.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
I'm like, that's so rad, so great story. We live
in a simulation. You're kind of confirming we're in the Matrice.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
So yeah, from episode three on, I had just graduated
call Or, I had just graduated high school and was
going into college, and I kind of dropped out of
Star Wars for a little bit because I didn't start
my channel until twenty fifteen, and there's just like, yeah,
this ten year gap where I did not watch The

(36:22):
Clone Wars when it was coming out.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
I kept up with it.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
And I remember being like that was kind of the
age where I turned into a bit of a snotty
fan and being like, oh, they're doing a Star Wars cartoon, Like, no, thanks,
not for me, I'm too old for that.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Too cool, And I would check in on it and
be like, it does sound kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
But I honestly didn't watch The Clone Wars until after
season one of Rebels, which, since this is a Rebels podcast,
is great, but like, I credit Rebels very much with
like changing my perspective as a fan because I was
just starting the channel Rebels was coming out, and I

(37:07):
like figured, you know, I guess I should give this
cartoon a shot. I should cover it if I'm covering
everything else Star Wars. And it did not take long
for me to see like, oh, this is not what
I thought it was.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
It's not just for little kids. It's accessible, but you.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Know, by that first episode where they run into the
Grand Inquisitor, I was on board and it just got
better and better. So that kind of taught me. Rebels
taught me to give every single Star Wars thing a shot.
And then I went back and I waunched the Clone
Wars in between episodes or seasons one and two of

(37:49):
Rebels and Blue through it. Loved it, and yeah, just
the amount of depth that it gives to Revenge of
the Sith as we build up to that point.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
I was one of the people that I had.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
To like kind of grasp the fact that Anakin had
a Padawan. That that was something that surprised me. But
I accepted that and got into it. I think I
had to accept, like, oh, Darth Maul's coming back, that
seems kind of odd. But then those episodes wound up
being some of my favorites in the whole thing.

Speaker 2 (38:25):
But you and I rubbed down the same issues with
Clone Wars kind of too.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
Yeah, it's it's kind of like you said earlier that
Star Wars at that point was a little more precious,
where you had six movies and now this was the
first TV show, and by the time I was watching
it was like the second TV show for me, but
there still wasn't as much Star Wars as there is now,

(38:50):
and it was kind of making me think about so
many things in a different way. But I think that
was good training for what I'm doing now. Is just like,
you know, I do want everything to line up perfectly,
and I do always kind of wrinkle when they introduce
something that I'm like, uh, I didn't know that already,

(39:11):
and I just have to adjust my thinking and be like, well,
just because I didn't know it doesn't mean it couldn't
have happened, and what are they actually trying to say
with it all? But yeah, I mean the Clone Wars
was a lesson in not judging a book by its cover,
I guess, and just being like, oh, it's animation. It's

(39:34):
not for me, and I won't like it. When it
turns out, I'm gonna like it a whole lot.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
Yeah, in some ways, in some ways not that again,
we don't play the comparison, and in some ways you
like it more because it can say certain things and
do certain things that the live action just wasn't able
to do. And thank you for sharing all that and
on that with this, if you want to if you
can peel back the curtain of the genesis of you,
will Star Wars explain because like, what was the moment

(40:00):
where you knew like, okay, this is my angle, Like
this is what I because you just touched on what
can I offer that isn't already out there like Wikipedia,
Wikipedia or any one of the forums and read it
didn't exist?

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Then maybe it did, But what was it?

Speaker 3 (40:13):
What was it that you knew like, Okay, this is
what makes Star Wars explain what it is. This is
the part of Alex Damon that makes Star Wars explain
what it is?

Speaker 2 (40:22):
Rather?

Speaker 3 (40:23):
And how has that also evolved along with your love
of Star Wars in particularly episode three? Yeah, I mean,
like JC, I've just always been into Star Wars trivia
and not really on purpose. I just liked learning about
Star Wars. And again during that, like those college years,

(40:43):
I didn't keep up with everything as intensely. And then
I started to enter this dragon Con trivia contest and
every year I would do okay but not great, and
I was like if I just studied a little bit,
like I could probably win this thing, and so I
went to YouTube to study, but all of the videos

(41:05):
at that time any Star Wars lore video.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
They were just like really long, and I'm like, I'm
in the workforce now, I have a job. I don't
have time to watch a forty minute video on one topic.
So I was like, I'm going to start like going
back through the books, and I'm going to go through
the comics, and I'm going to try to study and
I'll make very short, bite sized videos that'll help me
remember these things. But I also just saw there's probably

(41:31):
a market here for just like really fast, digestible videos
for people who want to learn more about Star Wars.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
So I think that.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
That was my initial thing, of just little bite sized
bits of Star Wars lore that were easy and fast
to consume.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
I think that's what set me apart.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
But then also that thought of prequel is really big
right now and I don't want to be a part
of that. So I do think that set me apart
online as well. And at the time, I think that
I had still some issues with the prequels. I think

(42:18):
that doing the channel has really made me reevaluate a
lot of those problems that I've had, And I mean,
like JC questions like the four speed come up, and
I think that I have become better and better at
finding rationalizations using Star Wars itself to be like, oh,

(42:39):
here's why Obi Wan didn't use it at the end
against Darth Maul. I feel like I've really trained myself
to think deeper instead of just go that's a question,
and I don't like that I have a question at all,
and I'm just going to be mad about it instead,
I like, you use my brain to figure out an

(43:00):
answer that works for me.

Speaker 4 (43:02):
Can I pose a Revenge of the Sith question to
you that still drives me crazy?

Speaker 2 (43:06):
Sure?

Speaker 4 (43:08):
In Return of the Jedi, Luke and Leah have a
discussion where Luke says, Leah, do.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
You remember your mother? I mean your real mother?

Speaker 4 (43:15):
And if you go to YouTube, everybody's like she's talking
about bray Organe.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
No, no, no, Luke says, your real mother.

Speaker 4 (43:24):
So he's asking about Padme and Leah says, you know,
just a little bit. She died when I was very young, Yeah,
like thirty seconds young. Right in the movie, I was
waiting for Lea to be the first born because at
that point perhaps there's a forced connection between Leah and

(43:47):
pad May, and then as Luke's being born, Padme dies.
That is not what they that is not the direction
they went. Luke was born first. The droid brings Luke
over to Padme and she's like Luke, and then Leah
is born. Leah never even pad May have never even

(44:08):
lays eyes on Leah. Can you give me a Star
Wars in universe explanation for why why that's the one
thing in Revenge of the Shif that still drives me crazy.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
Do you have a good explanation?

Speaker 1 (44:25):
It's very like Simpson's a Wizard did it. I would
just say the Force did it. Basically that while Luke
and Leah are with pad May, they're probably feeling and
sensing a lot up of her experiences through the Force.
Like Leah specifically says she remembers her mother being very sad,
and yeah, I don't think that there would be a

(44:47):
way for her to get that as an infant, but
just to like have that intuition that the Force is
kind of speaking through her. They kind of touch on
this in obi Wan Kenobi as well, uh Obi Wan
and light young Leya have that talk on uh that
like kind of desert planet and obi Wan talks about

(45:10):
remembering flashes of his mother and he thinks there was
a brother there. So I think there's probably just some
connection that Lea does have through the force that maybe
a little bit extra since she's a skywalker.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Okay, that's a great answer.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
I didn't think of it that way, you know, because
you know how our memories can play tricks on us,
like you think that something just happened yesterday, but it
actually happened twenty years ago, like seeing Revenge.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Of the Sith.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
It's almost like there's something in psychology called fuzzy memories,
where you think you're remembering something from a certain time,
but maybe it's because she's an EmPATH and has four sensibilities,
she's sensing what was happening at the time, like digging
deep into her infant memory.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
That's it. I never thought of it that way.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
I was just going to go the route of, well look,
I just established as like an episodic thing, and you
know in to TV shows, like a guest star comes on,
then all of a sudden, they're the cousin that's a
series regular in like season three, that was going to
be my Well look, George probably didn't know like this
is how it was going to come full circle, and
he's just like, you know, just just leave it, or

(46:15):
you know, maybe there was some sort of multiversal or
like this flashpoint like in the Flash, or maybe with
the four speed like Barry Allen, they broke through the
speed barrier and that caused some sort of chasm in
the space time continuum.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
You know, every time you use four speed, it creates
a new timeline.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
So that's why they don't do it.

Speaker 3 (46:33):
That's why they did the Flash at season seven, because
like they're like, hey, we can't do this anymore. You
guys like Barry, you just gotta stop. You touched on
something that I think is an important discussion for the
three of us about how we had this sort of
aversion towards the prequels, and there was this overall aversion
to the prequels and how nowadays, and jac and I

(46:55):
talked about this before you jumped onto the to the Zoom,
that's pretty much gone at this point, and I would
love to dive into that with you two dudes.

Speaker 4 (47:04):
I mean, for me, the thing that I'm a big
jar Jar Binks fan, like an ironically jar jar Binks fan,
because I feel like, again, for as much as you
want to dump on jar Jar Jar Jar is, the
jar Jar is the John, the Alex, or the JC
of the Star Wars universe. He's the guy who gets teased.

(47:27):
He's the guy who uh gets banished. He's the guy
who's not cool. He's the guy he is the the
Star Wars fan that exists in the Star Wars universe.
And he is the one who who teaches us to
be unapologetically ourselves.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
Jeorj R. Why were you banished? Oh I'm clumsy? Jarjar?

Speaker 4 (47:49):
Why are you dumb? Well, I'm just me, you know.
I stick my tongue out, I do this. My tongue
is fat. It's okay. Like he is unapologetically himself. And
I I think that George is too smart to put
that character in there without knowing that the people who
loved Star Wars and who continue to love Star Wars

(48:09):
are that little kid, you know.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
Sam Whitware famously says.

Speaker 4 (48:14):
We all think that we're Han Solo, but we are
all Luke Skywalker. We're all the winey farm boy. Your
older brother that you look up to is Hans Solo.
We're the whiney farm kid. And I think jar Jar
is us. And I think the reason that everybody hated
on jar Jar so much is it made us uncomfortable

(48:35):
to see ourselves so vulnerable on screen.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
And I just lost the point of your question, lo.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
It that you had asked, well, well, well, that's such
a great point to bring up because and also Clone
War about the Clone Wars. Clone Wars totally redeemed jar
Jar and expanded on that character. And you storry to
understand look as someone who is neuro diverse ADHD level
one spectrum autism, spectrum dyslexia.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
I think.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
Jarjar was just someone who was neurodiverse, and people didn't
know how to deal with that. I think now because
the discussions are so much more open with mental health
and neurodiversity, You're like, oh, he's just this is normal
to Jarjar. He's just being himself. He's not thinking about
how do I look to these guys who are in
these Jedi robes and I have laser swords. He's like,
I'm gonna be me, but I'm also with the best

(49:21):
intention to help them out. Could they need my help,
I will help them out and we will go through
my underwater universe. I love that, you know, that's such
an important discussion.

Speaker 4 (49:29):
So here's where I was going with that, is what
you've seen now is I mean, look at Amad Best
and the reaction he got when he came out at
Star Wars celebration for the first time in twenty years
or whatever a few years.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
Back in twenty nineteen. Yeah, in twenty nineteen. It is.

Speaker 4 (49:51):
If you ask me about the Prequels, and we've all
talked about it, like they weren't really our thing.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
If you ask life, and I don't.

Speaker 4 (50:01):
If you ask somebody who is, like if you have
a younger sibling or a younger cousin, they loved the
Prequels right up until the point that us told them
that they were wrong for loving the Prequels. And again
there was There's a group of guys that came into
my restaurant two days ago. One of them was dressed

(50:21):
as Darth Vader. Two of them were dressed as Jedi.
They had just come from Revenge of the Sith. And
I went up and I was like, are you coming
from the movie or are you going to the movie?
And they were like, we're coming from the movie. And
I go, oh my god, were any of you old
enough to see this movie in the theater when it
came out? And all of them said no, except for

(50:44):
the guy in the Darth Vader costume. And I was like, oh,
how was it? And they were like, oh, it was magical.
They were like Revenge of the Sith. They were like
the other prequels not so much, but Revenge of the
Sith is my Wars movie. And there these are kids
who are like twenty five, twenty six years old.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
And and.

Speaker 4 (51:07):
You know the only reason that young kids who grew
up with the prequels when they were young don't like
the prequels is because jerks who were our age told
them when they were impressionable that those movies were no good.
And now that those kids have come into their own

(51:28):
they're like, hey, old millennials, like, we're not. We love
those movies. Growing up, they're nostalgic for those movies the
way that we were nostalgic for the original trilogy. And
now they have enough life years behind them that they're
not afraid to stick up for this stuff that they love,
which is awesome because it has, like the prequel hate

(51:53):
has disappeared. I also think that without getting political, a
lot of what's going on in the world right now
people are looking at like clairvoyance of George Lucas where
it's like the taxation of trade roots have has disrupted
the galaxy and everybody I saw a meme of just
like people in nineteen ninety like Star Wars fans in

(52:13):
nineteen ninety nine, and it's like a bunch of people
like ugh about the episode one scroll. And now it's
like twenty twenty five and it's George Lucas like laughing about.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
The taxation of trade roots.

Speaker 4 (52:27):
Right, It's like it's it was like it almost came
out too early, like he was predicting the fall of
the Roman Empire, like at the height of the Roman Empire,
and now you know, we're all like, oh, oh, maybe
we should have listened. I think I just got completely lost. No,

(52:48):
that's a great way to put it.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
And also on that with Roman Empire, I feel like
George was focusing on Musa, who nobody talks about, instead
of like Caesar, instead of the headminers that we're talking about,
which again goes back to jar Jar and all the
alternative brown. But Alex, how about you, what's your take
on this? Because you've had such great insights and I'm
a big fan of your YouTube channel and your podcast
and and you said, you even admitted, and I went
through it too, where I didn't want to say out loud.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
I'd like the prequels because.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
One, I was a chronic people pleaser back in the day,
and I had this whole incessant desire to be accepted.
But again, I wasn't Luke, I wasn't Han, I wasn't Late,
I wasn't named them. I wasn't even Chewy, you know
what I mean. Like I wasn't even on the ship.
I wasn't even t K four two to one.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
You know.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
I would have just been happy to be anywhere in
that stratosphere, and that certainly spilled over into my social
life or lack thereof, and my way in was to
be agreeing with the majority. So I'm curious of what
your journey was like in terms of seeing the prequels
to Jorman, what they were going through. I think all
Star Wars fans, especially in our age group and age adjacent,

(53:49):
we go through kind of a pretentious era where we're
too cool for Star Wars, and it sounds like all
three of us went through that in a different way.
So I'd love to hear your personal perspective on that
and your personal take on how the prequel hate has
pretty much disappeared.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
Yeah, so I consider myself like an original trilogy kid,
And I always think about Star Wars as kind of
like James Bond or another long lasting franchise where everyone
has their James Bond that like GoldenEye was mine. I
loved the game, loved that movie, so Pierce Brosnan became like,

(54:24):
that's who I first think of when I think of Bond.
But some people would be like, are you insane? Have
you seen die another day? Like other people have Connory
or more or whatever. And I think that people tend
to gravitate towards what they grew up with, and so
we're seeing, Yeah, the people who grew up with the prequels,

(54:47):
they're now old enough to, like jac said, fight for
the thing that they love. And I just see it
now as a cycle. Is that right?

Speaker 3 (54:58):
Now?

Speaker 1 (54:59):
It's all like sequel hate, Disney Star Wars hate whatever
about certain things. And you know, in another ten years,
maybe less those fans are going to have more voice
on the Internet, and some of them might hate James
Mangold's Donna the Jedi movie or something like That's not

(55:22):
what I grew up with. And this is really weird,
but I feel like it's cyclical for the people too.
Is that maybe everyone just has to go through that
pretentious era where they act like I'm too cool for
Star Wars now, and you know, the only good Star
Wars was my Star Wars anyway. But then if you

(55:44):
keep going, I mean, like I never stopped thinking about
Star Wars. It very much shaped the kind of person
that I was, and then when I returned to it
in a big way, I just was starting to see
it in a new light and beyond just the trivia
of it all. I think that's something that the Channel

(56:06):
has changed for me as well, is that it's not
just about the cool ships and all the variants of
Tie Fighters, as much as I love them, I'm like, oh, George,
I mean he was always saying it, but he really
really did want to teach kids lessons. And like when
you look at the Clone Wars and every single episode

(56:28):
has blue text that's like, Hey, this is what you're
supposed to be paying attention to. Is just George wanting
to pass along that wisdom and to help everyone get along.
And so that's something else that the Clone Wars kind
of imparted to me is seeing how much better the

(56:48):
Star Wars community is when it acts like a community
and when we don't split into these tribes. And it's
fine to have these fun little debates over whether or
not we prefer the originals or the equals, but as
long as you're respecting each other and being like, hey,
maybe that one Star Wars thing isn't for me, but
I'm glad you love it, and I'm glad that it

(57:09):
speaks to you. That's what I have taken from just
this constant cycle of Star Wars hate and then that
thing that is hated now becomes beloved, and then the
next thing is hated, and so on and so on.
I'm like, we could just probably understand that we could

(57:29):
skip the cycle and treat everything with respect.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
That's a great way to put it. I love that
you're talking about the cycle here, because I saw this
interview with Michael Jordan and someone's like, you know, you're
rated as a number one most popular athlete, and he
just was like, hey, look, that's because the people writing
those articles are people that watch me play. Twenty years
from now, they may say Lebron because those people come
of asion. They're the ones that are headlining legacy media,

(57:55):
and I feel like that is one the influence of
media on certain people's perception, and that's going to influence
your own thoughts. But bringing it back to you, it's
I think we need that, and we need that pretentious era,
whatever the reason, we went through that to understand who
we are and then where we see ourselves within Star Wars.
And I think you put it so beautifully by talking

(58:15):
about that cycle. It's going to be cyclical. Like people
who I know, people who will die in the Hill,
that they think the Last Jedi is the best Star
Wars movie. Fine, I don't agree. It's not my favorite one.
I'm not going to sit here and dump on anything
because one Ryan Johnson's not here to defend himself and
neither is anybody from that film. But that's what somebody
identifies with. I like, that's beautiful. It doesn't resonate with

(58:36):
me because I grew up with the original trilogy. I know,
I went into my twenties with the prequels and those
resonate with me, and then Clone Wars resonates with me.
But I think that's such a great way to put it,
because there's always going to be a cycle of this
one's on top, this one's on bottom. But then as
things evolve and as people evolve, and also the people
on the media are reporting on those things grow up

(58:58):
or come of age, that will shift in like in
a societal sort of way. It's a very fascinating thought
because I'm reading this book by Keith Payne. He's this
economic psychologist at the University of North Carolina, and he
was talking about how and again not to get political,
but his book does deal with it. A lot of
times people think that they believe in a certain ideology,

(59:18):
but it's really you're kind of joining a social group.
So bringing it back to us, yeah, we went through
a pretentious face because it wasn't quite cool to like
Star Wars, but that's not really how we internally felt.
Like I think back like man, like I was kind
of dying in cyber attending, Like I didn't like episode three,
but I was so fearful of not being perceived as
one of the cool kids. If I were to say

(59:38):
that out loud, I think it's just a really interesting
like psychological, you know, study as well.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
I kind of think that like maybe when you're growing
up and you're watching something you start to want to
crave stuff that's made for older people, and so you
start to think, you know what, all the stuff I
grew up with, it's not cool anymore. I want to watch,
you know, R rated movies, and that's what it means

(01:00:04):
to be mature. And so you leave like the childish
things behind because you didn't really understand all the stuff
it was trying to tell you. But then returning to
it as an adult and being like, this is so
much deeper than I recognized it was when I was younger.
It's more important, and I think like a lot of
those lessons did seep in, and I think I did

(01:00:29):
get them. But now going back and looking at everything
Yoda tells Luke, for example, I'm like, I get it now,
Like I get why he's telling Luke like you will
be afraid of your own power and your own responsibilities.
But back then, I was like, I just don't get it.
That puppet's being creepy.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
John.

Speaker 4 (01:00:52):
You brought up Clone Wars earlier, and something struck me.
As I was watching Revenge of the Sith last night,
my life was watching it too, And now she's only
seen that movie twice. She saw it in the theater
and she saw it once again with me in the
lead up to Force Awakens, and as she's watching it

(01:01:12):
last night, she said something like about Anakin's turn, she
felt rushed, turned to the dark side. She felt rushed,
which I never felt, but she does. And it's interesting
right when we're talking about the different generations of Star
Wars fans, the kids who grew up with Clone Wars,

(01:01:35):
like I have a cousin who's, gosh, I don't know,
twenty years younger than I am, and he grew up
with Clone Wars. Clone Wars was his gateway into Star Wars.
When it went on Netflix. He found Clone Wars and
that's his Star Wars. Like more so Clone Wars and Rebels,
like hey thinks that Dave Filoni created Star Wars. George

(01:01:59):
Lucas is like some like ghosts in the past. And
the thing I always think about the way Clone Wars
helps contextualize Revenge of the Sith comes to mind that
in season seven of Clone Wars, which came out right
around the first season of Rebels, there's an episode with

(01:02:25):
Padme and Clovis where pad May and Clovis team up
to go on a diplomatic mission and Anakin loses his
mind with jealousy and storms into the condo or the
hotel room that they're sharing together because he's in a

(01:02:49):
fit of rage with jealousy and starts beating on Clovis.
He like takes his glove off, and Clovis is like,
stop using your Jedi powers. He like takes his glove
off and punching Clovis with his robotic hand, and Captain
Typho walks in and like, Clovis plays the part perfectly,

(01:03:09):
and he's like, we've been attacked and Skywalker saved us, right,
because now at this point, Clovis has figured out that
Anakin and Padme are together and he and he plays
the political game because now he's like a separatist. And
then the fallout from that is there's like a very poignant,

(01:03:30):
real discussion between Padme and Anakin about their relationship. And
season seven of season one of Clone Wars came out
in two thousand and eight. Season seven came out in
twenty fourteen, so there's six years there. So if you
are ten years old watching Clone Wars episode season one,

(01:03:52):
and now you're like seven eight years in watching this,
you're now sixteen seventeen years old. You're having these boyfriend
girlfriend relationships that show grew with the audience. That's one
of the most intense episodes, that is as intense as
anything that's in Revenge of the Sith. And if you're

(01:04:14):
growing up watching that, you're watching Revenge of the Sith. Differently,
Anakin's turn to the dark side doesn't happen in Revenge
of the Sith. You watch it happen with the sand
People in episode two, and then slowly over the course
of hundred of hours of the Clone Wars. And so

(01:04:36):
now as if you're this generation after probably two generations
after us, you've grown up with Clone Wars, you see
Revenge of the Sith for the first time, and you're
anticipating the thing that is going to make Anakin snap, right,
And so you know, if George's goal was to make

(01:05:00):
a myth that is going to survive as long as
Beywolf or the Odyssey. You don't consume the Iliad and
the Odyssey in context of when it came out. It
just exists as one thing. And so you're watching Revenge
of the Sith. Now you have you've consumed this whole story,

(01:05:22):
the whole dynamic is different. That movie is if you
watch it from as one long epic, like, that movie
is crazy, how how it pays off everything that comes

(01:05:42):
before it, starting with episode one, and Anakin being like
this innocent little boy, like it's such.

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
A crazy, crazy arc. Yeah, one hundred percent, and I
would even know.

Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
That's why I always i'd like to tell people I
think Clone Wars was like the truest vision of what
George had in mind, because again, he loved episodic. He
created such a very deep and rich world with all
this very finer minutia that he could dive into in
the Clone War series, which in feature films like I
believe in, don't show me everything, you know, like have
me some give me some pre context, and then the

(01:06:16):
actress can fill in the rest. And I completely agree
jac Where the moment Anakin disassociated was in episode two,
not when he killed the sad people. That's when the
transformation started. The moment he help Smeth Skywalker in his
arms and her lifeless body is when he disassociated, and
that was the catalyst was going to lead to him
fully embracing the dark side and becoming dark theader, which we,

(01:06:38):
as our listeners, don't know yet later this month we're
gonna have the mental health breakdown. I'm bringing my friend
Celia bihar On, who's a license a clinician and psychotherapist
who's going to break down some of the mental health themes,
especially with Anakin Skywalker.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
So stay tuned for that one.

Speaker 3 (01:06:53):
Okay, I got two more things before we're going to
wrap up here, and one is a quick uh, it's
going to be you guys going to see has great stories.
This is gonna be another great story. And this does
tie into episode three because on IMDb, Steven Spielberg, the
Great Steven Spielberg, one of my idols, is uncredited as
a second unit director, and the urban legend is that

(01:07:14):
he was like the secret ghost director of the movie.
I'm not gonna say that that's what it was. I'm
sure if I'm sure, if George asked his opinion, Steven
would give him feedback. But this is one hundred percent
of George Lucas movie. There's no denying that. However, I'm
to have the luxury of like a cheatk code of
Steven Spielberg concept to be like, hey, you might want
to try this. Whatever the reason I bring up Steven

(01:07:35):
Spielberg is because one I grew up on Spielberg movies.
To me, like every single movie he does, like he's
just on a four dimensional metaphysical plane that none of
us can understand but him, because he's the only one
on it. It's a lifelong dream of mine to be
to work with Steven Spielberg or be directed by him. However,
one person on this panel has technically been directed by

(01:07:58):
Steven Spielberg, and that is our man, jac And if
you could lay into the story a little bit of
what I mean by you are technically directed by Steven Spielberg.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
So yeah, okay. So my.

Speaker 4 (01:08:11):
Wife is a bar and restaurant designer and was tapped
to do the Spielberg's restaurant. Stephen's background. Steven Spielberg, his
mom owned a kosher restaurant in Los Angeles called the

(01:08:32):
Milky Way, and when she passed, and he documented so
much of this in The Fableman's when she passed, they
closed the restaurant I think for a year, and the
family was trying to decide what to do, and they
decided to kind of like reopen it as a memorial

(01:08:52):
to their mother. And my wife was tasked with redesigning
the restaurant to.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Reflect the post.

Speaker 4 (01:09:04):
I think her name was Leah Era of the Milky Way,
and she worked very close with the Spielberg family, and
as a result of that, we went to the friends
and family opening of the new Spielberg restaurant, and being
in the room with Steven Spielberg, I did not have

(01:09:27):
the same oh, what's the word, I don't want to
I didn't have the same gusto. Let's say, I was
going to use a different word to go up and
approach him at his own restaurant opening. So I just
kind of played in the shadows. But he came over

(01:09:49):
always the director and grabbed my wife and walked through
the restaurant with her and was like, Oh, I love
what you did with the lighting here and the way
that the photos of my family are over here.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
This is great.

Speaker 4 (01:10:02):
I think you should have done something different here, like
very much directing the scene of the restaurant, And a
little later on, his niece was taking a photo with
He was taking a photo of his niece or his daughter,

(01:10:22):
somebody in his family with her boyfriend, and my wife
was like, oh my gosh, can you get a picture
of me and my boyfriend also, and so he took
her camera, and obviously he's no fool, he knew what
was going on. And he goes, okay, both of you guys,
look off to your left, like, look over there at

(01:10:43):
that light. I'm going to count to three. And when
I say three, both of you turn back and look
at the camera, look at me.

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
So we do it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:54):
He goes one, two, three, and we turn and look
and he snaps a photo, and he was like, uh, okay,
let's do it again. He goes, okay, ready, look over
there again, look at the light. When I say three.
As soon as I looked say three, turned quickly and
looked right back at me.

Speaker 2 (01:11:12):
So we did it.

Speaker 4 (01:11:13):
He snaps two photos, hands the phone back, and now
I'm like, oh my god, I was directed by Steven Spielberg,
and I have a portrait taken of me by Steven Spielberg,
Like I'm giddy. And my wife looks at her phone
and she rolls back to the first one and it's
so blurry, and she's like, how funny is it that

(01:11:33):
the first photo taken was blurry. Now, obviously it's not
Steven Spielberg's fault. It was low light in a restaurant.
But but yeah, that was that was my I've been
directed by Spielberg the same way that Ewan and Hayden were.

Speaker 2 (01:11:49):
Unit second unit directed during the musta Far scene.

Speaker 3 (01:11:53):
So you are fully in the canon of Star Wars.
Is what we're saying, is what we were getting to
And but how cool.

Speaker 4 (01:11:58):
Is from a yeah, everything Star Wars if you, if
you tag it with from a certain point of view,
becomes completely acceptable.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
One hundred versent.

Speaker 3 (01:12:10):
I remember when you first showed me that photos when
we first met, uh and I was talking about Spielberg.
You're like, well, I have something. I don't have a
photo with Spielberg and you show me this photo and
I was like, this is a very well composed photo.
He's like, yeah, because Steven Spielberg took it. I'm like,
you got directed by Steven Spielberg. I mean, that's wonderful photo.
So I just wanted you to share that story because

(01:12:32):
I love that story, and I think I think our
listeners in we'll make that a social clip too. I
think anyone viewing it will enjoy it as well. So
we're at the tail end of this discuss. I could
literally talk to you guys for hours about this, by
the way, and Alex, I hope you come back. I
think we can maybe tell yes a recurring crossover thing
because I love your insights. And again, I think you're
doing such amazing stuff with Star Wars Explained. And to

(01:12:54):
see the evolution of your channel and also yourself and
those two ven Dia Grenzy come in a circle.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
I think it's a really cool thing.

Speaker 3 (01:13:01):
And and we hope that you let us be part
of your journey by doing some of these crossovers. And
maybe we'll come on Star Wars Explain sometime and you
and jac can have a trivia base off.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
I'll be the referee in that game.

Speaker 4 (01:13:14):
I don't want the embarrassed, not publicly. I want it
to be like the fight between Rocky and Apollo Creed
that happens off screen.

Speaker 2 (01:13:23):
Like we can do that, but I don't want it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
Well, we'll get a question and then we'll go, we'll
both go to answer it, and it'll cut and that
you'll turn into.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
An oil painting.

Speaker 3 (01:13:32):
How about that, like before anybody can know, and then
it'll be the great debate, well who won? And uh,
when we have our Creed equivalent spin off, maybe we'll
answer it then but that'll be the.

Speaker 1 (01:13:40):
Question is who shot first, and we both go like, well,
and then it's it cuts going.

Speaker 3 (01:13:45):
To say, well, technically no one like someone just shot,
depending on whatever version you saw. So the thing I
want to end on is this we we've been. I
think we've had a really great discussion on our first
impressions of episode three, how it's a ball over time,
how the equal hate has really disappeared. I would love
to know your guys perspective, and I'll go first because

(01:14:06):
mine will be won't be as in depth as you
two gurus of where you rank episode three personally and
where you rank it overall. Let's just say of the
first of the six Lucas movies.

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):
For me, and this has changed over the years.

Speaker 3 (01:14:24):
Growing up, I was Empire Strikes Factor Died Like that
was always number one. I was always Empire Strikes Back,
and rightfully SOK is one that was kind of the
popular vote, but also it's an incredible movie with one
of the most incredible twists of all time. But then
when Episode three came out, it was a very close second.
Again I was afraid to say it out loud at
the time. I was like, man, this is great and
I was also going through a transitionary period where I

(01:14:45):
was about to be graduating college in a couple of years,
So I think just all those things coming together had
that certain effect on me when I saw episode three.
But now like that has changed quite a bit because
of Clone Wars, because of OPI Wan, because of really
hindsight being twenty twenty, and whatever you want to call it.
I think with all the context we have with episode three,

(01:15:08):
one is my personal favorite, and two, I would argue
it's the best one of the six because of what
it led to, and also the twist and empire only
really works the first time you see it. You know
it really just that's just how movie twists are. But
when I resaw when I rewatched episode three in the
theater recently, one it was magical. It was everything the

(01:15:29):
twenty century Fox fanfare is Star Wars like, it just
hits different. It's still just as heartbreaking, if not more,
even though you know that's how I was going to end,
and what I loved about it is up to that
point we viewed Darth Vader as his villain, which he
very much became, but it painted him more as like
a tragic villain like a Greek tragedy, and it changed

(01:15:50):
our perspective of how somebody with the best of intentions
could turn wrong. So with that, I say Episode three
is my personal favorite, but I would argue it's best one.

Speaker 2 (01:16:01):
And now I throw it to you, guys.

Speaker 4 (01:16:04):
I'll let Alex finish. I'll go very quickly. I'm so
right or die with the original trilogy. I can't make
as bold of a statement as what you just dropped, John,
but I will say personally, it's hard for me to
Revenge of the Sith, with which I shared. That story
changed my life in ways that are incomprehensible. But I

(01:16:29):
don't ever get to that moment without the original trilogy,
and that is sanctity to me, that is untouchable. Holy
I can't mess with that. I will before giving my order.
I'll say this. The genius of Star Wars and particularly

(01:16:58):
the prequel trilogy that I I don't think gets enough love,
is that my personal favorite Star Wars movie is Return
of the Jedi, and that's the one I grew up
watching all the time. And the genius of Revenge of
the Sith and the prequels is that it shows the

(01:17:23):
flawed Jedi order and It shows the flawed Jedi order
very subtly in that you think the Jedi are the
good guy, but the Jedi are full of hubris and arrogance.
That entire trilogy, and you know episode two is a
Jedi shall not know hate or peace or love or
whatever the thing is, but it's love. A Jedi shall

(01:17:45):
not know love. And then what you see is the
denial of love from the Jedi. How that rots at Anakin,
and how because he doesn't have a the loving relationship
he has with Obi Wan, which he has to deny

(01:18:07):
like contorts what his idea of love is for Padme.
And I would argue that Anakin doesn't love Padme. Anakin
is obsessed with Padme, and that obsession and that denial
of love and that denial of guidance to love is
what causes Anakin to completely lose everything and essentially destroy

(01:18:31):
the Jedi.

Speaker 2 (01:18:32):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:18:33):
The ability for Palpatine to manipulate Anakin the way that
he did is because of the denial of love of
the Jedi, and the genius of Star Wars and the
genius of those prequels is setting up that denial of
love to show that love is the most important force
in the Galaxy pun intended, because it is love that

(01:18:57):
fulfills Darth Vader's prophecy.

Speaker 2 (01:19:00):
It is.

Speaker 4 (01:19:02):
Luke's love for his father. I gets so emotional talking
about it, and Darth Vader's Anakin's love for Luke that
ultimately saves the galaxy. That's the prophecy of bringing balance
to the forest right there, and I think Revenge of

(01:19:22):
the Sith shows that so well, and it makes that
turn at the end of Return of the Jedi, which
is my favorite moment in all of Star Wars, so
much more poignant. All that being said, best my personal
favorite best Star Wars, a New Hope, Return of the Jedi,

(01:19:44):
Empire strikes back, I'm sorry, Rogue One, Revenge of the Sith,
the Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clone Solo, and then.

Speaker 2 (01:19:57):
Off from there.

Speaker 4 (01:19:59):
But I do think that my personal favorite is Return
of the Jedi, and then Revenge of the Sith makes
Return to the Jedi, especially that big moment at the end,
which I think is the most important moment in all
of Star Wars, that moment about love so much stronger,

(01:20:21):
and I think it shows how important love is and
how love is the central line through all those movies.
Anakin's love for his mom. All the way through, you
get to see what George is really saying in subtextas

(01:20:42):
is that is what binds the galaxy together more so
than the Force.

Speaker 1 (01:20:50):
I think I would argue that love and the Force
are very tightly linked. That the Force is having compassion
for everyone else and love for everyone else. The Force
is what binds the galaxy together, and just recognition that
we're all on the same planet and we need to

(01:21:11):
take care of the planet and each other. But yeah,
I agree with what you said, JC that the prequels
make those later moments in Return of the Jedi hit
even harder. I think that the prequels are where George
really dug into the dark side, especially when like talking

(01:21:34):
about just not grasping everything when I was twelve and
seeing these movies for the first time. But Yoda talking
about how fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate
leads to suffering, and just that tracking that through Anakin's
journey through the dark Side and how just his fear
of losing love turns it into yeah, a possessive love.

(01:22:01):
I think that the prequels are so much deeper than
people initially gave them credit for even me like doing
the channel revisiting them over and over and over again,
like I still see new things in them every single time.
And ranking Star Wars movies is always really really hard
for me just because it changes constantly. And like jac

(01:22:26):
I would agree, I'm ranking Rogue one a little extra
high right now because and Or just came out, like
it's on my mind and just got to see that,
like in a new light rewatching Rogue one that it
got its own little prequel series. So my personal favorite
is always, I think going to be a New Hope.

(01:22:46):
That was the one that captured my imagination, and when
my parents introduced it to me, they kind of held off,
which was smart of them. They held off on telling
me there were more right away, and I just like watched.

Speaker 2 (01:22:59):
A New Hope over and over and over again, and.

Speaker 1 (01:23:01):
I think they were like, let's see how much mileage
we can get out of just this, and then eventually
they're like, all right, there's there's two more, and than
every single one that I watched became my new favorite.
But I always go back to a New Hope, So
that's my favorite one. And like you, JC, I'm an
original trilogy kid at heart, so I've got to put

(01:23:24):
them one, two, three, and then even like between it
is between Revenge of the Sith and the Phantom Menace
that comes next. But like I was twelve when I
saw Phantom Menace, and I just have such a deep
connection with pod racing and Darth Maul and that lightsaber fight.
But I do think I had an even bigger high

(01:23:47):
walking out of Revenge of the Sith for the first
time today, And maybe it is because you know it's
the twentieth anniversary. I'll put that one number four, but
it's a tight race between that and Phantom Menace for me.

Speaker 3 (01:24:03):
All solid answers, and again we're all really saying the
same thing, and there's no wrong answer because it's all
our own perspective and what resonates with us and where
we were in our lives, which you just demonstrated. And
thank you to the both of you for articulating your
point of views, your certain point of views, if you will,
so beautifully and so you know so well, and it

(01:24:25):
gives me stuff to think about, and it makes me
appreciate you too, as you know fellows, Star Wars fans
and as people, and I think that's just how discussion
should be. We don't always have to align like we
don't literally everybody who's listening. None of us agreed on
our ranking, but we're not, you know, admonishing each other
for that. We're just like, hey, this is what resonates
with us, and that's what fandoms really should be. I'm

(01:24:45):
not here to prothelysize how fandom should be, but I'm
just for me. It's like, I want to hear what
jcsc I want to hear what Alex damon SCA, and
when we're doing the core episodes on Potter Rebellion, I
love hearing what Vanessat and Taylor have to say because
that's only going to rich your own personal experience by
getting that information. You don't have to take it to heart,
you don't have to utilize that in your own everyday life,

(01:25:06):
but it's always valuable to get those perspectives. And I
thank you both for for giving me your your perspectives
on something that really there's infinite amounts of answers and
no correct one except for the one that you find
within yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:25:20):
So I appreciate you both for that. But that being said,
episode three is the best one. I'm just kidding.

Speaker 3 (01:25:26):
Look, no, no, no, that's just you know, but that
and I do want to say, this is Alex when
you come back. I didn't mean to cut you out there, JC.
I love that you mentioned the Solo movie, JC, because
I love Solo. I think Solo got so much unnecessary
hate got review bond. When people actually watch that movie,
especially if you're a fan of Rebels, it's like a

(01:25:47):
long episode of Rebels that just didn't take place in
the world of Star Wars Rebels. So Alex, maybe the
next time you come on, we can do a little
deep diving of Solo and see, you know, offer another
certain point of view.

Speaker 2 (01:25:59):
If you will.

Speaker 1 (01:26:00):
I love Solo, and that's another one that I remember
going into it thinking, I really hope that this isn't
kind of a checklist of on meeting Chewbacca and getting
his blaster and getting the Falcon and doing the Kessel
run and meeting Landa and then exactly that happened. But
I was like, this is so much fun like that.
That's my easy watching Star Wars movie where I'm like,
if I just want to have a good time and

(01:26:23):
just go on a romp with some fun characters like that,
that one's such an easy one to throw on.

Speaker 3 (01:26:31):
Absolutely, Jason, what are we going to say before I unfortunately,
before I rudely cut you off hypolizes.

Speaker 4 (01:26:36):
No, I was just going to say at the time
that we are recording this podcast, Revenge of the Sith
has grossed twenty five over twenty five million dollars in
its re release, and that is a bunch of old
guys like us going back to relive what we saw

(01:26:58):
twenty years ago. Not just that, it's a bunch of
kids who are finally old enough to go and see
their favorite Star Wars in the movie theater, which is
pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (01:27:09):
I mean, twenty five million.

Speaker 4 (01:27:10):
Dollars is a massive houle for a movie that's twenty
years old that you can watch for free on Disney. Plus,
think about that that movie is getting people off their
sofa to a movie theater at ridiculous ticket prices, buying popcorn,
doing the whole thing. It's still an event movie. It

(01:27:34):
is still an event movie twenty years later. How crazy
is that?

Speaker 2 (01:27:38):
JC? That is the best fact check yet.

Speaker 3 (01:27:41):
I'm not gonna say that because there's gonna be another
one that you do that's going to blow our minds.
But in terms of what we're talking about today and
where we've been so far on the podcast journey, a
pot of rebellion, I think that for this moment, because
the goalpost always shifted, as we know, our ideologies shipped
a little bit. But as at this moment, as of today,
that is the best fact check you've ever done thus far,

(01:28:02):
and that's a fact you can fact check that. Well,
thank you all again, Alex. Where can people find you
on YouTube and also Apple podcasts and also social media
so they can keep up with all the awesome stuff
you're doing.

Speaker 1 (01:28:15):
Yeah, if you just search for Star Wars Explained, we
should come up. Got a fun little yellow icon. It's
not too hard to find. We're on YouTube and Blue
Sky and yeah, we have the audio versions of our
longer form content on Spotify and.

Speaker 3 (01:28:30):
Apple excellent, excellent. Well, we appreciate you donating your time.
I know you're a busy guy, so really appreciate you
coming on our podcast. I can't wait till you come
back so we could talk about solo a little bit.
But until then, just consider the both of us big
fans of what you do there and they approach you
take in terms of diving into this fandom that could
be a very dangerous path. But you know, unlike Anakin

(01:28:53):
episode three, you're able to lean into the light side
and find balance in the light side, and you know,
also convey that message to others that are listening, which
is obviously you know you've been successful at because you
do have a very loyal following.

Speaker 2 (01:29:06):
Hi rightfully, so well, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:29:08):
I had a great time and I'm a big fan
of Potter Rebellion. Like we've both my wife Molly and
I have been loving listening to the the Rewatch podcast,
so thank you for doing that.

Speaker 3 (01:29:20):
Of course, Well, the circle is complete, as as Darth
Vader would say, right is at the exact quote? Did
I misquote a little bit? Circle is now complete?

Speaker 4 (01:29:26):
When the circle issued Learner, Now I am the master.

Speaker 2 (01:29:30):
I'm a master of evil Darth.

Speaker 3 (01:29:33):
See, this is why I got the JC around, because
I got to make sure that my facts are straight.
As always, you can follow us at Potter Rebellion on Instagram,
write to us Potter Rebellion Podcasts at gmail dot com
and leave us a nice review in five star rating,
not just for us, but also for Alex Damon and
Star Wars. Explain because if anyone else really deserves the
five star rating. It is Star Wars explained. Uh, we

(01:29:53):
will be back to our regularly scheduling program as always
with the recap episodes. We have a mental health so
coming up on Star Wars as well at later this
month because May is Mental Health Awareness month and self
care and mental health awareness is very important. But until then, well,
Taylor's not here, but Alex. Our outro with Taylor, as

(01:30:13):
you know our three magic words. Do you want to
send us out?

Speaker 2 (01:30:19):
You have to remind me what they are? It's cue
the music, Cue the music.

Speaker 3 (01:30:28):
Potter Rebellion is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts Producing,
hosted by Vanessa Marshall, Tia Surkar, Taylor Gray, and John
Ley Brody Executive producer and in house Star Wars guru
slash back checker j C.

Speaker 2 (01:30:39):
Reifenberg.

Speaker 3 (01:30:40):
Our music was composed by Mikey Flash. Our cover art
was created by Neil Fraser of Neil Fraser Designs. Special
thanks to Hally Frey and Aaron Kaufman over at iHeart,
Evan Krasco or At, Willie Morrison, Devor Trasy Canobio, George
Lucas for creating this universe. We love so much and
of course all of our amazing listeners. Follow us on
Instagram at Potter Rebellion and email us at Auto Rebellion

(01:31:00):
Podcasts at gmail dot com.