February 15, 2025 • 51 mins
Hey, Star Wars fans, this is episode 241.
It's a slightly different episode this week and one of two halves. First, we have an in-depth chat about the recent changes at Lucasfilm and the announcement of Darek Hoffman as the new VP of Development. It's a change that we feel is needed so we give you our thoughts on what this means for right now and for the future of Star Wars movies and TV.
Secondly, we're announcing a change to the format of Spark of Rebellion. You may have noticed of late, as we certainly have, that news and general buzz around Star Wars has waned over the last 6 months to a year. Aside from the usual build-up to Disney+ releases, it's an announcement which goes nowhere - rinse and repeat. So... after next week, we're moving to a seasonal format instead of weekly episodic.
Episode 242 will be our last weekly release and after that, we will return in May to talk about the (hopefully) interesting announcements from Star Wars Celebration and then for our first season to review Andor Season 2 plus some cool interviews which we're sure you'll love. Moving to this format allows us to maintain enthusiasm about Star Wars and plan some very cool content.
With all that being said, enjoy episode 241 and let us know your thoughts on this new change at Lucasfilm.
About Spark of Rebellion:
This is Spark of Rebellion, the weekly Star Wars podcast for casual fans and veterans alike.
We are your hosts, Garry and Mark and every single Saturday we release a brand new episode bringing you the latest news, reviews & discussion on all things Star Wars. Tell all of your Star Wars loving friends that the show is available to listen to, completely free anywhere you can find podcasts.
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
Hello there and welcome toSpark of Rebellion, the Star wars
show that brings youeverything from a galaxy far, far
away. And today we're comingat you with some changes. We've been
thinking about it for a while,so we are going to change the format
and the structure of the show,which will be quite exciting, actually.
I think we feel. We feelpretty good about this. So guys and
(00:36):
I are going to talk youthrough this in a little while and
we're also going to talk aboutsomething that really randomly came
up after our conversation lastweek where we talked about maybe
the need for a restructureover at Disney when it comes to Star
Wars. And lo and behold, acouple of days later, actually we
get an announcement. So we'regoing to spend that time today talking
about that. My name is Mark,the co host with, you know, just.
(01:00):
Just average amount of mostreally. And probably a lot of people
would say the fun of thispodcast. And my co host, of course,
I'll bring in a second will beknown as the looks. And probably
the logic really is like C3POfor my little tenuous R2D2 it is,
(01:22):
Mr. Gazelle. All right, I'mgonna call you C3P.
Don't do it. Don't do it.
C3P. Bro.
Bro. That'll do.
Hambrolo.
Hello. I thought you weregonna go quite rude there.
No, no.
Usual Mostist co host duty. Rude.
No, no, no, no. You gotrecognized yesterday, didn't you?
(01:44):
I did get recognized. I lovewhen it happens. Makes you feel like
all the time.
I love it. It happens everySaturday morning.
Greasy spoon. Ah, yourbreakfast shagger. Oh, usual. Oh.
Today at this, at this pointin time, my waistline would suggest
that I do go to a greasy spoonon a regular basis. Yep.
(02:06):
Have you ever seen that? It'sa completely diet. We will get back
to getting recognized and wewill get back to Star Wars. But have
you ever seen the Mike Reedjoke about the cafe? Remember Frank
Butcher from Eastender?
Frank Butcher. Yeah. I've notheard the joke though.
Go on, mate. Just go onInstagram. I'm not gonna do it.
Rude.
Yeah, yeah, it's not rudeactually, but I just don't want to
do his accent. He's on stage.I'm. I'm do it.
(02:26):
Go on.
God. Go on. Yeah. And he'slike, I wanted to cafe last week.
I said to geese, I said, Imean, any chance for breakfast but
on the sausage, I want it tobe so Burnt on the outside and so
raw on the inside that peoplethink it's still alive. And then
when you get to the bacon, canyou make sure it's that raw? And
swimming in Greece that Ithink I could take it out to the
(02:46):
sea and it would flout itselfand kind of get some beans. But I
want the top of the beans tobe so warm, they'll burn your top
of your mouth off. And insideI want to be ice cold. And a tomato.
I want a tomato that's hardlycooked and you can barely chew it.
And the blood behind thecounter says, I don't have time to
do that, mate, because youfound time yesterday.
(03:07):
He's essentially described 90of all breakfasts in the UK.
It's absolutely class in itbecause when I was watching it yesterday,
I was like, this is literallythe Barnsley market, mate.
Oh, dude. It's like, it's thesame everywhere. Like, you have to
go to a select few to find adecent one, but. Oh, it's funny.
Yeah. Or you end up with,like, gastro breakfast, which is
like, everything's in a littlemetal. Like, your beans come in a
(03:29):
shitty metal cup and you'relike, I don't want them in a metal
cup. Just put them. Just putthem. Put them on my plate.
Yeah. That was my face, dude.Yeah. When we moved up to this area,
local farm shop breakfast, 90of it was great. Beans come out in
the little pot. I was like,I'm out.
Yeah. 40 quid and some cresson the side. No, thanks.
Yeah. For 40 quid? Yeah. AllI've got is. Yeah. And it was 40
(03:52):
quid for us as well as afamily. That's ridiculous.
Don't surprise me, mate.Anyway, yeah, we did digress. Mildly.
But anyway, you did getrecognized, didn't you?
I did, yes. Yeah. As part ofthe old day job, doing some podcast
training, workshop stuff. Verynice young man at Sheffield. Unique.
So I recognize you. He heardthe voice before he saw the face.
(04:16):
So that's always a.
You got one of those voices,though, haven't you?
Trepidation there. It's like,Christ almighty, you are. I heard
the voice and I thought, gottabe a stunner, got to be a looker.
But you've disappointed me. Iwas like, unsubscribe, mate. It's
all good. But no, it wasn't.It was nice. Every so often when
that happens, I normally. Inormally tee myself up to do it intentionally.
(04:40):
Like, if I want to go. If I'mfeeling a bit low, I'm like, ah,
I Want some attention? I'll goto a London film Comic Con. Loads
of Doctor who fans there getthat sort of a dozen times. That's
all good. But just out in theblue like that. Out in the. Out in
the wide world. I like it.
The actual wild.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good.Spark Rebellion listener.
(05:01):
Yeah, no, it's pretty cool.And that's actually two from a similar
area. We've got the Rotherhamand Sheffield people. That's twice
in the last few weeks. Let's.That's happened. So that's pretty
cool. But also, speaking offans, we need to get a big shout
out to Kev Bot, who dropped usa tip, so thank you very much. Dropped
us a bit of beer money, sothank you, Kev. Very, very kind of
you.
Oh, nice.
Very, very kind of you.
Cheers, Kev.
(05:21):
Yeah, we appreciate that.We'll. We'll get a pint on it. 100.
Right. We're gonna get some.Well, a bit of a deeper discussion
on one news story in a secondbecause it probably warrants a little
bit of. A little bit oftinkering, but we. We have decided
that we're gonna actuallychange the format of Sparker Rebellion.
So we've been doing it now forfive years, believe it or not, six
(05:42):
years, which is insane. Sixyears in May. So we're 200 and odd
in the high 200s when it comesto the episode numbers. And it. It's
sort of been a. It's been aweird thing recently. Like we said
last week, there's not beenthat much news. It's all been the
same sort of stuff. When westarted this, it was, you know, Lucasfilm
(06:03):
and Disney was still in the,you know, the pre rise of Skywalker,
kind of a lot going on. Notall the film plans have been scrapped.
Disney plus was still in itssort of. In fact, it not even launched.
It launched in March 2020,didn't it? April 2020. So it's hard
to think we'd not hadMandalorian. We're not at any of
(06:23):
this stuff, so there was a lotof news. You know, there was announcements
for Mandalorian, there wasannouncements for things coming up,
but, like, recently, the lastyear or so, it's just been remedial
stuff. It's been the same oldstuff. So I think we found it pretty.
Like, I don't know about you,mate, but I found it. I found it
tough. Like, I found itdifficult to remain enthusiastic
(06:44):
about Star wars and Disney.
Just.
Constantly positive about it,you know?
Mm. No. 100% agree. And Ithink we came to this conclusion
roughly at the same time aswell, which is a good sign because
if you. If you're running sortof a. Any sort of thing with a co
host and one of them's like,yeah, this is amazing. The other
(07:06):
one's like, this is shit, thenthat's difficult conversation. But,
yeah, I think we were bothlike, as a listener, you've probably
heard us as well. I definitelyheard it in Mark's voice last week
or the week before the firsthalf of the show, it was just. Yeah.
And then my voice was like, itas well. At some point when I listened
back, I was like, oh, yeah,this is not. It's difficult to. And
(07:28):
it's hard as well when you.Because Mark and I love Star wars,
which is why we did it in thefirst place. So when you love something
like that and you want toshare your thoughts and your feelings
and. And all that stuff andbuild a community like we have with
you guys, which is very cool,it must get to a point where even
you guys are like, yeah, comeon, guys. You know, we need to. It
(07:48):
can't be a fun listeningexperience if we're just like, yeah,
the news is the same thingthat we spoke about the last 10 weeks,
you know, So I think we arechanging it up. Is a good shout.
It keeps you guys sort of inthe. In the game. If you, like, still
got skin in the game with StarWars. You still listen to us be a
pair of twats for an hour andwhatever. It's just that we're a
bit more. A bit more engagedwhen we do record. So, yeah, should
(08:12):
be a better episode for it.
Yeah, I think so. And I'll gothrough the format in a second, like
what we're going to be doing,but I think also, like working in
podcasts and working podcastsevery day we see. We see a thousand
different podcasts everysingle day. And it's one of those.
This is one of those times ina podcast where actually most people
would quit. Most people wouldjust be like, do you know what? I'm
sort of bored of this. I'm notgoing to put any energy into it,
(08:37):
because the thing that I'minterested in talking about is actually
not. There's not that muchgoing on with it. And when it does
come around, it's sort ofregurgitation. So it's actually quite
a conscientious move. Some ofthe stuff that we're doing, because
it would be. It would beremiss of us to. We made the mistake
of closing a show before whenwe did two shots to the head. And
we both regret that. Like wedesperately regret doing that.
(09:00):
Massive regret that.
Yeah, to those, every day.Hate those guys. But it's so, it's
a conscientious thing, Ithink. And it means that we can do
more quality stuff. I thinkwhat will come after this will be
actually a better developedpodcast. So what we're going to do,
I'll talk you through some ofthe, some of the sort of headlines
(09:22):
of it. So from next week we'regoing to talk about one particular
thing today. We're going totalk about this new sort of restructuring,
this new appointment over atDisney on the Lucasfilm side of things
in just a second. And thennext week we're gonna do a normal
news episode, wrap up a coupleof weeks worth of news and really
sort of go into, you know,almost a finale episode of. Okay,
look, we'll draw a line underthe news and this is it, we're good
(09:45):
to go. Then we're gonna be.The next time you'll hear from us
will be probably May thethird. May the third. And what we're
gonna be doing is we're gonnabe recapping Star Wars Celebration.
In particular the TV and themovie news that has come out of Star
Wars Celebration becausethat's running, I think it's April
23rd to 25th or whatever itis. 23rd out in Japan. Obviously
(10:08):
we went to a celebration acouple of years ago. It was great.
And there's always a lot ofnews that comes out, teasers, announcements,
you know, returning stars andso on and so forth. So I think there
will be a lot come out of thatwhich will be fantastic. So we'll
be doing that episode on May3rd and I would imagine it'll probably
be a decent sized episode.It's not. I don't imagine that being
a 45 minute episode. Then whatwe're going to do, we're moving into
(10:31):
seasons. All right, so we'regonna go mid to late June, we're
gonna put probably a four tosix episode season out and we're
gonna spend a, a deep diveamount of time recapping and or season
two, because that will havefinished by then. It will be done.
We're gonna get a couple ofguests on, we've got a couple of
really cool people lined up,authors, a couple of people that
(10:51):
have actually worked on themovies. Gives us more time to actually
craft these interviews and todo the bookings, do the logistics
around it. And then obviouslywe talk about we'll talk about what
has gone on for the lastcouple of months in the new sphere
and changes that have comeafter celebration and so on. So I'm
really excited for that, dude.And then we're going to do one, we'll
do another season, a similarkind of thing towards the end of
(11:12):
the year as well. So I, Ithink we'll actually probably end
up doing two or three seasonsa year between four and eight episodes,
I would imagine. I can't seeit being very strict insofar as we
must do four, we must doeight. I think it will just, it would,
it will just sort of, I thinkit'll design itself out when we get
the topics rolling. So I, Ithink that will be a better product,
albeit not every week. But Ido think it will be a far better
(11:35):
product because we can spendtime on it, you know, as opposed
to just collecting news andresponding to it. So I'm, I do feel,
well, I feel really positiveabout that. I think it's a, I think
it's a strong move not onlyfor us, but for a lot of podcasts.
I think a lot of people couldlearn from that as well, to be honest
with you.
Yes, 100% agreed on that,dude. I think it's the good old,
the age old thing, isn't it?It's like quality over quantity,
(11:58):
which is needed at this point.And it's not just us. I'm not going
to throw anyone under the bus,of course, but some of the Star wars
blogs that are out there andsome other Star wars podcasts that
I listen to semi regularly.It's all a similar landscape really
for Star Wars. There'sliterally only so much you can, you
can scrape out the old barrelbefore you start, you know, getting
(12:21):
into the, the concrete, whichis harder to scrape. So yeah, I think
it'd be a good one, a goodmove for us. And it also brings a
little bit of anticipation aswell because like we can do a bit
of a build up, we can teasesome of the people that gonna have
on the show as Mark said, and,and just make a bit more of a thing
of it rather than the weekly,you know, same old. So yeah, I'm
up for this, man. It's gonnabe good.
(12:43):
Yeah, likewise, likewise. Andit might mean that we actually kick
ourselves in, in to gear andget YouTube up and running and put
some trailers out for theupcoming episodes and so on. There's
plenty, I think with more timeand resource and not just having
to, to plow out an episodeevery week, you get the chance to
say, well, you know what, I'mgoing to spend a couple of hours
on a trailer for the nextseason, you know, and I think it
becomes more of a, more of aproduction. I mean there's a reason
(13:04):
that many of the top shows dothat, you know, unless you're a new
show or you're like a boringentrepreneur interview show, you
know, I think seasonal works.So yeah, we'll, we'll get on to that.
I think it'll be fascinating.So look out for that. We'll, we'll
tell you the skinny on thatagain next week. Just so it's really
clear what's going on.Obviously there's an absolute pile
of back episodes if you wantto listen to them. But we really
(13:25):
appreciate the support andyeah, we're looking forward to this,
this kind of next chapter. Imean after six years it's a change
as good as a holiday, that'sfor sure. Now Gazla, we mentioned
last week about Lucasfilmmaybe needing a bit of a restructure,
something needing to happen. Ithink Kathleen Kennedy always gets
the battering but obviouslyshe's like, she's the top of the
(13:46):
top. You know, I, I, I wouldnot imagine she's that involved in
day to day stuff. We haveoften said that Dave Filoni obviously
should have a bigger part andobviously a couple of years ago,
maybe even last year, was it,was it 2023 or 2024, he sort of got,
he got his due. You know, hegot, I suppose he got the promotion
(14:11):
that we all wanted. You know,he's an exec vice president at Lucasfilm
and, and, and then moved upto, yeah, 2023, Chief Creative Officer.
But it feels like they neededsomeone else to oversee what was
actually being produced andthey changed that person last week,
which was a big surprise andvery timely. After we talked about
it. I'm sure it's completelyrelated to Lucasfilm and Disney.
(14:34):
Listening to the podcast andthinking, do you know what lads,
you were right, we shouldprobably do something. So the previous,
the previous VP of developmentat Lucasfilm underneath Disney was
Rain Roberts. Co developed theAcolyte and so on and so forth and
actually left last year. Now Ididn't know this, this is probably
(14:55):
just my own, like I shouldhave probably known this, but Rain
Roberts actually left lastyear but as part of the backlash
from the Acolyte by the soundsof it. Certainly reading between
the lines on some of thereporting, certainly the way that
the rappers, I suppose phrasethat and taking, taking Rain Roberts
place is Derek Hoffman. DerekHoffman, who is a video game and
(15:21):
comic book industry veteran,according to the rap. Started with
the Donner Company, which ispretty good pedigree. Became assistant
for actual Richard Donner,which is pretty cool. Associate producer
on a few films, you know, notamazing films, but still films. But
in particular, was exactproducer on pretty much every X Men
(15:44):
film. Now, take from that whatyou will. So there's some good in
there and there's some shitein there. X Men 1. Yes. X Men 2.
Yes. X Men 3. You know, you'resafe. You're safe.
Yeah.
And then, you know, firstclass. Yes, you're safe. You know,
(16:06):
apocalypse, you know, days offuture past. Yes, you're safe. Legion,
the gifted phoenix. But so,you know, that's what's gone on.
We said earlier change is asgood as a holiday. So Rain Roberts
(16:27):
has got a holiday and we'vegot a change now. I don't want to
be Mr. Negative, which. And soI won't be because I do think it
needed a change, dude. But Imean, that's varied in it.
That is quite varied. Yeah. Iguess it's just in stark contrast
(16:49):
to Cath, isn't it? When Kathcame on board, she had worked on
so many blockbusters and somany big, big films and.
And other bits which we allforget as well. I should just throw
that in. Like, every trollforgets that.
Yeah, we do. Yeah, we all doat some. At some point. So the pedigree
there was. Was industry, youknow, top of the top shelf stuff.
(17:13):
So I think we forget thatsometimes. And. Whereas old. Old
Des. Old Derek, although hedoes bring stuff to the table. I
don't know, it'll be. It's oneof those things where you would think
that bringing somebody in todevelop new programs, they may have
got somebody in with more.More things under their belt, perhaps.
(17:37):
I'm not sure in terms of.Because you can only dine out for
so long on. On that thing, youknow, it's like, yeah, I was. I was
the X Men guy.
Yeah.
For a while. It's like, whatelse have you got? I'll give you
three, another two if you needthem. And. But he can't pull those
out the locker. You know, he'sjust like, well, I've done that.
(17:58):
So just be happy that you gotX Men. Right. Yeah, just. You should
be happy that I brought thatto the table.
Just put that there.
Oh, God, look. Review of the XMen franchise. Pretty. Oh, what's
that? Yeah, a couple yearsold. I know, I know.
I Should increase profitwithout cutting a single job.
And yeah, having said that, you've.
(18:22):
Charming.
Having said that, I guess itcomes down to Kath having a chat
with him over the usualStarbucks, you know. Yeah. Not to
be a negative ninny, there'sprobably two ways to think about
this dude. The first one isvery positive and it's very. Yep.
(18:42):
This guy's probably done loadsof stuff that we don't know about
under the radar. Not just XMen, but, you know, he's known in
industries. You know, heobviously knows his bacon. Whatever.
All good. The other way tolook at it is that they're desperate.
They are absolutely desperatejust to make a change. That. That
would be. The cynical side ofmy brain was like Rain Roberts, who
(19:04):
just completely fooked it withthe acolyte and making that happen.
And then Kath's like that,you've got to go. We can't let. We
can't have the acolytelingering around. And you were like,
you know, you were part ofthat. So, sorry, you got to go. And
they just have to get someonein. So that it's like a bit of a
desperate move to. To just tocome across to the world that change
(19:26):
is happening, you know, sothere's two different ways to look
at it, mate. But I don't know.
I'm.
I guess I'm down the middle. Iguess I'm not. It's a positive change.
Of course it's good. But,yeah, I don't know. Down the middle.
It's a difficult one, isn'tit? So if you look at Rain Roberts
from a Star wars perspective,you've got Force Awakens, creative
(19:49):
exec, Rogue One, creativeexec, Last Jedi, creative exec, Rebels
story group, additional prodsupport, solo creative exact. And
then you've got Rise ofSkywalker development exec.
You know, it's like the tailend of her Lucasfilm career has not
been.
Yeah, exactly. But then if youlook at Derek, it really is. I mean,
(20:13):
Superman 2, the Richard Donnacut, which I really enjoyed. But
a lot of it is obviously justall X Many stuff, which is fine.
And it's. Yeah, I suppose itis difficult to kind of actually.
Do you know what? This is areally good example of the state
of, like, Star wars, becauseif this was in 2018, you'd be like,
(20:35):
holy, this is cool. The guythat did Future pastor was really
involved in it. Is. Is. Isinvolved. And now it's like, oh,
well, he did do X Men 3. Youknow, I did Last Stand, and it's
Sort of a. Like you've becomea bit of a glass half empty for.
Almost by accident, like, notrealizing it. And it's just. I was
(20:59):
thinking about it last nightjust how it needs, like Star wars
just needs to just steady up alittle bit and slow down and do like,
do a really good and. Orseason. Do a really good Ahsoka season.
Like, I'd almost be happy withno announcements. Like, just don't
announce anything. Just do. Dotwo or three good things and let
(21:23):
people remember that stuff.Especially coming off the back of
Skeleton Crew, you know,that's. That was a good crack and
it proved that you can have abit of a laugh. Yeah. And you can
produce something decentthat's not tied to anything else.
And. And it's. It's like itjust sort of needs a little bit of
(21:45):
that. And I, you know, if weturn this into maybe a glass half
full, at least we're in aposition now where, you know, arguably
most of the shit's done andwhat have we got to look forward
to? Ahsoka Season 2, well,that's starting production. We've
got the guy that played theHound coming in, who is great in
(22:05):
Game of Thrones, you know, andyou've got. You've got talks of Natalie
Portman, Ewan McGregor, HaydenChristensen coming back. Like you
sort of screwed the legacy.Legacy of the OT characters in the
sequel trilogy. Filon isbringing these guys back, you know,
another bite of the cherry,potentially. So. All right, that's
(22:25):
pretty cool. And. Or Seasontwo, I think we can all agree, is
probably going to bebrilliant. So you sort of. You had,
you know, you probably a linein the sand where you could start
to rebuild from this point,because all the, all the things coming
up, Mandalorian and Grogu, youknow, ahead to the Empire, all that
(22:48):
sort of stuff. It's all. Itfeels good stuff. It feels like.
It's not like the Acolyte,where it was out on a bit of a limb.
It was trying something fresh.It was, you know, executed not very
well, albeit some highlights,but I don't know, man. I suppose
what I'm trying to say is itfeels like maybe there's a turning
(23:09):
point. Maybe there's a turningpoint and maybe this with Derek Hoffman
is tied to that. Maybe. Idon't know.
Yeah, potentially. It feelslike a turning point, as in something
is. Something's happenedacross the fan base, like, really
negative. Like, the Acolytewas. Was the first time where there
(23:31):
was such a massive. A massivepart of fandom that just didn't like
it. Like, up to that point. Ifpeople didn't like the Mandalorian,
that's cool. But there wasalways a pretty hefty chunk of people
that did like it, I think,like the Mandalorian stuff and probably
Ahsoka in that as well. Andespecially some of the animated stuff
(23:52):
that Filoni's done. For themost part, I think it's been reasonably
positive. You got, like thesesmall little echo chambers and stuff
going on, but for the mostpart. But the Acolyte really felt
like fans had just had enough.Like, even fans that were, you know,
pretty like us. You know, fansthat were pretty into most things
(24:14):
even. We were just like, man,like. I remember our first review,
episode one, review of theAcolyte, episode one. It was so Gaz,
straight out the gate, whatyour thoughts? I'm like, mate. And
you're like, yeah, isn't it.It's proper so for us to say that.
And we. We typically don't goin, you know, as hard as that, even
if we don't like something.That's. That was the feeling that
(24:36):
you got from it. So it feelslike. I don't know if this is coming
from Kath directly or if it'scoming from above her. I don't know,
but it feels like this was theone that was like, look, you've got
to do something, because youkind of hate to say it, but you're
slowly eroding all of thetrust and all of the good vibes that
you've. You've asked people tocling on to. Even if something hasn't
(24:58):
been perfect, you've askedpeople to stick with it and stuff.
But now you kind of. Now. Nowyou're asking a bit much. You know,
you're putting out crap and.And you're asking for stuff. So that's.
That's the way I look at it.It's like Rain Roberts has taken.
She's put. She's the onethat's taken the fall because Leslie
(25:19):
Headlund, she's not a directemployee of Lucasfilm, so there's
no problem there. But RainRoberts co developed that with Leslie
Headland, so she has to be theone, you know, to take the. Put the
head in the guillotine. Sothat's gotta go. So I think. I honestly
feel like somebody. I don'tknow who it is, Kath or Iger, somebody
(25:43):
has basically said, look,Kath, you've got to fuck. You've
got to make a change. Andyeah, with. With Hoffman, it would
Be interesting to see what hebrings to the table in term as to
why somebody else didn't fillthat slot. Because. Why, why didn't
(26:04):
A Filoni fill that spot? Why,why didn't a. What's his face, you
know?
Yeah. Less of a hands on jobthough, that one. Whereas Fallone
is like the guy that makes thethings, you know, he's such a character
and story guy, isn't it, thatif you were to, if you were to take
him out of would it wouldpotentially harm things because he's,
(26:30):
he's the Lucas, isn't he?Lucas, you know, he was the guy that
was making Phantom Menace eventhough it was difficult and he was
the guy that, you know, forcedStar wars into, you know, being Star
Wars. And I suppose the secondyou put someone like that in a corporate
environment, you risk takingthe edge off and actually getting
(26:52):
stuff done from that person.So it's. Yeah, it's a very difficult
thing that you almost need asyou need with any corporate, you
need like the people that canmake the good things, you know, I
see, I almost see like this isprobably a weird comparison, but
I sort of see Filoni andLucas, you know, as the Steve Jobs
(27:12):
type of character that we'redoing it my way. You guys are all
wrong. And not in a bullishway, not in a dickhead way, but you
know, you're all wrong. Thisis the vision, this is what we're
doing. I know you're saying itcan't be done, but you know, I'll
see you back here when it'sdone. And, and it feels like people
like Derek Hoffman and peoplethat are above that level that work
(27:34):
at the corporate level andmuch more about the logistics of
it and is it financiallyviable, is it a good business decision?
And then you sort of get twotypes of that person. You get the
one person that believes theguy that says, or the person that
says we are going to get itdone regardless of what you think
and it's going to be reallygood. And this is the vision. I'm
(27:55):
not moving. If you want me tomove, I'm off, you know, or you get
the other person that ispotentially more investor led, more
rigid and so on and so forth.And it's you sort of, I think in
every environment you needsomeone that protects those people
like the Filoni. And it's, youknow, I, I don't see Filoni controlling
(28:16):
the purse strings, but if theperson controlling the purse strings
is someone that believes inthe Filoni type character then the
result surely is going to bebetter. So I just. Yeah, maybe it's
that. And I just. We justdon't know much about Derek Kaufman.
Did we know much about Feigebefore he became the Marvel guy?
Well, wasn't he a similarscenario? Wasn't he, like, producer,
(28:39):
exec producer on a ton of XMen, but also like the Toby Maguire
stuff, maybe even the Garfieldstuff? I'm sure he sort of came up
under, like, Aviarad and StanLee even to a degree. I'm sure he
did.
That's what. I mean, if it's.If somebody like that came into it
who didn't have all the stuffgoing on, like Kath did or whatever,
(29:00):
then maybe that's what they'relooking for. And it's something you
and I have said for years nowis like, Star wars needs a Feige.
It needs that one guy or womanthat's just, you know, overseeing
everything, but has that SteveJobsy type of, you know, we're doing
it this way. And maintains alevel of. I guess you'd. I guess
(29:24):
what you want is somebodyunder Cath who's not a yes man, basically.
Yeah, yeah. And someone. Yeah,someone that. That will, I think,
you know, tuning into whatfans genuinely want as well. And
it's because there's a realbalance between fan service and telling
(29:47):
a story that the fans respectbecause they've grown up with that
thing and the trolls get itwrong most of the time, but often
they'll have a modicum of avalid point. And even if that valid
point is just, you ruined LukeSkywalker. Well, we ruined it, you
know, with regards to what yousaw in Legends and what your version
(30:08):
in your head was. And that'sone thing to say, well, we. We understand
that you saw this differently,but here's our version. And then
there's the. You ruined LukeSkywalker as an example, from the
perspective of you went downthis path and you never really finished
(30:29):
it because you puss it outand, you know, and you were just
sort of backtracked a littlebit and. And you never. You never
really took the opportunity tosay Luke Skywalker was. Had that
much presence of mind that hesaw all the shit, researched all
the shit that went on withAnakin, didn't want that to happen
again, so bailed and like,what a rich. What a rich mine of
(30:52):
content and stories. And, youknow, the sequel trilogy had such
a. A massive potential tobring in all those intricate political
and galactic elements that theprequels had alongside the whimsy
and the Wonder of the originaltrilogy and the basic, you know,
binary black and white of goodversus bad and all that. Stu, the
(31:12):
way that Lucas saw it and sohe had such an opportunity. But you
get the person at the top orthe people at the top saying, that's
not going to make money. Orthe fans have said this, so we probably
need to go so far the otherway that they don't remember. And
it's. Where do you put thatperson that can say, look, you know,
it's almost like what's a goodexample of it? Like, there's been
(31:36):
countless sort of. I thinkprobably like the James Gunn Superman,
I think stands a chance ofbeing like this where you're just,
you know, there's someone justsaying off. Trust me, like, I know
that you think this, but Ibelieve in this and I'm into the
source material. I trust thecharacter. I know the character.
(31:59):
You've just not yet seenwhat's in my head, you know, and
that's the filoni. So, yeah, alot to unpack there. But it's. It's
a. It's a. It's a. It's such adifficult thing. And I often makes
me wonder, like, should theyjust come out and say, would you
know what? Some of this didn'tland. We are just going to take a
bit of a break, you know,which I think. I think they've alluded
(32:20):
to by cutting the schedule.But the, you know, I don't think
they've come out and said it,have they?
No, I don't. They've not saidit, obviously. But yeah, when you
look at the schedule, youcan't not see it. There's definitely
stuff going on behind thescenes, isn't there?
Yeah, of course, it's a bit.
Do you know what it's like,dude, in my. With did with the DC
(32:42):
stuff. And this has given mevery, very big flashbacks. By the
way, when we mentioned twoshots earlier, I've started re watching
the Arrow series and those.I'm about one episode off the finale
for series and I rememberseries two as well, and they were
so, so good. And when theyexpanded that and they started doing
(33:06):
the other ones, the Flashbought the other ones. I think it
was Supergirl.
Yeah.
And a couple of other ones.And then they kind of finished it
up with Superman and Lois,which is not technically part of
it. It's like arrow verseadjacent, if you like.
Yeah, it's another universe,but it's sort of in that universe,
isn't it?
So when you look at all ofthat stuff together. And you talk
(33:28):
to comic book fans, especiallyD.C. fans, nobody's talking about
Justice League films. No one'stalking about any of that stuff.
What they're talking about, adeeper level is the Arrowverse. And
the reason why they're doingthat is because the people who created
it, the writers and stuff likethat, they knew those characters
(33:48):
and they knew that stuffinside out. So when you've got the
execs who are running the TVstations, they don't know a fucking
thing about, you know, thepeople at the cw. And that was a
thing. They didn't have aclue. They didn't know about the
intricacies of green arrowsrelationships to anything. But you
had those guys that were like,just fucking leave us to it. Like,
we know what's going on. Youjust sign the checks, we'll handle
(34:12):
the rest. And I feel likepotentially that's exactly what is
needed now at Lucasfilm,because we're looking at this as,
like, an isolated thing. It'slike there's this one person that's
left, and then this other oneperson's come in to fill the spot.
But we know there's going tobe a board of people, there's upper
management, all that shit. ButI feel like advertising this and
(34:35):
saying, you know, this is the.The new guy. It just needs someone
like him to say, look, backoff, you lot. Protect these guys
who know what they're doing.Filoni's the creative genius, you
know, the Lucas second.Whatever. Let them do all that stuff.
Here's. Here's the thing. So Ireally hope if they follow that blueprint
(34:56):
that they've done successfullywith the DC stuff on TV and that
Feige done for the most partwith. With Marvel, this. This is.
This could be a good thing.But, yeah, the glass half empty thing
you were saying earlier. Yeah,that's in my head, and I can't get
rid of it.
And it feels like they'retrying to build, or they've been
(35:16):
trying to build spectacleversus personal stories. And if you
look at, like, Superman a lotis a great example of that. Like,
on paper, that should havebeen crap. Like, not a great budget.
It's on the cw. It's beensunsetted because James Gunn and
Saffron have come in to builda new Superman universe on screen.
So they've called it a day,knocked it on Edit Season 4 instead
of Season 5. The overall kindof storylines are quite literally
(35:46):
based on the early 90s comics,where the world was much less complicated.
From a comic standpoint, youKnow, it was before everything got
dark in the comics. It wasn'tIdentity Crisis, where everything.
You know, that's probably thetipping point of it getting dark,
you know, super dark. And it.By all accounts, it just shouldn't
have been that good. It shouldhave been just bubblegum. And it
(36:09):
was brilliant. The entirething, top to toe, was absolutely
brilliant. And the reason itwas that good was the built. They
spent time on characters andthen built everything around that.
And. And it's. I. It'sprobably top three Superman on screen
for me without. In fact. No,it is top three. It's just where
it sits in the top three. It'sexcellently done. And when you look
(36:34):
at, like, the way thatLucasfilm didn't do that with the
sequels and really anythingelse, like, it's done it a little
bit with Mandalorian, but thenafter Season two, it was like, oh,
now it's the Mandalorianuniverse. And it was good, but it
wasn't. It wasn't like it was.And it was. They were trying to do
too much too soon. And it wasthe same with, like, the reason that
(36:56):
Ahsoka worked so well wasbecause of Rebels. Without Rebels,
it had been, well, what's got.Who's. Why do we care about this?
What's the point in this? AndRebel was. Worked well because it
was a bunch of five things.Five people, six people over the
course of five or six seasonsthat you got to know and you spent
a bit of time with. And, youknow, they missed so much opportunity
(37:20):
that if they. If they justspend time developing the characters,
like everything else follows,you know, and this is what I mean
potentially about this. Maybethis line in the sand, you know,
that we've. We've all spenttime getting to know Luke and the
OT characters and then Anakinand the. The prequel trilogy characters
in our own heads. And nowthey're back. There is an opportunity
(37:42):
to tell those characterstories and to go into that and,
you know, look at what CharlesSoul's doing with comics. You know,
telling the story of Kylo Renbecoming that supreme leader in between
Last Jedi and Rise ofSkywalker, because the film did all
with it and the Force Awakens,we were all so excited because it
was like, grandfather, I'llfinish what you start. And it was
like, oh, actually, you knowwhat? That. I'm not gonna bother.
(38:04):
So it was. It was completely.It was. Everything became completely
led by other things, notcharacters. And it just, like. It
sounds so basic. Just soundsso basic. But I wonder if it's like
the Fear of time. Like, well,if we do that, it's going to take
(38:24):
three films for you to get toknow these guys. And that's all right.
That's cool. Tell some good stories.
I think that works if you're,if you're announcing a fairly big
series of films that, that youknow are going to be, that you're
going to need at that time todevelop those characters and stuff.
(38:45):
You know, when things likeAvatar was announced and, and Dune,
you know, these big new sci fiblockbusters, I'm pretty sure that
James Cameron wasn't thinkingright. Okay, by the end of film one,
you guys are going to knowabsolutely everything about what's
going on in these films. Andin this one film with all these characters,
I think they already saidlike, you know, it's going to be
(39:07):
a trilogy or four, six films,whatever it is, and, and that's fine.
You can, you can do that. Butwith Star wars it, you haven't got
time in one trilogy to resetall of that stuff that you've already,
you've already fucked. Youknow, to put a finer point on it.
Like if you've, the first filmwas, okay, the Force Awakens, that
(39:30):
was, that wasn't too bad.Actually, don't mind the Force Awakens,
it's all right. When you getto the end of the Last Jedi, you're
like, I'm not seeing the stuffthat you said we were going to see.
I'm not seeing some of thecharacter development and I'm certainly
not seeing. I just don't getwhat you're doing with Luke. Like,
I just don't understand, Idon't understand it. So then you've
(39:51):
got one film left to try and,to try and make amends and you can't,
you're too far in at thatpoint. You fucked it. So with Star
wars you couldn't do that. Youcouldn't say, oh, which is why maybe
that picks up on. We weresaying earlier, you know, with the
High Republic in last week'sepisode, we, so we spoke about the,
the wrap up that they're doingwith that and that finale story and
(40:16):
that's like the bestopportunity to do that kind of thing
where it's like, you know,here's a, here's a brand new sort
of era to get stuck into andwe're going to do it across all of
these books and whatever andyou're going to get to know the characters.
That's cool. But, but with thecharacters that have been written
that way in the sequeltrilogy, now it then bleeds into
the Disney plus stuff, whichthen bleeds into these individual
(40:39):
stories like the Acolyte. Andwe're here, we're at this point now
where it's like, I don't know,change is needed, you know, and it.
Was that cross media strategywas like, that was always stated
as a mission for the HighRepublic right from day one, you
know, it was Charles soClaudia Gray, all these amazing people
coming together to focus on asingle finite cross media era of
(41:04):
Star wars, you know, and itlarge, by and large, it's worked
pretty well. I've enjoyed alot of it. Whereas you, you saw the
stories never been reallyfinished with, with any of the style.
You know, if you're gonna doprequels and sequels, like, at least
(41:25):
tell the stories and genuinelythink about how do we finish a story
off. Because a lot of the, youknow, if you look at the media, it's
like it's time for Star warsto be done with the Skywalker Saga.
And you're like, that's likesaying it's time for DC to be done
with Batman or Superman. Youcan be done with them for four years,
but you know, people are goingto come out and see them and it's.
They're a big draw. They'realways a big draw. And everything
(41:50):
in the, on the movie side hasbeen reactionary. Oh, we better do
this Sith. I can't rememberwhat it was called, the Sith book
that came out where it's Lukeand a little Bobby Kylo and. And
what's his name, the guy from.Max Von Sydow from Force Awakens.
You know, that character. It'sbefore Force Awakens, haha. But it
(42:11):
was released in like 2021. Andyou're like, no, it's. That's there
to make sure that that occurBastoon character has legitimacy.
And it's not just a thing thatyou put in. So it's, you know, I
think that's the differencewith it. And it just feels like it
needs someone to say, right,look, let's just be completely honest.
Star wars is the Skywalkers,right? And let's assume that goes
(42:32):
on for another 50 years. Whatare the next three chapters of this?
And when I say chapter, I meana chapter might be a trilogy of films,
five books, an animated seriesand some comics. Like, what is that
overall picture? And likeLucas said, my canon is the prequels,
(42:54):
the original trilogy and theClone Wars TV show. That's it. And
there's no reason I don'tunderstand why they can't just do
the same thing. We're justgonna go, this next chapter, the
main story, and everyoneshould get what is needed to be gotten
from the movies, like thestory. My mum should be able to watch
(43:14):
those movies and go, oh,that's a pretty cool story. And then
everything else is. Isseparate stories that are tied in
or supplementary material or amix of both like that, like they
do with the prequels andstuff. But it just. I just fail to
see how a company of that sizewith so much resource cannot just
get in a room with a pen andpaper and go, well, it's just, why
don't do this? Like the HighRepublic project. Single, finite,
(43:38):
defined. And we are going totell the story of Luke and we are
going to tell the story ofAnakin, and we are going to tell
the story of Rare and Finn andall these things, you know, so it
just feels weird and it's. I.I sort of blame Marvel a little bit
as well. Like, they've ruinedit for everyone, haven't they? They
sort of ruined it by buildingthese universes and expectations
(43:59):
of, you know, expectations of.Of every film hitting like 900 million
and having to follow a similarformat. So it's a difficult landscape
to be in, but maybe get on topof it.
Yeah, they've ruined a fewthings. Marvel. The last time me
and the missus went to thecinema, we went to see Beetlejuice.
(44:22):
I think the second one, whichis terrible, by the way. Films. Films
ended. Credits are rolling.We're just sat there like a pair
of lemons. We're like, what wesat here for. This is Marvel in it.
We're waiting for a. We'rewaiting for end of credit, cut scene.
That's not coming. But becauseMarvel have done it with all of their
films and we've seen them all,we sat there like, this is not coming,
(44:44):
is it? Just. Just do one. Idon't know if there was one or not,
but it's things like that thathave got you into this, this kind
of mindset with all thisstuff. So maybe, maybe that's part
of it. Maybe, maybe they werethinking, like, you know, we can't
just tell this nice little,you know, era of storytelling because
(45:05):
we're going to shoot ourselvesin the foot and it's not connected
by this other thing and wecan't build this big universe off
of it, and we can't do this.So maybe they're thinking too big
all the time. You know, maybethey're thinking, we need to follow
Marvel suit because thatequals X amount of dollars in terms
of B's. Billions, you know,But I don't know. Yeah, we'll wrap
(45:25):
up. But all I'll say is it allboils down to characters on this.
Because the best example is ifyou look at the Empire Strikes Back,
nobody needed to sit therethat long and listen to a conversation
between Yoda and Luke whenhe's training. But it's some of the
best fucking Star wars thatyou'll see. And all that was was
(45:46):
just little bit of exposition,a bit of character progression, but
you knew exactly what Luke wasgoing through and what he was thinking
and all of that stuff. And bythe end, when he buggers off to Bespin
because he gets that littlesort of foresight within the Force,
you're like, shit, what wouldI do? Yeah, you'd probably do it
in the sequel. Trilogy. Idon't get that. I don't. And it's
(46:10):
most of the Disney plus stuff.I just don't get that. I just get
the popcorny. Yep. Pew, pew,pew. This is what's going on. I don't.
I don't feel that stuff. Sohopefully old Des can. Yeah. Can
bring it back around and starttelling some decent stories where
people actually like, yeah.Fucking love that character and talk
about it, you know?
(46:30):
So, yeah, we shall see. Weshall see. But, yeah, lots. Lots
to think about. We'll see whatcomes out of Celebration as well.
I know there'll be. There willbe announcements, there's going to
be teasers, going to betrailers. There's going to be. I
mean, the irony is that notreally that much has happened with
any of the movies that wasannounced at Celebration 23. That's
(46:52):
the. That. And. And here weare, you know, and so it's. It's
a. Yeah. I don't know, man.It's an awkward thing, but, yeah,
it's difficult. It'sdifficult. You want, like, depending
on what happens with Superman,Right. I know it will never happen
because of where he works, butjust give James Gunn a Star wars
film. Like, if anyone's goingto do ott original Star War, be someone
(47:15):
like James Gunn. You know whatI mean?
Yeah, yeah. As in. As in atrilogy of films.
Yeah, Just give him. Give him.Because he feels like he can tell
a story. Like, Guardians wereall great. There was not a bad Guardians
film. He clearly knows how todirect and he clearly knows how to
write, so it just. And he getscharacters, you know, that's. I just
(47:39):
feel like we need a little bitof that, you know, less of the spectacle,
more of, you know, thespectacle in Star wars should be
the, the background, thebelievable background. It shouldn't
be up front and center. Itshould always be the kid that wants
to get off a planet becausehe's bored of. And the princess that
wants to find an old friendto, to help, you know, to help help
(48:00):
her people. And you've got a,A big guy with a great red sword
that's after him. You know,like that's. It's basic. You know,
it's tried and tested and itworks. I do also feel like the mythology
side of it and even though Ilove all that the law side of things,
it can wear heavy. It can wearheavy. You know, there's is. Is a
(48:21):
better Luke Skywalker story inthe Last Jedi or after the Last Jedi.
Just right. There's this otherbig bad guy called Kylo Ren. Turns
out he's Luke's nephew, as ithappens. Right. He's super powerful
because guess what? That'sright. Is related to them all. Who
could probably sort that out.That's right. Like just make a film
(48:42):
about that. I don't know howyou get that wrong. I just don't
know how you get that wrong.And everything else is the backdrop.
So maybe, maybe. Anyway, wewill wrap up because we'll talk about
this forever. But I think thisgoes to show, dude, that, you know,
one deep dive on a topic or,or something is probably a more entertaining
episode as well. You know,we've not recapped any news here.
(49:04):
Validation. Thank you. Allright, we will stick a pin in it
for our penultimate episode ofthis, I suppose this chapter, A Sparker
Rebellion.
Yeah, it's gonna.
Thank you very much.
Sorry, I was gonna say it'snot like. No, you season. Do you
just guys us up? Yeah. Soseason one is like five years long.
(49:27):
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, she got what'scoming in season two.
Well, a TV show. Like we'rethe opposite of Benny Dom, right.
Started out as like four,five, six episodes, 20 minutes each,
then became like 32 episodesof two hours. And you're like, no,
I don't want to see itanymore. We're the opposite of that.
We're the opposite of that.
Sorry, dude. Take us home thenfor two.
(49:48):
No, I love it. We're like a CW2008 era TV show with 24 full length
episodes that you die to getthrough. I miss them days. But no,
(50:12):
thank you for joining us. It'salways a pleasure. Thank you to Kevin,
to everyone that supports us,Pascal, Denise, Tom, everyone that
supports us. Danny, if youwant to get involved involved in
that, you can spark arebellion.com support. Next week
we'll be back with our, ourfinal news roundup, certainly our
final weekly news roundupbefore we start on with our new format.
And we will keep you post onthat. We will drop some trailers,
(50:33):
we will put some good stuffout there for you so that you know
that we are still around. Soit's been a real pleasure. Enjoyed
that one. Really enjoyedchatting about that. And Gazla, I'll
see your bad self next week.
Indeed. Yes. That was a gooddeep dive that and a good, good chat.
And we know that Kath listens,of course. She's in the car at the
moment. She's got sparkrebellion on the, on the, on the
(50:54):
podcast player. We know shelistens. So you're welcome. We told
you to do this, didn't we? Wesaid you need to make a change. You're
doing that. Good steps. Butjust hit us up if you need some more,
some more advice. It's allgood. Never a problem. Next week,
as Mark said last episode fora bit. Plenty of news to get through.
So we'll get all that stuffdone and then, and then we'll come
(51:15):
back with some very cool stufflater on in the year. So until next
week then, take care ofyourselves and may the force be with
you always.
Hello there and welcome toSpark of Rebellion, the Star wars
show that brings youeverything from a galaxy far, far
away. And today we're comingat you with some changes. We've been
thinking about it for a while,so we are going to change the format
and the structure of the show,which will be quite exciting, actually.
I think we feel. We feelpretty good about this. So guys and
(00:36):
I are going to talk youthrough this in a little while and
we're also going to talk aboutsomething that really randomly came
up after our conversation lastweek where we talked about maybe
the need for a restructureover at Disney when it comes to Star
Wars. And lo and behold, acouple of days later, actually we
get an announcement. So we'regoing to spend that time today talking
about that. My name is Mark,the co host with, you know, just.
(01:00):
Just average amount of mostreally. And probably a lot of people
would say the fun of thispodcast. And my co host, of course,
I'll bring in a second will beknown as the looks. And probably
the logic really is like C3POfor my little tenuous R2D2 it is,
(01:22):
Mr. Gazelle. All right, I'mgonna call you C3P.
Don't do it. Don't do it.
C3P. Bro.
Bro. That'll do.
Hambrolo.
Hello. I thought you weregonna go quite rude there.
No, no.
Usual Mostist co host duty. Rude.
No, no, no, no. You gotrecognized yesterday, didn't you?
(01:44):
I did get recognized. I lovewhen it happens. Makes you feel like
all the time.
I love it. It happens everySaturday morning.
Greasy spoon. Ah, yourbreakfast shagger. Oh, usual. Oh.
Today at this, at this pointin time, my waistline would suggest
that I do go to a greasy spoonon a regular basis. Yep.
(02:06):
Have you ever seen that? It'sa completely diet. We will get back
to getting recognized and wewill get back to Star Wars. But have
you ever seen the Mike Reedjoke about the cafe? Remember Frank
Butcher from Eastender?
Frank Butcher. Yeah. I've notheard the joke though.
Go on, mate. Just go onInstagram. I'm not gonna do it.
Rude.
Yeah, yeah, it's not rudeactually, but I just don't want to
do his accent. He's on stage.I'm. I'm do it.
(02:26):
Go on.
God. Go on. Yeah. And he'slike, I wanted to cafe last week.
I said to geese, I said, Imean, any chance for breakfast but
on the sausage, I want it tobe so Burnt on the outside and so
raw on the inside that peoplethink it's still alive. And then
when you get to the bacon, canyou make sure it's that raw? And
swimming in Greece that Ithink I could take it out to the
(02:46):
sea and it would flout itselfand kind of get some beans. But I
want the top of the beans tobe so warm, they'll burn your top
of your mouth off. And insideI want to be ice cold. And a tomato.
I want a tomato that's hardlycooked and you can barely chew it.
And the blood behind thecounter says, I don't have time to
do that, mate, because youfound time yesterday.
(03:07):
He's essentially described 90of all breakfasts in the UK.
It's absolutely class in itbecause when I was watching it yesterday,
I was like, this is literallythe Barnsley market, mate.
Oh, dude. It's like, it's thesame everywhere. Like, you have to
go to a select few to find adecent one, but. Oh, it's funny.
Yeah. Or you end up with,like, gastro breakfast, which is
like, everything's in a littlemetal. Like, your beans come in a
(03:29):
shitty metal cup and you'relike, I don't want them in a metal
cup. Just put them. Just putthem. Put them on my plate.
Yeah. That was my face, dude.Yeah. When we moved up to this area,
local farm shop breakfast, 90of it was great. Beans come out in
the little pot. I was like,I'm out.
Yeah. 40 quid and some cresson the side. No, thanks.
Yeah. For 40 quid? Yeah. AllI've got is. Yeah. And it was 40
(03:52):
quid for us as well as afamily. That's ridiculous.
Don't surprise me, mate.Anyway, yeah, we did digress. Mildly.
But anyway, you did getrecognized, didn't you?
I did, yes. Yeah. As part ofthe old day job, doing some podcast
training, workshop stuff. Verynice young man at Sheffield. Unique.
So I recognize you. He heardthe voice before he saw the face.
(04:16):
So that's always a.
You got one of those voices,though, haven't you?
Trepidation there. It's like,Christ almighty, you are. I heard
the voice and I thought, gottabe a stunner, got to be a looker.
But you've disappointed me. Iwas like, unsubscribe, mate. It's
all good. But no, it wasn't.It was nice. Every so often when
that happens, I normally. Inormally tee myself up to do it intentionally.
(04:40):
Like, if I want to go. If I'mfeeling a bit low, I'm like, ah,
I Want some attention? I'll goto a London film Comic Con. Loads
of Doctor who fans there getthat sort of a dozen times. That's
all good. But just out in theblue like that. Out in the. Out in
the wide world. I like it.
The actual wild.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good.Spark Rebellion listener.
(05:01):
Yeah, no, it's pretty cool.And that's actually two from a similar
area. We've got the Rotherhamand Sheffield people. That's twice
in the last few weeks. Let's.That's happened. So that's pretty
cool. But also, speaking offans, we need to get a big shout
out to Kev Bot, who dropped usa tip, so thank you very much. Dropped
us a bit of beer money, sothank you, Kev. Very, very kind of
you.
Oh, nice.
Very, very kind of you.
Cheers, Kev.
(05:21):
Yeah, we appreciate that.We'll. We'll get a pint on it. 100.
Right. We're gonna get some.Well, a bit of a deeper discussion
on one news story in a secondbecause it probably warrants a little
bit of. A little bit oftinkering, but we. We have decided
that we're gonna actuallychange the format of Sparker Rebellion.
So we've been doing it now forfive years, believe it or not, six
(05:42):
years, which is insane. Sixyears in May. So we're 200 and odd
in the high 200s when it comesto the episode numbers. And it. It's
sort of been a. It's been aweird thing recently. Like we said
last week, there's not beenthat much news. It's all been the
same sort of stuff. When westarted this, it was, you know, Lucasfilm
(06:03):
and Disney was still in the,you know, the pre rise of Skywalker,
kind of a lot going on. Notall the film plans have been scrapped.
Disney plus was still in itssort of. In fact, it not even launched.
It launched in March 2020,didn't it? April 2020. So it's hard
to think we'd not hadMandalorian. We're not at any of
(06:23):
this stuff, so there was a lotof news. You know, there was announcements
for Mandalorian, there wasannouncements for things coming up,
but, like, recently, the lastyear or so, it's just been remedial
stuff. It's been the same oldstuff. So I think we found it pretty.
Like, I don't know about you,mate, but I found it. I found it
tough. Like, I found itdifficult to remain enthusiastic
(06:44):
about Star wars and Disney.
Just.
Constantly positive about it,you know?
Mm. No. 100% agree. And Ithink we came to this conclusion
roughly at the same time aswell, which is a good sign because
if you. If you're running sortof a. Any sort of thing with a co
host and one of them's like,yeah, this is amazing. The other
(07:06):
one's like, this is shit, thenthat's difficult conversation. But,
yeah, I think we were bothlike, as a listener, you've probably
heard us as well. I definitelyheard it in Mark's voice last week
or the week before the firsthalf of the show, it was just. Yeah.
And then my voice was like, itas well. At some point when I listened
back, I was like, oh, yeah,this is not. It's difficult to. And
(07:28):
it's hard as well when you.Because Mark and I love Star wars,
which is why we did it in thefirst place. So when you love something
like that and you want toshare your thoughts and your feelings
and. And all that stuff andbuild a community like we have with
you guys, which is very cool,it must get to a point where even
you guys are like, yeah, comeon, guys. You know, we need to. It
(07:48):
can't be a fun listeningexperience if we're just like, yeah,
the news is the same thingthat we spoke about the last 10 weeks,
you know, So I think we arechanging it up. Is a good shout.
It keeps you guys sort of inthe. In the game. If you, like, still
got skin in the game with StarWars. You still listen to us be a
pair of twats for an hour andwhatever. It's just that we're a
bit more. A bit more engagedwhen we do record. So, yeah, should
(08:12):
be a better episode for it.
Yeah, I think so. And I'll gothrough the format in a second, like
what we're going to be doing,but I think also, like working in
podcasts and working podcastsevery day we see. We see a thousand
different podcasts everysingle day. And it's one of those.
This is one of those times ina podcast where actually most people
would quit. Most people wouldjust be like, do you know what? I'm
sort of bored of this. I'm notgoing to put any energy into it,
(08:37):
because the thing that I'minterested in talking about is actually
not. There's not that muchgoing on with it. And when it does
come around, it's sort ofregurgitation. So it's actually quite
a conscientious move. Some ofthe stuff that we're doing, because
it would be. It would beremiss of us to. We made the mistake
of closing a show before whenwe did two shots to the head. And
we both regret that. Like wedesperately regret doing that.
(09:00):
Massive regret that.
Yeah, to those, every day.Hate those guys. But it's so, it's
a conscientious thing, Ithink. And it means that we can do
more quality stuff. I thinkwhat will come after this will be
actually a better developedpodcast. So what we're going to do,
I'll talk you through some ofthe, some of the sort of headlines
(09:22):
of it. So from next week we'regoing to talk about one particular
thing today. We're going totalk about this new sort of restructuring,
this new appointment over atDisney on the Lucasfilm side of things
in just a second. And thennext week we're gonna do a normal
news episode, wrap up a coupleof weeks worth of news and really
sort of go into, you know,almost a finale episode of. Okay,
look, we'll draw a line underthe news and this is it, we're good
(09:45):
to go. Then we're gonna be.The next time you'll hear from us
will be probably May thethird. May the third. And what we're
gonna be doing is we're gonnabe recapping Star Wars Celebration.
In particular the TV and themovie news that has come out of Star
Wars Celebration becausethat's running, I think it's April
23rd to 25th or whatever itis. 23rd out in Japan. Obviously
(10:08):
we went to a celebration acouple of years ago. It was great.
And there's always a lot ofnews that comes out, teasers, announcements,
you know, returning stars andso on and so forth. So I think there
will be a lot come out of thatwhich will be fantastic. So we'll
be doing that episode on May3rd and I would imagine it'll probably
be a decent sized episode.It's not. I don't imagine that being
a 45 minute episode. Then whatwe're going to do, we're moving into
(10:31):
seasons. All right, so we'regonna go mid to late June, we're
gonna put probably a four tosix episode season out and we're
gonna spend a, a deep diveamount of time recapping and or season
two, because that will havefinished by then. It will be done.
We're gonna get a couple ofguests on, we've got a couple of
really cool people lined up,authors, a couple of people that
(10:51):
have actually worked on themovies. Gives us more time to actually
craft these interviews and todo the bookings, do the logistics
around it. And then obviouslywe talk about we'll talk about what
has gone on for the lastcouple of months in the new sphere
and changes that have comeafter celebration and so on. So I'm
really excited for that, dude.And then we're going to do one, we'll
do another season, a similarkind of thing towards the end of
(11:12):
the year as well. So I, Ithink we'll actually probably end
up doing two or three seasonsa year between four and eight episodes,
I would imagine. I can't seeit being very strict insofar as we
must do four, we must doeight. I think it will just, it would,
it will just sort of, I thinkit'll design itself out when we get
the topics rolling. So I, Ithink that will be a better product,
albeit not every week. But Ido think it will be a far better
(11:35):
product because we can spendtime on it, you know, as opposed
to just collecting news andresponding to it. So I'm, I do feel,
well, I feel really positiveabout that. I think it's a, I think
it's a strong move not onlyfor us, but for a lot of podcasts.
I think a lot of people couldlearn from that as well, to be honest
with you.
Yes, 100% agreed on that,dude. I think it's the good old,
the age old thing, isn't it?It's like quality over quantity,
(11:58):
which is needed at this point.And it's not just us. I'm not going
to throw anyone under the bus,of course, but some of the Star wars
blogs that are out there andsome other Star wars podcasts that
I listen to semi regularly.It's all a similar landscape really
for Star Wars. There'sliterally only so much you can, you
can scrape out the old barrelbefore you start, you know, getting
(12:21):
into the, the concrete, whichis harder to scrape. So yeah, I think
it'd be a good one, a goodmove for us. And it also brings a
little bit of anticipation aswell because like we can do a bit
of a build up, we can teasesome of the people that gonna have
on the show as Mark said, and,and just make a bit more of a thing
of it rather than the weekly,you know, same old. So yeah, I'm
up for this, man. It's gonnabe good.
(12:43):
Yeah, likewise, likewise. Andit might mean that we actually kick
ourselves in, in to gear andget YouTube up and running and put
some trailers out for theupcoming episodes and so on. There's
plenty, I think with more timeand resource and not just having
to, to plow out an episodeevery week, you get the chance to
say, well, you know what, I'mgoing to spend a couple of hours
on a trailer for the nextseason, you know, and I think it
becomes more of a, more of aproduction. I mean there's a reason
(13:04):
that many of the top shows dothat, you know, unless you're a new
show or you're like a boringentrepreneur interview show, you
know, I think seasonal works.So yeah, we'll, we'll get on to that.
I think it'll be fascinating.So look out for that. We'll, we'll
tell you the skinny on thatagain next week. Just so it's really
clear what's going on.Obviously there's an absolute pile
of back episodes if you wantto listen to them. But we really
(13:25):
appreciate the support andyeah, we're looking forward to this,
this kind of next chapter. Imean after six years it's a change
as good as a holiday, that'sfor sure. Now Gazla, we mentioned
last week about Lucasfilmmaybe needing a bit of a restructure,
something needing to happen. Ithink Kathleen Kennedy always gets
the battering but obviouslyshe's like, she's the top of the
(13:46):
top. You know, I, I, I wouldnot imagine she's that involved in
day to day stuff. We haveoften said that Dave Filoni obviously
should have a bigger part andobviously a couple of years ago,
maybe even last year, was it,was it 2023 or 2024, he sort of got,
he got his due. You know, hegot, I suppose he got the promotion
(14:11):
that we all wanted. You know,he's an exec vice president at Lucasfilm
and, and, and then moved upto, yeah, 2023, Chief Creative Officer.
But it feels like they neededsomeone else to oversee what was
actually being produced andthey changed that person last week,
which was a big surprise andvery timely. After we talked about
it. I'm sure it's completelyrelated to Lucasfilm and Disney.
(14:34):
Listening to the podcast andthinking, do you know what lads,
you were right, we shouldprobably do something. So the previous,
the previous VP of developmentat Lucasfilm underneath Disney was
Rain Roberts. Co developed theAcolyte and so on and so forth and
actually left last year. Now Ididn't know this, this is probably
(14:55):
just my own, like I shouldhave probably known this, but Rain
Roberts actually left lastyear but as part of the backlash
from the Acolyte by the soundsof it. Certainly reading between
the lines on some of thereporting, certainly the way that
the rappers, I suppose phrasethat and taking, taking Rain Roberts
place is Derek Hoffman. DerekHoffman, who is a video game and
(15:21):
comic book industry veteran,according to the rap. Started with
the Donner Company, which ispretty good pedigree. Became assistant
for actual Richard Donner,which is pretty cool. Associate producer
on a few films, you know, notamazing films, but still films. But
in particular, was exactproducer on pretty much every X Men
(15:44):
film. Now, take from that whatyou will. So there's some good in
there and there's some shitein there. X Men 1. Yes. X Men 2.
Yes. X Men 3. You know, you'resafe. You're safe.
Yeah.
And then, you know, firstclass. Yes, you're safe. You know,
(16:06):
apocalypse, you know, days offuture past. Yes, you're safe. Legion,
the gifted phoenix. But so,you know, that's what's gone on.
We said earlier change is asgood as a holiday. So Rain Roberts
(16:27):
has got a holiday and we'vegot a change now. I don't want to
be Mr. Negative, which. And soI won't be because I do think it
needed a change, dude. But Imean, that's varied in it.
That is quite varied. Yeah. Iguess it's just in stark contrast
(16:49):
to Cath, isn't it? When Kathcame on board, she had worked on
so many blockbusters and somany big, big films and.
And other bits which we allforget as well. I should just throw
that in. Like, every trollforgets that.
Yeah, we do. Yeah, we all doat some. At some point. So the pedigree
there was. Was industry, youknow, top of the top shelf stuff.
(17:13):
So I think we forget thatsometimes. And. Whereas old. Old
Des. Old Derek, although hedoes bring stuff to the table. I
don't know, it'll be. It's oneof those things where you would think
that bringing somebody in todevelop new programs, they may have
got somebody in with more.More things under their belt, perhaps.
(17:37):
I'm not sure in terms of.Because you can only dine out for
so long on. On that thing, youknow, it's like, yeah, I was. I was
the X Men guy.
Yeah.
For a while. It's like, whatelse have you got? I'll give you
three, another two if you needthem. And. But he can't pull those
out the locker. You know, he'sjust like, well, I've done that.
(17:58):
So just be happy that you gotX Men. Right. Yeah, just. You should
be happy that I brought thatto the table.
Just put that there.
Oh, God, look. Review of the XMen franchise. Pretty. Oh, what's
that? Yeah, a couple yearsold. I know, I know.
I Should increase profitwithout cutting a single job.
And yeah, having said that, you've.
(18:22):
Charming.
Having said that, I guess itcomes down to Kath having a chat
with him over the usualStarbucks, you know. Yeah. Not to
be a negative ninny, there'sprobably two ways to think about
this dude. The first one isvery positive and it's very. Yep.
(18:42):
This guy's probably done loadsof stuff that we don't know about
under the radar. Not just XMen, but, you know, he's known in
industries. You know, heobviously knows his bacon. Whatever.
All good. The other way tolook at it is that they're desperate.
They are absolutely desperatejust to make a change. That. That
would be. The cynical side ofmy brain was like Rain Roberts, who
(19:04):
just completely fooked it withthe acolyte and making that happen.
And then Kath's like that,you've got to go. We can't let. We
can't have the acolytelingering around. And you were like,
you know, you were part ofthat. So, sorry, you got to go. And
they just have to get someonein. So that it's like a bit of a
desperate move to. To just tocome across to the world that change
(19:26):
is happening, you know, sothere's two different ways to look
at it, mate. But I don't know.
I'm.
I guess I'm down the middle. Iguess I'm not. It's a positive change.
Of course it's good. But,yeah, I don't know. Down the middle.
It's a difficult one, isn'tit? So if you look at Rain Roberts
from a Star wars perspective,you've got Force Awakens, creative
(19:49):
exec, Rogue One, creativeexec, Last Jedi, creative exec, Rebels
story group, additional prodsupport, solo creative exact. And
then you've got Rise ofSkywalker development exec.
You know, it's like the tailend of her Lucasfilm career has not
been.
Yeah, exactly. But then if youlook at Derek, it really is. I mean,
(20:13):
Superman 2, the Richard Donnacut, which I really enjoyed. But
a lot of it is obviously justall X Many stuff, which is fine.
And it's. Yeah, I suppose itis difficult to kind of actually.
Do you know what? This is areally good example of the state
of, like, Star wars, becauseif this was in 2018, you'd be like,
(20:35):
holy, this is cool. The guythat did Future pastor was really
involved in it. Is. Is. Isinvolved. And now it's like, oh,
well, he did do X Men 3. Youknow, I did Last Stand, and it's
Sort of a. Like you've becomea bit of a glass half empty for.
Almost by accident, like, notrealizing it. And it's just. I was
(20:59):
thinking about it last nightjust how it needs, like Star wars
just needs to just steady up alittle bit and slow down and do like,
do a really good and. Orseason. Do a really good Ahsoka season.
Like, I'd almost be happy withno announcements. Like, just don't
announce anything. Just do. Dotwo or three good things and let
(21:23):
people remember that stuff.Especially coming off the back of
Skeleton Crew, you know,that's. That was a good crack and
it proved that you can have abit of a laugh. Yeah. And you can
produce something decentthat's not tied to anything else.
And. And it's. It's like itjust sort of needs a little bit of
(21:45):
that. And I, you know, if weturn this into maybe a glass half
full, at least we're in aposition now where, you know, arguably
most of the shit's done andwhat have we got to look forward
to? Ahsoka Season 2, well,that's starting production. We've
got the guy that played theHound coming in, who is great in
(22:05):
Game of Thrones, you know, andyou've got. You've got talks of Natalie
Portman, Ewan McGregor, HaydenChristensen coming back. Like you
sort of screwed the legacy.Legacy of the OT characters in the
sequel trilogy. Filon isbringing these guys back, you know,
another bite of the cherry,potentially. So. All right, that's
(22:25):
pretty cool. And. Or Seasontwo, I think we can all agree, is
probably going to bebrilliant. So you sort of. You had,
you know, you probably a linein the sand where you could start
to rebuild from this point,because all the, all the things coming
up, Mandalorian and Grogu, youknow, ahead to the Empire, all that
(22:48):
sort of stuff. It's all. Itfeels good stuff. It feels like.
It's not like the Acolyte,where it was out on a bit of a limb.
It was trying something fresh.It was, you know, executed not very
well, albeit some highlights,but I don't know, man. I suppose
what I'm trying to say is itfeels like maybe there's a turning
(23:09):
point. Maybe there's a turningpoint and maybe this with Derek Hoffman
is tied to that. Maybe. Idon't know.
Yeah, potentially. It feelslike a turning point, as in something
is. Something's happenedacross the fan base, like, really
negative. Like, the Acolytewas. Was the first time where there
(23:31):
was such a massive. A massivepart of fandom that just didn't like
it. Like, up to that point. Ifpeople didn't like the Mandalorian,
that's cool. But there wasalways a pretty hefty chunk of people
that did like it, I think,like the Mandalorian stuff and probably
Ahsoka in that as well. Andespecially some of the animated stuff
(23:52):
that Filoni's done. For themost part, I think it's been reasonably
positive. You got, like thesesmall little echo chambers and stuff
going on, but for the mostpart. But the Acolyte really felt
like fans had just had enough.Like, even fans that were, you know,
pretty like us. You know, fansthat were pretty into most things
(24:14):
even. We were just like, man,like. I remember our first review,
episode one, review of theAcolyte, episode one. It was so Gaz,
straight out the gate, whatyour thoughts? I'm like, mate. And
you're like, yeah, isn't it.It's proper so for us to say that.
And we. We typically don't goin, you know, as hard as that, even
if we don't like something.That's. That was the feeling that
(24:36):
you got from it. So it feelslike. I don't know if this is coming
from Kath directly or if it'scoming from above her. I don't know,
but it feels like this was theone that was like, look, you've got
to do something, because youkind of hate to say it, but you're
slowly eroding all of thetrust and all of the good vibes that
you've. You've asked people tocling on to. Even if something hasn't
(24:58):
been perfect, you've askedpeople to stick with it and stuff.
But now you kind of. Now. Nowyou're asking a bit much. You know,
you're putting out crap and.And you're asking for stuff. So that's.
That's the way I look at it.It's like Rain Roberts has taken.
She's put. She's the onethat's taken the fall because Leslie
(25:19):
Headlund, she's not a directemployee of Lucasfilm, so there's
no problem there. But RainRoberts co developed that with Leslie
Headland, so she has to be theone, you know, to take the. Put the
head in the guillotine. Sothat's gotta go. So I think. I honestly
feel like somebody. I don'tknow who it is, Kath or Iger, somebody
(25:43):
has basically said, look,Kath, you've got to fuck. You've
got to make a change. Andyeah, with. With Hoffman, it would
Be interesting to see what hebrings to the table in term as to
why somebody else didn't fillthat slot. Because. Why, why didn't
(26:04):
A Filoni fill that spot? Why,why didn't a. What's his face, you
know?
Yeah. Less of a hands on jobthough, that one. Whereas Fallone
is like the guy that makes thethings, you know, he's such a character
and story guy, isn't it, thatif you were to, if you were to take
him out of would it wouldpotentially harm things because he's,
(26:30):
he's the Lucas, isn't he?Lucas, you know, he was the guy that
was making Phantom Menace eventhough it was difficult and he was
the guy that, you know, forcedStar wars into, you know, being Star
Wars. And I suppose the secondyou put someone like that in a corporate
environment, you risk takingthe edge off and actually getting
(26:52):
stuff done from that person.So it's. Yeah, it's a very difficult
thing that you almost need asyou need with any corporate, you
need like the people that canmake the good things, you know, I
see, I almost see like this isprobably a weird comparison, but
I sort of see Filoni andLucas, you know, as the Steve Jobs
(27:12):
type of character that we'redoing it my way. You guys are all
wrong. And not in a bullishway, not in a dickhead way, but you
know, you're all wrong. Thisis the vision, this is what we're
doing. I know you're saying itcan't be done, but you know, I'll
see you back here when it'sdone. And, and it feels like people
like Derek Hoffman and peoplethat are above that level that work
(27:34):
at the corporate level andmuch more about the logistics of
it and is it financiallyviable, is it a good business decision?
And then you sort of get twotypes of that person. You get the
one person that believes theguy that says, or the person that
says we are going to get itdone regardless of what you think
and it's going to be reallygood. And this is the vision. I'm
(27:55):
not moving. If you want me tomove, I'm off, you know, or you get
the other person that ispotentially more investor led, more
rigid and so on and so forth.And it's you sort of, I think in
every environment you needsomeone that protects those people
like the Filoni. And it's, youknow, I, I don't see Filoni controlling
(28:16):
the purse strings, but if theperson controlling the purse strings
is someone that believes inthe Filoni type character then the
result surely is going to bebetter. So I just. Yeah, maybe it's
that. And I just. We justdon't know much about Derek Kaufman.
Did we know much about Feigebefore he became the Marvel guy?
Well, wasn't he a similarscenario? Wasn't he, like, producer,
(28:39):
exec producer on a ton of XMen, but also like the Toby Maguire
stuff, maybe even the Garfieldstuff? I'm sure he sort of came up
under, like, Aviarad and StanLee even to a degree. I'm sure he
did.
That's what. I mean, if it's.If somebody like that came into it
who didn't have all the stuffgoing on, like Kath did or whatever,
(29:00):
then maybe that's what they'relooking for. And it's something you
and I have said for years nowis like, Star wars needs a Feige.
It needs that one guy or womanthat's just, you know, overseeing
everything, but has that SteveJobsy type of, you know, we're doing
it this way. And maintains alevel of. I guess you'd. I guess
(29:24):
what you want is somebodyunder Cath who's not a yes man, basically.
Yeah, yeah. And someone. Yeah,someone that. That will, I think,
you know, tuning into whatfans genuinely want as well. And
it's because there's a realbalance between fan service and telling
(29:47):
a story that the fans respectbecause they've grown up with that
thing and the trolls get itwrong most of the time, but often
they'll have a modicum of avalid point. And even if that valid
point is just, you ruined LukeSkywalker. Well, we ruined it, you
know, with regards to what yousaw in Legends and what your version
(30:08):
in your head was. And that'sone thing to say, well, we. We understand
that you saw this differently,but here's our version. And then
there's the. You ruined LukeSkywalker as an example, from the
perspective of you went downthis path and you never really finished
(30:29):
it because you puss it outand, you know, and you were just
sort of backtracked a littlebit and. And you never. You never
really took the opportunity tosay Luke Skywalker was. Had that
much presence of mind that hesaw all the shit, researched all
the shit that went on withAnakin, didn't want that to happen
again, so bailed and like,what a rich. What a rich mine of
(30:52):
content and stories. And, youknow, the sequel trilogy had such
a. A massive potential tobring in all those intricate political
and galactic elements that theprequels had alongside the whimsy
and the Wonder of the originaltrilogy and the basic, you know,
binary black and white of goodversus bad and all that. Stu, the
(31:12):
way that Lucas saw it and sohe had such an opportunity. But you
get the person at the top orthe people at the top saying, that's
not going to make money. Orthe fans have said this, so we probably
need to go so far the otherway that they don't remember. And
it's. Where do you put thatperson that can say, look, you know,
it's almost like what's a goodexample of it? Like, there's been
(31:36):
countless sort of. I thinkprobably like the James Gunn Superman,
I think stands a chance ofbeing like this where you're just,
you know, there's someone justsaying off. Trust me, like, I know
that you think this, but Ibelieve in this and I'm into the
source material. I trust thecharacter. I know the character.
(31:59):
You've just not yet seenwhat's in my head, you know, and
that's the filoni. So, yeah, alot to unpack there. But it's. It's
a. It's a. It's a. It's such adifficult thing. And I often makes
me wonder, like, should theyjust come out and say, would you
know what? Some of this didn'tland. We are just going to take a
bit of a break, you know,which I think. I think they've alluded
(32:20):
to by cutting the schedule.But the, you know, I don't think
they've come out and said it,have they?
No, I don't. They've not saidit, obviously. But yeah, when you
look at the schedule, youcan't not see it. There's definitely
stuff going on behind thescenes, isn't there?
Yeah, of course, it's a bit.
Do you know what it's like,dude, in my. With did with the DC
(32:42):
stuff. And this has given mevery, very big flashbacks. By the
way, when we mentioned twoshots earlier, I've started re watching
the Arrow series and those.I'm about one episode off the finale
for series and I rememberseries two as well, and they were
so, so good. And when theyexpanded that and they started doing
(33:06):
the other ones, the Flashbought the other ones. I think it
was Supergirl.
Yeah.
And a couple of other ones.And then they kind of finished it
up with Superman and Lois,which is not technically part of
it. It's like arrow verseadjacent, if you like.
Yeah, it's another universe,but it's sort of in that universe,
isn't it?
So when you look at all ofthat stuff together. And you talk
(33:28):
to comic book fans, especiallyD.C. fans, nobody's talking about
Justice League films. No one'stalking about any of that stuff.
What they're talking about, adeeper level is the Arrowverse. And
the reason why they're doingthat is because the people who created
it, the writers and stuff likethat, they knew those characters
(33:48):
and they knew that stuffinside out. So when you've got the
execs who are running the TVstations, they don't know a fucking
thing about, you know, thepeople at the cw. And that was a
thing. They didn't have aclue. They didn't know about the
intricacies of green arrowsrelationships to anything. But you
had those guys that were like,just fucking leave us to it. Like,
we know what's going on. Youjust sign the checks, we'll handle
(34:12):
the rest. And I feel likepotentially that's exactly what is
needed now at Lucasfilm,because we're looking at this as,
like, an isolated thing. It'slike there's this one person that's
left, and then this other oneperson's come in to fill the spot.
But we know there's going tobe a board of people, there's upper
management, all that shit. ButI feel like advertising this and
(34:35):
saying, you know, this is the.The new guy. It just needs someone
like him to say, look, backoff, you lot. Protect these guys
who know what they're doing.Filoni's the creative genius, you
know, the Lucas second.Whatever. Let them do all that stuff.
Here's. Here's the thing. So Ireally hope if they follow that blueprint
(34:56):
that they've done successfullywith the DC stuff on TV and that
Feige done for the most partwith. With Marvel, this. This is.
This could be a good thing.But, yeah, the glass half empty thing
you were saying earlier. Yeah,that's in my head, and I can't get
rid of it.
And it feels like they'retrying to build, or they've been
(35:16):
trying to build spectacleversus personal stories. And if you
look at, like, Superman a lotis a great example of that. Like,
on paper, that should havebeen crap. Like, not a great budget.
It's on the cw. It's beensunsetted because James Gunn and
Saffron have come in to builda new Superman universe on screen.
So they've called it a day,knocked it on Edit Season 4 instead
of Season 5. The overall kindof storylines are quite literally
(35:46):
based on the early 90s comics,where the world was much less complicated.
From a comic standpoint, youKnow, it was before everything got
dark in the comics. It wasn'tIdentity Crisis, where everything.
You know, that's probably thetipping point of it getting dark,
you know, super dark. And it.By all accounts, it just shouldn't
have been that good. It shouldhave been just bubblegum. And it
(36:09):
was brilliant. The entirething, top to toe, was absolutely
brilliant. And the reason itwas that good was the built. They
spent time on characters andthen built everything around that.
And. And it's. I. It'sprobably top three Superman on screen
for me without. In fact. No,it is top three. It's just where
it sits in the top three. It'sexcellently done. And when you look
(36:34):
at, like, the way thatLucasfilm didn't do that with the
sequels and really anythingelse, like, it's done it a little
bit with Mandalorian, but thenafter Season two, it was like, oh,
now it's the Mandalorianuniverse. And it was good, but it
wasn't. It wasn't like it was.And it was. They were trying to do
too much too soon. And it wasthe same with, like, the reason that
(36:56):
Ahsoka worked so well wasbecause of Rebels. Without Rebels,
it had been, well, what's got.Who's. Why do we care about this?
What's the point in this? AndRebel was. Worked well because it
was a bunch of five things.Five people, six people over the
course of five or six seasonsthat you got to know and you spent
a bit of time with. And, youknow, they missed so much opportunity
(37:20):
that if they. If they justspend time developing the characters,
like everything else follows,you know, and this is what I mean
potentially about this. Maybethis line in the sand, you know,
that we've. We've all spenttime getting to know Luke and the
OT characters and then Anakinand the. The prequel trilogy characters
in our own heads. And nowthey're back. There is an opportunity
(37:42):
to tell those characterstories and to go into that and,
you know, look at what CharlesSoul's doing with comics. You know,
telling the story of Kylo Renbecoming that supreme leader in between
Last Jedi and Rise ofSkywalker, because the film did all
with it and the Force Awakens,we were all so excited because it
was like, grandfather, I'llfinish what you start. And it was
like, oh, actually, you knowwhat? That. I'm not gonna bother.
(38:04):
So it was. It was completely.It was. Everything became completely
led by other things, notcharacters. And it just, like. It
sounds so basic. Just soundsso basic. But I wonder if it's like
the Fear of time. Like, well,if we do that, it's going to take
(38:24):
three films for you to get toknow these guys. And that's all right.
That's cool. Tell some good stories.
I think that works if you're,if you're announcing a fairly big
series of films that, that youknow are going to be, that you're
going to need at that time todevelop those characters and stuff.
(38:45):
You know, when things likeAvatar was announced and, and Dune,
you know, these big new sci fiblockbusters, I'm pretty sure that
James Cameron wasn't thinkingright. Okay, by the end of film one,
you guys are going to knowabsolutely everything about what's
going on in these films. Andin this one film with all these characters,
I think they already saidlike, you know, it's going to be
(39:07):
a trilogy or four, six films,whatever it is, and, and that's fine.
You can, you can do that. Butwith Star wars it, you haven't got
time in one trilogy to resetall of that stuff that you've already,
you've already fucked. Youknow, to put a finer point on it.
Like if you've, the first filmwas, okay, the Force Awakens, that
(39:30):
was, that wasn't too bad.Actually, don't mind the Force Awakens,
it's all right. When you getto the end of the Last Jedi, you're
like, I'm not seeing the stuffthat you said we were going to see.
I'm not seeing some of thecharacter development and I'm certainly
not seeing. I just don't getwhat you're doing with Luke. Like,
I just don't understand, Idon't understand it. So then you've
(39:51):
got one film left to try and,to try and make amends and you can't,
you're too far in at thatpoint. You fucked it. So with Star
wars you couldn't do that. Youcouldn't say, oh, which is why maybe
that picks up on. We weresaying earlier, you know, with the
High Republic in last week'sepisode, we, so we spoke about the,
the wrap up that they're doingwith that and that finale story and
(40:16):
that's like the bestopportunity to do that kind of thing
where it's like, you know,here's a, here's a brand new sort
of era to get stuck into andwe're going to do it across all of
these books and whatever andyou're going to get to know the characters.
That's cool. But, but with thecharacters that have been written
that way in the sequeltrilogy, now it then bleeds into
the Disney plus stuff, whichthen bleeds into these individual
(40:39):
stories like the Acolyte. Andwe're here, we're at this point now
where it's like, I don't know,change is needed, you know, and it.
Was that cross media strategywas like, that was always stated
as a mission for the HighRepublic right from day one, you
know, it was Charles soClaudia Gray, all these amazing people
coming together to focus on asingle finite cross media era of
(41:04):
Star wars, you know, and itlarge, by and large, it's worked
pretty well. I've enjoyed alot of it. Whereas you, you saw the
stories never been reallyfinished with, with any of the style.
You know, if you're gonna doprequels and sequels, like, at least
(41:25):
tell the stories and genuinelythink about how do we finish a story
off. Because a lot of the, youknow, if you look at the media, it's
like it's time for Star warsto be done with the Skywalker Saga.
And you're like, that's likesaying it's time for DC to be done
with Batman or Superman. Youcan be done with them for four years,
but you know, people are goingto come out and see them and it's.
They're a big draw. They'realways a big draw. And everything
(41:50):
in the, on the movie side hasbeen reactionary. Oh, we better do
this Sith. I can't rememberwhat it was called, the Sith book
that came out where it's Lukeand a little Bobby Kylo and. And
what's his name, the guy from.Max Von Sydow from Force Awakens.
You know, that character. It'sbefore Force Awakens, haha. But it
(42:11):
was released in like 2021. Andyou're like, no, it's. That's there
to make sure that that occurBastoon character has legitimacy.
And it's not just a thing thatyou put in. So it's, you know, I
think that's the differencewith it. And it just feels like it
needs someone to say, right,look, let's just be completely honest.
Star wars is the Skywalkers,right? And let's assume that goes
(42:32):
on for another 50 years. Whatare the next three chapters of this?
And when I say chapter, I meana chapter might be a trilogy of films,
five books, an animated seriesand some comics. Like, what is that
overall picture? And likeLucas said, my canon is the prequels,
(42:54):
the original trilogy and theClone Wars TV show. That's it. And
there's no reason I don'tunderstand why they can't just do
the same thing. We're justgonna go, this next chapter, the
main story, and everyoneshould get what is needed to be gotten
from the movies, like thestory. My mum should be able to watch
(43:14):
those movies and go, oh,that's a pretty cool story. And then
everything else is. Isseparate stories that are tied in
or supplementary material or amix of both like that, like they
do with the prequels andstuff. But it just. I just fail to
see how a company of that sizewith so much resource cannot just
get in a room with a pen andpaper and go, well, it's just, why
don't do this? Like the HighRepublic project. Single, finite,
(43:38):
defined. And we are going totell the story of Luke and we are
going to tell the story ofAnakin, and we are going to tell
the story of Rare and Finn andall these things, you know, so it
just feels weird and it's. I.I sort of blame Marvel a little bit
as well. Like, they've ruinedit for everyone, haven't they? They
sort of ruined it by buildingthese universes and expectations
(43:59):
of, you know, expectations of.Of every film hitting like 900 million
and having to follow a similarformat. So it's a difficult landscape
to be in, but maybe get on topof it.
Yeah, they've ruined a fewthings. Marvel. The last time me
and the missus went to thecinema, we went to see Beetlejuice.
(44:22):
I think the second one, whichis terrible, by the way. Films. Films
ended. Credits are rolling.We're just sat there like a pair
of lemons. We're like, what wesat here for. This is Marvel in it.
We're waiting for a. We'rewaiting for end of credit, cut scene.
That's not coming. But becauseMarvel have done it with all of their
films and we've seen them all,we sat there like, this is not coming,
(44:44):
is it? Just. Just do one. Idon't know if there was one or not,
but it's things like that thathave got you into this, this kind
of mindset with all thisstuff. So maybe, maybe that's part
of it. Maybe, maybe they werethinking, like, you know, we can't
just tell this nice little,you know, era of storytelling because
(45:05):
we're going to shoot ourselvesin the foot and it's not connected
by this other thing and wecan't build this big universe off
of it, and we can't do this.So maybe they're thinking too big
all the time. You know, maybethey're thinking, we need to follow
Marvel suit because thatequals X amount of dollars in terms
of B's. Billions, you know,But I don't know. Yeah, we'll wrap
(45:25):
up. But all I'll say is it allboils down to characters on this.
Because the best example is ifyou look at the Empire Strikes Back,
nobody needed to sit therethat long and listen to a conversation
between Yoda and Luke whenhe's training. But it's some of the
best fucking Star wars thatyou'll see. And all that was was
(45:46):
just little bit of exposition,a bit of character progression, but
you knew exactly what Luke wasgoing through and what he was thinking
and all of that stuff. And bythe end, when he buggers off to Bespin
because he gets that littlesort of foresight within the Force,
you're like, shit, what wouldI do? Yeah, you'd probably do it
in the sequel. Trilogy. Idon't get that. I don't. And it's
(46:10):
most of the Disney plus stuff.I just don't get that. I just get
the popcorny. Yep. Pew, pew,pew. This is what's going on. I don't.
I don't feel that stuff. Sohopefully old Des can. Yeah. Can
bring it back around and starttelling some decent stories where
people actually like, yeah.Fucking love that character and talk
about it, you know?
(46:30):
So, yeah, we shall see. Weshall see. But, yeah, lots. Lots
to think about. We'll see whatcomes out of Celebration as well.
I know there'll be. There willbe announcements, there's going to
be teasers, going to betrailers. There's going to be. I
mean, the irony is that notreally that much has happened with
any of the movies that wasannounced at Celebration 23. That's
(46:52):
the. That. And. And here weare, you know, and so it's. It's
a. Yeah. I don't know, man.It's an awkward thing, but, yeah,
it's difficult. It'sdifficult. You want, like, depending
on what happens with Superman,Right. I know it will never happen
because of where he works, butjust give James Gunn a Star wars
film. Like, if anyone's goingto do ott original Star War, be someone
(47:15):
like James Gunn. You know whatI mean?
Yeah, yeah. As in. As in atrilogy of films.
Yeah, Just give him. Give him.Because he feels like he can tell
a story. Like, Guardians wereall great. There was not a bad Guardians
film. He clearly knows how todirect and he clearly knows how to
write, so it just. And he getscharacters, you know, that's. I just
(47:39):
feel like we need a little bitof that, you know, less of the spectacle,
more of, you know, thespectacle in Star wars should be
the, the background, thebelievable background. It shouldn't
be up front and center. Itshould always be the kid that wants
to get off a planet becausehe's bored of. And the princess that
wants to find an old friendto, to help, you know, to help help
(48:00):
her people. And you've got a,A big guy with a great red sword
that's after him. You know,like that's. It's basic. You know,
it's tried and tested and itworks. I do also feel like the mythology
side of it and even though Ilove all that the law side of things,
it can wear heavy. It can wearheavy. You know, there's is. Is a
(48:21):
better Luke Skywalker story inthe Last Jedi or after the Last Jedi.
Just right. There's this otherbig bad guy called Kylo Ren. Turns
out he's Luke's nephew, as ithappens. Right. He's super powerful
because guess what? That'sright. Is related to them all. Who
could probably sort that out.That's right. Like just make a film
(48:42):
about that. I don't know howyou get that wrong. I just don't
know how you get that wrong.And everything else is the backdrop.
So maybe, maybe. Anyway, wewill wrap up because we'll talk about
this forever. But I think thisgoes to show, dude, that, you know,
one deep dive on a topic or,or something is probably a more entertaining
episode as well. You know,we've not recapped any news here.
(49:04):
Validation. Thank you. Allright, we will stick a pin in it
for our penultimate episode ofthis, I suppose this chapter, A Sparker
Rebellion.
Yeah, it's gonna.
Thank you very much.
Sorry, I was gonna say it'snot like. No, you season. Do you
just guys us up? Yeah. Soseason one is like five years long.
(49:27):
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, she got what'scoming in season two.
Well, a TV show. Like we'rethe opposite of Benny Dom, right.
Started out as like four,five, six episodes, 20 minutes each,
then became like 32 episodesof two hours. And you're like, no,
I don't want to see itanymore. We're the opposite of that.
We're the opposite of that.
Sorry, dude. Take us home thenfor two.
(49:48):
No, I love it. We're like a CW2008 era TV show with 24 full length
episodes that you die to getthrough. I miss them days. But no,
(50:12):
thank you for joining us. It'salways a pleasure. Thank you to Kevin,
to everyone that supports us,Pascal, Denise, Tom, everyone that
supports us. Danny, if youwant to get involved involved in
that, you can spark arebellion.com support. Next week
we'll be back with our, ourfinal news roundup, certainly our
final weekly news roundupbefore we start on with our new format.
And we will keep you post onthat. We will drop some trailers,
(50:33):
we will put some good stuffout there for you so that you know
that we are still around. Soit's been a real pleasure. Enjoyed
that one. Really enjoyedchatting about that. And Gazla, I'll
see your bad self next week.
Indeed. Yes. That was a gooddeep dive that and a good, good chat.
And we know that Kath listens,of course. She's in the car at the
moment. She's got sparkrebellion on the, on the, on the
(50:54):
podcast player. We know shelistens. So you're welcome. We told
you to do this, didn't we? Wesaid you need to make a change. You're
doing that. Good steps. Butjust hit us up if you need some more,
some more advice. It's allgood. Never a problem. Next week,
as Mark said last episode fora bit. Plenty of news to get through.
So we'll get all that stuffdone and then, and then we'll come
(51:15):
back with some very cool stufflater on in the year. So until next
week then, take care ofyourselves and may the force be with
you always.
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