July 8, 2025 • 24 mins
Getting Weird with the Force.
It’s always risky to try to expand Star Wars lore. People have very set ideas of what works, and what doesn’t. Matt and John try to figure out the magic formula for making original Star Wars works that explore aspects we don’t understand, and whether we were ever really meant to understand them in the first place…or engage in the unanswered questions with our own imaginations.
Hosts
John Mills and Matthew Rushing
You’ve found the best Star Wars podcast with one-of-a-kind discussions in the spirit of fun! While you’re here, look around our creator-focused network of podcasts with all the best of Star Trek, a deep-dive read of Harry Potter's magical world, analysis of film's greatest directors, and breaking news from top names in international film festivals, and so much more!
Send us your feedback!
Twitter: @TheJediMasters
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheNerdParty/
Email: http://www.thenerdparty.com/contact
Subscribe in Apple Podcasts
It’s always risky to try to expand Star Wars lore. People have very set ideas of what works, and what doesn’t. Matt and John try to figure out the magic formula for making original Star Wars works that explore aspects we don’t understand, and whether we were ever really meant to understand them in the first place…or engage in the unanswered questions with our own imaginations.
Hosts
John Mills and Matthew Rushing
You’ve found the best Star Wars podcast with one-of-a-kind discussions in the spirit of fun! While you’re here, look around our creator-focused network of podcasts with all the best of Star Trek, a deep-dive read of Harry Potter's magical world, analysis of film's greatest directors, and breaking news from top names in international film festivals, and so much more!
Send us your feedback!
Twitter: @TheJediMasters
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheNerdParty/
Email: http://www.thenerdparty.com/contact
Subscribe in Apple Podcasts
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the note Paulty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hi, this is Nick and Ostasu, story editor on Star Wars,
The Clone Wars and Star Wars bad Batch, and you
are listening to aggressive negotiations.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
It's that time again for aggressive negotiations. You're sweet, sweet
taste of Star Wars Heaven, and I am just one
of your hosts here Matthew Rushing, and we're so excited
to be coming at you from well a planet that
we're not really sure what to call it. But there's
a very strange glow of force energy coming from the
middle of it. And I don't know. I thought I
(00:46):
saw Yoda and R two D two. Anyway, I'm one
of your hosts of Matthew Rushing, and with me as
he is every single week, is none other than Jedi
Master John Mills. John, you're looking glowing the sea.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
It's my r My Force Arara has truly taken over
the airways at this point, and it's my true self
revealing who I am. But more importantly, wouldn't the true
measure of real ascendants from a Jedi be being able
to get to that magical weird force planet thingy without
(01:22):
the use of a ship.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Now I think it would be reviewing us on Apple Podcasts.
That's really weird. Please do that. You can also find
us on social media on ex Twitter at the Jedi Masters.
You can also find us with the entire network on
Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash the Nerd Party. You
can also find us online at the nerd Party dot com.
And so we would love to interact with you in
(01:47):
all of those places, and so please do. But John,
something that the first season and the second season of
and or both reference is the Racottans, who we know
from the Knights of the Republic game, are very big
part of that game, in the lore of Star Wars
(02:09):
history in the distant past. But you know, we're also
aware of things like this planet that Yoda visits right
in the Clone Wars. We have the Mortis arc in
Clone Wars. We've got this whole other galaxy in Ahsoka,
and where then the Witches of Datamir came from. And
(02:34):
all of this just kind of weird stuff, right, that
seems to connect us to a much I mean, talk
about taking a step into a much larger world, right.
Something I was thinking about though for you in the
thought process that we may possibly be getting a film
from James Man goold about you know, very early Jedi,
(02:58):
the beginning of the Force, YadA YadA. Who knows exactly
what it may or may not be and if it
ever even gets made. But do we want things to
give us more explanation around all of these mysteries or
is there something to be said for allowing the mystery
to stay a mystery and therefore allowing the audience to
(03:21):
kind of make up whatever it is that they want
in their own minds.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I'm pretty sure I've come down firmly on the side
of leaving a lot of things a mystery, because the
only thing you can possibly do is disappoint people unless
you absolutely stick the landing. And by sticking the landing,
and I know everybody's going to sit to yeah, fanboy,
(03:48):
all that type of thing, but.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Sticking the landing is like Clone Wars.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I never would have if you had posed this question
to me and said, do you want to see the
planet that is the wellspring of the forest the galaxy?
Speaker 4 (04:00):
And I'm be like, Oh, that's no, that's a terrible idea.
What on earth?
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Why on earth would you do that? That's crazy? But
then we go there in the Clone Wars as you
alluded to, and oh, well, okay, that was actually more
delightful than I thought it would be, because the trick
is to go a little crazy. What I mean by
that is finding that well spring of the force and
(04:24):
seeing all that type of thing.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Like we went a little.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Crazy there, Like it was just it was to borrow
a term that that we use in our circle.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
It's bonkers.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
It's not safe. And so the fear becomes if they
start going into explaining quote unquote things, then they're going
to follow the urge of well, we have to make
sure it's a this, or it's a that, or it
has to.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Fit in this way or that way.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
And honestly, the beauty of the prequels and the Clone
War series and the Bad Batch and everything like that is, Yeah,
there's connective tissue that goes in. It's not dictating what
happens with the story. That's where I think the trick becomes.
I don't think they're obligated to and I would if
(05:11):
I were sitting there in their like little Jedi Council chamber,
I would be counseling them as a default to be
against it unless they could throw an idea out there
that wowed me so much I'd be like, Okay, just
crazy enough that it could work if you let yourself go.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Nuts with it.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
I think utilizing those clone wars arcs is really the
correct jumping off point for this discussion, because the thing
about them is is that they may answer one to
two questions, but they then raise forty seven and it's yes.
(05:56):
And to me, I think that is the correct way
to do this that if you were you know, I
think the same thing happened. And I was thinking immediately
as you start talking like Okay, yes you can do this,
but then what happens if you do it badly?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Right?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Which most people got up in arms about the whole
idea of the Midichlorians from the Phantom Menace, right, But
to me, what the beauty of met Midichlorians was not
that they answered how people had the force. What they
did is they raised so many more questions than about
(06:36):
this microscopic life form and how they are a part
of every living being in all of this stuff, that
it's like, Okay, what Lucas was actually doing was creating
even more depth with even less answers than creating more answers,
you know, And I think that's the thing that people
(06:57):
kind of missed. And so therefore, where if we are
going to kind of dive into some of these mysteries,
which I don't think there's anything wrong with doing. I
mean again, I think the whole thought process of maybe
even and or inadvertently or you know, maybe who knows,
(07:17):
on purpose kind of setting up some ideas that they
might actually utilize in an old Republic style setting. You know,
that's great to me. At the same time, again, I
think there really are you know, I think you rightly
put it, there are two roads you can walk down
(07:38):
with this. You either walk down a road that allows
some of an audience natural questions to be answered, but
then naturally raises many more questions, so you're always leaving
audience members with a sense of mystery. And I think
that's the thing maybe that kind of Star Wars in
(07:59):
general actually tapped into, right, is that there was this
sense of spirituality and mysticism and those type of things
in this series that a lot of films at the
time had completely gotten away from because we had really
(08:20):
dug into gritty realism in film right and Lucas kind
of rightly understood that the stories that stay with us
tend to be one that have these metaphysical questions to
them layered in and they don't have to be, you know,
(08:44):
ones that overtake the story, but there are layered in
there because they're natural questions that we have as human beings.
And so yeah, I mean I think it's a really
interesting question.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Well, I think that let's take the Mangal things, like,
you know, it's the birth of the Jedi quote unquote
whatever that's rumored. Cool, no problem with it right again,
so you know you can do it right, You can
do it. It's a trick, you gonna have to walk
a tight rope. But I would offer that the source
material from Lucas's day exists there where I think it's
(09:19):
the episode one novelization. Don't come at me if I'm
getting it wrong, but I know I've read it in
one of the materials that's quote unquote cana whatever you
want to call it.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Where knowledge that the Jedi existed before knowledge of the Midichlorians.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
So if you're going to get into like the origin
of the Jedi or something like that, and even more
interesting movie to me is somebody who suddenly figures out
how it all works. What you're talking about, the metaphysical
question where somebody's sitting there and they're like, why can
we do this? How is this even possible?
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Right?
Speaker 1 (09:54):
And then you can get into things of like the
story of the first Lightsaber what did that look like?
And we know that when Lucas was developing the sequel trilogy,
one of the concept things that came out of it
was what did the first Lightsaber look like? And it
was like two pieces of wood wrapped around a crystal
sort of thing. So it's like, that's what I'm talking about.
You gotta be willing to get crazy with it, right,
(10:14):
because if you have a movie that's being made by
a conglomerate, oh, a lightsaber can't possibly work like that,
blah blah blah blah blah. Whereas Lucas and the team
he had assembled were free and willing to look at
something and be like, well, what if a Jedi just
made the crystal give a beam of light using the
force or something? And that, in and of itself, to
(10:36):
your point about raising more questions points us in the
direction of, oh, well, maybe the Jedi really have gotten
really far away from their roots because their most signature
weapon didn't even need the technology that they've built around
it in that modern age, and it showed their own
sort of straying away from the true pure thing, which
gets even more into Lucas's whole thing about like being
(10:58):
as close to the natural world as possible is the
way that you should be living your life. Like you know,
just having this discussion right here, that sort of thing
gets in there. But I promise you, and this this
gets back to the warning. I would have somebody heard
the words that just came out of my mouth and said,
you're crazy, that's nuts, that's there's no way that's going
(11:22):
to work. That's a dumb idea, right, And it's like
you have to be willing, as Lucas was to say,
I don't care if somebody thinks it sucks. This is
the story that has to be told. This is what's
necessary two things, and not care whether people loved it
or not. What was his quote was like he thought
(11:45):
it was like building a house and people said, you know,
you should build a white house and I but I
wanted a greenhouse. So I built a greenhouse and that's
the house that I wanted. And I don't care whether
you like it or not. I'm paraphrasing there, but words
along those lines.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
One of the you said there that I really liked
is the whole idea is that there are a couple
that really stood out. One is that you really truly
have to have a very deep understanding of the Star
Wars universe to be able to plumb these kind of depths, right,
(12:20):
because what you talked about was this idea that you're
going to go crazy. But then when you think about it,
it all seems to connect. And that's the thing when
you think about again the Mortis arc or the Yoda arc. There,
this is way out there stuff, and yet it feels
(12:40):
like it fits, and it feels in a way that
answers again some of my questions but leaves me with
so many more, Like, you know, who are these priestesses
that are on that planet with Yoda that have all
of these different faces? They seem to be one and
the same, you know, and yet different and all of
(13:03):
this crazy stuff right, and yet the crazy feels right.
And I think that's that's really the interesting thing to me,
is that the crazy has to feel right, and you
can do crazy and it turned into something else, right,
(13:24):
It can come at you in a way that comes
off like maybe some more of the you know, I
don't want to throw shade, but you know, it comes
off more like the stuff you see in less successful
versions of Star Wars that we've seen. I'll just leave
it at that.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Less creatively successful versions of Star Wars.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Yes, yes, and so, and that's where again I I'm
going to come down on the side then when it
comes to this question, which is that you can absolutely
delve into these types of topics, but you have to
do it in a way that makes me feel as
(14:09):
though that I am satisfied with the answers I get
as a person, and wow, because you just did something
that I wasn't expecting, yet at the same time didn't
leave me feeling like there were no more mysteries to
plumb the depths of That's the thing is, like I
they're always is this is the beauty of Star Wars,
(14:32):
and I think this is where it kind of works
the best, right is where theyre always more mysteries to plumb.
And you can do this in the most metaphysical way, right,
or you can kind of do this in the way
in which I think like the Bad Batch or something
like and or have done where it's like, Okay, we
have this time period and we're going to plumb the
(14:53):
depths of what does it mean for the Empire to
be ruler of the galaxy for almost twenty years?
Speaker 4 (15:01):
You know?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Right?
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:02):
I mean and there even though those two shows exist
and as long as as well as Rebels, I still
feel like there's so many other questions that you could
answer in that time period. Those shows didn't give me
the end all be all right.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
I think that this gets to.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
The heart of why anybody would feel trepidation about, you know,
an upcoming project having to deal with X Y or
z is. I think we're both getting right back to
that whole point of it can't be conceived of in
a boardroom or blessed by a committee.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
It has to be something that's I am not a committee.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, it's one of those things where it has to
be something so unafraid of failure, but it's something that
still gives you something to think. I would say that Solo,
a Star Wars story is the same thing. Oh well,
he's got the falcon, but we know that he's just
(16:07):
about to work for Java, So what else is going on?
I guess to your point about the questions. Oh okay,
you've answered these things, but there's still so much more
I want to know about. And it's a right goss
darn travesty that I'm not going to get that to
make another solo movie just as an animated series or something. Okay,
like the channel is there open to you, you cowards,
(16:30):
give me another solo Star Wars story movie. I don't
care what the medium is. Have it is just like
an animated flip book. I don't care, just something anyway.
It really does have to do with who's at the Helm.
And let me qualify it further by saying, if you
have a really creative filmmaker at the Helm, that's one thing,
(16:54):
But if you have corporate directive shaping the store, that's
where things can really you know, I mean, look, just
not to put too fine a point on it, I'm
not even talking about Star Wars and specific or Disney
buying it. Just so that people don't think, you know,
don't get your hackles up sort of thing about that
(17:17):
I'm talking about. I'm going back and I'm revisiting some movies,
you know, through through the years, stuff like that. I'm
showing old stuff to my kids, new stuff to others.
And I just watched Tommy, the movie adaptation from nineteen
seventy five of the Who's Rock Opera, and the movie sucks.
(17:40):
Sorry if I'm offending anybody, it sucks, but it sucks
in a glorious way. You know what update the reference.
It sucks in a Megalopolis way in that I love it.
I love Megalopolis because it's fearless, because it's nuts, because
it's unhinged. It is a film you're completely unafraid just
(18:01):
to be like boom, here it is and walk away,
and here's I spent more than one hundred million dollars
making this thing. That's what needs to happen if we're
going to get into this territory. The complete absence of
fear in what you're going to make, and the complete
willingness to be crazy with it, but not in a sterile,
(18:23):
anadyne or cynical way. We've gotten crazy in Star Wars.
We've also gotten cynical crazy in Star Wars. And that
is what the problem is.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Well, I do think that that is the thing that
as you're talking about, Look, Star Wars is made by
an our tour who is telling his story. Consequences be damned, right.
He doesn't care because he's using his own money to
tell his story the way he wants to and whether
(18:57):
you like that story or not, because that's the story
he has to tell, because it's something inside him that
was driving him, right. And I think that's kind of
the thing that you're getting at then with if you're
going to kind of talk about these types of depths
and Star Wars, you have to be willing to just
do what's best for the story, regardless of kind of
(19:20):
whether or not.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
People immediately love it.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
And the thing that we've seen obviously in Star Wars
is that people have begun to come around to Lucas's
way of thinking, especially when it comes to the Clone Wars,
when it comes to the prequels. I mean, there is
a new appreciation for those things because people have been
(19:44):
able to kind of let go of their own preconceptions,
come back to it with a different state of mind,
and realize, Oh, that's what was happening, that's what's going
on here, that's the thought process, And I think that's
the thing of kind of doing the crazy, right. So
(20:04):
much of filmmaking these days is about, Okay, we just
got to give people the same thing but different, and
one of the things that Lucas was doing was not that,
And especially again when it came to the prequel era
and exploring some of these mysteries. I'm not giving people
(20:24):
what they want. I'm giving them what I want because
I'm the storyteller and this is the story I have
to tell for the universe I created, And this is
what's coming out of me as the storyteller, not because
somebody wants it, because that's just what's there. And that's
where I think, you know, and all the conversations that
(20:47):
you know, we kind of get who should run lucasfilm,
And oh is Dave Feloni too?
Speaker 4 (20:53):
You know?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
And is he got too much Star Wars Lord? It's like,
that's the dumbest question I've ever heard. Why, Because you
can't have too much Star Wars lore if you're making
Star Wars. I think it's George Lucas had too much
Star Wars lore because he is Star Wars and and
so like anyway, I don't that's probably a whole o
(21:17):
their podcast. But all this to say is like I think,
when it comes to telling these type of stories, you
do unequivocally have to be unafraid, Yeah, to get nothing.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Well, I'm gonna give you two things here. One.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
You want to get nuts, let's get nuts.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
I'll give you two things here. One.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
The whole thing is like, oh, you know, I understand
when people are like, oh, well, you know, maybe somebody
native to lucasfilm is too you know, too internally focused.
They're not going to try to grow the audience. They're
not going to try to get crazy. They're not going
blah blah blah blah. But then you look at Ahsoka
season one. It never even occurred to me that to
go outside the galaxy before I saw that, and I
(22:00):
was like, oh wait, why didn't I think of that?
Speaker 4 (22:04):
That's the that's great, that's where we're going. That's great,
all right.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
You know, okay, we're going to the Hamptons. Anybody who
watch Seinfeld gets that reference. And then I'm going to
close with a contentious thing and go right into the
sign off and not even give you a chance to reply.
But you know, we both keep praise on Lucas because
he did the I'm going to tell what the story
is necessary. He didn't play it safe with the prequels,
and when you play it safe with a prequel. That's
(22:28):
when you get Rogue one, a Star Wars story. So, Matt,
where can people find you online?
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Well, you can find me all over social media under
the name Matt Rushing zero two. Of course, here on
the network you'll find me with our post talking about
every single chapter the Harry Potter series, one chapter time,
and then over on the TFM network you'll find me
doing a bunch of shows. One is the six o
two Club, where we talk all about the franchises we
love and sometimes some Star Wars. In fact, we may
(22:57):
be having a crossover coming very soon. But you could
also find me doing a lot of Star Trek talk
over there, so check all of that out. But John,
if people wanted to catch up with you and maybe
respond to what you just said before we went into
the clothes, where can people find.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Oh, nobody wants to reply to me about that?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
You can find me as kessel Junkie on your social
network of choice. You can of course reach out to
us at the nerd party dot com slash contact. We
still have a couple of listener letters we're going to
get to and you can listen to me here on
the nerd Party on house Lights, which I think is
a delightful show because it's usually me half drunk, ranting
at Tristan and Darren about why they're wrong about their
(23:34):
movie opinions. And recently we've been talking about the screen
movies and they're not horror fans and they don't know
what they're talking about.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
So check out Houselights.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
But Matt, with all of that said, I think I
hear the dinner bell back at the Jedi Temple, so
I think it's time to close these negotiations.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
John, negotiations are clothes. Join the Revolution, Join the Nerd Party.
Welcome to the note Paulty.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hi, this is Nick and Ostasu, story editor on Star Wars,
The Clone Wars and Star Wars bad Batch, and you
are listening to aggressive negotiations.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
It's that time again for aggressive negotiations. You're sweet, sweet
taste of Star Wars Heaven, and I am just one
of your hosts here Matthew Rushing, and we're so excited
to be coming at you from well a planet that
we're not really sure what to call it. But there's
a very strange glow of force energy coming from the
middle of it. And I don't know. I thought I
(00:46):
saw Yoda and R two D two. Anyway, I'm one
of your hosts of Matthew Rushing, and with me as
he is every single week, is none other than Jedi
Master John Mills. John, you're looking glowing the sea.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
It's my r My Force Arara has truly taken over
the airways at this point, and it's my true self
revealing who I am. But more importantly, wouldn't the true
measure of real ascendants from a Jedi be being able
to get to that magical weird force planet thingy without
(01:22):
the use of a ship.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Now I think it would be reviewing us on Apple Podcasts.
That's really weird. Please do that. You can also find
us on social media on ex Twitter at the Jedi Masters.
You can also find us with the entire network on
Facebook at Facebook dot com, slash the Nerd Party. You
can also find us online at the nerd Party dot com.
And so we would love to interact with you in
(01:47):
all of those places, and so please do. But John,
something that the first season and the second season of
and or both reference is the Racottans, who we know
from the Knights of the Republic game, are very big
part of that game, in the lore of Star Wars
(02:09):
history in the distant past. But you know, we're also
aware of things like this planet that Yoda visits right
in the Clone Wars. We have the Mortis arc in
Clone Wars. We've got this whole other galaxy in Ahsoka,
and where then the Witches of Datamir came from. And
(02:34):
all of this just kind of weird stuff, right, that
seems to connect us to a much I mean, talk
about taking a step into a much larger world, right.
Something I was thinking about though for you in the
thought process that we may possibly be getting a film
from James Man goold about you know, very early Jedi,
(02:58):
the beginning of the Force, YadA YadA. Who knows exactly
what it may or may not be and if it
ever even gets made. But do we want things to
give us more explanation around all of these mysteries or
is there something to be said for allowing the mystery
to stay a mystery and therefore allowing the audience to
(03:21):
kind of make up whatever it is that they want
in their own minds.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I'm pretty sure I've come down firmly on the side
of leaving a lot of things a mystery, because the
only thing you can possibly do is disappoint people unless
you absolutely stick the landing. And by sticking the landing,
and I know everybody's going to sit to yeah, fanboy,
(03:48):
all that type of thing, but.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Sticking the landing is like Clone Wars.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I never would have if you had posed this question
to me and said, do you want to see the
planet that is the wellspring of the forest the galaxy?
Speaker 4 (04:00):
And I'm be like, Oh, that's no, that's a terrible idea.
What on earth?
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Why on earth would you do that? That's crazy? But
then we go there in the Clone Wars as you
alluded to, and oh, well, okay, that was actually more
delightful than I thought it would be, because the trick
is to go a little crazy. What I mean by
that is finding that well spring of the force and
(04:24):
seeing all that type of thing.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
Like we went a little.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Crazy there, Like it was just it was to borrow
a term that that we use in our circle.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
It's bonkers.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
It's not safe. And so the fear becomes if they
start going into explaining quote unquote things, then they're going
to follow the urge of well, we have to make
sure it's a this, or it's a that, or it
has to.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Fit in this way or that way.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
And honestly, the beauty of the prequels and the Clone
War series and the Bad Batch and everything like that is, Yeah,
there's connective tissue that goes in. It's not dictating what
happens with the story. That's where I think the trick becomes.
I don't think they're obligated to and I would if
(05:11):
I were sitting there in their like little Jedi Council chamber,
I would be counseling them as a default to be
against it unless they could throw an idea out there
that wowed me so much I'd be like, Okay, just
crazy enough that it could work if you let yourself go.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Nuts with it.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
I think utilizing those clone wars arcs is really the
correct jumping off point for this discussion, because the thing
about them is is that they may answer one to
two questions, but they then raise forty seven and it's yes.
(05:56):
And to me, I think that is the correct way
to do this that if you were you know, I
think the same thing happened. And I was thinking immediately
as you start talking like Okay, yes you can do this,
but then what happens if you do it badly?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Right?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Which most people got up in arms about the whole
idea of the Midichlorians from the Phantom Menace, right, But
to me, what the beauty of met Midichlorians was not
that they answered how people had the force. What they
did is they raised so many more questions than about
(06:36):
this microscopic life form and how they are a part
of every living being in all of this stuff, that
it's like, Okay, what Lucas was actually doing was creating
even more depth with even less answers than creating more answers,
you know, And I think that's the thing that people
(06:57):
kind of missed. And so therefore, where if we are
going to kind of dive into some of these mysteries,
which I don't think there's anything wrong with doing. I
mean again, I think the whole thought process of maybe
even and or inadvertently or you know, maybe who knows,
(07:17):
on purpose kind of setting up some ideas that they
might actually utilize in an old Republic style setting. You know,
that's great to me. At the same time, again, I
think there really are you know, I think you rightly
put it, there are two roads you can walk down
(07:38):
with this. You either walk down a road that allows
some of an audience natural questions to be answered, but
then naturally raises many more questions, so you're always leaving
audience members with a sense of mystery. And I think
that's the thing maybe that kind of Star Wars in
(07:59):
general actually tapped into, right, is that there was this
sense of spirituality and mysticism and those type of things
in this series that a lot of films at the
time had completely gotten away from because we had really
(08:20):
dug into gritty realism in film right and Lucas kind
of rightly understood that the stories that stay with us
tend to be one that have these metaphysical questions to
them layered in and they don't have to be, you know,
(08:44):
ones that overtake the story, but there are layered in
there because they're natural questions that we have as human beings.
And so yeah, I mean I think it's a really
interesting question.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Well, I think that let's take the Mangal things, like,
you know, it's the birth of the Jedi quote unquote
whatever that's rumored. Cool, no problem with it right again,
so you know you can do it right, You can
do it. It's a trick, you gonna have to walk
a tight rope. But I would offer that the source
material from Lucas's day exists there where I think it's
(09:19):
the episode one novelization. Don't come at me if I'm
getting it wrong, but I know I've read it in
one of the materials that's quote unquote cana whatever you
want to call it.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
Where knowledge that the Jedi existed before knowledge of the Midichlorians.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
So if you're going to get into like the origin
of the Jedi or something like that, and even more
interesting movie to me is somebody who suddenly figures out
how it all works. What you're talking about, the metaphysical
question where somebody's sitting there and they're like, why can
we do this? How is this even possible?
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Right?
Speaker 1 (09:54):
And then you can get into things of like the
story of the first Lightsaber what did that look like?
And we know that when Lucas was developing the sequel trilogy,
one of the concept things that came out of it
was what did the first Lightsaber look like? And it
was like two pieces of wood wrapped around a crystal
sort of thing. So it's like, that's what I'm talking about.
You gotta be willing to get crazy with it, right,
(10:14):
because if you have a movie that's being made by
a conglomerate, oh, a lightsaber can't possibly work like that,
blah blah blah blah blah. Whereas Lucas and the team
he had assembled were free and willing to look at
something and be like, well, what if a Jedi just
made the crystal give a beam of light using the
force or something? And that, in and of itself, to
(10:36):
your point about raising more questions points us in the
direction of, oh, well, maybe the Jedi really have gotten
really far away from their roots because their most signature
weapon didn't even need the technology that they've built around
it in that modern age, and it showed their own
sort of straying away from the true pure thing, which
gets even more into Lucas's whole thing about like being
(10:58):
as close to the natural world as possible is the
way that you should be living your life. Like you know,
just having this discussion right here, that sort of thing
gets in there. But I promise you, and this this
gets back to the warning. I would have somebody heard
the words that just came out of my mouth and said,
you're crazy, that's nuts, that's there's no way that's going
(11:22):
to work. That's a dumb idea, right, And it's like
you have to be willing, as Lucas was to say,
I don't care if somebody thinks it sucks. This is
the story that has to be told. This is what's
necessary two things, and not care whether people loved it
or not. What was his quote was like he thought
(11:45):
it was like building a house and people said, you know,
you should build a white house and I but I
wanted a greenhouse. So I built a greenhouse and that's
the house that I wanted. And I don't care whether
you like it or not. I'm paraphrasing there, but words
along those lines.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
One of the you said there that I really liked
is the whole idea is that there are a couple
that really stood out. One is that you really truly
have to have a very deep understanding of the Star
Wars universe to be able to plumb these kind of depths, right,
(12:20):
because what you talked about was this idea that you're
going to go crazy. But then when you think about it,
it all seems to connect. And that's the thing when
you think about again the Mortis arc or the Yoda arc. There,
this is way out there stuff, and yet it feels
(12:40):
like it fits, and it feels in a way that
answers again some of my questions but leaves me with
so many more, Like, you know, who are these priestesses
that are on that planet with Yoda that have all
of these different faces? They seem to be one and
the same, you know, and yet different and all of
(13:03):
this crazy stuff right, and yet the crazy feels right.
And I think that's that's really the interesting thing to me,
is that the crazy has to feel right, and you
can do crazy and it turned into something else, right,
(13:24):
It can come at you in a way that comes
off like maybe some more of the you know, I
don't want to throw shade, but you know, it comes
off more like the stuff you see in less successful
versions of Star Wars that we've seen. I'll just leave
it at that.
Speaker 4 (13:42):
Less creatively successful versions of Star Wars.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Yes, yes, and so, and that's where again I I'm
going to come down on the side then when it
comes to this question, which is that you can absolutely
delve into these types of topics, but you have to
do it in a way that makes me feel as
(14:09):
though that I am satisfied with the answers I get
as a person, and wow, because you just did something
that I wasn't expecting, yet at the same time didn't
leave me feeling like there were no more mysteries to
plumb the depths of That's the thing is, like I
they're always is this is the beauty of Star Wars,
(14:32):
and I think this is where it kind of works
the best, right is where theyre always more mysteries to plumb.
And you can do this in the most metaphysical way, right,
or you can kind of do this in the way
in which I think like the Bad Batch or something
like and or have done where it's like, Okay, we
have this time period and we're going to plumb the
(14:53):
depths of what does it mean for the Empire to
be ruler of the galaxy for almost twenty years?
Speaker 4 (15:01):
You know?
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Right?
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:02):
I mean and there even though those two shows exist
and as long as as well as Rebels, I still
feel like there's so many other questions that you could
answer in that time period. Those shows didn't give me
the end all be all right.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
I think that this gets to.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
The heart of why anybody would feel trepidation about, you know,
an upcoming project having to deal with X Y or
z is. I think we're both getting right back to
that whole point of it can't be conceived of in
a boardroom or blessed by a committee.
Speaker 4 (15:43):
It has to be something that's I am not a committee.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, it's one of those things where it has to
be something so unafraid of failure, but it's something that
still gives you something to think. I would say that Solo,
a Star Wars story is the same thing. Oh well,
he's got the falcon, but we know that he's just
(16:07):
about to work for Java, So what else is going on?
I guess to your point about the questions. Oh okay,
you've answered these things, but there's still so much more
I want to know about. And it's a right goss
darn travesty that I'm not going to get that to
make another solo movie just as an animated series or something. Okay,
like the channel is there open to you, you cowards,
(16:30):
give me another solo Star Wars story movie. I don't
care what the medium is. Have it is just like
an animated flip book. I don't care, just something anyway.
It really does have to do with who's at the Helm.
And let me qualify it further by saying, if you
have a really creative filmmaker at the Helm, that's one thing,
(16:54):
But if you have corporate directive shaping the store, that's
where things can really you know, I mean, look, just
not to put too fine a point on it, I'm
not even talking about Star Wars and specific or Disney
buying it. Just so that people don't think, you know,
don't get your hackles up sort of thing about that
(17:17):
I'm talking about. I'm going back and I'm revisiting some movies,
you know, through through the years, stuff like that. I'm
showing old stuff to my kids, new stuff to others.
And I just watched Tommy, the movie adaptation from nineteen
seventy five of the Who's Rock Opera, and the movie sucks.
(17:40):
Sorry if I'm offending anybody, it sucks, but it sucks
in a glorious way. You know what update the reference.
It sucks in a Megalopolis way in that I love it.
I love Megalopolis because it's fearless, because it's nuts, because
it's unhinged. It is a film you're completely unafraid just
(18:01):
to be like boom, here it is and walk away,
and here's I spent more than one hundred million dollars
making this thing. That's what needs to happen if we're
going to get into this territory. The complete absence of
fear in what you're going to make, and the complete
willingness to be crazy with it, but not in a sterile,
(18:23):
anadyne or cynical way. We've gotten crazy in Star Wars.
We've also gotten cynical crazy in Star Wars. And that
is what the problem is.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Well, I do think that that is the thing that
as you're talking about, Look, Star Wars is made by
an our tour who is telling his story. Consequences be damned, right.
He doesn't care because he's using his own money to
tell his story the way he wants to and whether
(18:57):
you like that story or not, because that's the story
he has to tell, because it's something inside him that
was driving him, right. And I think that's kind of
the thing that you're getting at then with if you're
going to kind of talk about these types of depths
and Star Wars, you have to be willing to just
do what's best for the story, regardless of kind of
(19:20):
whether or not.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
People immediately love it.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
And the thing that we've seen obviously in Star Wars
is that people have begun to come around to Lucas's
way of thinking, especially when it comes to the Clone Wars,
when it comes to the prequels. I mean, there is
a new appreciation for those things because people have been
(19:44):
able to kind of let go of their own preconceptions,
come back to it with a different state of mind,
and realize, Oh, that's what was happening, that's what's going
on here, that's the thought process, And I think that's
the thing of kind of doing the crazy, right. So
(20:04):
much of filmmaking these days is about, Okay, we just
got to give people the same thing but different, and
one of the things that Lucas was doing was not that,
And especially again when it came to the prequel era
and exploring some of these mysteries. I'm not giving people
(20:24):
what they want. I'm giving them what I want because
I'm the storyteller and this is the story I have
to tell for the universe I created, And this is
what's coming out of me as the storyteller, not because
somebody wants it, because that's just what's there. And that's
where I think, you know, and all the conversations that
(20:47):
you know, we kind of get who should run lucasfilm,
And oh is Dave Feloni too?
Speaker 4 (20:53):
You know?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
And is he got too much Star Wars Lord? It's like,
that's the dumbest question I've ever heard. Why, Because you
can't have too much Star Wars lore if you're making
Star Wars. I think it's George Lucas had too much
Star Wars lore because he is Star Wars and and
so like anyway, I don't that's probably a whole o
(21:17):
their podcast. But all this to say is like I think,
when it comes to telling these type of stories, you
do unequivocally have to be unafraid, Yeah, to get nothing.
Speaker 4 (21:31):
Well, I'm gonna give you two things here. One.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
You want to get nuts, let's get nuts.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
I'll give you two things here. One.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
The whole thing is like, oh, you know, I understand
when people are like, oh, well, you know, maybe somebody
native to lucasfilm is too you know, too internally focused.
They're not going to try to grow the audience. They're
not going to try to get crazy. They're not going
blah blah blah blah. But then you look at Ahsoka
season one. It never even occurred to me that to
go outside the galaxy before I saw that, and I
(22:00):
was like, oh wait, why didn't I think of that?
Speaker 4 (22:04):
That's the that's great, that's where we're going. That's great,
all right.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
You know, okay, we're going to the Hamptons. Anybody who
watch Seinfeld gets that reference. And then I'm going to
close with a contentious thing and go right into the
sign off and not even give you a chance to reply.
But you know, we both keep praise on Lucas because
he did the I'm going to tell what the story
is necessary. He didn't play it safe with the prequels,
and when you play it safe with a prequel. That's
(22:28):
when you get Rogue one, a Star Wars story. So, Matt,
where can people find you online?
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Well, you can find me all over social media under
the name Matt Rushing zero two. Of course, here on
the network you'll find me with our post talking about
every single chapter the Harry Potter series, one chapter time,
and then over on the TFM network you'll find me
doing a bunch of shows. One is the six o
two Club, where we talk all about the franchises we
love and sometimes some Star Wars. In fact, we may
(22:57):
be having a crossover coming very soon. But you could
also find me doing a lot of Star Trek talk
over there, so check all of that out. But John,
if people wanted to catch up with you and maybe
respond to what you just said before we went into
the clothes, where can people find.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Oh, nobody wants to reply to me about that?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
You can find me as kessel Junkie on your social
network of choice. You can of course reach out to
us at the nerd party dot com slash contact. We
still have a couple of listener letters we're going to
get to and you can listen to me here on
the nerd Party on house Lights, which I think is
a delightful show because it's usually me half drunk, ranting
at Tristan and Darren about why they're wrong about their
(23:34):
movie opinions. And recently we've been talking about the screen
movies and they're not horror fans and they don't know
what they're talking about.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
So check out Houselights.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
But Matt, with all of that said, I think I
hear the dinner bell back at the Jedi Temple, so
I think it's time to close these negotiations.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
John, negotiations are clothes. Join the Revolution, Join the Nerd Party.
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