Star Wars: Skeleton Crew - Part 1

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What happens when childhood wonder meets the vast expanse of the Star Wars universe? Join us as we uncover the whimsical adventures of "Skeleton Crew" on Disney Plus. With special guest Rich Shanana, we explore the series' first four episodes, diving into the lives of characters like Wim, Neel, Fern, and KB. This isn't just a journey through space; it's a coming-of-age tale filled with the profound themes of identity, growth, and friendship. We'll uncover how each character navigates their personal trials within this epic world and discuss the potential of "Skeleton Crew" as a fresh gateway into the Star Wars saga for newcomers.

Imagine running a Disney marathon dressed as Kermit the Frog, complete with a custom hat—sounds fun, right? That's just one of the personal stories we share, blending our pop culture chat with real-life adventures. From Rich's Jack Sparrow moment at Disneyland to Dakota's support of his wife at Disney World, our stories merge seamlessly into our thoughts on the second season of "Squid Game." We dive into the captivating dynamics of Neel and Fern's growth, drawing parallels with the challenges and triumphs of our own experiences. It's a humorous and heartfelt look at how pop culture intertwines with everyday life.

But the excitement doesn't stop there. We engage in a spirited discussion on the broader implications of the series, from the rich Star Wars lore to the surreal artistry of Hayao Miyazaki's films. We offer fresh insights, comparing the fever dream-like quality of Miyazaki's work to the narrative depth of "Skeleton Crew." Whether you're a Star Wars aficionado or a Miyazaki enthusiast, this episode promises a tantalizing exploration of imagination and storytelling. Prepare for an episode that is as insightful as it is entertaining, with plenty of humor and heart along the way.

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https://www.twitch.tv/odysseywow

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't say I remember, no, I ain't Guys.
Welcome to Project Geekology,episode 106.
I am one of your hosts, dakota,and I'm joined, as always, with
.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
I am Anthony and don't confuse me with Neil the
elephant child.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
I don't think anyone's going to or anything.
Yeah, I don't think anyone wasgoing to confuse you with Neil,
but we are also joined with ournew regular guest host.
I guess I'm not really surewhat you are these days.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Rich, welcome.
I feel the same way.
That's my way.
My name is Rich Shanana.
All right, Nobody really knowswho I am, but I am glad to be
here with you guys and I'm gladthat it's not a skeleton crew.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
I mean technically, how many people does it take to
build a skeleton crew or to justbe a skeleton crew of something
?
It's just the bare bones, right.
It's just the bare minimumneeded to get a ship running
right.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
So I guess for a podcast it would be.
There's been many episodes, soI guess one is the skeleton crew
.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Okay, I got you, so we're running at full capacity
plus one.

Speaker 3 (01:18):
Right, 100%.
We have the dinghy on the sideof the boat and everything.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
All right, I like this naval lingo that we have
going on, because I actually didrecently watch the first
Pirates film, curse of the BlackPearl, and I just love that
movie so much.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Yeah, we covered that also.
It's been a bit.
Yeah, it's been a while.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Those movies are glorious, yo, glorious, yo, ho
ho and a bottle of rum I, just II I love everything and be I.
I did share this with uh jen I Iguess, before disney like
outlawed this or whatever I was.
I went to disneyland and Ibought the tricorder hat, okay

(02:07):
Right, with like the random,like wisps of like hair on it
and it had like the braids withlike the little, so it was a
full Jack Sparrow, right, and Ihappened to kind of have the
similar facial hair.
So I remember being atDisneyland and a number of
people and I didn't do this onpurpose Stopped me and they're
like that guy looks like Captain, like let's take a picture, and

(02:28):
I was like I, I won don't looklike Johnny Depp at all, yeah
right, but um, boy, did I have agood time.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
It was uh kind of hilarious, so that's awesome uh,
but, guys, we, we are talkingabout Skeleton crew,
specifically the first fourepisodes of the uh limited eight
episode run.
Uh, disney plus series uh, it'sa star wars uh television show.
If you haven't checked it out,at least not the first four
episodes uh, please do so beforelistening to us here.

(02:56):
Uh, for our 107th episode.
And yeah, we're going to begetting into both non-spoilers
and spoiler discussions forthose first four episodes.
What we thought about, or whatwe currently think about the
character progressions of allthe individual characters, the
introduction of Jad Nahil Iforget what his name is, he has

(03:19):
so many names.
But yeah, before we jump intoany of that, I guess I'll jump
in first, because I already kindof jumped into, like my, like,
what I've been up to this pastweek.
But I also actually did visitDisney World briefly over the
weekend because my wife Jen ranthe Disney World marathon.

(03:41):
She didn't do the dopeychallenge Challenge or the Goofy
Challenge, but she did run thefull 26.2 miles that take up the
actual marathon run.
So, for those of you who don'tknow, disney has race weekends
where it'll be like the firstday is a 5K run, second day is a

(04:02):
10K run, third, third day is ahalf marathon and the fourth day
is the full marathon.
People who do multiple races,can you know?
Basically it's a feat ofstrength, basically.
And they, for those of you whodo like just the half marathon
and the full marathon, that'scalled the goofy challenge.

(04:22):
And then those who do all fourdays of racing, which is just
insanity, it's called the dopeychallenge, uh, but you get a
really cool medal for for eachof those uh races that you do,
and you know, some people wereout rocking all six medals for
each, each of the four racesplus the two challenges, uh.
So, yeah, people are crazy, butI think it's pretty cool yeah,

(04:43):
that's wild, that's absolutelywild jen was.
Jen was, uh, fully decked out in, uh, a kermit costume, which
she was extremely excited about.
Uh, she, she has been planningthis for months.
And then, after the race, shebasically was just wearing a
bunch of kermit merch uh thatshe has collected over the years
kermit crocs, kermit backpack,kermit merch that she has

(05:03):
collected over the years, kermitCrocs, kermit backpack, kermit
sweatshirt.
She brought her Kermit plushtoy and she made a Kermit hat
for the run itself, so she wasfully Kermited out.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
I told Jen that you needed to deck out in Kermit
also.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Should I go Kermit or Miss Piggy?
Yeah, there, you go there yougo.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Hey, buddy, it's 2025 .

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Let's go, let's do this, but no, I did have a
really fun time in Disney Worldfor the short time that I was
there.
What's cool is that in the racethey actually run through all
four of the Disney parks and ifyou're doing good on time, you
can actually stop and ride someof the rides, like some people
were stopping to ride Everestand all that?

Speaker 2 (05:48):
I think that's yeah, and it's.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
It's, you know, free, with the price of admission of,
you know, like the, the, notthe theme park price of
admission, but the the actualticket to run the marathon, you
can pretty much do whateverrides are open at that time.
So I thought that was prettycool Nice.
But, yeah, yeah, she had a goodtime.
She finished it.
She ran the whole thing.

(06:12):
Unfortunately, when we werethere and I think this is why we
ended up watching Pirates ofthe Caribbean the Pirates of the
Caribbean ride was down duringthe day that we visited Magic
Kingdom.
So it's like a must do for mewhenever I'm there.
You know, like that's kind oflike the first thing I go to and
probably the last thing I dobefore I leave that park.

(06:33):
So seeing that it was justcompletely just off, all day was
just it, killed me.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
It's also like really cold for orlando that weekend,
but yeah yeah, it it's been kindof cooling down here in South
Florida like over the past likefew weeks it'll.
There's some days where it'llkind of pop up to like maybe 80,
but then we'll have a coupledays where it dips down to, I
think, like the coldest wasmaybe like in the 40s, but

(07:02):
usually it's like in the 50s,60s, I think.
Right now it's like in the 60s.
So it's definitely been a nicechange from the.
It's usually like hot most ofthe time.
We don't usually get a bunch ofweeks where it like cools down,
like we'll get like a weekwhere it it'll cool down to like
, you know, maybe 40 or 50 andthen after that we're back up to

(07:24):
like maybe 70, 80 nice, uh,florida, and like the 70 80
range, is, it's just so nice,anything past that point?

Speaker 1 (07:33):
right and then, but uh, inclusion either direction,
actually in either direction,just because florida cold is
really cold it's like a wet coldyeah, because it's so humid.
It's a like, it's like a bonechilling cold that you, you
experience in florida, eventhough technically it's not as
cold as some of the like thenorthern states.
Like we were coming down fromnew york, which has been you

(07:57):
know 20 for like three weeks ina row, but for some reason, just
being outside you know likemaybe 40 or 50 degree weather in
Orlando it was, it felt thesame, you know, it was just like
, but anyway that yeah.
So that's that's what I've beenup to.
Uh, had a fun time but, back onthat grind.

(08:19):
Uh, Anthony, what have you beenup to?

Speaker 2 (08:21):
I have been up to mostly watching these first four
episodes of Skeleton Crew again, and I know it came out I don't
remember when I think it cameout last month.
But I finally got to the secondseason of Squid Game.
I don't know if you watchedthat.

(08:42):
I don't know if you watch anyof it at all, but it's
definitely.
You know.
I'm pretty sure that if youhaven't seen squid game, you've
heard of it and yeah, I, I, Ihave heard of it obviously I did
.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
I actually am one of the few people who have yet to
watch it I mean it's uh, I joinyou, I join you, it's, it's
definitely interesting it's.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
It's crazy how it it grabbed a lot of people because
I mean, it's, it's a korean show.
You know, not not many.
There's actually a lot of likekorean shows that are like very
similar, that don't make itaround.
You know, that doesn't make theinternational circuit the way
that this one does and so like,like there's one that I was

(09:27):
watching that it was like azombie apocalypse breaking out
at like a school, and you do itlike.
I mean, the, the koreans arevery similar to the japanese and
like their, you know, I guess,their uh imagination, their
creativity.
You know, I guess, theirimagination, their creativity,
you know.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
I noticed they are much better at like the live
action dramas than the Japanese,where the Japanese are much
better at the animated dramas,but, like you said, they have
similar creative, I guess,outlets and styles.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
So yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
I think that's cool.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, so I've been watching that?

Speaker 1 (10:06):
How is the second season?

Speaker 2 (10:09):
I've been enjoying it so far.
I haven't finished it yet.
It's interesting to see whatthe dynamic would have been
because it centers around thewinner of the first one, the
first season.
So it's interesting seeing like, okay, how, how are they going
to bring it back?
Like, why would he be goingback into the games you know and

(10:33):
so like them figuring it outand kind of implementing that
and bringing the games back?
It's, I mean, I've beenenjoying it so far.
It's you know.
I mean, I guess, like assomebody who really enjoys
watching, you know anime, thisis almost like something that
you would see in live action.
I think, like one that kind ofreminded me of that.

(10:55):
There's an, an anime that theydid like a live action
adaptation of it.
It's called alice in borderlandand it's kind of like you know
games, you know these peoplegetting transported to like a
game that, like you get killed.
If you get killed in this game,you're, you're dead.
You know like your body is inthe game and if you, you know

(11:18):
you get killed in this world,kind of.
So not like, not like sword artonline, where when you get
killed in the game, it's yourbrain getting.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
You know that disconnect I see, I see cool man
, um rich, throwing it over toyou what have?

Speaker 3 (11:35):
you been up to.
Oh, we just, we finally wrappedup it was.
It was a very difficult week ofhaving to watch revenger of
sith four times a day and stopit and wax poetic about things
that I liked or disliked, but Igot through it.
It was difficult.
You locked in.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
For those just catching this episode Rich is a
teacher and he is using Revengeof the Sith to ease kids into
Macbeth.

Speaker 3 (12:00):
Yeah, so we just started Macbeth, so I got to.
It's the only day of the yearthat I get to use my face as a
lesson plan, because the line ishe unseams him from the nave to
the chops and then I get topoint to my mutton chops and go
guys, what are these called?
And they're like oh.
And then I'm like, yeah, oh, soit's really enjoyable.

(12:23):
I can never change my facialhair because I don't have to
change my lesson plan.
That would be unfortunate.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Oh yeah, that's a good.
You know, if your wife evercomplains, I do it for the kids.
If my wife ever complains Ifyour wife ever complains.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
But other than that, just you know, trying to finish
out Dragon Age, I think I, justbefore we started recording, I
actually saw that one of themissions on my menu is.
It says if you start thismission.
You're ending the main story.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Oh, okay, interesting .
So next time we talk, I willhopefully be done with this Now
are you the kind of guy thatwill try to do all of the other
side quests in the interim, orcan you like complete the side
quests after you complete themain storyline?

Speaker 3 (13:08):
so I've done everything that I can uh every
single side quest now, because Ihaven't looked it up yet, but
if I, I feel like I remember thelast dragon age game being like
, uh, you win and then it's over, it's more like a zelda than it
is a uh, you know, like a reddead interesting.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Okay, yeah, that's a smart idea, cool, very nice I
want to get 100.

Speaker 3 (13:32):
You know, get that platinum, that that meaningless
platinum trophy on myplaystation 5 account, which
means so much I did that withthe spider-man game oh yeah, no,
I I expected my son, like whenI came by and he didn't have the
platinum yet, I was like are weeven trying right now?
Like what's uh, what'shappening?
So he, uh, he got it that's,that's wonderful.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Peer pressure, and actually we're going to be
talking a lot about peerpressure today.
Uh, as we jump into our topicof discussion skeleton crew we
have a bunch of, um, young kidswho, you know, they're just
doing their kid thing.
One of them is, uh, you know,has a lot of wanderlust.
He's always, uh, havingadventures in his head about

(14:18):
being a jedi and going on crazyadventures.
Another one is just happy to bein school and happy to be a
child and happy to be on thepath that he's on.
He's got a crush, he's, youknow, just living life.
Then we have another one who ison a path to success I would

(14:42):
say on a path to success, Iwould say but she decides that
she would rather go for beingthe cool kid and so on.
And then the last kid I'mpurposely not saying their names
, I don't know why I'm notsaying their names, but I'm
going to keep doing this thelast of the four children has a
cybernetic implant that helpsher stay alive and is honestly

(15:06):
pretty cool.
So, yeah, those four kids areWim, neil, fern and KB.
Before we begin, what are yourthoughts on, I guess, the
introduction of these charactersand where they go.
Let's talk about Wim first,because he he is at least at the
out, at the outset of the show.

(15:27):
Uh, the, the main characterthat we're following, rich.
How do you feel about whim as acharacter, from where we are in
, you know when we first meethim to, you know where, where we
are at the the end of thesefour episodes well, I think you
know, for me he's obviouslysupposed to be kind of like

(15:47):
lukey in terms of that.

Speaker 3 (15:48):
You know, he, he's the one who wants to leave the
planet right, he has like thesedreams of joining.
I mean, obviously luke's ideaswere more well grounded because
he's there was an act like hecould actually join the war.
You know he could join the newrepublic, right and he, he
understands what's beyond hislittle rock yeah, where you know
whim is by himself.
But I think it's weird.

(16:09):
Out of the four of them, Ialmost feel like he grows almost
the least, but maybe it'sbecause he has the most to do.
I, you know you immediatelyfeel terrible for him.
Uh, because his dad, I meanvery early on I do believe it's
the first episode, yes, it'sdefinitely within the first four
.
You know like, kind of sayslike, isn't it time for you to

(16:30):
stop?
You know like.
Or he asks for him to read abedtime and he says can you read
me a story before bed, like momused to, right?
So he's even like saying a lotlike ma, you know our, my mom,
who's dead dad?
Could you know she used to dothis.
I'm obviously not feeling well.

(16:52):
Would you please do this thingthat my dead parent used to do?
And he's like I got too manyreports, I can't do it?
gotta go to work, you know, andit so you're immediately I don't
know if I thought it washeavy-handed, but it was just so
quick that you know you're like, oh, you know, like neglected,
poor, poor, neglected kid.
You know, like his dad's aworkaholic, uh, buried himself

(17:14):
in work after his wife died,yeah.
But I, you know, he isdefinitely the more, the more
childish of the group and itjust I, I kind of struggle to
place his age.
I just had a conversation withmy son who he, you know, he got,
you know, doesn't listen tothis and thank god, but he had a
little bit of a meltdown oneday, just theoretically, the

(17:37):
idea that he has all these toys.
But now that he's 10, he's notsure, you know, he doesn't want
to be the the kid who's stillplaying with toys.
So he's kind of he gets likefeel it out at school, you know,
and and I think whim issomewhere in that age, because
it seems like his dad is, youknow, doesn't approve of it
anymore and his friends don'tseem to engage in that same

(17:59):
behavior.
So he's definitely been off inthis fantasy world for a long
time.
I like him, he's got some spunk, you know, he has some nice
moments, uh, but I think, uh, insome ways, he's the character
that grew the least for me so toI?

Speaker 1 (18:15):
I don't know if I'm answering your question or not,
but the way that I interpretwhere they are in in life, or at
least in the education system,it seems to me that they're
going from elementary into amiddle school setting.
They're they're doing like thisfinal test, that kind of will
set them up for success orfailure, depending on where they

(18:36):
place, and that's kind of likethe introductory setup that we
have with their schooling andeverything on that and and uh it
the way that the kids are allportrayed, specifically women,
neil.
It feels as though they'restill in that elementary school
mindset or like early middleschool mindset.

(18:58):
You know, wait, where did yousay they are?

Speaker 3 (19:02):
can't, can't say I remember no, ah you took it away
from me, man, I know, I saw, II I saw the layup in your eyes
um and then you know, Idestroyed it limb from limb.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
Um, let's see, yeah, so I would say, I would say
they're like middle school age,ish um yes, yes, I would.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
They're at that coming of age age, which is
usually that age, the middleschool.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yeah, you know, still trying to figure yourself out
that age and I think that's kindof why the dad is like all
right, come on, buddy, you gotta, you know, start growing up a
little bit.
I, I think they, they reallyplay the, the dad off as being,
uh, really neglectful and stuff.
And yeah, he, he is outwardlyneglectful, at least in this one

(19:55):
episode, but I think to adegree he has maybe some point
when, when, when it comes towhim, because whim is like just
so over the top in his own head,you know, like he, he is
letting this get in the way ofhis schooling.
It's it's getting in the way of, uh, him getting to class on
time, it's it's.
You know, it's actually a realproblem, um, and maybe that's

(20:18):
because his mother died early onor something, but yeah, it's,
it's interesting.
And I, I do feel bad for notonly whim but for the father
ultimately, because you know, asthe show goes on, you see that
he does truly care for his, hisson right, right, especially
like when they leave oh, yeah,you can see it's he's, he's
heartbroken.
But yeah, uh, anthony, what doyou, what do you feel about,

(20:41):
like, uh whim's character andhow he grows over these four
episodes?

Speaker 2 (20:47):
If at all.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
Do you think he grows a lot?

Speaker 2 (20:51):
I think that in these first four episodes he is still
very much so that same Wim, theone that wants that adventure,
the one that wants to become aJedi.
His head is a little bit in theclouds, whereas everybody else,
all the other kids, are alittle bit more grounded,

(21:15):
especially Neil.
Neil's like the goody two shoes, but also trying to make sure
that everybody doesn't go, thattheir heads don't swell too much
.
I guess he tries to be a littlebit of that voice of reason.
And so, with him being Neil'sbest friend, with Neil being

(21:40):
Wim's best friend, I think it'sdefinitely an interesting, an
interesting offset.
But those, you know, thosefriendships happen all the time.
There's always that one crazyfriend that brings you know, a
friend like Neil like kind oftakes them out of, out of their
bubble, but then then you havesomebody like Neil that kind of

(22:03):
brings you back to Earth whenyou've been in orbit for too
long, you know.
Yeah, I would say that Wim, atleast in the first four episodes
, doesn't really have any growth.
Like he's still like sold onJod being a Jedi where all the
other kids are questioning him,like are you really?

(22:25):
a jedi like, like they're likehe's like whim is almost like
the kind of kid that adultsthink that our kid that kids are
like.
But the rest of the kids arereally like how kids are.
You know kids aren't stupidonce they pick up.
You know they when they kind ofpick up a little bit of a radar
you might be able to to totrick them a little bit more

(22:46):
than an adult, but they're stillpretty smart and this group of
kids shows that they're prettysmart.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
And I think with Wim, one thing that I like that
we're starting to see in thesefour episodes is that adventure
isn't exactly what he had.
That we're starting to see inthese four episodes Is that
adventure isn't exactly what hehad.
Like, the adventure thatthey're having Isn't
particularly what he had in mind.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Right.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
As far as adventures go, because there's a lot more
like danger At every turn.
There's a lot more getting lostThan there is finding new cool
places, you know.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
Well, bucko, you wanted to be a Jedi, and that's
probably one of the mostdangerous things that you could
want to be, at least in thatpoint in time yep, yep, uh.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
So let's, let's move over to neil.
Uh, as you, you brought neil upearlier.
Uh, I think neil is probablymost people's favorite character
, um and the show, just becausehe is just such a lovable, like,
adorable alien creature.
Uh, that is basically just.
You know, for all intents andpurposes he's entirely human in

(23:54):
terms of his, uh, mentalfaculties and the way that he
presents himself, but he'salmost he's an elephant.
He's an elephant, yeah, he's,he's, uh, it's almost like he's
an elephant.
He's an elephant.
Yeah, it's almost like he's aMax Rebo type character, an
Ortolan, but technically he'snot, because Ortolans only have
two limbs, he has four, so he'shis own species.

(24:15):
We don't really know what hisspecies is called at this point.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah, they haven't given them a name.
I think that they've giventheir species type a name, but
not an actual name to thespecies, like an elephantine or
something like that, or teen, sosomething like that.
I mean they, they are very muchso like they're, they're like
sentient elephant, humanelephants you know that that's
exactly how they come off like.

(24:41):
It's exactly like what they are.
But I know, I totally agree,neil is very adorable and, like
I said, he is kind of that onethat tries to ground them but,
like you know, in an innocentkind of way, whereas you know,
you have someone like fernthat's like a little bit more on

(25:02):
the harder, harder side, butshe is a little bit of a ground
too yeah, one of my favoritethings um that they showed in
this series is when they go intoneil's father's like garage
there's like an old, uh, a beerplaque.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
you know that you would like normally see in like
a bar, but it's, it's of likehis species and it's like
holding up like a couple ofbeers and it's just, it's just
so kitschy and I want thatplaque so bad.
I want to see what it lookslike up close.
It looks so funny but yeah, I,I, I love those little details.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
You just see a group of elephants just like raising a
glass.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yes, yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
Well, well, it looks like neil's father, but like
he's holding like six, six cupsof beer or something like that.
That's.
That's what the the pub thinglooks like.
But as far as neil goes, I he'sprobably the most naive of the
bunch.
He doesn't really know how umthe world works on the universe
that they're, you know, thrustinto, he's the one most

(26:08):
susceptible to.
You know, I guess believingpeople like, maybe not the most
susceptible in terms of, like,uh, jod and whim, whim is like
very eager to believe that thisguy's a jedi, like he's.
He, he's willing that intoexistence, but with neil, you
know, if if whim tells him thatthey're not going to get in

(26:29):
trouble, then they're not goingto get in trouble like he
doesn't, he doesn't question it.
You know, and maybe that'ssomething that he should,
because that there's some clearpeer pressure going on to do
something that he clearlyshouldn't.
You know, and, um, he doesn'thave all that much forward
thinking early on in the show,but I think by episode four he
really comes into his own.

(26:49):
He realizes that he's not justa fighter like the others, he's
not eager for adventure oranything like that, but he is
eager to, you know, like to findpeaceful resolutions to things,
and I thought that was a reallycool uh moment for him in in

(27:10):
that.
In episode four specifically,yeah, I didn't wholly like
episode, at least the first half.
I didn't like the first half ofepisode four, um, but we'll
talk about that more later.
But but yeah, I did like howNeil was portrayed in that
episode.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Right.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
Rich, how do you oh go ahead?

Speaker 2 (27:29):
I was going to say I felt like episode four was like.
It felt like it was an episodefor him, that it was an episode.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
It was like a growth moment for Neil.
Okay, I like that.
Yeah, I could see that.
Rich, how do you feel aboutNeil in these first four
episodes?

Speaker 3 (27:47):
It's funny.
It's almost like Neil'scharacter is so amazing that it
actually I don't know how to putthis Like I wanted to like Wim
more.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
Right, yeah, I know where you're going with that.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
The premise, I wanted to like Wim more.
And the other part is like whenI first saw neil, I was like,
oh man, this is the guyeveryone's gonna love, right,
like, this is the guy.
And I was like I, I don't wanna, so I, I kind of I don't want
to say kept my distance, but Ididn't ascribe to him right away
.
I was like, yeah, okay, yeah,he's in the back, you know,
whatever, he's cute, you know,like he's got the little brother

(28:21):
, as in all this stuff.
And there was just so manythings to to like neil that I
was like I don't, I don't wantto do it right away.
But I think episode four, was it?
Um, hana, hana, yeah, hana,right, uh, that that the
interaction with hana, to me isjust top-notch stuff.

(28:41):
I mean, if you, if you're likeme and you're on the fence, I
think that by the time you getto the end of episode four,
there's no debate, I mean,unless you, you really like the
little rat creature that jumpsout of smee's eye, uh, or sorry,
sm33, uh, but other than that,I mean there's, there's really
neil is the best character and I, you know, and it's weird

(29:03):
because whim is the.
I would say whim.
Whim is the, I would say, whenwomen supposed to be your
protagonist.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Almost right, I mean he that's, that's how they
introduced it to us.
I wonder, I wonder how you knowthe writers would feel about
that, or if he's just thecatalyst for the story to
commence.
You know, I feel like maybethat's his ultimate role.
But yeah, you would think thatWim is the main character of the
story, but as the show goes onand the other characters are

(29:32):
more fleshed out, he just kindof slots himself right there, as
you know, just a quarter of thestory, you know right right but
but it's weird because we don'tknow.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
We know whim's dad, yeah, we know whim's mom is dead
, right, we know kb's parents.
We will eventually, you know,like we get to know them more in
that story.
We know that.
But then now, now you look atneil's parents we barely know
anything about them.
We know he's got a couple ofsiblings and they're very cute.
And then even fern, where's herdad?

(30:04):
Uh, you know, like that's leftout.
But when we get all the info onwhim, so it's just, it's really
I'm not sure if they, likeyou're saying, I wonder if it's
just a way to introduce thestory or if they were trying to
make him kind of really the leadand it just.
Neil's just so damn adorable.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
Maybe the actual like writers started gravitating
towards other storylines orcharacters, but that's an
interesting thought, yeah.
Anyway, I think Neil is afantastic character.
I think that he grows slowly atfirst over the first couple
episodes, but by episode four hereally comes into his own and

(30:47):
he understands his limits, whichis a cool concept for a kid and
he realizes that his truestrength is in his friends,
realizes that his, his true uhstrength is in his friends, and
I think that that's yeah, it's apowerful uh message, uh for for
kids, and I like that about himneil kind of reminds me of that
, that kid's book um babar babaryeah oh my gosh, I haven't.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
I haven't seen that in ages he's a king, right or
something, or he's a prince,yeah yeah, but it's like a
family of, uh, elephants andit's like it follows like this
elephant kid.
So like when I saw him, I I wasthinking like what does he
remind me of?
And like I looked it up and Iwas like that's it right there,
babar, babar, that's funny.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
all right, let's talk about fern a little bit,
because we have a veryself-assured character at the
offset.
You know she's kind of like thebad girl.
She's the one racing speederbikes.
She flips her school jacketinside out and has a whole bunch
of patches on it and you knowshe's always in detention and.

(31:58):
But you know she's like she'sthe daughter of someone high
ranking in this, you know, onthis planet, basically, how do
you feel anthony about fern?
And in these, in these episodes, or because she, she actually
goes through quite a bit of ofchange, I feel she she does too,
she and and she's, she's thattake charge character, so she.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
So, like you said, we we were thinking that whim was
going to be the main character,but she almost kind of becomes
the main character a little bit.
In a sense, she takes charge ofthe ship, she becomes like the
captain, she makes a lot of thecalls.
Very much in line with that,that type of character, who you

(32:38):
know, that kid who has ahigh-ranking parent, you know a
parent that's a ceo of a bigcompany, or they're a politician
or there's something, somebodythat's high up, and it's a kid
that's like acting out and sheis very much so that type of kid
that you know she doesn't wantto fall and you know follow into

(32:59):
her her mother's steps, likeshe, she doesn't want, she
doesn't really want that, shedoesn't want to be the head of
class, she wants to really beher own person, and so I think
that that's really what thattake charge attitude is is her
trying to be her own person.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
I like that, rich.
How do you feel about fern, atleast in the opening episodes?

Speaker 3 (33:23):
I think there's a there's a good amount of growth
with fern.
I particularly like when she'syou know, when she gets, when
she has those vulnerable moments.
Uh, there definitely is this.
And now this is where I'mworried about keeping it safe,
keeping it secret.
But fern, she's definitelyrebelling against, wanting to be
like her mom.

(33:43):
I don't know if I'm going intospoiler territory if I simply
say that her mom admits tosimilarly kind of behaving in a
pattern, in that pattern, andyou know, we do know that
they're kind of out of time.
So you just wonder how we knowthat they take the tests.
We don't know if there's any.

(34:04):
You know what if her mom's anepo baby and she also is a nepo
baby, like there's just a longstring of these people in the
family she does.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
She is weak of rich girl syndrome, like rebellion
against her mom.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
Yeah, exactly they rebel against their parent,
right, you know.
And then when, when we do havethe mom tell us that, oh yeah,
you know, I did kind of similarstuff, no big, no biggie, you
know, it's like, oh all right,well, so then I wonder how long
this kind of you know, like, howhow much of the assessment is
legitimate, you know, how muchof it is, or is it just for show

(34:37):
to you know?
You know there's more we'regonna have to kind of discover
as we go into more episodes to,I think, further mine the roles
that the kids and their parentsplay yeah, that's something I
don't think you know.

Speaker 1 (34:53):
Going going forward, actually, um, we, we get a lot
of information about, you know,having finished the series, you
know, I don't think it's toomuch of a spoiler to say we
don't get too much moreinformation about, like, how
they enter the roles that theyenter.
If I'm wrong about that, Iguess we'll discuss that next
week.
But as far as Fern goes, Ireally like that.

(35:15):
She has this take chargementality and even, like you
said, anthony, like she does,you know, jump into the role, as
you know, the leader of theirship that they've commandeered.
She becomes the captain andseveral times throughout these
four episodes she, you know,introduces herself as the
captain not only to SM-33, butto Jod and also to the Troik

(35:41):
people.
In the fourth episode, yeah.
So she has very, very much takenon that role.
But I think by the end ofepisode four, there's a great
moment where this is a kid, thisis a kid who's made a whole
bunch of decisions and they arein a lot of trouble trouble and
they could potentially losetheir lives or, you know, never

(36:04):
make it back home and she kindof has this moment of weakness
in front of whim where she stepsaside and starts crying because
, you know, she's being made tolike figure out all these huge
life choices on the spot while,you know, while they're trying
to get home and I think thatthat's a great that break in her

(36:26):
facade is really telling about,like, who she is, because she
clearly wants to be in control.
She wants to be in control ofher own path and her own destiny
.
But she realizes at this pointthat maybe I can't do that, uh,
at least not at my current, youknow, uh, maturity level or
whatever, or with, you know the,the information that I have at

(36:48):
hand, and I think that's areally cool moment.
Um, I think, of all thecharacters, uh, she has the most
growth within these fourepisodes in terms of just that,
you know, like realizing thatyou've taken this too far,
basically.
But yeah, yeah, I like Fern.

(37:08):
I like Fern a lot.
Anthony, how far have youwatched in the show?

Speaker 2 (37:13):
So I've gotten up to.
So I have episodes 7 and 8 thatI have to watch.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
Okay, all right.
Yeah, both of those areexcellent, so I'm excited to
hear your thoughts next week.
But KB is interesting becausewe know very little about her at
the offset.
We know that she has some sortof cybernetic implant that she
needs to survive off of, butthis also allows her to, you

(37:41):
know, like kind of like anaugmented reality experience
within life, where she's able tokind of communicate to certain
droids or to certain ships inways that droids are often
capable of doing, which is kindof a cool concept for a
character.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
Right and she almost has like I don't know it's like
heightened sense or like thisability to to scan, because when
they first meet jod, they'releaving that jail and she's able
to pick up that there'ssomething coming when you know
jod didn't pick up on it, itended up being a droid, but she

(38:17):
was able to pick up thatsomething was coming.
Somebody even made like aremark like oh, she might be kb,
might be a jedi too or could?

Speaker 1 (38:26):
she could use the force yeah, it's interesting
because jod may not have beenable to feel the droid through
the force, because it's not aliving right, but if it was
giving off some sort of like youknow, radar bleeps or whatever
or you know radio waves, and shewas able to sense that through

(38:47):
you know her augmentations, thenthat that kind of gives her
like like droid force powers,which is kind of cool yeah but,
um, what I will say about kb isthat most of her growth is in
the second half of this season,which is kind of uh frustrating,
because I really want to talkabout probably my favorite scene

(39:08):
in the entire show.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
Is is like I have to talk about it next week but, uh,
but yeah um, something that younotice a little bit in the, at
least in the first half of theseason, is KB is almost a little
robotic in a sense, and I don'tknow if that is the actress or

(39:30):
if that's what the character issupposed to be like, since she
does have a little bit of that.
You know she has thatcybernetic implant and so I
don't know if that's who she is.
You know, I don't know if ifthat's yeah, like, like I said,
if that's kb or if that's theactress.
You know that's trying to kindof.
You know, because sometimeswith kids you know they're, you

(39:52):
know acting, may not, you knowlike they're trying to figure
out the you know acting forthemselves, but it's uh but I
feel like it fits the characterpretty well because you know kb,
she has that visor, so shedoesn't seem to react in the
same way as the other kids thatdo yeah, it's, she's.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
She's much more Lobot and much less Geordi LaForge.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
She's very calculated in the things that she does.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I really like her character andI'm excited to talk more about
her as a character and hergrowth next week.
But yeah, I did notice that aswell that she on rewatch.
What I will say is that onrewatch there's a lot of moments
where, knowing what you know ofthe character from later

(40:47):
episodes, you see that she'svery pensive about certain
decisions that are thrust uponher.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:56):
She questions if she can do them.
She questions you know, shouldI do that, or you know little
things like that, and I thinkthat that's a really um
interesting layup for her downthe line also speaking of lobot.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
You guys buried the lead here.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
What did?

Speaker 3 (41:16):
you think of the Lobot pirate, who is played by
none other than Jaleel White akaSteve Urkel?
Did you guys catch?

Speaker 1 (41:29):
him there.
I did notice that Steve Urkelwas a little bit before my time.
I obviously was in my.
Did I do that?
That was in the vocabulary ofthe time, like pop culture and
stuff, but I don't think I wasever a big fan of the show, if I
can remember correctly.

(41:50):
But I did recognize himinstantly and I thought that it
was kind of.
It was cool seeing, you know,familiar faces in new and
interesting settings andprosthetics.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
They're really.
They're really trying to pullpeople out of the woodwork and,
just, you know, drop them.
I actually this might soundsacrilegious, but it's one of
the things that I actually kindof like about the Disney
alliance here is that you'lljust have, you know, bill burr
randomly on a show or whateveryou know, just kind of these, uh
, or even bringing back, uh, thecharacter, the actor who played

(42:27):
jar jar binks yeah, it was a uhacolyte, I believe yeah, um no,
nothing, nothing sacrilegiousabout no, ahmed best did really
good.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
He was in.
He was in one of the um themandalorian episodes.
He, he's uh, he's actually likeone of like the the better,
like he's like one of the jedimasters when it comes to uh
dueling.
Actually, he's like one of thethe strongest, uh he's like the
best known like lightsaberduelist right, um, I forget, I

(42:59):
forget the actual jedi's name.
But yeah, I know and bill burr,like for somebody who didn't
really care for star wars, likereally killed that role too yeah
, if you watch interviews withbill burr after the fact, like
he had no idea what was going on, he changed his tune.
Yeah, he actually like became afan, you know which, which is
pretty?
Yeah, it is and then I mean,you know, in in the same vein,

(43:23):
you, you also had um, you know,we we had talked about machete
being the rancor, uh, thetrainer, oh yeah that's so
ridiculous dude, they put him ineverything I like that he's.
I honestly like that.
He's open-minded to be likejust in anything.
It's funny, he's just that guy.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
He is that guy hey, at least, uh, at least they,
they didn't cast him as a, as a,as a mexican guy, right, like
he must have been like, oh, thisis different they didn't have
him as these aren't the coals.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
I don't have him as some, like bandito in one of the
cantinas.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
Yeah, I mean uh, you know he's in one of the greatest
movies of all time con air.
But uh, yeah, I really do likethese.
Just trying to circle back, Ido like these appearances.
I, I, I, I don't know,obviously, like my son will
watch this and not care rightand my, when I tell my wife
because she's been watching it,she'll go what?

(44:16):
and then she'll go back to likereally not, uh, so I don't know
who it's for.
I mean, obviously it's got tobe for, like you know, you said
that he was in your you knowperiphery, if I need to say, but
you know I watched it.
You know, like on friday nights, you know I did.
I wanted to be home so I couldwatch, you know, tjf on abc.

(44:38):
So, uh, just these.
I I obviously the like this isa kid.
I think this is easily a kid'sshow and I think it's the most.
I'm gonna say something crazy,and I know we're only talking
about four episodes, but if youhad somebody who was like I'm a
little concerned about star wars, like I don't know if I could
jump into this thing, it's toobig, it's a juggernaut.
I'm a little concerned aboutstar wars, like I don't know if
I can jump into this thing, it'stoo big, it's a juggernaut, I'm

(45:00):
overwhelmed.
I think you could sit them down, have them watch this and suck
them into the world and thenstart indoctrinating them with
the ones they need to watch.
But you know, like, I thinkthis is such a beautiful,
perfect way.
In like waited for a non-starwars fan to dip their toe into

(45:21):
the water and just slowlyunderstand a little bit about
the universe yeah, I, I don'tdisagree.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
I I'm trying to think of like questions that will
arise on a first viewing, like,well, wait, what is a jedi
supposed to be?
Like, you know?
Like what you know, like you'llget stuff like that maybe, or
so wait, they don't know thatstars exist, or you know stuff
like that.
Oh, yeah, all right, you knowwhat you might have some like

(45:50):
there's a certain mystery boxthing that you're also given
with this show in the star warssetting that you as an audience
member has more informationabout the general galaxy than
these four, uh kids that's funny.

Speaker 3 (46:08):
I, I actually wanted to call you after episode two
and just be like when is this?
Like I one of the things thatwas really bothering me, I mean
definitely for the first episode, you know, I'm like when, when,
when are we?
When is this?
Uh, I want to know exactly.
Like I wanted to see a timeline, uh, quite honestly okay, but
like I wanted it immediately, Iknow because you need everything

(46:30):
immediate.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
Um, but you, we get more information on like the
actual time and setting in thelater episodes.
But you can.
You can glean that by byepisode three, I think, the, the
name uh alderaan is thrown outand one of the characters, the,
the owl lady, basically says oh,you missed the war, or

(46:53):
something like that, and so thisis post uh original trilogy
yeah and it's probably aroundthe same time as the mandalorian
and stuff like that that's whatI it.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
They did such a good job because I really first
episode I'm like just kind ofspinning trying to figure out
where I am and then they slowlystart to kind of you know, kind
of roll it out and reveal it, uh.
So I thought they did a greatjob, you know, I mean I
immediately I had a question andthey kind of answered it like
you know just almost right awayI think that they.

(47:30):
You're right.
There are gaps there where Itake it for granted.
I have, like before I taughtrevenge of the sith, I had to
create a powerpoint and Iremember showing showing jen
being is this too much, is thistoo little?
Like I don't know.
I know so much that I want toshare, but I also can't spend
three days of class justlecturing on Star Wars, so I had
to pick the, the very absolute.

(47:53):
You know, I do have students infront of me that I'll ask them
what do you know about Star Wars?
And they'll literally they'llsay I know nothing.
Like I don't you know, theydon't know darth vader, like
nothing, yeah, so, uh, yeah,there, there are.
There are some things to it,but I also, I guess I struggle
so much with like where do youstart a person outside of the
universe anyway, do you?

(48:13):
You know you kind of have togauge their, their vader level.
Like what do you know aboutvader?
You know, like you know, youkind of have to gauge their,
their vader level.
Like what do you know aboutvader?
You know, like you know, ifthey don't know anything about
his parent, about his, uh, whatabout him being, uh, luke's
father?
Like it changes everything.
Right.
But if they know just that part, then you start them on one.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
You know, like I, I don't, it's well, it's tough,
well dakota wouldn't you agreethat star wars in a sense is
almost like comic books?
You know, like there's alwayssome point in comic books that
kind of creates an entry pointfor new fans and yeah star wars
does that quite often.

(48:53):
Actually, I think that they dothat.
You know, there's a lot ofpeople who are more into reading
books and there's entry pointswith the novels, there's entry
points with the comics, there'sentry points with the visual
media, with the visual media asfar as tv shows and and movies.

(49:14):
You know, honestly, when youthink about it, star Wars is a
lot more accessible than it wasbefore Disney because there was
so much more.
The amount of legacy contentwas absurd and I do wish that
before Disney had acquired them,there was a little bit more

(49:36):
control of what came in.
I I mean, we did get someinteresting stories but it made
it confusing.
But now that there's a littlebit more of like, you know,
there's like the lord of lore,um, you know, it's kind of
fine-tuned a little bit.
You know, is it perfect all thetime?
No, but I do.
Honestly, I feel like you couldhop right into skeleton crew

(50:01):
and not have seen any star wars,because that's it feels I mean,
it's very spacey and we knowthat it's star wars.
But if I didn't know that it wasconnected to star wars then I
would have been none the wiser,you know yeah, it would have
just been four kids on anadventure in space exactly yeah,
so actually I I do take back alittle bit what I what I said.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
Yeah, there are.
There's a certain mystery boxelement that you know, uh,
rewards you as a, as a star warsfan, but there's enough new
information and you're you, youcan basically watch the universe
unfold as it is like unfoldingfor these kids.
Um, and that that is it couldbe.
It could be a pretty goodlaunching point for for people.

(50:46):
And uh, anthony, you weretalking about comics.
Um, uh, I I've spoken about itbefore.
There's a there's a great bookby I think his name is Douglas
Wolk.
Uh, he wrote a book called allof the marvels oh yeah, and I
remember you talking about thatyeah, he literally read every
single marvel comic wilduh, within the, within the 616

(51:10):
universe, uh, from from the 60s,uh, all the way to you know day
, and it's like what?
27,000 issues of comics.
And he basically said, like thebest place to start is wherever
you want, because you're alwaysgoing to be a little bit
confused.
There's always going to besomething in this, what he calls

(51:31):
the mountain of marvels, thatyou're never going to understand
.
No one person truly graspseverything that happens or can
happen within the MarvelUniverse, so you can just jump
in anywhere.
You'll be a little bit confused, embrace that and then move on
to the next issue.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
Right and I feel like that's you could do that with
Star Wars.
I feel like that's almost withanything worth diving into.
You're going to be a little bitconfused at first, but
eventually you'll catch yourstride and you'll kind of figure
out things as time goes, andthere's always a little bit of a

(52:11):
reset.
It's not like a full-on reset,but it always like a little bit
of a reset.
You know it's not like a fullon reset, but it's like maybe a
soft reset.
You know, I mean I know thatyou know not to get too too off
topic for too long, but, likeyou know, marvel does that a lot
.
You know they do a lot of theselike soft resets.
You know there's always a newAvenger team.
There's always a new Avengerteam.

(52:32):
There's always a new Guardiansof the Galaxy team.
There's always.
These teams always change.
And so, yeah, the same withStar Wars.
You know, star Wars, they had afull-on reset.
Well, not a full-on reset.
They kept the core buteverything else was completely
wiped out.
You know everything outside ofthe movies and like with the con

(52:57):
wars right and with some of theselect lore, like they did
bring back a little bit ofelements of like the old
republic.
But you know most of the yeah,mostly like it's really like a
good time to get into.
I mean, you don't have to rushand read everything but like
start in one area and if youwant to expand from there, go go

(53:20):
on ahead.
Like we've talked about how thefirst season of the men of
lorin was perfect for, likesomebody that was new to star
wars, this is another perfectshow.
That's you know.
For for someone new to StarWars, you could dude this is
absolutely amazing.
If you're somebody that enjoysthe Goonies, watch this show,

(53:41):
watch this show.
I wholly recommend this show.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
Awesome.
Yeah, we haven't talked a lotabout.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Jod yes.

Speaker 1 (53:50):
The character that we , you know, meet by the end of
episode two.
Actually, we meet him early onin the first episode.
He's originally the piratecaptain Silvo.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
The pirate captain Sith Lord Jod.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
And, yeah, he's mutinied by his crew after
failing to provide a sizablebounty for a ship that they
commandeered.
And we don't find him until thekids are thrown into a prison
on some pirate hub world and heshowcases some Jedi powers.

(54:31):
He overhears Wim's desire to,like you know, have a great jedi
adventure and he's just like,ah, this will be a great
opportunity for me to, you know,lure these kids you know to to
their ship so that I can get outof here and, you know, not die
he's like let me sucker thesekids how do you guys feel about

(54:53):
him in these first four episodes?
uh, let's try not to like go toofar into spoilers for for the
next, uh four episodes.
But, like, is he a good guy?
Does he care about the kids atall?
Does you know?
Like, do you feel that, uh, hesufficiently shows an interest
in the kids safety?

(55:14):
Uh, where do you land, anthony,because you haven't actually
finished the show.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Where, uh, rich and I have right, right, well, I mean
, I've gotten enough so far, butI would say that at least
within these first four episodeshe doesn't seem to be wholly a
bad person, but he definitely iskind of using them as a means

(55:39):
to an end.
He hears about Atten.
Atten is this kind of legendaryplace of treasure, so he's
trying to like, okay, these kidsseem to believe that they're
from this place.
Maybe they are, maybe they'renot, but, like, let me follow
this lead, right?
So he doesn't seem to be like abad person within these first

(56:05):
four episodes, but he alsodoesn't seem to be 100%
trustworthy.
You know, like you can tellthat there there's an ace up his
sleeve, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
Rich.
How do you feel about Jod orSilvo?

Speaker 3 (56:21):
Well, first, I'm very upset that I can't remember the
name of the Sabacc card thatLando literally keeps up his
sleeve when he screws over Hanin that game of Sabacc.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
Maybe they call it a Jod.

Speaker 3 (56:36):
It's something with an S and it's killing me, but
anyway.
So, yeah, I mean so I'veobviously watched the whole
thing and then rewatched itagain.
But, like, just based on thefirst four episodes, jod
obviously I think it's clearthat he has something up his
sleeve does like I think it'sclear that he has something up

(56:57):
his sleeve, but at the same time, I think he could I don't know
I think there's a way where hecould have manipulated the kids
in a faster or meaner way andgotten to where, like I, I think
what seems to him, what seemsto be like slow playing, I think
, is him not being a completecutthroat?
Right, like he could be aterrible complete cutthroat.

(57:21):
I mean, hey, I mean we, wementioned this guy earlier, I
love him.
Right, my boy, jack Sparrow,right, like he is comically evil
sometimes.
Right, like where he just likethey make a big show of it in
the pirates movies, but you knowhe'll kind of betray someone in
a hilarious way, uh, but he'sstill doing it here.
You, I don't think john is ascutthroat as he could be with

(57:46):
the kids at least not these, atleast not in these episodes.

Speaker 1 (57:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't think that he.
You know he could be a lot likehe.
What does he make he?

Speaker 3 (57:52):
makes the food and then he eats.
Don't think that he you know,he could be a lot like he.
What does he make?
He makes the food and then heeats it in front of them.
You know, and even I forgotabout this and I was like what a
jerk.
And he's like there's more inthe pot, you know I love that
that scene, because neil is likeI.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
I love the actor who played neil because he's so uh,
he does such a good job of youknow, acting with his, with his
limbs and his body and like headtilts and everything you can
really see his, his train ofthought, even if he's not
talking, and he's like rubbinghis stomach right and like his
character is that one that canreally show too many like facial

(58:29):
expressions because he has a.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
He has like a whole trunk on his face.
You know, yeah, and yeah it's,it's impressive, yeah, it really
is.
Um, what I was thinking is thatjod is kind of like that
classic adult that reallydoesn't have much experience
with children and so you knowhe's, just like you know he he's
, he's probably seen him, maybebeen around them, but like not

(58:53):
long term, you know he's, justlike you know he he's, he's
probably seen him, maybe beenaround them, but like not long
term, you know yeah, well, onething that's interesting is that
he doesn't use the kids as ashield or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (59:03):
He's not.
He's not using the kids to putthem in danger, yeah yeah, he,
he seems, at least, uh, up tothis point, like he genuinely
wants to get them back home.
Obviously, he wants thetreasure, he wants the prize at
the end of that Right, you know,at the end of that Yellow brick
road.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
Yellow brick space.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
Is it possible that you know SM33 is like what's
holding him back from beingtotally cutthroat?
Like, is that the case?
Like, what do you feel aboutthat, anthony?

Speaker 2 (59:37):
I don't think so.
I think that I don't know.
I think that those interactionsare like pretty, like comical.
But I think that it's not toomuch in his like nature to be
cutthroat in that kind of way,at least like with the kids.
You know, I like at this point,but he, uh, I mean they're like

(59:59):
, I mean he does kind of rummagethrough their stuff, like
trying to like, you know thereis, you know aton is very
obviously like a relic of thepast, you know, and jod is kind
of saying like oh, they've,they've got you know this old
currency which, apparently, isworth more.

(01:00:20):
You know it's like an oldcurrency that has More worth
than, I guess, what it was backthen and so it's essentially
like a treasure.
You know Like Like treasure.
You know like like back in theday.
You know like a gold doubloonwas like worth whatever it was
back then, right.
But if you were to find like awhole trove of them right now,

(01:00:40):
they're worth way more than theywere back in the day.
That's what, that's what theircurrency is like, the old
republic currency, you know likeyeah that's what you know.
So, like that's what I'mthinking, that you know, he's
seeing that this and he's seeingthat, oh, this must be part of
that treasure, and then we havethat whole aspect of the what

(01:01:03):
was it that they were talkingabout?
The great plan or the greatworks, right?
So at this point we don't knowexactly what that is Right, and
so yeah, so I want to actuallyjump in.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
I'll let you finish your thought.
But what's interesting is thatwhen you think of great works
the term great works within StarWars it's really only been
applied a couple places, andmostly in the high republic
books.
Like the chancellor of the highrepublic at the time, lena so

(01:01:41):
for the phase one books, she,like she had a series of what
they called great works.
Um chancellor so's great worksand one of those, like her, one
of her biggest great works wasthe creation of the starlight
beacon yeah so I don't know ifat atten is a extension of those

(01:02:02):
great works oh, wow, yeah, setout by that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
So like how, how much do they not know?
Like you know, like maybe theydon't know much about you know,
even like there's a highrepublic period but then there's
like the whole, you know, eraof, like you know, the era with
the republic, with, like youknow, the jedi, you know the
jedi council, and then the fallof the republic.

(01:02:29):
You know, obviously they don'tknow that there was a whole war.
But like, how far back do theygo?
You know where is theirknowledge?

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
yeah, that that's an interesting train of thought and
I think they they do give ussome hints as to that in the
final, in the final episodes.
So we're gonna we're definitelygonna touch on that more yeah
next week.
But, um, yeah, it's, it's foodfor thought.
I don't think they ever, youknow, make any real uh strides
to connect this to high republicera outside of that that term,

(01:03:02):
uh, the great works.

Speaker 3 (01:03:03):
But it's just something that I noticed do you
think there's any way that thesepirates are an entry point for
the?
Is it nihil?
Nihil the uh nihil, the, thepirate clans from the high
republic dude, that was insane.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
We talked about that.
We had.

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
We have a whole episode about the lie of the
jedi and that was insane the,the nihil, exists 200 years
prior to the Phantom Menace andwe don't know if, if or how they
they truly get removed from thegalaxy.
So, as far as these pirates go,I don't think they're connected

(01:03:49):
in any particular way.
I mean, it could be, you know,some descendants of Mark markian
row or whatever, but yeah, Idon't, I don't think there's
anything directly connectingthem as of yet, uh, the nihil,
to the, the pirate clans that wesee um I mean those pirate

(01:04:10):
clans are probably more, I wouldsay I would closely relate them
to the ones that you might seein Clone Wars, you know.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
With your buddy.
What was his name?
The pirate that you would seeoften in Clone Wars?
I forgot his name.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
Oh, gosh, you know who I'm talking about, right?
I know exactly.
He's a Weequay.
Yes, gosh, you know who I'mtalking about, right, I know
exactly, he's a weak way, yes, aweak way.
Why do I remember his race'sname before I remember his name?

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
Yeah, he always had like that.
You know, dude, I can't evenHondo Onaka.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
Yeah, Hondo, yes yes.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
So I would say that those pirates are probably more
kind of like out of that type ofpirate than like the nihil.
The nihil the nihil were Iwouldn't.
I wouldn't call them pirates.
There were more like they weremarauders.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
Yes, like they were marauders, like they were space
vikings, like essentially yeah,exactly, they essentially.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
they had kind of clans, but they were a little
bit united under Marshawn Rowe.
But yeah, you're right, theywere marauders.
They were more like barbariansthan pirates.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
It just also made me.
When Kim the owl creature, whenthey oh wait, I think I'm
jumping episodes, I'm going tostop myself right there and I'm
going to pinpoint it Next week Iwill tell you You're going to
stop myself right there and I'mgoing to leave.
I'm going to pinpoint it nextweek.
I will tell you keep it safe,something that kim does.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
That also made me wonder if it had anything to do
with uh when I interesting, I'llkeep it when I saw, when I saw
her, it made me laugh so muchbecause I had this person in my
dnd group who was an owling andhe was a scribe, but he was like

(01:05:58):
a 10 year old, like owlingscribe that like it was funny.
Like every every like instancethat we got into he was like
very like childlike, like youknow, like he'd be like why, why
do you look like that?
Why are we doing this?
So so when I saw her um,because like we all have like

(01:06:20):
artwork for our characters sheso much so like reminded me of
him that like I died laughingwhen I saw her, I said not the
owl ling yeah, uh, the.
The creatures in this series are, uh, amazing right like we get
some like kind of like new onesthat we don't really ever see

(01:06:42):
yeah, we get.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
We get a lot of like unique concepts and uh like,
even just like the suburbs in ina star wars setting is just
such a fascinating visual thatwe've never explored before.
We've seen every biome inexistence.
We've never seen the suburbs.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Right, we've seen these vast cities.
We've seen deserts.
We've seen beautiful lakesideplaces and plains.
We've seen lava planets.
We've seen forest moons.
We've seen lava planets.
We've seen forest moons.
We've seen swamps.
We have seen everything, butyeah, it was an interesting

(01:07:22):
touch.
It was an interesting touchBecause, yes, there would be a
suburb In Star Wars.
Why would there not be a suburb?
And the fact that we got thisand kind of like this
Goonie-esque tale is like verycool.
I, I really like what they'redoing here.
I feel like whenever, wheneverstar wars takes a risk, they,

(01:07:46):
they do.
I don't know.
I feel like they do like verywell I, you know, we've talked
about the acolyte, the acolyte.
The acolyte was a little bit ofa risk.
Their, their decisions were notalways the best, but I feel
like it got more flack than itdeserved because people were
already hating on it before itcame out.

(01:08:07):
I think that people were alittle bit more, I guess,
excited to see this because itdid seem like it was a goonies
type movie or a type tv show anda lot of people like the
goonies and so the fact that youcan kind of compare something
that is beloved with a show likethis, it's already gonna gonna

(01:08:28):
be seen and you know it'salready gonna be seen in good
light.
Like my dad absolutely lovesthe show, you know he also loves
the goonies, but he loves theshow too and and I think it's
because of it has that touch,that coming of age of
adventurous kind of pirate typething he likes.
He likes pirates, he likespirates of the caribbean.

(01:08:50):
Um goonies has pirates in it.
So it's very fun.
You know these first fourepisodes, I guess.
I mean, do we have anythingelse that we want to like
discuss?

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
No, I think you know we stuck pretty much to
non-spoilers for the majority ofit.
We didn't really talk about toomuch of the nitty-gritty
details.
The one thing I really want tobring up.

Speaker 2 (01:09:17):
I don't mind talking spoilers, because this is going
to be.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
Yeah, I think next week, once we actually get to
discussing everything, it'll bea much easier discussion to get
into spoilers and all that Right, because a lot that happens now
is kind of like a setup forlater on.
The one thing that I reallydisliked about Episode 4

(01:09:44):
specifically was the fake Adatenplanet, akan Akan.
Yeah, I thought the societydidn't really make any sense and
it it really bothered mebecause it was like let's throw,
you know, let's make a reallybad doctor who episode, but only

(01:10:05):
half of the episode and thenthe rest of it is going to be.
You know, you're normally uhscheduled, uh skeleton crew
programming.
I don't dislike Doctor who andI actually love Doctor who in
some forms, but it doesn'treally.
It doesn't work in all settingsand I didn't feel like that

(01:10:25):
whole militaristic world uhworked for this series and
ultimately I don't think itreally adds to the show all that
much I.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
I don't think that it borrowed, I don't think that it
bothered me as much, because Imean, if there was a world that
was like at atten, there wasdefinitely going to be more and
not every single one of thoseplanets were going to be
successes, I guess in a way thatatin would be, and in some

(01:10:58):
instances some of thosecivilizations would devolve into
whatever it was.
And I think that it was a littlebit of an interesting touch
that the children were kind oflike the leader, or seen as like
the leaders.
It was almost like a nod to like, believing in children, like
and understanding that they'resmarter than than like a lot of

(01:11:21):
people give them credit to be,and sometimes they do have good,
good, uh, ideas.
I mean, I understand like whereI guess some of the, some of
your gripes are, where they comefrom, and I guess that they
could have maybe tightened upthat storyline a little bit.
But I do believe that therebeing that faux Atten world or

(01:11:47):
not a fake one, it just wouldhave been one of those worlds.
If there was a world, it seemedlike a perfect society and so
the fact that there would havebeen only one wouldn't have made
sense.
There would have been multiple,and the fact that not every
single one of those, like I said, succeeded or continued to be

(01:12:09):
that perfect society.
I believe that I mean I don'thave any issues with that, I
just think that maybe it was alittle sloppy.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
So interestingly.
It's interesting that youbrought that up, because in
episode three, when what's thatOwl Lady's name?

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
Kim.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
Kim, yeah, when, uh, what's that owl lady's name?
Kim kim, yeah, she says that atatton is one of the these like
uh, unique nine, yeah, like nineunique planets that, um, uh,
for whatever reason it was thelike at atton was the one that
wasn't destroyed, so so theother ones were destroyed.

Speaker 3 (01:12:52):
The jewels of the Republic.
I think they're called right.

Speaker 1 (01:12:55):
Yes, the jewels of the Republic.
And for whatever reason, atAachen, the planet that we visit
is one of those destroyedworlds.
We don't know if it wasinternally destroyed by the
society just crumbling or if itwas purposely destroyed and
these are the remnants of thissociety.
But it's a cool concept.

(01:13:17):
So I don't dislike the concept,I just didn't like the
execution yeah, and I feel thatdid you guys have anything else
to say about these first fourepisodes before we close?

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):
out.
Yeah, do any last remarks Forme.
It's length, I mean I know I'vealso finished but there was.

Speaker 3 (01:13:32):
Before we close out.
Yeah, do any last remarks Forme.
It's length, I mean.
I know I've also finished, butthere was.
I don't Maybe it's not in thefirst four episodes, but there's
one episode that is.
You know, I want to say 25minutes long.

Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:13:46):
You know, and I just it's a Disney Plus thing.

Speaker 1 (01:13:48):
I don't know why they can't get their head around.
I mean, I do understand to adegree, like only, like you know

(01:14:09):
, put on limiting the amount ofactual content that we're
receiving on a weekly basis.
We're not receiving an equalshare every week.
We're getting diminishingreturns some weeks, some, some
weeks not versus.
You know, you go to HBO and youwatch House of the Dragon and
it's an hour and a half episodeevery single week for 10 weeks

(01:14:29):
it's.
You know, like it's just on adifferent level and yeah, no, I,
that is a gripe that I, for 10weeks it's.
You know, like it's just on adifferent level and yeah, no, I,
that that is a gripe that Ihave and it's something that, um
, I think most people uh, haveissues with I think that if
you're gonna have long episodes,like they need to be like long
quality episodes, you know,correct?

Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
yeah, I mean, if you're just gonna put on, you
know, 30 minutes of solidcontent and then an hour of
nonsense, then I'd rather justhave like 30 minutes of of
quality content, you know, anddecent episodes.
Naruto with all their dangfiller episodes I can't, oh,

(01:15:11):
please don't even.
I would say like I said, withthat I was like bro, like just
skip a week.
I don't want this filler uh,yeah, you'll catch.
You'll catch the the actualimportant stuff on the what
happened last week, but I guessthat that's why we have like
shorter seasons like this tokind of limit um the fillers.
You know, like you, you can'treally have fillers and skeleton

(01:15:36):
crew when it's only eightepisodes, you know yeah, totally
, totally yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
So I I would say that is a a genuine um issue that I
have with the show, but itdoesn't.
It didn't bother me as much ascertain other shows, like I know
it bothered me more in acolyte,uh, where, like, there were
some episodes where it felt likenothing happened you know, but
I, you know, I, I feel like all,all together, something

(01:16:03):
important happens in eachepisode of this show and I, I, I
think that's really cool,anthony.
Any final words, for I wasgoing to say the Acolyte
skeleton crew.

Speaker 2 (01:16:15):
I mean we're just covering the first four episodes
and I still cannot recommendthis show any more than I am now
.
I mean, if you enjoy Star Warsand want to see like a fun space
adventure, come to this.
If you're not too sure aboutstar wars but you like shows

(01:16:38):
like the goonies or anythinginvolving pirates, come to the
show.
You know it's fun.
It's a fun show, it's reallyfun.
There's this mystery to it,that kind of quenches, this,
like you know.
You know there's a lot ofpeople who are into like mystery
stories that this has to it.
You know, and I really enjoy itand I'm really excited to talk

(01:17:03):
more.
You know, about the rest of theshow next week and you know,
actually watching the lastepisode.

Speaker 1 (01:17:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm excited to see to, to hearyour, your, your, thoughts.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
I know I'm going to hate it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:18):
A lot happens in the last couple episodes, so uh.

Speaker 3 (01:17:21):
Rich, what do you have?

Speaker 1 (01:17:21):
any final thoughts.

Speaker 3 (01:17:22):
You know I just we'll talk about it next week, but
you know, I don't know how thatsomehow he did that.
Keep it secret, keep it safe,just so crazy, I mean.
And then the zombie Han.

Speaker 1 (01:17:36):
I can't wait till we can finally talk about.

Speaker 3 (01:17:39):
Oh, you'll see zombie Han Solo.
Oh man, it's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:17:44):
Grogu returns.
Oh man, lightsaber and all.
Lightsaber and all we're justmessing with you, lightsaber,
and all Andaber and all.
We're just messing with you,lightsaber and all.

Speaker 2 (01:17:53):
And he's wearing a Mando helmet.

Speaker 3 (01:17:56):
And chainmail Speaks backwards Spanish.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
Guys, thank you so much for listening to us here
for our 107th episode of ProjectGeekology.
Next week we are covering thesecond half of Skeleton Crew.
Next week we are covering thesecond half of Skeleton Crew,
the last four episodes, endingwith the, I guess, the series
finale, because I think it'sbilled as a limited series.
So we'll be talking much moreabout, I guess, the spoilery

(01:18:22):
side of Skeleton Crew next weekfor episode 108.
But just as a heads up for youguys, um, after we do skeleton
crew, we're going to be jumpinginto a movie that we said that
we were going to be coveringmonths ago dude, like a year ago
yeah, probably about a year ago, because it came out in

(01:18:45):
december 2023 there you go, yeah, so we're going to be finally
covering uh miyaz latest movie,the Boy in the Hair.

Speaker 2 (01:18:54):
Yeah, we've covered a couple of Miyazaki's already.
You know we have PrincessMononoke, and what was the other
one?
I forgot that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
Did, we do Nausicaa.

Speaker 2 (01:19:09):
No, no, no, it was Castle in the Sky, oh Castle, no
, no, it was Castle in the Sky.
Oh, castle in the Sky.
Yes, castle in the Sky, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
That was an interesting one yeah.
Yeah, okay.
So this will be a much moreinteresting show, because I
don't think Rich is at allintroduced to the world of
Miyazaki and this is definitelyone of Miyazakiaki's least
accessible movies.
It's it's a much more artsyfilm than his usual fare it's a

(01:19:37):
fever dream it'll, it is a feverdream.
It's.
It's like going into uh, yourfirst david lynch film and uh
going into dune not that davidlynch film.
Anyway, guys, thank you so muchfor listening to us here.
If you want to check out any ofour uh socials, be sure to

(01:19:59):
visit the show notes down below,where you can get links to any
of our um, any of our links.
And yeah, we will see you nextweek goodbye y'all can't say I
remember no the wolverine.