Is Godzilla Minus One theSecret to Fixing What's Wrong With Disney?

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This is Tattooed Sons, the onlyfan podcast to name a Canon Star Wars
creature and to be endorsed by thewriter or director of The Last Jedi,
Ryan Johnson, which just celebrated itsfifth anniversary, sixth anniversary, sixth anniversary.
Well, Rian Johnson celebrated his fiftiethbirthday the next day. Wow,
he's old, even older than me. So it's been what. I shared

(00:20):
the podcast with a friend. Theyasked, like about it or whatever,
and he told me later on thatyou have like the perfect podcast voice.
You know. I've had other peoplementioned that as well with my regular work
where I'm in a podcast studio actuallyhaving meetings that have absolutely nothing to do
with the podcast. But welcome tothe show. It's been a month or
more. I don't remember. Iknow it was hot. Second, it's

(00:41):
been a while. We'll explain whyin a little bit as to why and
what you can expect going forward withTattooed Sons. We're canceling the show.
No, we are changing our releaseformat for the next several months. We'll
explain a little bit why. Butwe want to give you as much content
as possible on the show that you'regetting this week, So we are returning

(01:04):
to our little bit longer forum atSo there's gonna be lots of little segments
and fun things, So listen toit in bits and pieces if that's what
you'd like to do. But we'regonna be talking about Dave Filoni and his
amazing the announcement that he has beennamed Chief Creative Officer at Lucasfilm. We
haven't had a chance to talk aboutthat yet, so we're going to do
that. We'll be talking about thetwentieth anniversary of Return of the King.

(01:26):
Yeah, well it's actually the twentytwentieth, the twenty first and twenty second
of all three movies. This week, we're gonna talk a little bit about
the Lord of the Rings and what'scoming next year in the movie. We'll
talk about that, and then bbNate really as excited. They talked me
into going to Signal finally a moviethat had was a foreign language film with

(01:48):
subtitles, and I was resistant,to say the least. And I walked
away from that movie or A droveaway. I drove away. We walked
to the car I drove, youdrove I walked to the car. You
drove away from the movie. Andon the way back from the movie,
I said, I asked this question, and we're going to talk about this
is Godzilla minus one. The secretto fixing what is wrong with Disney.

(02:14):
So put Godzilla in every Disney movie. Yep, that's it. I want
Godzilla to eat Mickey Mouse. No, we talk about that. I mean
it's happening in twenty twenty four.You saw what they did with Winny the
Pooh. All right, that's allcoming up next after this little segment where
you get to learn about another podcastthat that was on The Christian Nerd HQ
can't wait to share about that.This is Tatooed Sons. Hey Nerds,

(02:38):
this is David. You know mebest from Tatooine Sons. But I want
to introduce to you a new showcoming to the Christian Nerd HQ. It's
called The Bible Nerd Show. Thisis where the a preacher, a teacher,
and an average Joe all come togetheron a weekly basis to look at
the block buster television series called TheChosen. Each week, we take a

(03:04):
deeper look into it episode by episodeas we uncover some of the best moments
within the show, some of thebiblical stories within it and identify whether or
not we agree with the choices thatthey made biblically, and we look at
the historic, geographic, religious,and cultural context of each episode. It

(03:28):
is a lot of fun. Wecan't wait for you to check it out.
It comes out every Thursday's here onthe Christian Nerd HQ. Make sure
you check out the Bible Nerd Show. It's true True. What was the
name of the pork and the millenniumfalcon Force? The storm in my family?

(03:51):
What do you think his name is? It's a big moment. I
have a Jedi like my father beforeme. Maybe Urbis do oh do not?
There is no try Turbis Pablo.If you're listening to this live stream,

(04:18):
bat Pork's name is now Turbis.It's a good sar war's name.
We're not done yet. These guysrecorded Blosso podcast called tatters Sons. Everybody
was crazy. It's just a plot. We'd set one on set. So

(04:40):
just the steamboat Wildie version of justthe Steamboat Willy version, which you know
you got all your roosevelts. It'sthe best version of Mickey I love Steed
Boat. Yeah, I forgot thesong going through my head right now,
So welcome to tattooed sons. Webelieve, Yeah, welcome back to tattooed
Sons. We believe that pop cultureis the mythology of this generation, that
there is a it is written onour souls, and that these myths speak

(05:02):
to that story. And that iswhy we are talking about Star Wars again
with some Dave Filoni stuff, whichyou're excited about. That we're talking about
the Lord of the Rings. We'retalking about Godzilla, and which is I
don't think we've ever spoken. Inever thought we would talking about Godzilla,
honestly, unless in a positive light. At least, We're definitely going to
be talking about all that. We'reexcited to do that. So let's let's

(05:26):
address the elephant in the room,which is why we haven't released an episode
in forever. Sam, how areyou doing. I'm exhausted. Just got
done with with finals. We hada longer semester than everyone else, and
we still go back before at thesame time as everyone. So it's been
a very long semester. Just finishedup finals last week. It was probably

(05:49):
i'd say the hardest semester so far. It was just a ton a ton
of work. Is first semester senioryear, so you know, there's projects
and engineering that you have to doand challenging professors. Challenging professors is not
even close to I won't go intodetail, but that was that was that

(06:09):
didn't help. So it's just beena lot. But I'm done. It's
good. I actually had like aweekend to myself for the first time,
uh, in the whole semester thislast weekend, so that was really nice.
But now I'm back to work workingfull time, so you know,
get too much of a break.Yeah, at my internship, so but
you know, I can't complaint toomuch. And then bbnight, you're finishing

(06:30):
up your senior year of high school. So you finished up their first semester
of your senior year there, andyou took some college stuff as well,
and uh and all of that.What was that experience like for you?
Fine? Was it was simple,pretty easy. At least the one college
class I had was was simple.So we were really glad that you were
able to throw out that last thatone test that on one spanch I was

(06:51):
a speech class you had to throwout. You had to throw out one
speech because it was such a lowgrade. But the rest of them helped
you get your How low was thatninety nine point five? And what did
you make over all in the classone hundred and two point four to three.
You couldn't have pulled it up toone oh three. I tried.
It was over one hundred and threeand then it was pulled down. I

(07:12):
don't know why. Fact well Igot your average. You're you got to
uh uh, I just keep saying, exam a speech grade that was less
than a one oh three. Eventhough it may have been one hundred,
it's still less than one oh three. So it's gonna bring your average down.
Yeah, so I guess you know. Six years of podcasting helps helps
a little bit. New pass aspeech class. What was your last speech

(07:33):
about? Mainly hope in hope inmedia because they needed something kind of a
problem and then solution was the formatof persuasive speech. Okay, so I
talked about how the news sucks yecauseit's true and how much it actually affects
you because it does. It does, So turn off your Yes, if

(07:53):
you're watching news, stop, justlisten to podcasts. Don't even but not
news podcasts, you know, likenot like Global Happenings news our podcast.
Yes, our podcast is great,and then solutions, you know, alternatives
of media and all that stuff andkind of just went dove into that.
So that was it was fun,that's cool, that's great, It was
really I was really proud of youfor what you came up with that as

(08:15):
we talked about it before. Allthat is to say, the last semester
was kicking our the sun's butt whenit comes to school and everything else.
Not to mention, I've done ashift in my job situation and moved into
a great, great job with agreat role and great opportunity. But it's

(08:35):
taking up a lot more of mybandwidth as well and my focus and my
energy. And so we made adecision and there was actually a conversation.
I'm just going to go ahead andpull back the curtain. There was a
conversation that happened in the slab.Do we need to just acknowledge that a
day is going to come when tattooinesuns doesn't happen anymore? Because I mean,
a day will happen when these twoknuckleheads are going to grow up and

(08:58):
have a family and don't want totalk about all this stuff with their dad
every week or every whenever we doit. So we had that conversation and
we talked about do we want tokeep doing this or not, and the
general you know, everyone agreed unanimously, yeah, we do. We want
to keep doing this, but weneeded to do it on a schedule that
fit our circumstances a little bit more, you know, effectively with that,

(09:26):
so we've made the decision at leastthrough the end of the school year,
so May of next have twenty twentyfour, when Sam and Nate finish up
their senior years perspectively of their differenteducational plans, that we're going to just
go to a once a month cadencefor releasing these and so that will give

(09:48):
us a little bit more space tofocus in on what we need to focus
on the rest of the month.But also we have a chance to do
this and we will be releasing thelonger episodes that we used to do regularly
as a result of that. Andso we're going to talk about lots of
things today. And so for youas a listener, here's the way I

(10:09):
want you to to you know,I encourage you to listen to these episodes
starting you know, with this onegoing forward. Understand that they we are.
We are designing these episodes to bedelivered to you in bite size segments,
right, So you know, you'vegot some of this stuff that we

(10:30):
do at the beginning, which isthe chit chatty stuff. But then we've
got three main topics. And theidea is you don't have to listen to
all one hour or whatever it takesfor us to do an episode like this
in one sitting. That's not whatwe you know, we anticipate you doing
with it. You can listen toit in segments. You can listen to
it in Nathan segment is he's goingto talk about God'silla minus one, and

(10:52):
Sam as he's talking about Lord ofthe Rings and me as I talk about
Dave Filoni and Star Wars. We'vealso got some little bite sized stuff in
there. We're going to talk alittle bit about the Wonka movie that came
out. We're gonna talk about theBoy and the Heron and helped Nathan or
help Sam understand it. Yeah,so those types of things we're gonna throw
into anything Else segment at the end. Again, so you've got an opportunity
to listen to it. You know, in those ten to fifteen minute little

(11:16):
bites with that, and that's whatwe encourage you to do over the course
of the month in between, andwe would hope that not only do you
get a chance to listen to itthat way, but you get a chance
to share it as well with otherpeople and help them become a part of
the tattooen Son's family. We wouldlove for them to do that and for
you to do that. And we'reexcited. I'm excited about this format and
I'm excited to be sitting here talkingwith these guys, yes and putting out

(11:39):
an episode again. So we neededto get through finals though, so there's
no way we could have done itbefore that. But I think that that's
going to do it. Let's stoptalking about what we're talking about and let's
start. Ah, man, whileit has been a while, I blew
it, So let's stop talking aboutwhat we're gonna talk about. Start talking

(12:00):
about what we're talking about. Thereyou go, there, we go,
there you go, Bb Nate,Yes, tell us what we're talking about.
Well, we're gonna be kind ofgoing through our reactions to God'szylla minus
one. It's kind of interesting.We have a person here who've seen it
once, a person here who's seenit twice, and then a person here
who has seen it three times.So, uh, it's gonna be interesting.
We're gonna go through that and kindof discuss the fact of how a

(12:22):
Godzilla movie really cracked the code towhat a good movie should be. Have
you ever danced to the Devil inthe Pale Moonlight? Yeah? I can
find. I'm here to fight fortruth and justice in the American way.

(12:50):
The people in this room, whichone is a wearing a spankly outfit and
be not a future there's only oneout and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress
like that. That man, there'sno limits you. So it's true how

(13:18):
it worked out. I was,at least I think Sammy was a little
bit too. When I first sawthis trailer for this movie, I was
pretty pretty gods one, you didn'tsee a trailer. I never saw a
trailer for this. I heard aboutthis movie was Nathan Okay. So I
saw the trailer and was like,oh, it looks like it couldn't be
bad. And I've seen all theMonster Verse movies and thought, oh,

(13:41):
the kind of the kind of manthey're They're fine, but you know,
not much to them. There's there'snot much substance, but this looks fun
and all that, and it wasfrom Japan, so I thought, you
know, going back to its first. So I was excited, brought Sam
into my excitement, and then triedto get Dad excited. He didn't.

(14:05):
I didn't get excited because mainly it'sGodzilla. You don't really expect a great
movie when it's coming into to Godzilla. And also it wasn't going to be
dubbed, so there would it wouldbe required subtitles because none of us here
no Japanese. Here's my position onsubtitles in general. I don't go to

(14:26):
movies to read. I go tomovies to watch movies, and so I
don't want to sit there and read. If I want to read, I'm
going to read a book. Idon't want to read a book, and
I'm mad at a movie. Thefact that you can do both, just
because you can do both doesn't meanyou want to. Okay, that's right.
But I was excited for it,and I was excited to see it
in Imax because Godzilla and Imax wouldbe awesome, really cool, and it

(14:50):
was always like kind of promoted asbeing in Imax, which was great.
Then I look in the weekend,the tickets are already out, everything pre
sale tickets, look for the openingweekend because we had nothing really to do
that Saturday, to see if Ican go see inn Imax at least with
Sam, and I find out they'renot. They're not showing it in Imax.

(15:13):
I didn't know why they're putting Beyonce'smovie in Imax for no reason.
So the day of Wednesday, itwas a Wednesday, I had youth that
night, no no worship or anything, so I didn't have like an actual
requirement to be there. Responsibility,I guess is a better word. So
I was just looking around on theamc app as I do every now and

(15:35):
then, just seeing what show timeswere available for that this weekend in regular
format if it was going to beup here near us instead of driving an
hour down since it's gonna be aregular format anyways, And I see there's
an early access fan event in Imaxbecause it's the only time they can do
it. So I get that convincedSam that we're just gonna go down that
night and go see it. All. Yeah, I was like, I'll

(15:56):
be fine on school suring finals week, but I was excited. So it
was a couple of weeks before wewent to go see it in Imax with
a pretty good crowd. It wasa good amount of people there, a
lot of big Godzilla fans, whichisn't something I really think of. I
didn't know that was a genre base. I didn't think that was anything.

(16:17):
But we sit down. You know, Sammy not only have seen the twenty
fourteen Godzilla movie. Yeah, yeah, that's the only Godzilla movie he's watched,
which is fine. It's a finemovie. But we get into it
and watch the movie. Movie ends, and both of us are absolutely stunned

(16:40):
Lord by how amazing that movie was. We didn't we didn't expect it.
So we get home. I textyou right as we get out because I'm
driving, so I text you beforeI start driving, and I'm like,
well you missed out because that wasa seriously great movie. And I I
just I'm unfathomable how well done itwas for a god I were talking about

(17:02):
that the whole drive back. It'san hour long drive. We were just
talking about it the entire time.It was crazy. So Friday, we
have some people come over and weconvinced one of them to go see you
Saturday. It was Saturday after Okay, it was a Saturday, and I
wanted to see it again, justnormally because I just wanted to see it.
And then Sammy said that he mightwant to see it again too,

(17:23):
so I said, no matter what, if they come with us or not,
we're going to see it. Soone of them decided to come with
us, and funny enough, theyliked it too, because it's a it's
a good movie, and so Iuse that as leverage against you, like,
hey, so see they liked themovie too. In subtitles, it's
really it's really a good movie.It's very well done. And eventually you

(17:45):
give in, like a week,two weeks later, a week later.
At that point, you finally givein on a Sunday evening, Saturday evening.
It was. It was Friday night. It was Friday night. Okay,
I'm getting all my days mixed up. It was on Friday night.
You finally give in to go seeit and just give your reactions from what

(18:06):
the end when you walked out.Yeah, okay, so let's just like
set my version of the story soyou understand what's going on with me.
Okay. At one it became veryearly on that this was going to be
fun to keep saying I wasn't goingto this movie. I didn't really care
to see this movie. Okay,so I don't care about Godzilla, I
don't care to see a Japanese languagefilm. I don't really care to read

(18:32):
on screen. So all of thosethings together it just became I'm not interested
in this movie, and it didn't. At one point it was like,
I'm probably never going to see thismovie. So the more that Nathan continues
to tease me or ask me toget to see it or tell me that
I'm doing it wrong, the moreI'm going to dig in my heels on
this and just poke the bear alittle bit because he would get frustrated because

(18:55):
I would talk about reasons why Ididn't want to see this movie in a
good movie and all this other stuff. But it was like, Okay,
I haven't been to a movie andlike forever, and what was the last
movie before that? Was it?Like The Games? Always Hunger Games,
which is a good movie, butit was it was a really good movie.
It was a really good movie.But I was like, there's nothing
going on tonight. There's no avalanchegame, there's no Nuggets game. Let's

(19:18):
you know, Mom was sick.She's been sick for like four or five
days, and so I was like, let's just go to a movie.
And I gave him some options andhe picked this one, of course,
thinking it would be the better option. Didn't think that the boy and the
heron would be a good fit forme for you. We'll talk about that
in a little bit. But anyway, when we left the theater, I
was like, Okay, the reasonthat this movie works, and it didn't

(19:41):
just work, it was fantastic,it was phenomenal was because it was a
character and story driven movie. Itjust happened to be a Godzilla movie.
Yes, And that's why this moviewas so The characters were so oh fleshed
out and you care about them fromthe very opening minutes all the way through.

(20:07):
There's so many different characters in thismovie that you can immediately connect with
on a on an emotional level andyou want to know what's going to happen
to them. And the fact thatGodzilla is coming and has is you know,
doing all this stuff, and let'stry not to spoil it because there's

(20:29):
a bunch of people that are listeningto this thing. I've never seen this
movie. Well, I didn't evenknow the thing, right, and we
don't have to spoil this movie.No. I mean, you know what
a Godzilla movie is, and itfeels like a Godzilla movie. It is
Godzillaz absolutely, I will tell youright now. You have never cared about
the characters and the story and aGodzilla movie like you're gonna care about the

(20:49):
characters and the story of this one. I feel like that makes it a
better not just a better movie ingeneral, but a better Godzilla movie.
Then when Godzilla is on screen hedoes make an appearance, you're even more
worried about it. You're not justlike, yeah, let's see Godzilla break
some stuff. You're actually worried aboutthe character. It made Godzilla scary agains,

(21:10):
which is what he was always supposedto be. It was scary.
It was a scary monster movie becauseyou were worried about the human characters in
it, which was a necessary thing. And that actually brings us to what
we really need to talk about.Well, yeah, because that's what I
said. When we were driving away, right, I looked at I said,
this is the secret to fixing theMCU. It is, this is

(21:32):
the secret to fixing sort of thedisjointed elements within Star Wars and some of
the stuff that's gone on with that, right is what it feels like the
MCU has become is let's make abig superhero movie and character story can be
secondary. And it wasn't that wayoriginally. In the Iron Man, Captain

(21:56):
America, all those like classic moviesthat you know, you known love from
the heyday of the MCU. We'revery character driven, character and story driven.
You cared about the characters, youcared about the story, and that's
why you cared about the MCU.And then it became, well, let's
just people are gonna just care aboutthe MCU because it's the MCU, and
let's not worry about whether or notwe've got good writing, good characters,

(22:17):
good stories. And some of somethings have hit within the you know,
the post endgame version of the MCU, and some things have not done well.
And I think that that's why.And so you know, it is
it. It's not just Nate.It's not just about the MCU, though

(22:37):
you know we teased it as beingis Godzilla Minus won the secret of fixing
what's wrong with Disney. It's thesecret to fixing what's wrong with Hollywood.
Yeah, Hollywood has had a badyear. The movie. The box office
has not done well. Movie aftermovie after movie that should have performed significantly
great. Box office hasn't done wellfor some movies. But there have been

(23:03):
over three, at least three onebillion dollar movies this year, which ones
Mario would somehow hit really, Idon't know. Oh yeah, that was
the second time Barbie Barbie and Oppenheimerin a few days because it's being released
in Japan and it's also re releasingit next we sit, and it's like
nine hundred and seventy million. It'sgetting there soon enough. So we had

(23:26):
three one billion dollar movies, whichis really good post pandemic. I think
that that's probably one of the closeto the first times that has happened on
not even No Way Home, Ithink didn't even hit a billion, so
and then Guardians of the Galaxy washuge as well. It was Disney's most
profitable movie this year. So it'sbeen a pretty good year overall for Hollywood

(23:49):
itself. I just think that prettywell done. Here have been a lot
of movies, like Dad was saying, that should have done much better than
I agree with that, and Theproblem with all of that is the big
movies of this year were character driven, which is an important thing. I
mean, Oppenheimer, obviously, BbieArbi, as much as I didn't like

(24:12):
it, is character driven. Marioall about Mario and actually some sets up
some lore behind him somehow, withhis parents and him being in New York
with his brother and all of thatstuff. So very character driven. And
even if we talk about Guardians,that was all about the We cared about

(24:33):
those characters. We cared about thosecharacters, and it wasn't a big world
ending, galaxy ending event. Itwas about the Guardians themselves. It was
saving Rocket, it was about starLord and his story. It was about
their stories, not about the MCUstories. So that's why that was the
most well performing Marvel movie this year. And if we think about it,

(24:56):
some of the Disney mc shows havebecome a kind of a cameo weak thing.
Chi Hulk was a cameo of theweek, let's be honest. Sdaredevil
was kind of the thing that kepta lot of people watching, and even
then they didn't handle that character right. So we see Loki coming in at
the end of this year, completelyshattering expectations because guess what it was about

(25:19):
Loki's story and made him one ofthe if not the most well written character
in the MC of all time.As an Iron Man fan, I will
still stand by the fact that Ithink Loki has the best character arc in
the MC. It's insane, anda lot of the good things that have
come out of the MCU just usingthat as a basis have been character driven

(25:42):
at post endgame. Shan She actuallya really well done fun movie because it's
about Shang She. It was abouthis story, about his family, about
who he was going to be.Great movie Moonnight, Moonnight. In some
ways it did some good things acertain episodes. In other ways it fell
a little flat. But the bestepisode from Moonnight was him going through his

(26:04):
memories, learning how he became Moonnight, how he got those disorders and all
that stuff, him dealing with that, and then Mark Spector protecting uh ooh
ooh Stephen something all right, rememberah, I'm trying to remember the names.
But Hawkeye, that was a reallygood show because it was about Hawkeye
and Kate. Bishop really followed theirstory. Set up another great character,

(26:29):
right, We're going to be gettingin just a couple of weeks, which
brings me to my next point,Marvel Spotlight. Marvel has figured out that
character driven stories is really what itneeds right now, and so they're bringing
up this new label called Marvel Spotlight, which they have specifically said is a
lower stakes, street level character drivenlabel. And people are like, I

(26:51):
don't think Marvel understands, but thisnew label is probably going to be more
well performing than anything else they dobecause it's it's all about the characters.
Echo looks fantastic because it's gonna bethe first villain story in the MCU.
We're gonna learn more about how shebecomes a villain. Are we sure they're

(27:11):
going there? With the directors said, oh okay, well, let's said
first villain story. It's like,I'm actually right, it's what's needed.
We need it. And so we'reseeing Kingpin, we're seeing Daredevil, we're
getting all these characters back, butwe're learning more about Maya and Echo and
how that all works out. Soso let's let's apply this to stuff outside
of the mc U. Specifically,let's let's let's, you know, shift

(27:33):
it over to our other and ourfirst love. You know, what's what
the show was built off of StarWars right, Okay, we have been
on record as having truly enjoyed Ohwe want Kenobi. Yeah it was good,
right, good. Love the story, love that, you know,
loved the the interactions with Vader.You know, that was not a film

(27:56):
or a series excuse me, thatwas universally liked. It was controversial and
a lot of people didn't like thatthat show with it. We also really
loved Ahsoka. Ahsoka was great.Why do you think that Ahsoka has been
almost largely positively received while Obi WanKenobi was not as as universally liked.

(28:26):
Do you think it has to dowith the stories themselves not being as like
I felt like with Obi Wan Kanobi, it became sort of, let's just
let's just throw stories in here andfigure out how to do it so we
can get Vader in, so wecan get you know, lightsaber battles in.
I could see that people making thatcriticism. I can definitely see that
too. And I think some ofthe criticisms were with certain characters like Reva

(28:52):
and even I heard some complaints aboutLeah. I thought was huge. I
like this Reva, but yeah,I can sort of see some of the
complaints. Was she horrible? DidI like completely dislike her character. No,
was she my favorite also? No. I think things like that mixed
with the sort of I guess,for lack of a better term, piecemealed

(29:17):
story where it does kind of feellike, let's just throw Obi Wan in
a series of situations and see whathappens. I can see that coming together
now. I think it's saving gracefor us is that it did what we're
discussing here. It dove heavily intoObi Wan's character after episode three and his
him dealing with all of that,and I think that was it's saving grace

(29:37):
for us. We look back notthinking about, oh, he went on
this cool mission and stuff. Wethink back looking at all the introspection and
things we've learned about Obi Wan's characterthrough that. So I think that's what's
definitely and Ahsoka tapped a lot intothe nostalgia of Rebels and Culm Wars.
It was a big deal. Alot of these characters felt like they grew
up with Ahsoka. You don't reallyhave that feeling Kenobi, so that was

(30:00):
difficult to capture. But we can'tforget about one of the most positively received
Star Wars series this year with andOr You can't get more character driven.
You can't get more character driven thanAndor. It was all about and Or.
It was about mon Mathma. Itwas really diving into those stories,

(30:22):
their perspectives, their passions, whatthey needed to do, and how they
got to where they were, andthat was very important. You were invested.
The one Way Out scene is oneof the greatest scenes we've gotten from
Star Wars this year. It wasfantastic. Was that this year? That
was this year. It's been along year. It's been a long year.

(30:44):
But and Or was absolutely fantastic andshowed that and widely positively received.
A lot of people really love it. I think some even more than ah
Soka. Some people don't think it'sStar Wars like some people here, but
it was. It might be pokingthe bear with that statement, but but

(31:07):
it was still a fantastic show thatreally dove into the characters, which was
needed for Star Wars. It's it'snecessary. What about things like Pixar and
Disney animation, you know, doyou feel like it's gotten to the point
where those are well, let's youknow, like we were at the theater
this weekend, what we're seeing,what did we see? This must have

(31:27):
been Godzilla, because then we sawanother movie Sunday. Saturday, we saw
Wonka. Well Wonka, Yeah,we'll talk about that here in a little
bit as well. So we wereat Wonka and they did a trailer for
Inside Out too, right, Andthen you have a wish and you have

(31:47):
what was the other one that cameout earlier this year that didn't do so
well? No, no, no, no, no, that wasn't there's
one that just came out recently.They didn't do so well in the box
office. Maybe I'm thinking of awag. You're thinking of wish. I
think about which, So okay,So the point I'm making is it feels
like, Okay, they've got aformula. Here's how to make a Disney
animation movie, here's how to makea Pixar movie. Just create a formula

(32:08):
in a story that fits that formulaversus creating a great story. And then
does this fit in Pixar? Dowe make a Pixar movie? How do
we make an animated movie out ofthis? What do we do? Do
you feel like that? I'll letyou guys kind of as we close this
part of the show up this segment, Sam answer this first. Then Nathan
is the idea behind what worked inGod'szilla minus one? Is it truly the

(32:30):
secret to fixing what's wrong with Disneyand a lot of these films that have
not been doing well. Yeah,I think what studios need to do is
shift their focus. And yeah,you can have your setting, which is
fine. Settings are what sells moviesat this point, honest, right,
but that should be just that thesetting the backdrop to an amazing story.

(32:53):
Create interesting characters with depth and acharacter arc that you care about, and
then have the setting the world fillin the gaps around that. Like Dune.
Dune is about paul Trades, It'sall about Paula Trad's but the world,
the richness of the world, fillsall that in, gives it a

(33:15):
frame basically for you to watch astory. And that's what made Dune such
an amazing movie exactly. And Ithink that not only Disney not only had
any movies, but Hollywood in general, with TV shows and with movies in
general, need to learn that wereally love characters. If we connect to

(33:36):
them, your movie is going todo pretty well. Because if you write
really cardboard characters like eternals, wedon't care about them. It doesn't perform.
Well, let's just be honest here, there was pretty close to the
same amount of supporting characters in Godzillaas there was in Eternals, and I
cared about every single one in Godzilla, and I cared about one in a
turn, and they killed them off. So that really shows that if you

(34:00):
have some amazing writing and some realpassion behind making sure these characters are well
loved. Because let's just be honest, Godzilla's budget was maybe ten twelve million,
hasn't been reported fully, but weknow it's less than fifteen. So,
I mean, we're looking at allthese movies right now with two hundred
million plus budgets with some shoddy CGIand some cardboard characters, and we're walking

(34:27):
out with maybe one hundred million inthe box office, and you're wondering what's
going on. And then Godzilla showsup with cracking sixty million worldwide so far
on that type of budget, makingmore profit than Disney's most profitable movie this
year ratio wise. That's insane.That's something that needs to be looked at.

(34:47):
And so if they take note,I mean, come Oscars, come
Award season, and we see Godzilladominating, which it has a chance.
Weirdly, it's a weird year forthem. It's a weird year, it
is. But Critics' Choice Awards hasalready nominated it and a lot of stuff
and some other companies and in thatcategory. Now it's it's crazy. It's

(35:10):
if it has a really great chanceof winning Best International Feature. So it's
showing that characters are important. Andeven for the other movies that we're kind
of going to be talking about thatwe saw, they were they were really
good because they were about the characters. It's important. Well, I think
it's a it'd be interesting to seeif this does influence some other things.

(35:32):
I did say as we were drivingaway that this film needs to be They
need to create a course on thisin film schools, on this film and
show how to make a blockbuster typemonster story with great characters, great storylines,
so that other film students can beginto understand how to do the same

(35:58):
type of thing. So all right, well we're gonna we're gonna shift here,
you know, enter into a littlebit of a world of imagination,
talk about the Wonka movie for justa couple of minutes, because you know,
it was worth it's worth worth.This is not going to go the
way you think. All right,so we saw Wonka. We did quick

(36:19):
reactions. Start with you, Sam, what did you think? Yeah,
let's let's do one to five Wankabars go. I was gonna say still
Relinings, but okay, uh,either one works better. I like Wanka
bars. It makes more sense forpeople that maybe haven't seen it. Let's
try to keep it as spoiler freeas possible. Three point five to four.

(36:43):
You gotta you gotta pick pick.You can't. You can't divide the
bar that much. Three point seven. So God bless you, Nathan.
Maybe he's gonna sneeze. All right, Yeah, I mean it was it
was fun. You're good you gotwere allowed there. Yeah, I know
it was fun. Nothing like lifechanging. You know. I didn't walk

(37:05):
out of it like Godzilla this year, where it just completely blue change man.
Right, you walked out of Godzillachange man. But you know it
wasn't as good as the original.You know, I liked it better than
the Johnny Depp one for sure.It was a cute, little family Wonka

(37:27):
movie. Okay, that's exactly whatI was going for. I would say,
I'm gonna go, but I wantto hear your reactions. First,
because I have my own thoughts.I'd give it three out of five walka
bars. It was fun. Ithink that anybody that loved the original movie
I should go see this. Igo see this in theaters. I think
you will. You will like it. I wouldn't be surprised if I ever

(37:49):
saw it again, if I enjoyedit even more the second time with it.
I think that the songs will growon people over. I just don't
think it had as the magic ofthe Gene Wilder one, but that I
am fully cognizant of the likelihood thatI am very nostalgic about the original Willy

(38:14):
Wonka and the Chocolate factory with GeneWilder, and so I mean, I
literally can remember. So here's myGene Wilder Willy Wonka's story. Oh you
have a story, okay. Januarynineteen seventy eight. January nineteen seventy eight,
Devorn Broncos are in their first SuperBowl against the Dallas Cowboys, and

(38:38):
the church that we were going todecided to get a projector that would allow
the church that evening the adults towatch the Super Bowl together, and the
kids had to go down into oneof the kids classrooms, and we all
they had a projector for us andwe watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
watch, and I was angry becauseI wanted to watch the Broncos. To

(39:00):
your memory, that's my foot.Then you got to watch Willy Wonka.
But I was scared to death ofthree years old. You pretty scared of
Willy Wonka. Some scenes Tumblesea wasterrifying a little much. But I honestly,
it's difficult to figure out a numberto give this movie, but I'd

(39:21):
say a four point five wow.Five. I really liked it. I
really did. The songs were good, the humor really did hit a lot
of the time. It was funny, it was well done, wholesome.
Yeah, in a year of veryexistential movies, that's the best way to
say it. It was a verywholesome, fun movie, which was needed

(39:43):
in a lot of a lot ofways. You can definitely feel good about
going and taking your family to seethis. Exactly a Christmas movie person And
again, it focused on the characters, which was a big thing we were
mentioning. And it really gave apassion behind Wonka, and I gave it
passion behind all of the characters,and the ending was very well done.

(40:06):
I really liked the ending because itreally showed and gave a great stepping stone
for what we see in Gene Wilders. Really Wonka. Yeah, and I
was honestly not that I was worriedabout it, but I was. I
was impressed with Timothy Shelman's performance.Great. He did a great job as
Wonka. And the singing was good. There wasn't like that annoying auto tune

(40:29):
right that you have now, thatwas what I was worried about day.
The adr was good, like itwas just a well executed movie all around
too, which I for sure awesome. Well that's our opinions on Wonka.
Let's talk a little bit about somevery not Wonka, not at all Wonka.
Yeah. So this week marks thetwentieth anniversary for Return of the King,

(40:50):
twenty first anniversary for Two Towers,and twenty second anniversary for The shell
Ship of the Ring, Which isweird to think that that whole series is
as old as I am. They'renot I will release this week, and
so we're gonna kind of take alittle bit of a look back at some
of the movies and talk about those. But we're also going to talk about
an upcoming one of the Things moviecoming out next year. It's The War

(41:13):
of the Rookie. There's a newanime coming out next year. Oh okay,
beyond your gods, older and founderthings than hawks in the deep places
of the world. All right,then keep your secrets not coming, he

(41:40):
says, stem sucks, Tom Sietas, and are many magic breaks this world
for Beggings and us Mike of thetrilogy. Easy. I mean it's probably

(42:04):
King. Yeah, there's no doubtabout it. I mean you can't.
You can't break these movies up.They're one movie. Yeah, but if
you had to, it's easily returningto the King. There's about first because
I know what yours is that it'sdefinitely return to the King. There are
very very few movies that can regularlyget me to cry, and that is
one of them. For thirty minutes, do you think it's mine? I

(42:25):
think it's Two Towers. Why wouldyou say? I don't know. I
feel like I've heard you say it'sTwo Towers before. No, it's the
original. It's a fellowshiphip because Iwas not. I didn't grow up on
Tolkien, right, I grew upin I mean it's just, you know,
pull back the curtains some more.In our lives. I grew up
in a world where, you know, if they had witches and wizards,
wizards and magic and all of that, you weren't gonna go see those things,

(42:49):
read those books anything like that.And I kept hearing about this Lord
of the Rings movie that came outtwenty two years ago, right, and
kept hearing about people's you know,Christians talking about it, and so I
was like, I was cursed.I'm just gonna be honest. I was
like, what are these Christians doing? And so I went online and started
searching and reading and if message itwas before social media for sure, no

(43:16):
Facebook, yeah, exactly. SoI was sitting there reading and I was
just like I was became fascinated.And then I and then I dug into
Tolkien and learning about who Tolkien was, and when I read about who Tolkien
was, I was unbelievably fascinated.And so I went to a like nine

(43:36):
to thirty in the e at nightby myself, went to the opening night
with it, and and was justfascinated by the story and the moment when
Gandolf stands there on that bridge inMaria the Minds of Maria with the bow

(43:57):
rog coming at him and says,you shall not ass I mean, I'm
like, that's I'm teering up nowbecause I remember feeling feeling like that is
such a spiritual moment, and Iloved it so so the next year and
the following year, I was thereon opening night for the other two myself,
Wow, by yourself. And thenI got mom to watch all of

(44:21):
them director's cut and she was like, oh god, she enjoyed them.
Yeah, the full it cuts withus too. So yeah, So Nate,
remind me, what was that moviethat came out in recent years following
Tolkien's life. It's called Just Ineed to rewatch that one. It was
a movie. It's good. Idon't know what's theme of the guy he's

(44:42):
playing Lex Luthor and DC Nicholas.Yep, he was Tolkien. Yeah that's
right. I don't know how accurateit is to his life, but it
was a good movie. Yeah,it was good. Anyway, let's go
and talk about this new upcoming movie, The of the All right, this
is it was a It's a prequelmovie set two hundred and six, one
years very specific before the events intwo towers. So so two towers,

(45:07):
yeah before two towers specifically, becausethe whole story takes place over like a
year or something like that. Okay, if they couldn't have just said fellowship.
But it stars Brian Cox. Youknow him. He was in the
Born movies. Yes, he playshelm hammer Hand in Legendary he voices him

(45:31):
right, right, right? Thisis all an anime actually, so,
and I'm not sure how Dad willfeel about that, but there will be
a piece of information here that I'mgonna reveal on both of you other that
I think we'll get you not quite. And actually, Miranda Otto will reprise
her role as AOM as a narratorof the story, so that's cool.

(45:53):
She's gonna be like telling how Sois this tiede? Hold on, I
need to understand this. So isthis like a officially tied into the original
trilogy? I think so. Ithink it is a part of that,
even though it's a prequel. Ithink it is because the font's the same.
And I know that doesn't say alot, but right, I mean,
well, they have to be carefulabout what they allow in the estate,
and I'm pretty sure that this isofficial just because it's so it's set

(46:15):
in such a weird time period,and it's such a small aspect of the
story. I don't think it hurtsanything we get now. I think you
guys will be excited by this.The director is Kenji Kimiyama. Oh really,
Yeah, Okay, I should knowwho that is. You know his
work. He's done some ductails things, He's done some ghosts in the Visions.
He also did the Ninth Jedi.Okay, yeah, so that bodes

(46:40):
well. So knowing this is literallyall the information I can find on this.
There's a few other actors, wedon't know any of them. We
don't really know much more about thestory. It's this is literally all we
have except that he this helm HammerHind is also the namesake for the stronghold
Helmstea, so we'll probably see theorigin of that story too, where that

(47:04):
whole comes from. But that isliterally all the information we have on this
movie. And I think it's supposedto come out sometime next year, so
it is based on that. Nathan, what are your thoughts on them not
only making a new movie for Lordof the Rings, but having it be
such a weird time period and connectedlike that. I wouldn't be surprised if
we get some new information sometime thisweek. I'm gonna be honest, it's

(47:29):
Lord of the Rings week, Somaybe tomorrow for the twenty second anniversary of
Fellowship, or maybe sometime later thisweek, because Max, HBO Max,
or whatever you like to call itis, I'm very much pushing the Lord
of the Rings week right now.They have a whole collection, it's the
big banner and all this stuff,so it's a big deal. So I
wouldn't be surprised if we get sometype of news. But also, this

(47:49):
is this is theatrical This is nota straight to HBO Max. This is
not a straight to DVD kind ofmovie. This is going in the theater,
so we're getting a trailer sometimes soon. I'm assuming this has been in
the works for quite some time,so I wouldn't be surprised if before Dune
Part two we have a trailer outbecause that's the big Warner Brothers movie.

(48:12):
This is going to be the bigWarner Brothers movie at the end of the
year in December. They're going tobe probably release it around the same time,
so I wouldn't be surprised if weget some of that. But we've
got anything any We haven't gotten We'veonly gotten the logo, the title,
and then the background of the title. So it's releasing like a year from
now. From what I understand,in December, it is probably this week

(48:34):
because this is the week that allthe other Lord rings. He says,
December thirteenth is what I'm seeing.So do you guys think that this movie
might suffer from the fact that itis a very different medium than all the
previous films and anime? Despite whatyou may feel about it, it isn't
a divisive medium. Some people swearit off and try to avoid it as

(48:57):
much as possible. Some people areway to into it. Nate and I
are kind of, you know,I don't know. We'll watch it if
it's good. We all like visionsand things, So what are your thoughts
on that, Dad, especially beingso like disconnected from all that. I
think you bring up visions, andI think that that's important because I think
there's a lot of people like uswho would not have even given anime a
second thought until Star Wars released thefirst season of Visions or the first volume

(49:20):
of it, and now they've releasedthe second and those those shorts or whatever
they're called, I don't know whatthey're called. Are are so different from
each other, you know, andsome of them have very classic sort of
the cliche of what anime is,with like the the duel, not the

(49:47):
duel, the dual, the twinsvery much the top. Yeah. And
then and also and also the onewhere the robot obi Wan obi Wan or
whatever, the robot like Toby Wan, Toby Wan. That's it, Yeah,
to be one right, yeah,exactly. That one feels like sort
of the goofy side of the anime. And yet you have the Ninth Jedi

(50:09):
and and that doesn't feel like thatfeels like battle like battle Tech and some
of that stuff from when I wasa kid, Transformersformers somewhat. Yeah.
So I do think that people havebeen exposed to anime that would not have
been exposed and it's the same.It's sort of very adjacent fandoms. Right.

(50:30):
The reason that we talk about theLord of the Rings on this show
as well as on Star Wars isbecause our love for all things nerdy and
those both fit into it. Andso people that are big fans of Star
Wars are often big fans of theTolkien stuff and the Lord of the Rings
and they probably have seen some ofthe vision stuff, and especially if you

(50:52):
connect it to the Ninth Jedi,which is one of the best stories within
that do. I hope they comeout with an animated movie of its telling
more of it. I feel likewe're just going to stop the show right
now go watch it. But anyway, you know, I think that that's
going to be really cool. Idid just read as I was as we

(51:12):
were talking. I looked it up. This is definitely connected to Peter Jackson.
It's like his same studio or samelike a production Warner Brothers and all
that stuff with that, and they'vemade it clear this isn't connected to anything
with Amazon Primes Rings of Power show. This is connected with the original Lord
of the Rings official anthology, andthat's why they're bringing back that character.

(51:34):
They mentioned that they wanted to dosome of those things coming up here pretty
soon in the Peter Jackson universe withWarner Brothers, because they're like, we
have this ip, why aren't weusing it? So they want to make
some more stuff in it. AndI think that we underestimate Lord of Rings
fans. A new Lord of Ringsmovie in theaters will bring out the fans
because pretty much fans of The Lordof the Rings or are going to watch

(51:55):
whatever they can. It's not ring, it's a power. But genuinely,
I think that this movie is goingto bring in what it needs to bring
in, and you're in an animeenvironment, so budget doesn't have to be
as large, So they're going tomake a good amount of profit off this
movie most likely. And I thinkthat anime gets a bad rap because a

(52:19):
lot of the weird stuff. Let'sjust be honest, there's a lot of
weird stuff in anime. Well,and it's also you can't for a lot
of people, they don't understand,at least my generation doesn't understand, doesn't
understand that anime is not a cartoon, right, So the struggle, the
struggle with that is you think cartoon, you think kitty. It's the same

(52:44):
problem that people have with Clone Wars. It's the same thing that people have
with Rebels Star Wars Rebels. Ifthey still can't figure out that Invincible isn't
for kids, oh yeah, whichis not for kids? I think that
that people will struggle with it becausethey see cartoon, they see animated,
they see cartoon, and they don'tunderstand that this is the case. But

(53:06):
then you also have you know,there's some anime out there that is horribly
like hyper sexualized and those types ofthings, which I think does turn off
a lot of people to anime withit, and you know that that won't
be the case with this, andso I'm looking forward to I'm excited about
it. I didn't even know aboutit until last week. I sent them

(53:27):
a text or a message on ourgroup chat of like, what is this
I see, Oh yeah, ohyeah, like four years ago, did
I not know about this? Andthen so, yeah, I mean,
I'm excited about it. You broughtup you know, Warner Brothers probably being
like, we have this ip that'samusing, and I do agree with that
to an extent. But my concernis, are y'all worried about them possibly

(53:50):
doing what they maybe some people considerthey're doing with them CU or Star Wars,
where there's sometimes too much of agood thing, too much content in
a universe where it just feels watereddown and overfilled, and there's not that
that air of, for lack ofa better term, reverence. It's like
you got the for you know,the Holy Trinity of the Lord of the

(54:12):
Rings movies. They're perfect. Mostpeople agree that they're just great, and
let's just be honest here. Imean, they're widely it's widely considered the
best film trilogy of all time,and I would prof I have any trilogy
I've seen. They don't suffer noneof the movie. That's why Nate and
I say it's just one movie.Really, it feels like so they haven't
touched it very much. The onlything they've really done is Rings of Power,

(54:34):
and that's disconnected. They've done acouple of games, which was controversial,
let's say the least. They've donesome games those were controversial, yet
still disconnected. So do you thinkthem starting to touch that universe that ip
could be the start of something possiblybad? Very much now, because this
was this movie was announced like fouryears ago, and it's going to take

(54:55):
them this long to make sure it'sright. So don't think that's a problem.
Also, you have to understand everythingthat Warner Brothers makes with Lord of
the Rings, everything Amazon Prime makeswith Lord of the Rings, everything goes
through the Tolkien estate and they havethe final word because Netflix has pitched an
airgorm A prequel series, and thetolkienes state was like, heck, ce

(55:17):
no, it's not happening. It'sconcepts like that that stressed me out right,
And so I don't want single characterstories or them expanding on like characters
like that from the series, becauseI feel like it could taint that that
whole thing, right, Netflix wastrying to build a universe of when when
the rights were up up in theair a couple of years ago, they

(55:40):
were trying to pitch a universe oflike prequel series and all this stuff about
air Gorm and leg loss and allthat stuff, and Tolkien was like,
it's just like, that's that's nothappening. We don't want that. Nobody
wants that's. That's not what we'regonna do. And so they they have
the final word, and they're verystrict on what they do to make sure
that it fits what Tolkien would havewanted, fits the books, fits the

(56:02):
Sellmarillion, whatever they want to do, it fits that. And so the
fact that they have the final wordmeans that the quality control will be fine.
I don't think we have anything toworry about. And with how long
it's taken for this one animated movieto be produced and in the theaters and
everything, just shows that they're takingcare with this movie and making sure that

(56:28):
they don't offend anybody. Because Ringsof Power, Yes, was controversial for
the wrong reasons, because it's agreat show, it's genuine. It was
controversial because it was fabricated controversy,right, right, so by the clickbait,
you know, toxic YouTube world.So the and the Tolkien of State
approves Rings of Power. It didbecause it's fantastic, because they understand that

(56:51):
it's what Lord of the Rings is. So the fact of the matter is
we need to understand that if theylike like it, then we probably probably
will like it, because that's prettymuch if somebody agrees to something that has
power and say in this like theTolkien Estate says that it's good, you
should probably just assume that they knowwhat they're talking about, because they do

(57:13):
more than you, no matter howmuch you've spent trying to research stuff.
Yeah, I think you know,Dad, are you interested in something like
this even though it may be abit different. I know that visions probably
makes you more open to a storylike this. Would you be open to

(57:36):
them doing more things like this inthe future around the Lord of the Rings.
Ip and Peter Jackson's universe. Well, I first of all, the
thing that makes this exciting to meis not that there's a animated anime Lord
of the Rings film coming out inDecember of twenty twenty four. What gets

(57:58):
me excited about this is that itis it is being connected or it is
connected to the original trilogy, andthey're bringing in they're they're being conscious of
that. So that that to me, you know, it's it's the same
reason that I loved Rebels, it'sthe same reason I loved Clone Wars,
and and I think it's you know, the connectivity is what's exciting about that.

(58:24):
I would love to see, youknow, I don't think that the
delivery style, you know, beinganimated or not, it should be the
issue for fans. I think thatI would love to see. I mentioned
it a little bit ago. I'dlove to see some Star Wars anime.
Right They're hit the theaters, likelike full length animated stuff hit the hit

(58:47):
theaters again, So I think there'slots of opportunities there. I'm excited about
it, can't wait to see whatcomes from it. I would love to
see a trailer, Yeah, soonenough. Sure, So let's talk about
some other anime might as well.Yeah, and Nathan's going to explain the

(59:07):
Boy and the Hair and to Samhe's gonna try again, So we'll do
that next. At last, wewill reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At
last, we will have revenge.Okay, So bro, before I explain
everything, react rating rating on easyone to five herons or wa waters,
let's do what. I have noidea what they're talking about. The little

(59:30):
spirit bodyes things that are the soulsof babies before they're born, and they
inhale and then they float up.And just feel free to go spoilers on
this because I have a feeling thatmost people listening to this podcast aren't going
to go watch The Boy, andthey are, then they've already seen it.
Was it executed phenomenally? Was itbeautiful as any Studio Ghibli movie is?

(59:57):
Did I get it? No?I've watched three Studio Ghibli movies so
far and I haven't gotten any ofthem. I guess if we're rating it
on a scale of comparing it tothe other Studio Ghibli movies that I've seen,
and if it like compares, yeah, I mean I guess four or
five. It did what it wasgoing for which enjoyment three. It felt

(01:00:22):
a little slow and I didn't quiteget the story, but it was still
well done. It was interesting tokind of pick out the voice cameos,
all the big names that they hadsprinkled about the movie. But as for
like the story and stuff, Ijust I didn't get it. I don't
I don't didn't get it, Okay, Nate, Well, what would I

(01:00:44):
give it? Yeah, I giveit a four point five. I get
that. I get the slow aspectof it, which I don't mind slow,
but pacing was just it was justoff. But that's not a problem.
That's kind of what you expect fromthis type of movie. They they
approach movies very differently in Japan thanthey do in Western media, which is

(01:01:07):
a reason why the story was confusing, because they considered stories very different down
there, especially Studio Ghibli and especiallythe director. So we Studio Ghibli by
the way, it's it's Ghibbli.Okay, I don't know. I maybe
forgif told me I'm gonna go withGhibbli better than it sounds like taut turkey.
Yeah, we might get crucified aboutit, but we're good. But

(01:01:29):
the story, while it takes alot of brain power to kind of dice
decipher what it's supposed to be.It's it's beautiful, it's great, it's
a great story. It's a story. Just walk through what the like,
the application or the concept behind thestory is without getting into details on the
story, what is it like tryingto communicate It's about grief. It's about

(01:01:51):
processing grief. That that's mainly,and I mean in the log line and
everything, the main basis of thismovie is the child forget Mahito every jobsprise
I remember, that loses his motherduring the air raids of World War two,
a horrible, horrible thing to evenimagine going through. And so this

(01:02:14):
kid moves to New New city andall that with his father and everything,
and is trying to process this griefof losing his mother, and he struggles
like anyone would, so he kindof goes to this dream world eventually where
it helps him continuously go through thestages of grief, leading to of course

(01:02:38):
acceptance, the final stage of grief, and that moment where he finally accepts
it is weird, crazy and alittle bit scary, but very well done
and intense and you really feel it. And then it carries itself through the
rest of the ending of the movie. It's a very well done story,

(01:02:59):
but it's very difficult to understand whatit's trying to do when you're in a
world filled with giant parakeets and floatingwhite blobs that are apparently the souls of
babies before they're born, and seagullseat those babies for nurishment, and William
dafoees of bloodied, up, olddying seagull telling telling Maqito life lessons.

(01:03:23):
It's weird. It was really weird. It's weird, There's no doubt about
it. It sounded beautiful and thenyou started telling me all that and I'm
like, no, that's not thatis weird. Amazing, were beautiful.
Apparently the story is beautiful, thisstory. So I'm gonna throw this in
here, and this is just mehaving heard you describe it now this way.

(01:03:44):
And I know we talked about itwhen you guys watched it, Nathan,
and you already sort of told mea lot of this, but it's
hitting me differently right now. Forsomebody who is going through their first Christmas
season after their mother's passing. Whatwould this movie do if I grasped the
story grass the concept what would thismovie do for someone like that? It

(01:04:05):
would you it would be relatable,I feel like more than anything, because
it is an internal battle. Itis a battle that no one sees,
which is mainly what this movie dealswith. It is him his own dream
that he deals with personally and hasto go through and figure out how to

(01:04:27):
battle each of those things and gothrough these stages and finally, you know,
you know, anger, depression,denial, all of these things are
things that he goes through and eventuallyhe figures out that he can't change any
of that, and no matter howmuch he tries, there is a better
way to deal with this through acceptingit. And the ending was really well

(01:04:49):
done. Mark Hamill's character, whilehe's not in it much, granted,
was a great character, and thatwas also confusing. He was a confusing
character too, But everything about andthey just hit you with some things like
the power of the dream world beinga stone was confusing that. Like when
I first watched it, I'm like, why is a giant stone the thing

(01:05:11):
that's dictating like all the power ofthe dream world? And then you go
back and remember that everything kind ofstarted. Why why he was on bed
rest, was because he was justso far done with people and everything and
done with processes and all of this. So he just hit himself in the
head with the rock blood gushing out, and just put his hat back on
and kept walking because it was itwas difficult, and then everything from that

(01:05:36):
point on leads to some weird stuff, granted, but helps him finally process
that full power of grief through thatpoint in a very weird way. Robert
Pattinson's great. Yeah, couldn't tellit was him. It was like somebody
told him, like, just dovoice acting, and he was like,
Okay, I'm gonna do it.That's awesome. No, I think it's

(01:05:58):
I think it's it's cool that youknow, you can you know, we
tend to pretty much agree on things, and for you two to have these
different opinions about this movie and stillyou know Nate, I mean, Sam,
I think that you thought it wasyou appreciated the movie if you didn't
understand it. But I love Natehow you're able to pull in the the
imagery and the symbolism and understand thatstory and it's and it's you know,

(01:06:23):
I will tell you as someone likeI said, that's going through processing things
still that the world moves on whenyou lose a parent like this, the
world has to move on. Whathappens, you know, the world goes
about. You know, there's everyonewas in my world. Everyone in my
world. Our world was unbelievably caringand unbelievably supportive. But eventually they have

(01:06:46):
to go about living their lives,and so do you. Right, But
the hurt and the and the griefand the loss, it doesn't go away.
You just have to figure out howto deal with it, right,
And I think that's that's what I'mtaking from this, so very cool.
Let's talk a litt to Star Wars, and we are pepper star Wars into

(01:07:09):
everything we talk about. But let'stalk a little of Star Wars because I'm
excited about an announcement that happened justa couple of weeks ago where Dave Felony
has finally been named the chief creativeofficer at Lucasfilm. So the cries for
in filoney we trust have finally beenheard. What does this mean for the

(01:07:30):
future of Star Wars? Foky religionsand ancient weapons are no match for a
good blast church. You sad Kimrebellions are built on hope is with me
and I am with the fourth.If you live long enough, you see

(01:07:58):
the same eye in different people.But it's like, it's weird to think
about the fact that you guys metDave Filoni even before we started this podcast,
when we were at Star Wars celebrationin twenty seventeen, hat without his
hat. It's one of my favoritepictures that we've ever gotten of you guys

(01:08:21):
with it, and and we didn'teven acknowledge this, but we are now
in our seventh Can you believe thatwe are in our seventh year? So
we've been doing this, we've we'vehad our sixth anniversary would have been December
first of doing this show. Youguys were twelve and sixteen and now you're

(01:08:43):
twenty two and eighteen. When westarted this show, that's crazy with it.
So happy anniversary, guys, Happyanniversary. Weird way, it's exciting.
So let's talk a little bit aboutthis, this situation. So I
you know, let's let's frame theconversation we have had conversations with Gotta be

(01:09:06):
careful. Now I'm tired and wehaven't talked on the show forever, so
I'm going to try to word thisthe right way. There are people that
are in the know, oh putit from various different circles that we have
had conversations with in the past sixyears. So that is not on the
show. We're not talking about theseconversations having happened on the show. We're

(01:09:30):
just talking about conversations that we've hadwith people because of this show and the
relationships that have come from it,that have made it clear that the frustration
within Lucasfilm throughout the sequel trilogy wasa lack of cohesiveness, which I think
that we can all looking back andhaving some space, can all agree is

(01:09:56):
exactly what hurt the sequel trilogy.Yeah. With In fact, this week,
just a few days ago, AdamDriver was doing an interview. I
don't know if it was for theFerrari movie or whatever, but they brought
it unhinged after this, I've seensome things. He's been crazy, just
saying whatever he wants to say,whatever he wants. Well, he said
flat out, he's like when theyfilmed The Force Awakens, there was no

(01:10:17):
redemption arc in store for Kylo Wren. There was really no plan for what
they were going to do with thatcharacter. That's not how you write a
trilogy. At least George Lucas,who tweaked and changed and turned things upside
down and everything with the original trilogyand did some weird things in the prequels,
at least he had a plan foreverything is you know, he knew

(01:10:39):
what his overarching story was going tobe with that. That was not the
case with the sequel trilogies, andthere's been a lot of frustration within Lucasfilm
over it. So what's your reaction. I'll start with you, Nate,
and then we'll go to you,Sam. What's your reaction to to this
news that Dave Filoni, on theheels of his triumph, which was the
Ahsoka series, being named the chiefcreative officer at Lucasfilm makes sense. It

(01:11:03):
kind of just feels like he's beenthe chief creative officer for a while now.
But yes, it feels like aformality. It's what they need.
I mean, you look at theMCU and you see a bit of problems
right now. But I think that'sa bit of problems because Kevin Figy Faggy,
however you say it, Phage,I don't know that episode we did

(01:11:28):
a whole episode in our second daywhere we decided that it was the right
way to pronounce his name. Butwhatever it is, it's not feel like
he hasn't been involved in every singlething because it's just been so much he
can't be involved in everything. Andthen he himself has said we're gonna start
doing quality over quantity because he needsto focus on every single project now,

(01:11:50):
which makes sense. So now thatDave Filoni's able to do what Kevin Fige
did so well for so long inwhat we need for Star Wars right now,
it's encouraging. It's what we need, and so we're able to hopefully
get some movies coming up here prettysoon. Maybe who knows, we're getting

(01:12:10):
some shows. I'm not sure.We have some shows coming out in the
next year, which is great,but finally hopefully keeping the quality over quantity
mindset that Star Wars has been fora while. This we need the quality,
we don't we don't need the quantity. We're fine. We've lived a
long time without consistent Star Wars content. So Sam, I think we would

(01:12:31):
all agree that this is good forStar Wars. Yeah, horrible, A
couple not necessarily concerns, Yeah,just some things I want to make sure
is accounted for, and I thinkyou kind of touched on them, Nate.
I don't want there to end upbeing such a volume of content that
Dave isn't able to keep a holda rain on it all and keep you

(01:12:57):
know, being able to influence itall. And I also hope that this
doesn't keep Dave from kind of doinghis own projects like he's been doing,
you know, Ahsoka and and Talesof the Jedi and things like that,
where his little his his love babyand his little projects, and like,
didn't he say that the Tales ofthe Jedi was started from like he run
on the back of a napkin ona on all the airplane flights. Yeah,

(01:13:20):
for Mando, you know, Iwant him to be able to keep
doing stuff like that. And I'mworried that with this new position, he
won't have that luxury, he won'thave that capability anymore, and I don't
want him to sacrifice that. Butall of that saying is I don't think
that's going to be an immediate concern. I don't think we're going to immediately
see a dropping quality or him stoppinghis projects. But I am worried that

(01:13:43):
down the line they may get intoa rhythm of things, they start taking
on too much, and then westart to see kind of what's happened with
the MCU. There's an over abundanceof content and we start to see a
quantity of equality situation. But saythat doesn't happen. I do think Dave
is the right man for this job. I mean, there's a reason why
there's been such a cry in thefandom lately for in Filoni retrust because basically

(01:14:05):
everything he touches his gold because heknows Star Wars. He knows what a
good story is. He basically,for lack of a better term, studied
under Lucas for the entire run ofthe Clone Wars up until season six one,
So he knows not only how towrite a good Star story, but
what Star Wars truly is. Heknows that it's we've said this before,

(01:14:29):
it's for children. It's for kids, and he will keep that mindset.
But he'll also he knows how towrite an interconnected story with deep characters.
Look at Clone Wars, look atRebels, I mean, look at ah
Soca. These are character driven stories. Like we said that just happened to
be set in Star Wars, right, And I think that with Dave at

(01:14:49):
the helm of all these things,he's not only going to continue that trend,
but he's going to connect it allin a way that Star Wars so
desperately and we're starting to see thatnow in the shows and stuff. So
do you think that this shows thatthe primary focus of Star Wars for the

(01:15:09):
foreseeable future is going to be theMando Verse and you know Dave's movie,
or do you think that he's providingthat same real, you know, leadership
and direction to James Mangold's you know, donn of the Jedi stuff and I

(01:15:30):
can't remember the name of the uhthe director, but the the Daisy Ridley,
you know, new Jedi Order drivenstuff. Do you think that he's
you know, we've we've speculated onour Ahsoca episode, or at least I
have. I don't know if Ispoke. I was on a couple other
shows talking about this, so Imay have just primarily speculated there, but
that I think that everything that happenedin the end of Ahsoka with the Mortis

(01:15:56):
stuff is going to tie both intothe the Dawn of the Jedi and the
new Jedi Order stuff, and we'regoing to see amazing connections with Mortis and
all of that. Do you thinkthat's kind of where this is going or
do you feel like do you feellike it's more of a step back,
just giving a Star Wars feel tothings and make sure the stories are connected
that way. I don't think he'llbe immensely involved in every project, because

(01:16:19):
he just he'll be stretched thin,and that's a concern we've had. But
I do think that he's going tomake sure that everything makes sense, make
sure everything feels like Star Wars connectsright, is well done. Quality over
quantity again, and I think thathe'll make sure that everything just feels good,
just feels like Star Wars because makingsure that we have the characters that

(01:16:42):
we love and even new characters thatwe would eventually love, is important because
he knows how to make characters fromscratch that we really come to appreciate obvious
in many cases. So I thinkthat he'll oversee everything. I don't think
he'll be immensely involved in every project. Yeah, I think I'm gonna just
basically echo and Nathan saying, Ithink he's gonna focus primarily on finishing up

(01:17:04):
the Man Overse thing and his movieand that whole side of things, and
once that's kind of concluded, it'sit's main story. I don't think it'll
end entirely, But once that's kindof reached, it's it's it's stopping point,
he will start to focus more onother things. I think they I
think that they already have a generalplan in place for the Dawn of the

(01:17:26):
Jedi and the race stuff. Ithink they have an idea for an overall
story and points that they want toweave into everything. So I don't think
there's there's that much work to bedone by Filoni for that interconnectivity. So
I don't think he needs to bedirectly involved in that right now. But
once this main run of things isover, I think we'll see him starting
to branch out and become more ofa of a over overview role in a

(01:17:48):
way. It just kind of makingsure everything fits in it's its box,
not necessarily being so tied into everythingdirectly. What type of impact do you
think that this has on Kathleen Kennedyand her role in Star Wars. I
think, I mean, to behonest, I don't even really know what
her job was before. That's juston me. I didn't really know what

(01:18:10):
she did, so maybe nothing forme because I didn't know what she was
doing. But you know she Ithink she'll be more of the business side
of things. I think she'll justbe kind of looking at, hey,
what do we need numbers wise,things like that. I think she'll just
be kind of focused on the administrativeside of things. And then you know,
she'll she'll be the business side ofStar Wars, while Filoni's like the

(01:18:32):
the creative side, and they haveto meet somewhere in the middle, like
Dave I want to do. Dave'slike I want to do these crazy things,
and Kathleen's probably, well that doesn'tmake a whole lot of sense,
and they find a way to meetin the middle and find what's best for
the story and for the company,because you know, they're in the business
of making money, so they haveto make money. I think that's kind
of the relationship we're going to seehere in the end. I may be

(01:18:53):
way off because I still not entirelysure what she does, but I in
my mind that makes the most sensedegree. I think the Kathleen's going to
follow the business side of things whileletting Dave learning kind of figure out the
creative side. I think that's prettymuch what they've agreed upon, and I
don't I don't see why it shouldbe any other way, because she's she
knows how to run a business movies. She's been in it for four years

(01:19:15):
now, so she understands how torun movies and run that business, and
she's done pretty well for Star Warsall things considered, So I think she'll
finish the business side, but definitelyDave's following the creative side. Let's bring
the circle complete from what we started. Our first main segment was about how

(01:19:36):
what we experienced watching Godzilla Minus onewas the secret to fixing Hollywood and Disney.
You know, all of these thingsMCU and all this other stuff.
Do you think that this is asign the bringing in of Dave to as

(01:20:00):
chief creative Officer? I think thatthat title is important, right. Do
you think bringing him in to dothis actually is a very very good sign
that Star Wars is going to focusin on story and character first, versus
just churning out more Star Wars contentin order to bring in dollars to the
Disney machine. I do. Ithink that I don't think lucas You've you've

(01:20:25):
mentioned this. I think Lucasville knowsthat there's been some some less than stellar
box office performance or reception of somebox office has been fine, the films
were great, but you know someyeah, you're right, fan reception and
things like that. I think theyknow that. I think that they they
can read the room and they cansee what what people want, and they

(01:20:47):
need to ride that way. Theyneed to go with the current. And
the current is hey, you know, maybe everybody and I'll cross the board
is like, hey, maybe we'regetting a little bit too much of stuff,
or maybe hey this is kind offeels a bit of watered down,
or like Nathan said, cardboard.I think Lucasfilm realizes that and they're like,
Okay, we need to take astep back and reevaluate and fix some

(01:21:09):
things. Who's the guy to bestdo that? And they know it's because
they've been able to watch the reactionsof pretty much everything Dave's touched, and
the reactions are almost unanimously positive inevery way, overwhelmingly positive. So they
I think they can read read thesigns and they're just preemptively trying to fix
some things. And best move forthat, definitely, it's it's the best

(01:21:30):
move to keep making sure because heloves Star Wars first, and that's a
big thing. You don't want somebodyin charge that doesn't like the project that
they're working on because they just won'tput any passion behind it. And he
loves Star Wars he always has,so it's very important. I think that
he'll really make sure the characters arewell written, make sure that everything has
quality, and make sure it feelslike Star Wars. I think one thing

(01:21:56):
that Dave has on a lot ofpeople that they can bring into this is
Dave isn't necessarily interested in telling hisstory. He's interested in telling the best
Star Wars story exact. And Ithink that's what a lot of the sequel
trilogy suffered with. Between JJ andand Ryan and I Trevorrow and then back

(01:22:16):
to to JJJ want to tell hisstory. Ryan wanted to tell his story,
and then we went back to TrevarroWell Trevarrow wanted to tell his story.
He got he got canned, andso it went back and JJ didn't
try to continue telling the story.He went back to trying to tell his
story. And I think that's whyit felt so disjointed and it didn't quite
mesh together as well as we wouldhave liked. Dave isn't going to do

(01:22:38):
that. Dave wants to tell thebest Star Wars story for the best characters
that he can. And I thinkthat is the thing above all that's gonna
that that bodes well for the futureof Star Wars. Well, you know,
as we talk about Dave, hegot me thinking a little bit about
him, and I think it makesuh, makes for a good dad moment.
So you know, if you've heardDave's story and how he got into

(01:23:01):
working with George Lucas on the CloneWars, he was working on The Last
Airbender Avatar, the Last Airbender,and he got a phone call and he
was invited to come and talk withhim. And he thought it was a
joke. That's how like, youknow, how not in the Star Wars
world he was. But he honedhis craft, he did the best he
you know, he loved what hedid with the Avatar, The Last Airbender,

(01:23:23):
put out a great story, greatcharacters, great product, and that
earned him the right to sit atthe same table as George Lucas and have
those conversations. And he thought hebombed that the interview, and then the
next thing you know, he's workingwith him, and he ends up going
for six years, and then youknow, you see this this moment where
the Clone Wars is canceled and Disneytakes over Star Wars, and it sort

(01:23:44):
of looks like what's going to happenwith Dave and they don't let him finish
the Clone Wars, which there arepeople in the creative world that would be
very upset about not getting that opportunityand pushed back in an negative way against
that, like I'm going to takemy ball and go home type mindset.
He didn't do that. He craftedanother unbelievable, in my opinion, even

(01:24:13):
better series in Star Wars. Rebelstied into what he did with the Clone,
but but earned that right right,and then they move away from animation
to the Mandalorian and live action,and instead of being like, there's no
future for me now in this,he ends up working directly with Dave or

(01:24:38):
with Joon Favreau and asking John tohelp mentor him and how to do live
action and learns how to do that, and then it culminates with the Ahsoka
series, which is phenomenal phenomenal.And now that he's been patient, now
you see this growth, you seehim learning, you see him being patient,

(01:24:58):
all of those things with in theway that Dave has handled himself over
the last How long has it beensince the Clone Wars originally came out.
It's been the very first, liketwelve years ago something probably more than that.
More than that, you know,that's fifteen years ago. I don't
know, man, it might havebeen you were three probas so Nate,
you know, fifteen years And nowlook at him. He's chief creative officer

(01:25:23):
at Lucasfilm and he's he is nowliterally moved to that role of telling the
stories that he and George sat I'msure storyboarding the ideas. And I think
that that's a great lesson for usto learn. So just you know,
allow yourself time to grow, continueto learn, be patient, and good

(01:25:45):
things will happen. So that's itfor a dad moment. Is there anything
else you guys want to talk about? So? Marvel released the new Echo
trailer. I just watched it alittle bit earlier today, really, and
I see I said it to thegroup, I must not. I didn't
pay attention. So I was like, wow, Yeah, they Well,

(01:26:06):
first of all, they're like viewerdiscretion advice, like this set your set
your profile to adult. You know, they really want to drive that home
because it is not your typical Thisis the first time an MCU projects has
gone m A or R. Imean it's like John Wick an official mcuro
right, it looks like John Wickwith the stuff they're doing with it looks

(01:26:28):
crazy, okay with it, itlooks good. Knowing it's a villain makes
it kind of even more exciting becauseyou know, you're not like, it's
not being glorified. She's a badSo January fifth, what day of the
week is that? Do we know? That's like okay, I thought it
was January ninth, No, it'sthe fifth. It's the fifth. So
the January fifth is going to bea Friday. Hey, and they're dropping
all five episodes, which is weirdfirst that it's five episodes and second that

(01:26:54):
they're dropping off five So let's uh, are we going to go out of
our way to try to watch itthe whole weekend? Like finish it out
for the weekend? It is Januaryninth, but definitely cool. I figured
out I will one be there becauseof Daredel's all I'm there for. But
moving on to some some dc stuff. I know we haven't talked about much
dc on this podcast, but theDCU has had some updates recently. Nicholas

(01:27:18):
Holt is playing Lex Luthor in inSuperman Legacy. You're excited about that very
I think he'll do a great job, better than Jesse Eisenberg. But Jesse
Eisenberg was a weird situation. DavidGoran Sweat is really really getting into the
role of Superman. Oh yeah,some of the pictures, it's crazy,

(01:27:39):
he said. He said he wantsto look like the Tim Sale Superman,
which if you haven't seen him,look him up. It's he's a unit.
He's a unit. He's huge,so which is exciting. And also,
Matt Reeves Arkham Asylum TV series isnot going to be set in Batman
Universe. It's going to be setin the DCU because James Guinas said that

(01:28:00):
Matt Reeves will be working on someDCU projects and some the Batman projects,
so he'll be working on both,which is great. I'm excited about it.
Looks like the DCU is going ina good direction. I think that
that people are we just got toget through this. We got to get
Aquaman on Friday. For us,it's just we need to get get it
out of the way. It's Aquababianis a unit. It's insane built.

(01:28:28):
So choose, all right. Sowhen it comes to Star Wars, you
know, you know, we wetalked about this going into last year and
this year current you're twenty twenty three, that it was going to be the
year of Star Wars. But thereis confirmed three live action They came out
this week weekend confirming that there arethree live action series that we'll be releasing
in twenty twenty four. We alsoexpect Tales of the Jedi season two in

(01:28:50):
twenty twenty four. We give Visionseason three two. Well that's not I
don't think that's but giving them webut we're getting Bad Batched this final season
of that we're getting and Or seasontwo and live action we're getting the Acolyte,
So we're going high republic with thatand Skeleton Crew, which I'm exactly
you know, much more excited aboutSkeleton Crew than anything because you and somebody

(01:29:14):
looks like jud Law apparently, soI think that'll that'll pretty much do.
It was good talking and I'm talkingwith you, guys about all you listeners
out there. Thank you so muchfor listening. We really appreciate it.
I hope that you'll enjoy these longerepisodes that come out less frequently. While
these two focus in on myself aswell, but these two specifically focus in

(01:29:39):
on the most important thing in theirlives right now, which is their education
and getting those things done. Andthat's the way that it works, right.
So make sure you share this withyour circle. We'd love for you
to get the word out to themif you if you want to and you
can. You know, ratings andreviews do make a big difference, so
we would love for you to dothat. Said, we appreciate it.

(01:30:00):
I think that's going to pretty muchdo it for this episode. Anything else
you guys want to say, Maythe Force be with you, to be
with you, with you always.This party is over. I like that.
Monkey, don't get technical with me, joint please

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