May 12, 2025 • 29 mins
In this episode, Dave takes a look at the church of Star Wars. He talks about the lasting impact of George Lucas’ visionary work, prequel love, and his distain for the misguided fans intent on bringing the whole galaxy down.
He looks back at the material that spawned the ‘90s resurgence and how the success of Andor, Asoka and The Mandalorian signal a bright future for the franchise.
Plus, an overabundance of love for our favorite Gungan, Jar Jar Binks (Darth Jar Jar?)
https://www.westcoastdavengers.com/direct-edition-podcast
Big Thanks to my producer Daniel Koren, find him here https://www.instagram.com/chibald_smith/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:14):
OK, Welcome back. Welcome back to DIRECT Edition,
a podcast about nothing and everything.
I'm your host, Dave. I hope everybody's doing today.
It is May the 6th. The revenge of the fifth was
yesterday, and May the Fourth was the day before.
Yes, I am talking about Star Wars.
You know, if you take the letters and rearrange them and
(00:35):
reverse them, you can make raw rats out of Star Wars.
But we're not going to be talking about raw rats today.
I'm going to be talking about Okie Day.
Well, you know, probably we'll talk about Jar Jar Binks a
little bit. Thanks for coming back for
another episode. I hope you enjoyed story time
with Dave over the last couple weeks.
The the episode about me being aUSPS mailman during the pandemic
(00:58):
and then my collection of autographs and hockey sticks and
also the thing choices that I made after that in my youth.
And you know, you can't, you can't change the past, but you
can still tell funny stories about it.
Today, I want to talk to you about a religion that I like to
call Star Wars. I've just been thinking about
(01:21):
it. I've been enjoying the hell out
of AND OR season 2 and OR season1.
If you haven't watched it then you might.
Maybe don't listen to this episode and OR season one.
I'm not going to go into spoilers for season 2 but season
1's like 2 plus years old. You got no excuse.
You're not. You're never going to watch it.
And OR season 1 tells the story about kind of a ground level
(01:44):
story of how the rebellion starts and specifically how
Cassie and Andor gets involved where we meet him first in Rogue
One, which was arguably the bestStar Wars movie to come out
since Revenge of the Sith. And I'm going to discuss that a
little bit too about how people view Star Wars and the opinions
(02:07):
or the lack of interesting opinions you get this first
season Vandoor and it's crafted so perfectly.
You get a ground level story that's told in in in three
different parts. And it focuses on Andor and it
focuses on the people behind therebellion, some of these people
being, you know, high society dilettante, you know, and then
(02:28):
Mon Mothma being a senator and and, you know, being a
politician, but leading this kind of double life.
And it's just it's so brilliantly told the story.
One of, if not my favorite aspects of the first season is
the score and the way it changesin each of these three parts.
(02:51):
Because it's told 4 episodes, 4 episodes, 4 episodes.
And like each one acts as its own kind of micro story within
the bigger story. But the way that it shifts and
changes to what's happening as you get towards the end of that
first season and they're in prison.
And that's where Andy Serkis gets to shine in arguably the
(03:14):
best character in that entire series.
That is an and or. And you just get such an
interesting kind of like electronic, organic kind of
melting down score. It's really hard to explain the
feeling I get when I listen to it, when I hear the music and I,
I'll put on the score every oncein a while because it's, it's
(03:37):
just, it's fantastic. The cinematography, the
locations that they shot at and just being a ground level story.
If you're like me or like a lot of other people in the world
over the course of the last 40 to 50 years, you grew up
watching some version of Star Wars.
Whether I'm, you know, I'll, I grew up the only original 1 I
(04:00):
saw in the theater that I know Isaw in the theater was Jedi and
I was, you know, four years old or whatever.
It's still, it's still, I can still kind of recall a piece of
Jabba scene, seeing it on the sail barge, seeing it on the big
screen. But as I grew up and, and I
watched these movies more and more and I collected the toys, I
(04:22):
became more fascinated with, with just everything Star Wars.
But there wasn't a lot or anything to really take in until
the 90s. That was new and it started with
the Super Nintendo games, Super Star Wars, Super Empire, Super
Turn of the Jedi. Those Nintendo games came out
and reignited my love. And that kind of coincided with
the power of the Force figure line.
(04:43):
And I think it it's all when Lucas got the licensing,
licensing rights back. I think that's what happened.
They lapsed. He took advantage of it.
He saw the loophole, he got him back and that's when he started
to get all this new stuff comingout.
It didn't feel like exploitationbecause there had been this huge
dry spell of having it any anything.
(05:05):
And around that time in the 90s,you got Dark Horse with the
comics, you got the Timothy Zahnnovels coming out.
So all of this new or you know, like nostalgia driven and new
material started coming out and I ate it all up and all of my
friends, we all ate it all up. There was not a kid in the 90s
(05:25):
not consuming one of these Star Wars things.
And then came the special editions, which honestly, at the
time I thought were awesome because I'm getting to see the
original trilogy in the theater.I'll be at, you know, it's, it's
with this new footage and all that.
But it didn't really annoy me. You know, at the time, I grew to
dislike some of the choices he made.
(05:46):
Empire was pretty much left untouched, which you can't, you
know, like it's a perfect movie.So there was no reason to do
anything. I think they added one scene and
that was it. And then Jedi was the one that
pissed me off the most because of the change in the songs.
It's it's very weird revisionistthing for Lucas to do on Jedi is
to change songs that did not need to be changed whatsoever.
(06:09):
Like there's I, I don't, I don'tcare what that man's reasoning
was for that. If I'm going to pick the one
decision that he made that pissed me off, it's that I don't
care that Han shot first bullshit.
I don't care. I still love the fact that we
got to see those in the theater,and I cut school with like 10 of
my friends to go see Star Wars ANew Hope the day it came out,
(06:31):
special edition, it was amazing.And then came the prequels.
And I'm not going to listen to anybody talk about prequel hate
because I never hated those movies.
And you know, you can nitpick any piece of fucking art that
came out like you want to go back and they picked the
trilogy, the original trilogy. Have at it.
You're going to be wasting your breath and your time.
(06:54):
I was just talking to my buddy Tyler about Return of the Jedi,
saying that when I was a kid, even into my early adult years,
nobody hated Jedi. Nobody ever put that movie in
any type of like, I don't like this.
This is stupid. Nobody hated the Ewoks.
Nobody. Nobody complained about this
stuff post the movies coming out.
(07:15):
I wasn't listening to the media in 1983 when Jedi came out.
So I don't know if people didn'tlike the Ewoks, but you know,
it's the same thing with the prequels.
People hated Jar Jar and yet he has no, he has no way any way
more annoying than C3PO is like this weird looking in the rear
(07:39):
view mirror revisionist hate andthen like 25 years later, it's
love again. It's just it's tiresome.
It really is tiresome. And when they announced the
prequels were coming out, like you hear duel the fates for the
first time, you see the pod racing, you see Darth Maul and
it's just like, wow, it felt like being a kid again.
(07:59):
And I mean 19, the late 1990s, nineteen 97.
I was, you know, 18 years old orwhatever.
So I'm still a kid, but but I you know, I if I were to pick a
prequel that I like the least, it's clones.
But am I going to sit here and be like, my life is ruined by
these prequels like a lot of people are?
(08:21):
No, no, dude, take a lot more toruin my life like, you know,
Donald Trump or something. But it's it, it, it was like
this fascinating time. They announced the prequels and
tickets went on sale and I bought tickets to go see it in a
theatre in Syosset, Long Island,which was a single theater.
(08:42):
Movie theater was huge. It's no longer a theater
anymore. Became a like a kind of fitness
or one of those stupid gyms like1520 years ago.
This was a movie theater I grew up going to.
My dad took me to see RoboCop there.
Like we would go see like whatever movie was playing
there. If we all wanted to see it or my
dad and me wanted to see it, we'd go to see it there.
(09:04):
It was like 20 minutes from where we lived and I bought
tickets to see it opening day. I slept out with a huge line of
people, you know, waiting to buytickets and we, we, you know, it
was like the biggest nerd centric place in, in New York at
that point. And, and then I would go on to
(09:27):
buy tickets to see it like 3 different times at three
different theaters the week it came out.
And I think I, by the time, likethis third week, I'd seen that
movie 7 times and I, I loved it.I loved it.
I still love Phantom Menace. What what Lucas was trying to do
with those movies is show you how this started, like how we
got, we jump in to the Rebellionand the Empire and all that
(09:51):
stuff and New Hope. And it's this kind of like the,
it's the Skywalker's right and and it's all that right.
It's that story. And I appreciate what he tried
to do, especially in Revenge of the Sith with Ben and, you know,
Padme and Anakin and like kind of showing how he came to be
Darth. But the fascinating thing is
(10:14):
like, it's a political story. It always was.
And they gave us so many of these cool little details of, of
how these things came to be and,and, and, or really digs into
that like and, or just takes a shovel and tunnels right into
that plot and says, we're going to go even micro and, and show
(10:36):
you some more interesting things.
And Tony Gilroy, who's created that show and he, he wrote the
script for Rogue one. Like, he has seen a great path
and he's carved it out. But I'll still.
Yeah, I the the prequel, you know, I get it.
Like, it was merchandise to death and it was everywhere.
(10:57):
And like, Lucas was doing a maximized version of what he
wanted to do with the first trilogy, but he was still just
this kind of budding filmmaker that people were taking chances
on that nobody really wanted to,to back.
And so he maximized that. And like, look, I mean, if you
(11:20):
watch the Disney plus show, ILM,the the light and magic
documentary show, you can see why he was doing what he was
doing. Like he was generating all this
money so that he could do these filmmaking things in like build
these cameras and fund all this effect stuff that would go on
to, you know, what he has created and the things that he
(11:42):
created with his creations, ILM and, and THX and all this stuff.
He changed cinema, like he changed movies, he changed
technology. There's roots of Photoshop date
back to stuff that Lucas had certain software developers
create that would lead to what Photoshop became.
And and there's just so much like technology that he was
(12:05):
like, all right, well, it doesn't exist.
Let's make it like James Camerondid a lot of that and then Chris
Nolan has done that with IMAX like, oh, there's no camera for
a plane for IMAX. All right, well, we'll just make
one. And that's, you know, it's a
super insanely cool thing. It's it's only something you can
(12:27):
do when you have that kind of power and money, but it's done
for good. It like this is in helping.
This is helping cinema going forward.
It's it's creating all this, youknow, technology for people to
use. I'm sure there's things that
they created that maybe weren't great, but I don't know.
I don't know. People don't talk about the
(12:47):
fails. I can understand why some people
have certain gripes about some of these movies.
And then, you know, you can go into the Disney, what we're in
now, the Disney era with the thesequels.
They had a good idea on certain things.
I'm team Ryan Johnson 100%. It just seems that Disney went
into the kitchen without a real recipe and then they listen to
(13:11):
the wrong fans about a lot of the stuff.
And then we get, you know, the third one, Rise of Skywalker,
which I'll say this. And when I first saw it, I was
like, this was a mess. And I think I saw it twice in
the theater and both times I waslike, this is a mess.
But I was also smart enough before I saw Rise of Skywalker,
(13:33):
maybe two days before to watch Revenge of the Sith because I
was like trying to just kind of recap some of the Emperor's
stuff and, and, and Anakin. And there is a line or two in
Revenge of the Sith that literally if, if that wasn't in
that movie, Rise of Skywalker would have made absolutely no
sense instead of made kind of nosense where the Emperor says
(13:56):
something about the dark. You know, the, the dark side can
you know that that side of the force can be used to do
unnatural things like bring somebody back from the dead.
And you know, that's, that's where you get Palpatine coming
back. But still, I watched it a a
couple years ago for the first time in probably 2 years and I
was like, it's a mess. There's still some things to
(14:18):
like about it. I mean, that's, that's just me
in a nutshell. I unless something completely
fucking sucks. Like I, I don't know, like the
Craven movie, which I watched for free on in the comfort of my
own couch. That movie completely sucked,
but I still laughed at it. I was just like what is actually
(14:39):
happening here? Like I was baffled.
Madam Webb was made better by the the episode of trash movie
Bonanza that Chris Pierce and Jim of Food did.
But with when it comes to Star Wars, there's not too much I
don't enjoy. Like I can take joy from the
things like that that I really, really love.
(15:01):
You know, I didn't love Solo that that's so I won't go back
and watch it. I think I watched it twice.
Donald Glover as Lando was a great casting choice and he's
charming as hell and he's perfect for that role.
Woody Harrelson's Woody Harrelson.
I didn't care for the dude who played Han Solo.
I do not like what's her name that played Khaleesi and played
(15:23):
whatever. Her name in the movie is so
forgettable. I'm just not a fan of her at all
acting wise. And then the Darth Maul reveal
at the end was really cool. But you know, to me that movie
didn't need to be made and I didn't like it.
But that doesn't mean I thought it was a horrible piece of shit.
Doesn't mean I hate it. I won't knock you for liking it.
(15:44):
It's just not something I enjoyed.
That's OK. I'm not going to like
everything, but I like most things because I choose to, I
choose to enjoy. It's far better than taking a
look at certain things in real life and being like, I love that
because, you know, there's so much in reality that is sad or
disgusting versus fiction, whichis, you know, comes from
(16:08):
creative standpoint. And that's why I think and, or
is just so fantastic. It does bridge those gaps to of
like it's parallel to what's going on.
And it's a good bit of fiction too.
But you know, things like the the the show Ahsoka absolutely
loved it. And I did not come from watching
the Clone Wars. I watched all of Rebels.
Clone Wars is super daunting. You know, when you look at it
(16:30):
from a standpoint before you getall angry when you look at it
from a standpoint who didn't watch Clone Wars coming up has
no frame of reference for anything about that animated
show. And then people tell you, oh,
you got to watch Clone Wars. Here's all the episodes you
should watch and the order you should watch them.
And you lost me. You lost me right there.
And it's not. It's just because, like, just
(16:51):
give me something I can watch ina linear fashion.
Don't tell me I have to watch episode 36 and 42 and then come
back to this because it tells this story that just complicates
things. That's just me though.
It's not because I don't want towatch it, just because I don't
want to go through that effort to watch it.
You know, the Acolyte was whatever.
(17:11):
I didn't like that. But I don't, I'm not sitting
here making a podcast about me hating it.
I'd rather talk about Obi Wan Kenobi, the show which I really
love seeing you and McGregor again, The Mandalorian, which
you know, the third season was alittle bit rough on the landing,
but that doesn't mean like I'm throwing away the entirety of
(17:32):
that show, you know, if there and there.
And then there's the things where like if I wasn't enjoying
it, which probably means I did enjoy a little bit of the
Acolyte, I wouldn't finish watching it.
You know, I don't force myself to do things I don't like.
I've done it a couple of times. I did it with Westworld.
(17:54):
I hate watched the second seasonand then I tapped out because
that show went from being amazing to what the fuck just
happened. And every once in a while, like
I think I hate watched all of True Blood after the first
season. I was like, this is going to get
better, right? I just never did.
But I generally try to stay on the positive, positive side and
(18:16):
in in find things that I enjoy about the things that I'm
watching. But honestly, to me, it's the
discord of of of hate. And I don't mean the app
discord. I mean, like people just
sharing, shitting all over things like we have become a
society that consumes that enjoys it, imitates it and, and,
(18:39):
and puts that back out there. And I just, it's a waste.
It's a waste of time in my eyes.Like I know there are certain
people right now steaming. One of them might actually be in
Colorado and is is probably punching the device he's
listening to on because yeah, but I just don't see the point
(19:01):
to shit all over a thing that I actually love.
And and it goes back to what I was saying about talking to my
buddy Tyler about Return of the Jedi.
Give me give me a, a reason why that movie isn't the third best
Star Wars movie. Like, if you're going to say the
(19:22):
Ewoks throw, throw, throw your opinion in the garbage because
like, they're, they're, it's part of what Star Wars does.
There's the Jawas, there's Yoda,who's a, you know, I mean, he
was the only thing on that planet.
But there's the Ewoks. Like these, these movies were
(19:43):
made for kids. And I go back to this thing that
I had heard on somebody's YouTube channel, this guy, the
comic Doctor, it seems like a nice enough guy, whatever it
was. I think it was during the
Acolyte last. He's last year, or maybe it was
one of the other shows. And he's on his YouTube channel
(20:05):
and he's got like 60 people in the chat and he's talking about
how like George Lucas didn't make Star Wars for kids.
Like Star Wars isn't supposed tobe for kids.
And I'm like what? And then, you know, Fast forward
to let's, I mean, I, I know thathe made it for kids.
I've been reading about George Lucas, reading interviews and
watching interviews with him since I was a kid.
(20:26):
But like there I, I actually went and grabbed the magazine
that I have that has a interviewwith him from 77.
It was a right before, right after the movie came out where
he says the studio didn't want to back him because he wanted to
make the movie for kids. And he's like, the studio's
like, oh, no, kids going to likea sci-fi, you know, this space
(20:47):
opera And he's like, well, I'm going to make it and it's for
kids. But then you go to this ILM
series on Disney and he directlysays like he wanted to make a
movie for kids. And Coppola.
I think Coppola is like, you should do what you want, even
though the studio didn't want toput the movie out.
And it's like, yeah, of course he made these movies for kids.
(21:08):
And then he made the prequels for kids.
The hidden messages in it, the the message of the Empire, you
know, like you go back to the original source material about,
you know, the stormtroopers and all that.
That's World War 2 stuff. And he's putting that in a kid
story because great material made for kids traditionally has
(21:30):
a message in there that everybody, kid or adult, will
eventually get. Go back to children's books.
You go, you know, you go to Sesame Street.
I mean, they're not going to talk about imperials on Sesame
Street. But like, everything has this,
everything, everything that's for kids eventually like has.
I feel like maybe I'm wrong. Most art for kids has some
(21:52):
message in there. And like, I just don't
understand people who think theyown the thing that somebody else
created. Like they take the ownership
and, and I don't feel like I ownStar Wars.
I do own this, but I feel like it's part of me and it's part of
(22:14):
me that somebody else created. But I, I, I don't get mad when
something isn't good that comes from that, or for any matter for
the things that I like. You know, I may be bummed if a
band puts out an album that I don't connect with or, you know,
I didn't like this piece of art that this person created.
(22:37):
But it doesn't make me not like them.
It doesn't make me not like myself.
I just move on to the next thingthat I do derive joy from.
But with Star Wars I, this is a sentiment that I think it's gone
around for a while, but I, I sayit often, Star Wars fans ruined
(22:59):
Star Wars. Like it is really tough to have
a kinship with fellow Star Wars fans anymore when they're all
negative. Like as a whole, like I don't
seem to I there are some Star Wars friends, fans, friends,
friends who are fans. There we go who I share opinions
(23:20):
with and we we like it. But as a whole, I don't really
associate with that fandom anymore.
It's too much. It becomes extremely toxic too
quick. I can't have conversations with
people because I fucking hate this or I don't like this.
I didn't. What do you like?
Oh, well, I like Empire and it'slike, OK, one movie, you know,
(23:43):
just look at how, like I said, the prequels are are perceived
these days like Hayden Christensen can't do any wrong
anymore. Ahmed Best is, you know, he he's
people, somebody that people love now, as opposed to what the
media created that turned everybody to hate Jar Jar.
And if you watch the ILM doc, you see it really was the media
(24:04):
that did this. And I won't harp on this too
much just because I think it's it'll drag, drag it down to
super negative territory. But it seemed to me from the
outside looking in as a 18 year old to 19 year old, with the
(24:25):
Internet just starting, it really seemed that episode 1 was
the beginning of online hate. Like in a mass way where people
were like, yeah, this sucks. This is this is terrible.
Like we all hate episode 1, episode 2, episode 3.
And I just like, I don't know, Iguess it's it's very much like
(24:47):
the force, you know, you have tostruggle to stay on the light
side. The dark side is the temptation
given to your hate, given to your anger.
Join me. And I don't know, I'm just not
that person. I haven't been that person for
like 20 something years at least, but the future of Star
(25:08):
Wars to me looks pretty bright with Filoni and Jon Favreau
really kind of steering the shipin the right direction.
As much as I said that the season 3 of The Mandalorian was
a little bit of a clunker, stillexcited for what comes next.
Soka season 2, I can't wait for that because I really enjoyed
(25:28):
Ahsoka. I mean, it does help that I've
been a huge Rosario Dawson fan since I was, you know, young and
that's not going away anytime soon.
But I also just really enjoy seeing those characters on
Rebels brought to brought to life and, and, or season 2,
(25:50):
which I'm assuming this is the last season because Cassian does
not live too much longer. And then Rogue One is where you
know, it all ends. What a fantastic show.
Just crafted absolutely perfect.Every piece of it seems to work
on every level. And it seems to be pissing off
(26:10):
the people that don't understandthat Star Wars is a story about,
you know, freeing from the oppressor, destroying the
empire. You know, if you don't get it,
you might be on the wrong side. But I, I just, I love Star Wars
and I want to keep talking aboutStar Wars.
(26:32):
I always do. I, there's never a point where I
don't want to talk about Star Wars.
It's like I said, part of me, it's the one kind of mainstay in
that's been here since my childhood that, you know, is
something that I just love. You know, I'm not talking about
real life stuff like my my family.
They've been here and it's just something that I it's never far
(26:53):
from who I am at the core. I think it's that story is great
moral tale and I hope they keep telling stories from it.
There's so much to explore. There's comics, there's books,
you know, there's there's video games there, you know, it's just
there's so much of it. I never get tired of Star Wars
(27:15):
things and I, I'm not one of those people who's like, I'll
get away from the Skywalker family and all that stuff.
Like I just love it all. I don't really care.
And that's OK if you don't. I also love this movie, Jaws,
Spielberg, Lucas or life. And I, you know, I'm open to
discussion if anybody wants to drop comments about having a
(27:37):
discussion. I don't really, once again,
like, if you're going to bring hate into it and you're just
going to be negative, like go somewhere else.
That's, that's not for this podcast and it's not for me.
But I know a lot of you listening, if not most of you
really enjoy Star Wars or enjoy something about Star Wars.
And you know, I just don't really care about the negativity
part of it because it's a work of fiction that you choose to
(28:00):
consume it. It's not.
Nobody owes anything to you, andthat's just how I see it.
Anyway, that's going to do it for this week.
But before we get going, please do me a favor, subscribe.
If you're not subscribed, drop acomment on one of the platforms
you're listening to. Review it.
(28:21):
You can give me a star rating onSpotify.
You can give me a star rating onApple.
You can choose to hit the like button on YouTube.
Any interaction from you, my audience, helps push this out to
new people and got some great interviews coming up in the next
couple weeks before we take our season 3 ending break and we'll
(28:45):
see what happens. We'll see who else we get to
talk to. I'm excited to bring you some
great conversation and I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks for listening to Direct Edition.
I'm your host, Dave, and may theforce be with you.
Me say you're the force.
OK, Welcome back. Welcome back to DIRECT Edition,
a podcast about nothing and everything.
I'm your host, Dave. I hope everybody's doing today.
It is May the 6th. The revenge of the fifth was
yesterday, and May the Fourth was the day before.
Yes, I am talking about Star Wars.
You know, if you take the letters and rearrange them and
(00:35):
reverse them, you can make raw rats out of Star Wars.
But we're not going to be talking about raw rats today.
I'm going to be talking about Okie Day.
Well, you know, probably we'll talk about Jar Jar Binks a
little bit. Thanks for coming back for
another episode. I hope you enjoyed story time
with Dave over the last couple weeks.
The the episode about me being aUSPS mailman during the pandemic
(00:58):
and then my collection of autographs and hockey sticks and
also the thing choices that I made after that in my youth.
And you know, you can't, you can't change the past, but you
can still tell funny stories about it.
Today, I want to talk to you about a religion that I like to
call Star Wars. I've just been thinking about
(01:21):
it. I've been enjoying the hell out
of AND OR season 2 and OR season1.
If you haven't watched it then you might.
Maybe don't listen to this episode and OR season one.
I'm not going to go into spoilers for season 2 but season
1's like 2 plus years old. You got no excuse.
You're not. You're never going to watch it.
And OR season 1 tells the story about kind of a ground level
(01:44):
story of how the rebellion starts and specifically how
Cassie and Andor gets involved where we meet him first in Rogue
One, which was arguably the bestStar Wars movie to come out
since Revenge of the Sith. And I'm going to discuss that a
little bit too about how people view Star Wars and the opinions
(02:07):
or the lack of interesting opinions you get this first
season Vandoor and it's crafted so perfectly.
You get a ground level story that's told in in in three
different parts. And it focuses on Andor and it
focuses on the people behind therebellion, some of these people
being, you know, high society dilettante, you know, and then
(02:28):
Mon Mothma being a senator and and, you know, being a
politician, but leading this kind of double life.
And it's just it's so brilliantly told the story.
One of, if not my favorite aspects of the first season is
the score and the way it changesin each of these three parts.
(02:51):
Because it's told 4 episodes, 4 episodes, 4 episodes.
And like each one acts as its own kind of micro story within
the bigger story. But the way that it shifts and
changes to what's happening as you get towards the end of that
first season and they're in prison.
And that's where Andy Serkis gets to shine in arguably the
(03:14):
best character in that entire series.
That is an and or. And you just get such an
interesting kind of like electronic, organic kind of
melting down score. It's really hard to explain the
feeling I get when I listen to it, when I hear the music and I,
I'll put on the score every oncein a while because it's, it's
(03:37):
just, it's fantastic. The cinematography, the
locations that they shot at and just being a ground level story.
If you're like me or like a lot of other people in the world
over the course of the last 40 to 50 years, you grew up
watching some version of Star Wars.
Whether I'm, you know, I'll, I grew up the only original 1 I
(04:00):
saw in the theater that I know Isaw in the theater was Jedi and
I was, you know, four years old or whatever.
It's still, it's still, I can still kind of recall a piece of
Jabba scene, seeing it on the sail barge, seeing it on the big
screen. But as I grew up and, and I
watched these movies more and more and I collected the toys, I
(04:22):
became more fascinated with, with just everything Star Wars.
But there wasn't a lot or anything to really take in until
the 90s. That was new and it started with
the Super Nintendo games, Super Star Wars, Super Empire, Super
Turn of the Jedi. Those Nintendo games came out
and reignited my love. And that kind of coincided with
the power of the Force figure line.
(04:43):
And I think it it's all when Lucas got the licensing,
licensing rights back. I think that's what happened.
They lapsed. He took advantage of it.
He saw the loophole, he got him back and that's when he started
to get all this new stuff comingout.
It didn't feel like exploitationbecause there had been this huge
dry spell of having it any anything.
(05:05):
And around that time in the 90s,you got Dark Horse with the
comics, you got the Timothy Zahnnovels coming out.
So all of this new or you know, like nostalgia driven and new
material started coming out and I ate it all up and all of my
friends, we all ate it all up. There was not a kid in the 90s
(05:25):
not consuming one of these Star Wars things.
And then came the special editions, which honestly, at the
time I thought were awesome because I'm getting to see the
original trilogy in the theater.I'll be at, you know, it's, it's
with this new footage and all that.
But it didn't really annoy me. You know, at the time, I grew to
dislike some of the choices he made.
(05:46):
Empire was pretty much left untouched, which you can't, you
know, like it's a perfect movie.So there was no reason to do
anything. I think they added one scene and
that was it. And then Jedi was the one that
pissed me off the most because of the change in the songs.
It's it's very weird revisionistthing for Lucas to do on Jedi is
to change songs that did not need to be changed whatsoever.
(06:09):
Like there's I, I don't, I don'tcare what that man's reasoning
was for that. If I'm going to pick the one
decision that he made that pissed me off, it's that I don't
care that Han shot first bullshit.
I don't care. I still love the fact that we
got to see those in the theater,and I cut school with like 10 of
my friends to go see Star Wars ANew Hope the day it came out,
(06:31):
special edition, it was amazing.And then came the prequels.
And I'm not going to listen to anybody talk about prequel hate
because I never hated those movies.
And you know, you can nitpick any piece of fucking art that
came out like you want to go back and they picked the
trilogy, the original trilogy. Have at it.
You're going to be wasting your breath and your time.
(06:54):
I was just talking to my buddy Tyler about Return of the Jedi,
saying that when I was a kid, even into my early adult years,
nobody hated Jedi. Nobody ever put that movie in
any type of like, I don't like this.
This is stupid. Nobody hated the Ewoks.
Nobody. Nobody complained about this
stuff post the movies coming out.
(07:15):
I wasn't listening to the media in 1983 when Jedi came out.
So I don't know if people didn'tlike the Ewoks, but you know,
it's the same thing with the prequels.
People hated Jar Jar and yet he has no, he has no way any way
more annoying than C3PO is like this weird looking in the rear
(07:39):
view mirror revisionist hate andthen like 25 years later, it's
love again. It's just it's tiresome.
It really is tiresome. And when they announced the
prequels were coming out, like you hear duel the fates for the
first time, you see the pod racing, you see Darth Maul and
it's just like, wow, it felt like being a kid again.
(07:59):
And I mean 19, the late 1990s, nineteen 97.
I was, you know, 18 years old orwhatever.
So I'm still a kid, but but I you know, I if I were to pick a
prequel that I like the least, it's clones.
But am I going to sit here and be like, my life is ruined by
these prequels like a lot of people are?
(08:21):
No, no, dude, take a lot more toruin my life like, you know,
Donald Trump or something. But it's it, it, it was like
this fascinating time. They announced the prequels and
tickets went on sale and I bought tickets to go see it in a
theatre in Syosset, Long Island,which was a single theater.
(08:42):
Movie theater was huge. It's no longer a theater
anymore. Became a like a kind of fitness
or one of those stupid gyms like1520 years ago.
This was a movie theater I grew up going to.
My dad took me to see RoboCop there.
Like we would go see like whatever movie was playing
there. If we all wanted to see it or my
dad and me wanted to see it, we'd go to see it there.
(09:04):
It was like 20 minutes from where we lived and I bought
tickets to see it opening day. I slept out with a huge line of
people, you know, waiting to buytickets and we, we, you know, it
was like the biggest nerd centric place in, in New York at
that point. And, and then I would go on to
(09:27):
buy tickets to see it like 3 different times at three
different theaters the week it came out.
And I think I, by the time, likethis third week, I'd seen that
movie 7 times and I, I loved it.I loved it.
I still love Phantom Menace. What what Lucas was trying to do
with those movies is show you how this started, like how we
got, we jump in to the Rebellionand the Empire and all that
(09:51):
stuff and New Hope. And it's this kind of like the,
it's the Skywalker's right and and it's all that right.
It's that story. And I appreciate what he tried
to do, especially in Revenge of the Sith with Ben and, you know,
Padme and Anakin and like kind of showing how he came to be
Darth. But the fascinating thing is
(10:14):
like, it's a political story. It always was.
And they gave us so many of these cool little details of, of
how these things came to be and,and, and, or really digs into
that like and, or just takes a shovel and tunnels right into
that plot and says, we're going to go even micro and, and show
(10:36):
you some more interesting things.
And Tony Gilroy, who's created that show and he, he wrote the
script for Rogue one. Like, he has seen a great path
and he's carved it out. But I'll still.
Yeah, I the the prequel, you know, I get it.
Like, it was merchandise to death and it was everywhere.
(10:57):
And like, Lucas was doing a maximized version of what he
wanted to do with the first trilogy, but he was still just
this kind of budding filmmaker that people were taking chances
on that nobody really wanted to,to back.
And so he maximized that. And like, look, I mean, if you
(11:20):
watch the Disney plus show, ILM,the the light and magic
documentary show, you can see why he was doing what he was
doing. Like he was generating all this
money so that he could do these filmmaking things in like build
these cameras and fund all this effect stuff that would go on
to, you know, what he has created and the things that he
(11:42):
created with his creations, ILM and, and THX and all this stuff.
He changed cinema, like he changed movies, he changed
technology. There's roots of Photoshop date
back to stuff that Lucas had certain software developers
create that would lead to what Photoshop became.
And and there's just so much like technology that he was
(12:05):
like, all right, well, it doesn't exist.
Let's make it like James Camerondid a lot of that and then Chris
Nolan has done that with IMAX like, oh, there's no camera for
a plane for IMAX. All right, well, we'll just make
one. And that's, you know, it's a
super insanely cool thing. It's it's only something you can
(12:27):
do when you have that kind of power and money, but it's done
for good. It like this is in helping.
This is helping cinema going forward.
It's it's creating all this, youknow, technology for people to
use. I'm sure there's things that
they created that maybe weren't great, but I don't know.
I don't know. People don't talk about the
(12:47):
fails. I can understand why some people
have certain gripes about some of these movies.
And then, you know, you can go into the Disney, what we're in
now, the Disney era with the thesequels.
They had a good idea on certain things.
I'm team Ryan Johnson 100%. It just seems that Disney went
into the kitchen without a real recipe and then they listen to
(13:11):
the wrong fans about a lot of the stuff.
And then we get, you know, the third one, Rise of Skywalker,
which I'll say this. And when I first saw it, I was
like, this was a mess. And I think I saw it twice in
the theater and both times I waslike, this is a mess.
But I was also smart enough before I saw Rise of Skywalker,
(13:33):
maybe two days before to watch Revenge of the Sith because I
was like trying to just kind of recap some of the Emperor's
stuff and, and, and Anakin. And there is a line or two in
Revenge of the Sith that literally if, if that wasn't in
that movie, Rise of Skywalker would have made absolutely no
sense instead of made kind of nosense where the Emperor says
(13:56):
something about the dark. You know, the, the dark side can
you know that that side of the force can be used to do
unnatural things like bring somebody back from the dead.
And you know, that's, that's where you get Palpatine coming
back. But still, I watched it a a
couple years ago for the first time in probably 2 years and I
was like, it's a mess. There's still some things to
(14:18):
like about it. I mean, that's, that's just me
in a nutshell. I unless something completely
fucking sucks. Like I, I don't know, like the
Craven movie, which I watched for free on in the comfort of my
own couch. That movie completely sucked,
but I still laughed at it. I was just like what is actually
(14:39):
happening here? Like I was baffled.
Madam Webb was made better by the the episode of trash movie
Bonanza that Chris Pierce and Jim of Food did.
But with when it comes to Star Wars, there's not too much I
don't enjoy. Like I can take joy from the
things like that that I really, really love.
(15:01):
You know, I didn't love Solo that that's so I won't go back
and watch it. I think I watched it twice.
Donald Glover as Lando was a great casting choice and he's
charming as hell and he's perfect for that role.
Woody Harrelson's Woody Harrelson.
I didn't care for the dude who played Han Solo.
I do not like what's her name that played Khaleesi and played
(15:23):
whatever. Her name in the movie is so
forgettable. I'm just not a fan of her at all
acting wise. And then the Darth Maul reveal
at the end was really cool. But you know, to me that movie
didn't need to be made and I didn't like it.
But that doesn't mean I thought it was a horrible piece of shit.
Doesn't mean I hate it. I won't knock you for liking it.
(15:44):
It's just not something I enjoyed.
That's OK. I'm not going to like
everything, but I like most things because I choose to, I
choose to enjoy. It's far better than taking a
look at certain things in real life and being like, I love that
because, you know, there's so much in reality that is sad or
disgusting versus fiction, whichis, you know, comes from
(16:08):
creative standpoint. And that's why I think and, or
is just so fantastic. It does bridge those gaps to of
like it's parallel to what's going on.
And it's a good bit of fiction too.
But you know, things like the the the show Ahsoka absolutely
loved it. And I did not come from watching
the Clone Wars. I watched all of Rebels.
Clone Wars is super daunting. You know, when you look at it
(16:30):
from a standpoint before you getall angry when you look at it
from a standpoint who didn't watch Clone Wars coming up has
no frame of reference for anything about that animated
show. And then people tell you, oh,
you got to watch Clone Wars. Here's all the episodes you
should watch and the order you should watch them.
And you lost me. You lost me right there.
And it's not. It's just because, like, just
(16:51):
give me something I can watch ina linear fashion.
Don't tell me I have to watch episode 36 and 42 and then come
back to this because it tells this story that just complicates
things. That's just me though.
It's not because I don't want towatch it, just because I don't
want to go through that effort to watch it.
You know, the Acolyte was whatever.
(17:11):
I didn't like that. But I don't, I'm not sitting
here making a podcast about me hating it.
I'd rather talk about Obi Wan Kenobi, the show which I really
love seeing you and McGregor again, The Mandalorian, which
you know, the third season was alittle bit rough on the landing,
but that doesn't mean like I'm throwing away the entirety of
(17:32):
that show, you know, if there and there.
And then there's the things where like if I wasn't enjoying
it, which probably means I did enjoy a little bit of the
Acolyte, I wouldn't finish watching it.
You know, I don't force myself to do things I don't like.
I've done it a couple of times. I did it with Westworld.
(17:54):
I hate watched the second seasonand then I tapped out because
that show went from being amazing to what the fuck just
happened. And every once in a while, like
I think I hate watched all of True Blood after the first
season. I was like, this is going to get
better, right? I just never did.
But I generally try to stay on the positive, positive side and
(18:16):
in in find things that I enjoy about the things that I'm
watching. But honestly, to me, it's the
discord of of of hate. And I don't mean the app
discord. I mean, like people just
sharing, shitting all over things like we have become a
society that consumes that enjoys it, imitates it and, and,
(18:39):
and puts that back out there. And I just, it's a waste.
It's a waste of time in my eyes.Like I know there are certain
people right now steaming. One of them might actually be in
Colorado and is is probably punching the device he's
listening to on because yeah, but I just don't see the point
(19:01):
to shit all over a thing that I actually love.
And and it goes back to what I was saying about talking to my
buddy Tyler about Return of the Jedi.
Give me give me a, a reason why that movie isn't the third best
Star Wars movie. Like, if you're going to say the
(19:22):
Ewoks throw, throw, throw your opinion in the garbage because
like, they're, they're, it's part of what Star Wars does.
There's the Jawas, there's Yoda,who's a, you know, I mean, he
was the only thing on that planet.
But there's the Ewoks. Like these, these movies were
(19:43):
made for kids. And I go back to this thing that
I had heard on somebody's YouTube channel, this guy, the
comic Doctor, it seems like a nice enough guy, whatever it
was. I think it was during the
Acolyte last. He's last year, or maybe it was
one of the other shows. And he's on his YouTube channel
(20:05):
and he's got like 60 people in the chat and he's talking about
how like George Lucas didn't make Star Wars for kids.
Like Star Wars isn't supposed tobe for kids.
And I'm like what? And then, you know, Fast forward
to let's, I mean, I, I know thathe made it for kids.
I've been reading about George Lucas, reading interviews and
watching interviews with him since I was a kid.
(20:26):
But like there I, I actually went and grabbed the magazine
that I have that has a interviewwith him from 77.
It was a right before, right after the movie came out where
he says the studio didn't want to back him because he wanted to
make the movie for kids. And he's like, the studio's
like, oh, no, kids going to likea sci-fi, you know, this space
(20:47):
opera And he's like, well, I'm going to make it and it's for
kids. But then you go to this ILM
series on Disney and he directlysays like he wanted to make a
movie for kids. And Coppola.
I think Coppola is like, you should do what you want, even
though the studio didn't want toput the movie out.
And it's like, yeah, of course he made these movies for kids.
(21:08):
And then he made the prequels for kids.
The hidden messages in it, the the message of the Empire, you
know, like you go back to the original source material about,
you know, the stormtroopers and all that.
That's World War 2 stuff. And he's putting that in a kid
story because great material made for kids traditionally has
(21:30):
a message in there that everybody, kid or adult, will
eventually get. Go back to children's books.
You go, you know, you go to Sesame Street.
I mean, they're not going to talk about imperials on Sesame
Street. But like, everything has this,
everything, everything that's for kids eventually like has.
I feel like maybe I'm wrong. Most art for kids has some
(21:52):
message in there. And like, I just don't
understand people who think theyown the thing that somebody else
created. Like they take the ownership
and, and I don't feel like I ownStar Wars.
I do own this, but I feel like it's part of me and it's part of
(22:14):
me that somebody else created. But I, I, I don't get mad when
something isn't good that comes from that, or for any matter for
the things that I like. You know, I may be bummed if a
band puts out an album that I don't connect with or, you know,
I didn't like this piece of art that this person created.
(22:37):
But it doesn't make me not like them.
It doesn't make me not like myself.
I just move on to the next thingthat I do derive joy from.
But with Star Wars I, this is a sentiment that I think it's gone
around for a while, but I, I sayit often, Star Wars fans ruined
(22:59):
Star Wars. Like it is really tough to have
a kinship with fellow Star Wars fans anymore when they're all
negative. Like as a whole, like I don't
seem to I there are some Star Wars friends, fans, friends,
friends who are fans. There we go who I share opinions
(23:20):
with and we we like it. But as a whole, I don't really
associate with that fandom anymore.
It's too much. It becomes extremely toxic too
quick. I can't have conversations with
people because I fucking hate this or I don't like this.
I didn't. What do you like?
Oh, well, I like Empire and it'slike, OK, one movie, you know,
(23:43):
just look at how, like I said, the prequels are are perceived
these days like Hayden Christensen can't do any wrong
anymore. Ahmed Best is, you know, he he's
people, somebody that people love now, as opposed to what the
media created that turned everybody to hate Jar Jar.
And if you watch the ILM doc, you see it really was the media
(24:04):
that did this. And I won't harp on this too
much just because I think it's it'll drag, drag it down to
super negative territory. But it seemed to me from the
outside looking in as a 18 year old to 19 year old, with the
(24:25):
Internet just starting, it really seemed that episode 1 was
the beginning of online hate. Like in a mass way where people
were like, yeah, this sucks. This is this is terrible.
Like we all hate episode 1, episode 2, episode 3.
And I just like, I don't know, Iguess it's it's very much like
(24:47):
the force, you know, you have tostruggle to stay on the light
side. The dark side is the temptation
given to your hate, given to your anger.
Join me. And I don't know, I'm just not
that person. I haven't been that person for
like 20 something years at least, but the future of Star
(25:08):
Wars to me looks pretty bright with Filoni and Jon Favreau
really kind of steering the shipin the right direction.
As much as I said that the season 3 of The Mandalorian was
a little bit of a clunker, stillexcited for what comes next.
Soka season 2, I can't wait for that because I really enjoyed
(25:28):
Ahsoka. I mean, it does help that I've
been a huge Rosario Dawson fan since I was, you know, young and
that's not going away anytime soon.
But I also just really enjoy seeing those characters on
Rebels brought to brought to life and, and, or season 2,
(25:50):
which I'm assuming this is the last season because Cassian does
not live too much longer. And then Rogue One is where you
know, it all ends. What a fantastic show.
Just crafted absolutely perfect.Every piece of it seems to work
on every level. And it seems to be pissing off
(26:10):
the people that don't understandthat Star Wars is a story about,
you know, freeing from the oppressor, destroying the
empire. You know, if you don't get it,
you might be on the wrong side. But I, I just, I love Star Wars
and I want to keep talking aboutStar Wars.
(26:32):
I always do. I, there's never a point where I
don't want to talk about Star Wars.
It's like I said, part of me, it's the one kind of mainstay in
that's been here since my childhood that, you know, is
something that I just love. You know, I'm not talking about
real life stuff like my my family.
They've been here and it's just something that I it's never far
(26:53):
from who I am at the core. I think it's that story is great
moral tale and I hope they keep telling stories from it.
There's so much to explore. There's comics, there's books,
you know, there's there's video games there, you know, it's just
there's so much of it. I never get tired of Star Wars
(27:15):
things and I, I'm not one of those people who's like, I'll
get away from the Skywalker family and all that stuff.
Like I just love it all. I don't really care.
And that's OK if you don't. I also love this movie, Jaws,
Spielberg, Lucas or life. And I, you know, I'm open to
discussion if anybody wants to drop comments about having a
(27:37):
discussion. I don't really, once again,
like, if you're going to bring hate into it and you're just
going to be negative, like go somewhere else.
That's, that's not for this podcast and it's not for me.
But I know a lot of you listening, if not most of you
really enjoy Star Wars or enjoy something about Star Wars.
And you know, I just don't really care about the negativity
part of it because it's a work of fiction that you choose to
(28:00):
consume it. It's not.
Nobody owes anything to you, andthat's just how I see it.
Anyway, that's going to do it for this week.
But before we get going, please do me a favor, subscribe.
If you're not subscribed, drop acomment on one of the platforms
you're listening to. Review it.
(28:21):
You can give me a star rating onSpotify.
You can give me a star rating onApple.
You can choose to hit the like button on YouTube.
Any interaction from you, my audience, helps push this out to
new people and got some great interviews coming up in the next
couple weeks before we take our season 3 ending break and we'll
(28:45):
see what happens. We'll see who else we get to
talk to. I'm excited to bring you some
great conversation and I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks for listening to Direct Edition.
I'm your host, Dave, and may theforce be with you.
Me say you're the force.
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