Another Pass at Another Pass at The Phantom Menace
The journey to the creation of Another Pass concludes with Certain Point of View’s episode on The Phantom Menace. Case and Sam share their thoughts on how the show has changed in the five years since Ben and Addy brought Case on.
“What changes would you make to improve The Phantom Menace? Ben, Addy and Case have their ideas in the final episode of a series fixing the prequel trilogy. What changes would you make?”
SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts • Google Podcasts • Spotify • iHeartRADIO • Stitcher • RSS
Addy – Who is the Phantom Menace?
Case – turn Qui-Gon into a Sith Lord or Separatist Leader
Make the trade federation’s embargo actually cause serious issues
Anakin Starkiller – charismatic teenage pilot and smuggler on Naboo
No Tattooine
Qui-Gon keeps company with questionable people, but wants to fix the galaxy and Jedi
Ben’s completely new pitch
No Qui-Gon and pre-crawl prologue
Galaxy is splitting, familiar political landscape
Jedi Order is fracturing, Yoda vs Mace Windu
End of movie – failure to prevent Clone Wars
Palpatine pulling strings
Case – moral ramifications of cloning instead of Clone army
Maul is more visible and instigating war using Mandalorians
Anakin’s path to Vader
Dramatic tension issues with prequels
Live action Clone Wars movie?
The focus of the prequels
Meeting summary:
● The podcast recording meeting focused on a detailed analysis and critique of "The Phantom Menace" within the Star Wars prequel trilogy. It included discussions on character development, plot restructuring, world-building, casting choices, visual effects, Expanded Universe integration, and thematic elements. The meeting also touched on fan expectations, George Lucas's vision, retrospective reflections, and future implications for the Star Wars franchise. Action items included promoting network content, encouraging listener engagement, and teasing upcoming episodes.
Notes:
● 🎬 Star Wars Prequel Discussion (00:01 - 11:49)
● Podcast hosts discussing Star Wars prequels, specifically The Phantom Menace
● Analyzing the movie's potential and disappointments
● Debating the character development of Anakin Skywalker
● Discussing the hype and expectations surrounding the prequel trilogy
● 📝 Rewriting The Phantom Menace (11:50 - 20:55)
● Proposals for improving the movie's plot and character arcs
● Suggestions for a different approach to Anakin's backstory
● Discussion on the political aspects of the Star Wars universe
● Ideas for incorporating more complex themes into the storyline
● 🎭 Character Development and Relationships (20:55 - 29:28)
● Analyzing the relationships between Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, and Anakin
● Suggestions for improving character dynamics and motivations
● Discussion on the portrayal of the Jedi Order in the prequels
● Ideas for enhancing the emotional depth of the characters
● 🌌 World-building and Politics (29:28 - 40:00)
● Critiquing the political aspects of The Phantom Menace
● Suggestions for improving the portrayal of the galactic senate
● Discussion on the role of the Trade Federation and other factions
● Ideas for enhancing the complexity of the Star Wars universe
● 👥 Casting and Performance (40:00 - 48:20)
● Analyzing the casting choices for the prequel trilogy
● Discussion on the performances of key actors
● Suggestions for alternative casting or character portrayals
● Critique of George Lucas's direction and actor management
● 🎨 Visual Effects and Design (48:20 - 56:39)
● Praising the visual effects and design elements of The Phantom Menace
● Discussion on the pod racing sequence and its impact
● Analyzing the portrayal of alien races and cultures
● Suggestions for improving the visual storytelling
● 📚 Expanded Universe and Canon (56:39 - 01:05:55)
● Discussing the impact of the Expanded Universe on the prequels
● Analyzing the integration of EU elements into the movies
● Debate on the treatment of canon in the Star Wars franchise
● Ideas for better incorporating EU elements into the main storyline
● 🔄 Restructuring the Prequel Trilogy (01:05:55 - 01:15:56)
● Suggestions for reordering events in the prequel trilogy
● Discussion on alternative storylines and character arcs
● Ideas for improving the overall narrative structure
● Debate on the necessity of certain plot elements
● 💡 Thematic Elements and Symbolism (01:15:57 - 01:26:00)
● Analyzing the themes present in The Phantom Menace
● Suggestions for enhancing symbolic elements in the story
● Discussion on missed opportunities for deeper themes
● Ideas for incorporating more mature subject matter
● 🎭 Character Motivations and Arcs (01:26:00 - 01:37:13)
● In-depth analysis of Anakin Skywalker's character arc
● Suggestions for improving character motivations
● Discussion on the portrayal of the Sith and their role
● Ideas for enhancing character relationships and conflicts
● 🌟 Fan Expectations and Reactions (01:37:13 - 01:48:12)
● Analyzing the impact of fan expectations on the prequel trilogy
● Discussion on the reception of The Phantom Menace
● Debate on the long-term effects of the prequels on the franchise
● Ideas for managing fan expectations in future Star Wars projects
● 🎬 George Lucas's Vision and Execution (01:48:12 - 02:03:49)
● Critiquing George Lucas's approach to the prequel trilogy
● Discussion on the balance between creativity and fan service
● Analyzing the impact of complete creative control
● Suggestions for improving the filmmaking process
● 🔄 Retrospective and Future of Star Wars (02:03:49 - 02:13:56)
● Reflecting on the legacy of the prequel trilogy
● Discussion on lessons learned for future Star Wars projects
● Analyzing the impact of the prequels on the franchise as a whole
● Ideas for moving forward with the Star Wars saga
● 🎙️ Podcast Wrap-up and Promotions (02:13:56 - 02:22:32)
● Concluding thoughts on The Phantom Menace discussion
● Promoting other podcasts and content on the network
● Encouraging listener engagement and feedback
● Teasing upcoming episodes and topics
Transcription
00:00
Sam
Well, I mean, to be fair, he is Super Grover. You're not gonna. You're not gonna beat that. He's amazing. Super Grover's my favorite. If I had to choose between Superman and Super Grover, I'd choose Super Grover.
00:15
Addy
Welcome to certain point of View's another pass podcast.
00:18
Case Aiken
Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com. Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another pass podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.
00:32
Sam
Hi.
00:33
Case Aiken
And again, I say, as always, but right now we are discussing the origins of this show. And frankly, that was a time before you, Sam, were here.
00:42
Sam
Yeah. Or possibly before I existed. We don't know. I might be a figment of your master.
00:46
Case Aiken
That is true. We don't know when that particular brand of psychosis actually became a part of my life.
00:53
Sam
Yeah, I may have popped up here and there, but not on the podcast quite yet.
00:57
Case Aiken
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's like a beautiful mind. I don't want to go down this route because I know that's not, like, an accurate representation. Stop here. Actually, we've been going too hard on this one. But suffice it to say, today we are wrapping up our discussion of the proto episodes of another past, the ones that were part of the certain POV podcast in its infancy. Because this was episodes like 25, six, and seven. It was very early for a weekly show in the grand scheme of things, and was the thing that inspired us to, one, spin off the. The concept into its own show, and two, actually have me host a podcast, which was a mistake. Looking back on it, maybe. I don't know.
01:43
Sam
I mean, it's too late now. It exists.
01:45
Case Aiken
Yeah. I've been doing this for almost six years now, which is kind of insane.
01:51
Sam
I will say that this will be the third in the look back series, and it is the last one that you guys discussed when you're doing this, because I think it's a great idea. You worked backwards through a trilogy, and this one, much like the movie you're discussing, starts off, you know, decently and then gets lost.
02:14
Case Aiken
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
02:18
Sam
You guys get into a very animated. I don't want to say heated, because I don't feel like there was, like, real anger. There was definitely passion, but, like, animated debate about the future of Star wars and also the things that you guys wanted to see. And it stems because, let's be honest, this. So phantom menace. Phantom Menace. So this movie is just beaming with potential and is the first movie that we all saw that crushed my soul after I walked out. And I think it's just because there was so many directions. And also, you and I have discussed this with the other two, is that because at this point, and this is really pointed at anyone that's like, why are all these old people complaining? But at this point when this movie is coming out, this is so hyped, right?
03:18
Sam
Oh, yeah, this is so hyped. Like, we are finally getting another Star wars. And people have worn out their vhs tapes. They've already gone out and purchased dvd's. There have been several different. People love this. There are books, there are comics, and there are so many different writers. There's not just one cohesive story. You can follow different storylines and through lines. Sometimes Leia, you know, never gets force powers, and sometimes she does. And so there's a lot of mythos and fan just, you know, kind of canon that is going on, right. There's a lot of head canon that's already been. And there are like, whole series that have already talked about the Clone wars, right? And what they are. And so we as a generation plus, because there's, all the people before us are going into this movie super freaking hyped.
04:19
Sam
Like, we are so excited to see this film and see this, like, prequel, this beginning, the story of Anakin and how he became Darth Vader. And then they give us a child. Because I think, I personally think that they wanted kids to connect with it. And these are children's stories in George's mind, and I get that. But, but my biggest issue is shoehorning or the, we know that this is the love story. It's just, there's a lot of weird shit in here. But this movie does have some good stuff and some just. Just poorly executed stuff. And there will be some talking of that and then a lot of stuff about the future that may or may not come true. Some of it did not come true.
05:21
Case Aiken
Yeah. It's really interesting to listen to this fossil of a specific era in fandom because this came out right after Force Awakens, before Rogue one had come out. And we talked about this a little bit in the last two times. But this is the episode where we're done speculating about what we want to do. And part of that, the fun part about doing a trilogy in reverse or a series in reverse is that you can build on your ideas, but at the same time, you're trying to really figure out, well, but could you fracture in more interesting ways than just when you're talking about if you could rewrite the phantom menace and all the trilogy after, would you end up at revenge of the Sith the way it does? No, you would probably deviate. Interesting. In different ways.
06:08
Case Aiken
And so there's a lot of that going on here. And so we're struggling not to go too far, but we've also been doing this for. At this .3 weeks in a row. And we just had a lot of thoughts about the franchise build up because at a certain point it was like, all right, well, we have so much to say, and we're coming from different vantage points because Ben was like a Gen Xer and Star wars is like a weird property wherever it was really the first big union of Gen X and millennial nostalgia because the boomers are the ones who experienced it firsthand, but in a lot of cases, those are the ones who are teenagers or adults.
06:44
Case Aiken
And so they have a love and perhaps a sympathy for the franchise, and they want to encourage other people to get into it, but they don't have that childhood nostalgia, and that's the Gen X era. The people who were actual kids, like the six year olds when Star wars was coming out of those, then getting really into it, and then millennials kind of as, like, the little siblings looking up to the Gen Xers and also getting approval from the boomers. So, like, my dad and your dad and everyone are like, yeah, no, it's fine to get into Star Wars. I remember enjoying it when I was a teenager or 20 something, but. But it wasn't like a deep part of them. But then you get like, the. Like I said, the gen xs are like, yes, we're really into this.
07:23
Case Aiken
And we're like, fuck, yeah, we're all really into this. And, like, we get really excited and it's like a unifying moment across generations. Wow, that's like a. That's a statement right there.
07:32
Sam
Yeah, but.
07:33
Case Aiken
But it's true. Like, it. Star wars is such a crazy fandom because it's so new.
07:37
Sam
Yeah. And I think that, you know, for all that people sit around and kind of, like, complain and nitpick and things like that, and that the fandom can be very toxic, you know, just not doing things that there is something. There is the other side of it, the light side of it. Sorry. That is, you know, really lovely in the fact that, yes, it is generationally something that brings you together. Like, it's something that my parents enjoyed and saw in the movie theaters. It's something that I watched at home with them all of the time.
08:14
Sam
And then when my sister was born four years later, and then, you know, there are moments, I mean, there's still, like, there's still tapes, like, people are doing like, little reactions of their kids watching Star wars for the first time and posting it online and, like, having reactions to like, I am your father. And kids going, what? And, like, parents laughing because they're waiting. They're waiting for this moment. And it's so there is something cool and there's something lovely about that. And I guess if I were a kid, maybe I would have found more redeemable things in the prequels the way that Gen Z seems to find. Because I find that people in Gen Z tend to defend these movies a lot more.
09:06
Sam
And I think that's also because they actively were watching the Clone wars in between gaining more attachment to these characters where I was like, no, fucking put all the details in the movie. I paid $11. Oh, my God, it was only $11. I paid $11. Give me all the information here.
09:26
Case Aiken
Yeah, it's just like they enter the Matrix scenario with the Matrix where it's like, wait, no, don't tell me. I have to watch the Animatrix and play the video game to understand what happens in the break into two.
09:37
Sam
Exactly. Like, you know, and I get it. Synergy, right? Like, you know, this leads into that everyone's buying everything, but also, like, don't fucking do that to me. Like, give me a. Give me what I paid for. And so I think, like, in general, like, I think that so many people our age and like a little bit older, I think definitely most of Gen X and maybe even some of the boomers went into this film, specifically this film, with, like, ideas of what could be.
10:16
Sam
Because we had already, we had basically had fiction writers, like, not like one or two, like dozens of them speculating on this universe, building upon this universe, going back in time, going forward in time, you know, kind of like doing that stuff, like, some of the things that were decided on in the newer movies, in those sagas were a little easier for me to accept as someone who read some of the stuff than my friend that was a pure Gen X person who was just like, that could never happen. Luke would never be a failure. And so, like, this is like all about perspective. Like, when you came into the fandom actually definitely affects it. So if you're listening to this and you happen to love this particular movie, phantom menace, and you love pod racing scenes, well, good for you.
11:10
Sam
Like what you like. That was too long for me, it was too long for me. And these gentlemen that you're about to listen to clearly have an opinion on it as well.
11:20
Case Aiken
Yeah, yeah. I mean, Ben is a thorough Gen Xer, although he has kids, and that has been a way that he really has bonded with his son by them having a shared appreciation of Star wars. And then Addie's a little younger than me, so we're actually a pretty good spectrum in terms of where this, like, fell into our fandom. But yeah, we got into it. And then again, this is right after Force Awakens. We were all so excited. They were big fans of the Clone wars, which is a series that I'm only now watching. Like, I'm almost done with season one at this point. And it's good. It's actually, it's way better than I thought at the time because I really liked the cartoon one the more the Tartakoski one. The samurai Jack creator. And Primal. Primal is amazing, by the way.
12:04
Case Aiken
Go watch that. But that series was the one that caught my attention because. And, like, it's had its own, like, kind of weird nostalgia there. But anyway, clone wars is good and I appreciate the new work people have done, but yeah, we're, you know, I was super invested in, like, the books and stuff of the earlier era. Anyone who listens to scruffy nerf herders can hear how much of, like, the legends timeline I incorporate into plots and so forth because, like, the young Jedi knights, like, young adult series, I fucking read the shit out of that in middle school.
12:35
Sam
That was good.
12:36
Case Aiken
You know, all the, like the Zahn.
12:39
Sam
It was a good series.
12:40
Case Aiken
Oh, yeah, it was great. I will defend a deathlo bacca in his, like, weird bronze mace shaped lightsaber. It was fucking dope. But, you know, like, we all had, like, feelings about the Phantom menace, and the Phantom menace actually canonized a lot of that extended universe. Like, we talk about it here where, like, they openly call things Sith. They reference the rule of two. They have a lot of stuff that, like, embrace that universe. And then we just threw it all out when we got to the Force Awakens. And Force Awakens is a well made movie that I was not very enthusiastic about. When I walked out, I had to, like, actually pump myself up for the first time. I came on certain pov. And, like, I maintain it's really well made.
13:22
Case Aiken
And in terms of, like, being a soft reboot, it opens the door to a lot. But I wasn't very excited about a lot in the way I was with Last Jedi, which I thought was fantastic. Like, it's such a different universe from what I had been exposed to. And I thought it was doing really creative stuff. Force Awakens wasn't that. And I was looking forward to the properties that we had to see. But I was also very. I was into the plinket reviews, which is why I say that Palpatine's behind the whole thing line multiple times, because that became a running joke at theater jobs I was at with Jeff Moonan and our friend Kieran, who was on episode 100 talking about DBZ abridged. That was a scene for us where we would just make the references to the same Internet videos of 2012.
14:04
Case Aiken
And that was part of that era. So I hadn't been far enough away from those biases that I couldn't see how, like, indoctrinated I had been in this particular subset of metacriticism. So we're all having a lot of feelings in this episode, but I enjoyed it. I thought it was actually really fun to listen back to, but it is not nearly as comprehensive as some of our other ones.
14:27
Sam
Yeah, this will devolve. I want to listen. I think that by warning our listeners, they will enjoy it more when they realize that the point is coming where it's like, oh, here it is. Here's where they lose the thread and really start. It's almost like you guys are bar. You're almost bartering for what you would think would work for a future. And you're like, well, what about this? Well, we haven't seen rogue one yet, so we don't know what a world without Jedi looks like. And it's just like, really funny. And I think that it's especially funny now, right? Because we are now at the end, and now we have, like, a few properties where there are, you know, whether they be successful or not on solo movie. And. And we have a few properties where we do not have. Right.
15:21
Sam
Any kind of, like, we don't have a lot of Jedi or force stuff in it. Or maybe we just have, you know, hints or inklings, like the Mandalorian with Yodito, which I like better than Grogu. So that's what I call him. Yodito.
15:46
Case Aiken
Yeah. And I do want to say that this is actually a classic certain pov episode in that regard. Because the three of us, when we would get on a tear about Star wars, there's so much passion. But actually, we don't get angry with each other. We're just trying to find a consensus between the three of us. Which is why this is an episode of Certain POV and not actually an episode of another pass. Like it is.
16:08
Sam
Yeah.
16:09
Case Aiken
It is very firmly in our desire just to, like, shoot the shit about Star wars for five fucking hours, which is what we did after the first time I came on and after we stopped recording, and we're still mad that we didn't record it all because it was a goddamn episode. And so I am actually rather fondly looking back on this time, because Ben and Addie are great to talk Star wars about. I hope you can get both of them, either together or separately, back on the show at some point. We had Ben on for Beowulf, so I don't want people to think that we're being like, oh, they lose the thread, and it's bad. It's that we just have so much to talk about and we're just exploding.
16:48
Sam
With thought, no, it's great. Like, honestly, it's a slow build because it starts from a comment that fits into the scenario, and all of a sudden, as a listener, especially one that was not involved in the conversation, you're like, oh, shit, where am I standing now? And it's amazing. So I say, let's let the bargaining begin to. It's going to start off with real solid pitches. Honestly, there's going to be some solid pitches, and then someone's going to go in the total opposite direction and it's going to become a debate.
17:24
Case Aiken
Yeah. So we're going to drop an ad for one of the shows on our network because certain POV has grown so large since the time of this episode. Then we're going to come back for the retrospective, and then we'll have another ad, and then Sam and I are going to be back to sort of give our closing thoughts about the episode that you just listened to. So enjoy ads.
17:51
Sam
Can you believe we've been friends for seven years and it all started because I compared you to Alana the Lioness? Tamara Pierce really set the tone of our friendship. A love of magic. Friar Moss fantasy. Briar Moss, powerful women. And, of course, briar Moss. I'm Anna. And I'm MJ. And we invite you to join our circle of friendship, where we do a chapter by chapter into the Circle of Magic series by Tamara Pierce. We answer important questions like, how does moonstream let certain dedicates take care of children? Can you imagine anyone else but Mandy Patinkin playing Niko? Knives, briar and knives join us every other Monday at cofpodcast dot libson.com. Or wherever you download podcasts. But seriously, knives.
18:45
Case Aiken
Welcome to certain point of view. Your first step into a much nerdier world. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com. And now your hosts, Ben Milton and Adi Thomas.
19:00
Addy
Hey, Nerf Herders. I'm Addie Thomas.
19:01
Ben
And I'm Ben Milton.
19:03
Addy
We got case with us.
19:04
Case Aiken
Yep. Doing part three, guys. Yep.
19:06
Addy
The phantom Menace rewrite. Before we get to it, let us know what you think. If you have better ideas for the phantom menace, or if you don't like our ideas or you do like our ideas, what would you change? What you would. Just all of that. You can get in touch with us, go to our website, certainpov.com, comma, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, and email. All of that. Certainpov.com. Case, kick us off.
19:28
Case Aiken
All right, so for those of you tuning in for the first time, the pitch of this series of episodes is doing the Star wars prequels, right? So we. We did episode three. We did episode two. Now we're doing episode one. And now episode one is the doorway to madness. So the idea is that we're gonna pitch the best version of episode one with then sort of explaining how it will spiral out to the next two. But with this one, we've got to try to keep it kinda close to the original because otherwise we're talking about just totally new movies. So at least we're talking about the same themes, the same basic ideas, or, like, hopefully stuff from the early trailers and stuff. Like, the idea is Lucas put out a draft, the produce.
20:09
Case Aiken
Like, people who were giving him money were like, fuck, we need a better idea. We need a different point of view. We need a certain point of view. So, Addie, why don't you give your first ideas? Sure.
20:20
Addy
So my ideas, well, it ties to the title itself, kind of the way my attack the clones pitch was tied to. Who are the clones? And so what is the phantom menace? Because I guess the phantom menace in the. In the current version is palpatine and the sith and ball.
20:38
Case Aiken
Palpatine's behind the whole thing.
20:39
Ben
Darth, jar.
20:40
Addy
Yeah, sure. Dart jar. Whatever, Ben. Just. Just. Yeah, just move on. Get over it.
20:46
Ben
Thanks for acknowledging it this time, Adam.
20:47
Addy
No, I'm just. I'm treating you like a child that just needs to go to the corner now. Just. That's not going to go up on the wall in here, just so you know. Not in my house. That is so awful.
20:58
Case Aiken
This is great radio, guys. Ben is holding up a poster.
21:01
Addy
He's a poster of Darth Jar. I can't believe he spent actual money on it. Your financial decisions at awesome con were the worst this year. I just want to point that out.
21:13
Case Aiken
It could be worse. When I was at shore leave, I just bought a sword. I misheard. She said it was dollar 150. And then she was like, no, it's dollar 50. And I was like, oh, I guess I'm buying this.
21:26
Addy
All right, well, anyway, back to my version. So I don't have necessarily a full version of the story changed. You know, there are a lot of things that were introduced in Phantom Menace that we hate. I'm not really going to address Jar. I'm not going to address Jake Lloyd. I am going to talk about who the Phantom menace is, and I actually kind of want a slightly different role for who Obi Wan is and for who qui Gon is.
21:54
Case Aiken
Okay. If you pitch my exact idea again, I am going to hit you harder than I would hit Jake lloyd.
22:00
Addy
I actually want Qui Gon to be secretly a Sith and to have Obi Wan actually be the one who is interested in bringing Anakin on into the Jedi order. So, because to me, it never really made sense.
22:14
Case Aiken
You are on thin ice. Go on.
22:18
Addy
I'm scared that we're fairly close on this, but I always thought it was weird that, yes, it's Qui Gon's dying wish to have Anakin trained by the Jedi. So Obi Wan does it. But Obi Wan, throughout the entire movie doesn't really like Anakin at, like, there's no love for Anakin at all from him, from Obi Wan, and, you know, Obi Wan throughout the series is a little bit, you know, is sometimes played more as someone who is a bit more of a traditionalist. And I would like the idea for Obi Wan to already be a little bit more reckless, little bit more willing to go outside of necessarily what the order is. I like the idea of Qui gon ending up being the Phantom menace to secretly being a Sith who's working with Maul. Let's. Let's get. You know, do we really like.
23:11
Addy
The rule of two isn't particularly necessary. So you already have. So. So you already set the pre. Set the idea up that there's corruption within the Jedi order, and then the. And the Jedi order is crumbling if you have a Jedi master turned to the dark side. And so then that last fight is Obi Wan versus qui Gon and versus Darth Maul instead of Qui Gon and Obi Wan versus maul. So you have also a chance for Obi Wan to prove himself big time and to be able to again be the hero at the end.
23:45
Case Aiken
Wait, a crazy ass fight where Obi Wan's in the center somehow defending himself against both Qui Gon and maul. Attacking him?
23:52
Addy
Yes.
23:53
Case Aiken
That's insane. And also amazing. Hold on. Tell me more.
23:56
Ben
Well, that's.
23:57
Addy
Sadly, that's all I have, but that's what I'd like to see that change.
24:03
Case Aiken
Okay. All right. So, like I said, thin ice a little bit, because here were a couple things for mine. Like, I was trying to keep as close as I could, and there's certain things that are going to sound familiar to those who listen to our attack of the clones idea. I had this idea of, like, what if Qui Gon survived, and at the end of the movie was, like, so disgusted with how the Jedi handled everything that he's like, you know what? Screw this.
24:27
Case Aiken
And leaves the Jedi order and either becomes a sith lord and becomes Count Dooku's character in the next two, or he's actually just a good guy and is leading the separatists, and then Obi Wan is forced to fight his old master in the next two movies, and, like, but he's actually still a good guy, and I think that's actually the more complicated, interesting way of taking it. But it's still cool to have him just if you need him to be the bad guy and be a sith lord. Like, have him fall to the dark side because he's disgusted by the Jedi in this movie in particular. So I dig your idea. And actually, that could work really well if he was like, there's no reason Qui Gon Jinn couldn't just be palpatine.
25:03
Case Aiken
Like, he's disgusted by the Jedi, quote unquote, and he leaves the Jedi order, quote unquote, and, like, goes into politics to try to fix things, quote unquote. And then, like, next thing we know, he's grand Chancellor, and then next thing we know, he's the emperor. That can be cool, too. I mean, that might be a little.
25:17
Addy
Too, like, I'm fine with Qui gon working with Palpatine, because the thing is, the rule of two was introduced with phantom menace.
25:26
Case Aiken
We could think it was in the books before that at some point, but was it? It might have been either way. They were like, hey, let's take the movies and, like, let's really marry it to the extended universe that we already had. That's when they were, like, the Sith. Because at no point in the movies had we seen that before. And they really tied it all together. Yeah.
25:44
Addy
And the rule of two, especially when you look at the knights of the old republic, doesn't make a whole lot of sense for a Sith order that needs to be able to hold its.
25:51
Ben
Own against Palpatine clearly doesn't follow it anyway.
25:54
Addy
Right, right.
25:54
Case Aiken
Well, they later expand on, but, like, either way, it's kind of dumb. And it was really just there to sort of explain Palpatine and Vader, and then it's all the same.
26:04
Addy
Whatever.
26:05
Case Aiken
No, so that was a take that I was thinking. And, like, here's the thing. So, like, we've talked about this before, the red letter media stuff, where they're like, everyone talks in reverse. It's true. If you just reverse the lines for Qui Gon and Obi Wan, it all of a sudden makes so much more sense. In the movie, we got, like, yeah. If Obi Wan Kenobi is constantly the one who's, like, this rebellious force, and Qui Gon Jinn is this quiet, meditative, like, traditionalist, who, let's say he dies at the end, but he reaffirms Obi Wan's rebellious streak. That's right there. Just a better movie with almost no rewrites. In fact, all you're doing is switching lines for characters who are in the scene together. Already have roughly the same number of lines.
26:45
Addy
Cool.
26:46
Case Aiken
Moving on. That would just better right there. But you know what would be more interesting? If that trade Federation embargo is actually a real embargo, if they're really doing a blockade and it's really causing some problems. And maybe the planet has harder issues than this lush, like, jungle world that everyone has so much life and art and crazy things everywhere. Here's my idea on this one. This trade federation blockade is actually causing serious issue. We see the problems of the blockade, and let's say it's medicine or some kind of specific food. Maybe the human settlers on this planet don't have anything that's really actually functional with their digestive system or is, like, missing a key ingredient. And the Gungans might still be there as, like, the native inhabitants who are able to survive, but the humans are having real troubles.
27:39
Case Aiken
And maybe the Gungans are okay with this blockade because all of a sudden, the humans are all pulling back to where they have, like, stores of, like, whatever leftover supplies they have. Well, what if the only way in and out of this planet, let's say the Jedi, come the same way that they do? Anyway, they end up on the planet roughly the same way anyway. But the only way off is from a smuggler. And that smuggler happened to be someone called Anakin Starkiller. And he's a teenager, and, like, he has this great rep, but he gives himself, like, a badass name. And that way, we can bring in the starkiller thing here. And he's like, yeah, man. And it turns out he's actually Anakin Skywalker.
28:18
Case Aiken
And that he's just trying to have this big, like, bluster and whatnot, but he's, like, a very han solo type figure. And this is. This is the point. We get to see him being, like, an awesome pilot. He gets them through the blockade. That's crazy. And they make their way back to Coruscant, and we have Anakin be the hero of the story, but he's a reluctant one. And then in the course of him saving the day, that's when they're like, oh, you have power with the force, by the way. Hold on. We need. We need to talk more. And, like.
28:47
Ben
And how old is he at this point?
28:48
Case Aiken
I'm saying teenager. Like, 15. Okay.
28:50
Addy
I think. And I think that's something we all agree on. Like, a much older, angrier Anakin would have made morse.
28:56
Case Aiken
Yeah.
28:57
Ben
Yeah. There's no need for Jake Lloyd.
28:59
Case Aiken
Like, no need for tattooing in this. Like he should. Yeah, I agree. Like, he could be from wherever, but, like, Naboo could work fine. But I like the idea of him, like, actually being the one who's doing runs, getting stuff in and out of the blockade.
29:11
Addy
Right.
29:12
Case Aiken
And, like, he's got his own ship, and it's sort of crazy. And maybe, like, if you have to have, like, these, like, comic relief characters, like, they could be part of his crew, so at least there's a reason for them. And, like, it's not just like, oh, we have shields. We can just go through. Okay, cool. We don't have shields. Shit. We're sitting ducks. What? Like, none of them to have c three? Yeah. So he. So they do this whole, like, mission. They get off to Coruscant. They come back. They. They save the day, and then that's when we get the qui gon stuff either being ultimately turned to the dark side or just turned away. Yeah.
29:46
Case Aiken
And I think the longer term story, the better one is him still remaining a hero and adamantly trying to remain a hero, but going in a different direction from what the Jedi council says. And that's where we see what we talked about with Count Dooku trying to be a hero, but on the wrong side, like, the side that loses. And so he's leading people, maybe bad people. Like, maybe he's trying to make the most of people who gravitate towards him, but the people who gravitate towards him are crazy rebels, as opposed to, like, the people he's trying to liberate. He's trying to let everyone know that there's a sith and whatnot. The only people who listen to him are the ones who are vying for power or the ones who were paranoid psychos anyway, or at least the strongest voices in that group.
30:32
Case Aiken
And so he's trying to hold this assembly of loudmouth, like, crazy people, but who are now technically on the side of right, because he's, like, the Sith actually are controlling the republic. Like, the republic is now poisoned beyond belief. We can't do anything with the republic. We all need to leave. And the loudest voices in his camp are then, like, the people who are the bad guys on that side, like, the ones who support him, but they support him because they further their own ends. And either that's just chaos, or that end is like, oh, we get to go off and be free of Republic law so that we can have, like, clone slaves or, you know, something like that. And that's, that leads into, like, the chain of the remainder of the movies.
31:10
Case Aiken
But this way, the movie, it has stakes that matter for the later ones, because right now, the Phantom menace has only, like, the thinnest of stakes that matter to the next two movies. Like, it has, like, some very far off background setting things. But the movie that we ultimately have doesn't really relate to the next two and is recapped completely in the next two. This should be at least the. The seeds of the Clone War, if not already the beginning of the Clone War.
31:37
Ben
Yeah, yeah, I agree. I totally agree. So I went even further than both of you did with how I was. I really rebuild it. There's no qui gon in mine. There's no young Jake Lloyd there. We get right into it kind of quickly because I start off with a baby being left on the stairs of a Jedi temple on a distant planet in the outer rim. Some sort of force sensitive test is given, kind of like stacking blocks, using the Force for this young child and the baby, and he's a baby, builds the blocks and then just crushes them to the delight. And then the horror of the Jedi priestess watching this. And from there, we cut to Yoda and the council debating if who and who should mentor this young, force sensitive child.
32:31
Ben
And it's finally agreed that Obi Wan Kenobi would be the mentor to this child. From there, we cut to the crawl.
32:41
Case Aiken
From there, does the song born to be bad?
32:44
Ben
Yes. Yes.
32:45
Case Aiken
Or bad to the bone? Bad to the bone?
32:47
Ben
Yes. And unlike Star wars, now is when we start the crawl. So there's a prelude, and then you start the crawl just to kind of give it a different feel and a different texture. And we find out, well, this is.
33:01
Case Aiken
Episode one, so that works. Yeah. Right.
33:03
Ben
That we explained that there's a civil war that's been brewing through the. And the galactic Senate is bogged down by two opposing views. And the thing that I love about Lucas is how he incorporates myth and also modern politics and events into his story building. So I would do that if were doing it now. I would do it now and make it very obvious there's a republican side and a Democrat side and that there's these two opposing views, but they're both very corrupt, militaristic, and all these problems and really sort of just opposite sides of the same coin that are causing all of these problems. And then from there, that the Jedi are conflicted since they're sworn to protect the Senate. But there's these two very obvious divisions in the Senate.
33:48
Ben
And so the Jedi themselves are split down the middle on those lines, and one side you have Yoda, and on the other side you have mace Windu. And so there's this sort of conflict happening within. Within the Jedi order itself.
34:03
Addy
So kind of like what you're talking about in your clones pitch.
34:05
Ben
Yes.
34:06
Case Aiken
Does Mace Windu actually get to be angry and yell at people?
34:09
Ben
Yes, he does. He really gets to be Sam Jackson in my version. So we cut to action of Mace Windu and Yoda arguing in the Jedi council about how to proceed and how to deal with this line being drawn between these two factions at Naboo and that there's this blockade being set up. So it's agreed that they're going to send Obi Wan and his padawan, Anakin, out to kind of deal with this. So from there, we get to see the great relationship of Obi and Anakin along with Padme, the senator, young Anakin being the Padawan and sort of young and rebellious, and Obi Wan being the traditionalist. And obviously, Obi Wan kind of sides more along the lines of Yoda. Anakin sides along the lines of Mace. And so you see the building for tension in their relationship.
34:59
Ben
But at this point, everything is copacetic and we see them working great together. And so to me, the first movie is lots of intrigue and lots of adventure and lots of fun of dealing with the Naboo issue and all that stuff. But it's ultimately a failure on their part to prevent a war leading directly into the Clone wars. So once we get into the next movie, then in that process, we learn, and in the process we learned that Palpatine's been pulling the strings on both sides to split and weaken the Jedi.
35:30
Case Aiken
Palpatine's behind the whole thing.
35:32
Ben
Of course, yeah.
35:33
Case Aiken
Can I chime in on thoughts of, like, I, like, the political thing? You'll be really cool. That would lead into the Clone wars really well, yeah, if it was, like, the right to die. Like, if everyone was just automatically cloned and, like, the Senate was really pushing that. Like, you couldn't just, like, be killed in an accident. Like, if there was, like, mandatory, like, registration of, like, your DNA and, like, memories at regular times and people were, like, objecting to it because it sort of, like, created, like, artificial people. Right. Possibly sometimes by accident. Like, duplicates were starting to pop up and it was, like, getting, like, to be this weird headache where all of a sudden there are just clones around and that's leading into just people being replicated too much.
36:11
Case Aiken
So the war doesn't have to be an invading army of clones or them raising clones to be the army. Maybe just cloning as a natural process, that practice becomes disruptive to the society because all of a sudden someone thinks that someone died in an accident or someone was gone for too long. Clones are popping up. Like, the society itself falls apart because of an overpopulation of people with fundamentally the same memories and no one quite being able to justify what is the original person versus not the original person. And where does the rights, like, begin and end?
36:44
Ben
Like, I like that idea. I think it's a great book idea. I don't like. It's pretty complicated to throw into an hour and a half movie.
36:53
Addy
2 hours?
36:54
Ben
2 hours, even a two hour movie. It's pretty complicated for a summer popcorn movie.
36:59
Case Aiken
But, I mean, you couldn't be deep. Like, you wouldn't have to. The movie couldn't be like.
37:03
Addy
But that seems like a fairly deep cute. That's a hard to address, like, on the surface.
37:08
Case Aiken
Well, you can talk about it. Like, I'm not saying, like, make a movie like the island also with Ewan McGregor, like, following the clones, but, like, having conversation about the clones in the background and, like, stuff going on. Like, you can do it. Like, you could do it.
37:23
Ben
It would tell that cult to do. I agree. It would be difficult. It would be interesting. It would certainly be an interesting way. So my idea, though, was more along the lines of what we had talked about in the previous episode with Maul kind of being Palpatine's right hand man, invisible figure, and he's going around and using the Mandalorians to kind of target attacks and assassinations on both sides to instigate war between the two of them to weaken the Jedi and leading into the Clone wars, where it is all at war. And we see the separation then between Anakin and Obi Wan and the Jedi splitting in two and actually having a legit reason to have a war and going from there. And in my mind, in the second movie, it ends with Anakin falling to the dark side, becoming Darth Vader.
38:13
Ben
So that in the third movie, you have nothing but Darth Vader and just a bad time for everybody.
38:20
Addy
Right. And he can be Darth Vader even before the suit.
38:23
Ben
Yes, yes. Yeah, totally. And you can have, like, you know, a confrontation between Obi Wan and. And Anakin, and, you know, him losing and then becoming in, you know, getting stuck in the suit.
38:35
Case Aiken
Yeah, it'd be fun if you. You dealt with, like, sure, you want the parallel of the arm getting cut off, but, like, if he had other body parts injured, if he had, like. Like, was slowly, like, losing his man. Like, if there's, like, the ten man scenario. And, like, that's in the original Star wars pitch. Like, in the. In the Star wars, like, the original pitch. Like, I forget the name of the character, who is clearly, like, the Obi Wan analog, but the name is, like, slightly different, who is, like, just a head on a cyborg body. Like, that's all that's keeping him alive. Like, like, if Anakin very much, maybe, like, he had, like, an artificial heart, like Tony Stark. Like, he had, like, a couple, like, other, like, non major parts.
39:11
Case Aiken
His arm was, like, his big detail that was, like, face, obviously, but he was, like, mostly human, but he had, like, a few other things, like maybe one bionic eye, which is contradicted, sure, in the later stuff, but who knows what his eye really looked like. It was kind of pussy. You could have those details thrown in, and then that is Darth Vader. But the Darth Vader thing isn't just that he is in the suit of.
39:36
Addy
Right.
39:36
Case Aiken
But he's. He's already started to lose his humanity.
39:38
Ben
Piece by piece by piece as he falls to the dark side.
39:41
Case Aiken
So it's not like, one thing and then one big thing. Yes. It's lots of little things.
39:45
Ben
Yeah, I like that.
39:47
Case Aiken
Yeah.
39:47
Ben
So that's how I would remake that movie because I think we all agree, like, the problem with the first movie is who cares about eight year old Anakin Skywalker and pod racing?
39:59
Addy
Are you angel?
40:00
Ben
Yeah. The character development is really weak. The time on Naboo is just weird and kind of floppy.
40:08
Addy
Yeah.
40:09
Ben
It's unclear as to what exactly Palpatine's doing and what his motives are and how it's all fitting together. It's a mess of a movie.
40:18
Case Aiken
But I will say this. If Palpatine was unclear as the villain on purpose, and I think the point was that they didn't want to directly tie Palpatine to being, like, Darth Sidious and, like, all this stuff.
40:33
Addy
Like, oh, just stop.
40:34
Case Aiken
That's fine. The thing is, it's not subtle enough, but also, it's not clear, but it's also not really charming and intelligent. Palpatine putting everything down. Jar Jar, put that down. The palpatine manipulating everything stuff would be really cool if the first movie could exist by itself. Like, if could exist as a way that you could watch that movie and understand, like, the Star wars universe and then watch all the remaining ones after it. But, like, the current order of episode 123456 doesn't work as a structured movie. Like, really what they need to make it is if you want to have it be like, this subtle, like, buildup of palpatine pushing, like, chess pieces into place.
41:23
Case Aiken
One, two, and three needs to be a standalone movie or, like, needs to be, like, a movie that introduces the world of the, of Star wars to everyone in a way that's not. Doesn't expect you to understand and needs to at least leave some surprises. Like the, I don't know how they would tie Luke Skywalker. Maybe they just don't have Anakin be Skywalker. Like, he doesn't fucking have to be Skywalker. I don't even really think they ever call him Anakin Skywalker. They just, or do they say the.
41:50
Addy
Son of Anakin Skywalker?
41:51
Case Aiken
Okay. Yeah, well, I don't know, but, like, find a way to have, like, the Anakin Star killer thing that I pitched. Like, that's his, like, pseudonym.
41:57
Sam
Yeah.
41:59
Addy
Like, I think you kind of have to because the significance, like, it is a prequel and you do have some significance in the relationship between Obi Wan and Anakin and knowing the, it was never one of the problems we, I don't think we ever had with the prequels was knowing that relationship was doomed. We always wanted to know how it was gonna end up being doomed. And the problem was that turn just never worked.
42:24
Case Aiken
This would be hard to do. But what if there was a bait and switch? Like, there was someone else? That was like a red herring for who Darth Vader was.
42:33
Addy
I think that could work for who Palpatine was. If it wasn't obvious that Palpatine was his real name.
42:40
Case Aiken
Yeah. And the expanded universe really kind of limited.
42:44
Addy
Right. But I think with Vader, I think we want to see his story. We want to see the fall so.
42:49
Case Aiken
That the redemption be interesting if between two and three, all of a sudden Vader is on the scene. And, like, we had, like, a very strong, like, red herring that was like, oh, that guy is goddamn Vader. And Anakin fell in battle like something like that.
43:04
Addy
The one, well, actually going on that I could see that there is another villainous who is Darth Vader. And that Anakin takes.
43:12
Sam
Oh, yeah.
43:12
Case Aiken
Darth Vader is just a title. Like. Like, which it is. But I mean, like a title passed down, like.
43:17
Addy
Right. That he takes on that Persona so that even again, from a certain point of view, Obi Wan is absolutely right in that Darth Vader killed Anakin Skywalker. Yeah, in a way, you know.
43:30
Case Aiken
Oh, that'd be interesting if it looked like Anakin Skywalker died at the end of episode two.
43:34
Addy
Yeah.
43:34
Case Aiken
At the hands of Darth Vader all along nose, right. Yeah. Like, it is always the problem. Like, the problem is that one, two, and three does not have the tension necessary for, like, a surprise. And, like, if it's going. Which is why it doesn't work as episode one, two, and three. It works as a flashback.
43:54
Addy
Yeah.
43:54
Case Aiken
In between episodes five and six. Like, it's the same reason that the Godfather, the complete epic, is not a great movie to watch because it spends 3 hours doing flashbacks of Vita Corleone before you get to the actual Godfather movie. And then you just have, like, half of Godfather part two without any of the flashbacks to, like, sort of relate the scenes of Michael at all. It's just like, an awkward thing. That's what these movies are. Like. One, two, and three require you to know the. You have to know everything. But at the same time, there's no dramatic stakes because you know everything.
44:28
Addy
Like, right.
44:30
Case Aiken
If it was 45123 and six, it's good, but because four, five, and six all came out, it doesn't work.
44:38
Addy
Yeah. I don't totally agree with that I.
44:42
Ben
Think you can still.
44:43
Addy
I think there's still drama in seeing the fall and knowing how it happens. Yeah, yeah.
44:49
Case Aiken
But not in how these movies are structured and the way that they are presented. I'm saying that there is drama, but that drama needs to be embracing the fact that this is not the first, second, and third movie in the series.
45:02
Ben
It's. That it is the fourth, fifth, and fifth.
45:05
Case Aiken
Yes. 4th, fifth, and six.
45:06
Ben
Yeah.
45:07
Case Aiken
That they have to embrace that fact and the fact that it is a.
45:10
Ben
We already know where it's going. Yeah.
45:12
Case Aiken
Yeah. Like, there are great series that have done, like, go to prequel episodes or, like, flashback episodes or do flashbacks in the midst of things, or, you know, like I just said, godfather part two works really well with, like, prequel stuff, but, like, it doesn't. They don't embrace the idea that they are the first movie in the chapter then, because episode one, you start the movie and you assume everyone knows what jedis are, and you assume everyone knows who Darth Vader is and Anakin Skywalker is and what Darth Sidious is actually palpatine, and he's Emperor Palpatine. Like, they assume a lot of things of the audience. And that's why I think it doesn't really work that well as episode one. It works really well as a flashback.
45:56
Addy
Yeah.
45:58
Case Aiken
And, yeah, there's narrative significance. There's an argument in favor of originality that I think is not warranted in America. I think that the. I might have talked about this before, but the tension of how things happen is a valid one. But you need to embrace the fact that, like, that's. It's not a surprise that you're masterfully crafting a story that we've already heard before. Absolutely. Like, no one can be surprised if you do, like, this fantastic snow white story, and it turns out that they're dwarves, and it turns out that there's a witch that is her stepmother. Like, that story is one that we already know, but you're doing it really well. So the thing isn't doing jump scares and being like she was. Like she was your stepmother all along.
46:50
Case Aiken
Like, no, it has to be, like, the really well done version of a story. You know? Like.
46:53
Addy
Yeah.
46:53
Case Aiken
And by structuring it as this is the first episode in the series, like, it invalidates that, the way that they tell the story.
47:01
Addy
I can see that. Yeah. Ben, did you have anything to add to that? You were nodding yes and no to some of those.
47:08
Case Aiken
I.
47:08
Ben
You know, I think that movie. Like, for that movie, I want know, seeing four five and six. Knowing how Vader ends, I want to, like, I went into those movies really wanting to see how it happened. Like, you're right. I, like, I didn't like the way it was executed, but I liked the idea that I was going to finally see the birth of Darth Vader. Like, how did he become Darth Vader? Who is Anakin Skywalker? How did.
47:36
Case Aiken
Who.
47:36
Ben
What was Obi Wan Kenobi like? And how was he, you know, related, and how did that relationship work with. With Anakin? And I really wanted to see that, and I still do really want to see that. I kind of wish that they would just say the prequels aren't canon and redo them, to be honest with you. Like, that would be the best thing.
47:56
Addy
That they could do, to be honest, for clone Wars. I would agree with you.
47:59
Ben
Right, right. Clone wars fixed a lot of the problems.
48:03
Addy
Yeah.
48:04
Ben
Didn't make it perfect, but it fixed.
48:06
Addy
A lot of the problems. You know, it's interesting. If they had certain. If Lucas had certain dark plans for a particular character, he probably would have done it in the Clone Wars. I just want to, you know, your dark jar theory.
48:19
Ben
I think. No, I think it was too late for that. I think it was totally too late for that.
48:23
Case Aiken
Here's the thing we are seeing with the Star wars, like, with rogue one, for example, we're seeing a prequel movie that is doing it the way that I'm saying that, like, the story of episode one, two, and three probably should have, like, episode one, two, and three probably should have been the Clone wars. And this is, like, a broader kind of concept thing. Like, it probably should have just been the Clone wars, where, like, these things are happening as part of this other story. It shouldn't have been, oh, this is the story of Darth Vader because that puts so much weight on it to fulfill, like, a specific story type, as opposed to we get to see it play out amidst this larger war. Like, the Clone wars was the thing that we knew about, and we should have seen those details play out.
49:07
Case Aiken
And in this movie structure, that it wasn't just putting Vader at the forefront as, like, this whole, like, we need to get to having Vader. We need to have Luke over there, like, finding out the hidden stories about it all. That's cool. But it should feel like those are the gems that are in this movie.
49:27
Addy
Yeah. Interesting that you brought up rogue one as a prequel. You know, that's a war movie. Do you think there is room for or a possibility ever for, you know, a movie that takes place just somewhere in the middle of the Clone wars with Anakin and Obi Wan, Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen. With a good director, with a good writer, with someone who maybe could actually bring a good performance out of Hayden Christensen.
49:56
Case Aiken
Like, it's impossible. Like, they are. They are good actors.
50:01
Addy
Well, I don't say it's. That's impossible to bring it out of Hayden Christensen. I'm just saying it wasn't. George Lucas was.
50:06
Case Aiken
No, they. I think it is. It is getting harder and harder.
50:11
Ben
Getting older.
50:11
Case Aiken
Yeah.
50:12
Ben
I think they're getting old.
50:13
Case Aiken
I don't know if it's impossible yet. Like, yeah, it's been a few years, but. And I will admit I look that old. You and McGregor is not. Does not look that old. Yeah. I have not checked in with Hayden Christensen.
50:24
Addy
I don't think anybody has.
50:26
Case Aiken
But I'm presuming he could look fine for being, like, the more mature Anakin.
50:31
Addy
Yeah.
50:32
Case Aiken
Oh, God, no.
50:33
Addy
No. Hayden Christian. Well, there was the rumor that Hayden Christensen was on the set force Awakens at one point for that whole, like, weird force goes thing with, like.
50:44
Case Aiken
I'm assuming that they could. If he. The worst case scenario, beyond him being out of shape and all that, like, which the gym is. The answer is, let's say he starts balding or he, like, has started to sag in some ways. Like, those. Those are all things that makeup and wigs can. Can cover.
51:02
Addy
Right. Which the fans would don't want to. Nobody wants touch that. It's just. Do you think it's.
51:10
Case Aiken
I don't think it's untouchable, but I do think that it is something to deal with. And you'd have to be like, I.
51:16
Ben
Think you've already covered it in the Clone wars.
51:18
Addy
Well, no, but, I mean, there's, again, the Clone wars we never finished.
51:21
Case Aiken
We're talking about getting a movie as opposed to a tv show or just.
51:25
Addy
A side project, a war movie. Focus on a single battle that has just an experience that is instrumental to who Obi wan and Anakin are.
51:35
Sam
What are you.
51:35
Ben
What additional are you gonna get out of that you haven't already gotten?
51:40
Addy
But I don't know.
51:41
Case Aiken
I mean, what's the point? Well, yeah, okay, but this is what.
51:43
Ben
You'Re saying you want. But why? What do you want out of that, other than to say it's a live action movie? No, it's already.
51:51
Case Aiken
Here's the thing. What if you did, like, the movies that we talked about as, like, ideas?
51:55
Addy
It's not about being part of the saga. And because I think this would be anthology movie, it's not about being part of the saga and tying up this big thing about the nature of the force. But it's a chance to see, because we're getting a chance to see who Vader is in other stories.
52:11
Ben
How can you think about what you're saying? Yeah, you want a Skywalker not in a saga movie.
52:18
Case Aiken
I'm saying as a cameo, Vader in rogue one, we're seeing a skywalker in it. Like, yeah, I'm saying you're seeing, you're.
52:24
Ben
Seeing Vader in a role, but it's not about him.
52:28
Case Aiken
Right. That's what I'm actually saying right now. What if it was a movie where, like, that one that we talked about being like a platoon style thing with the clone troopers and we have them briefly in it, but we get to see, like, Anakin, how Anakin looks like to the clone troopers. That could be really cool.
52:43
Ben
Yeah, that's fine. But then they're not, like, they're not the leads.
52:46
Case Aiken
But hold on. We're not talking about them.
52:48
Addy
But we've also seen some incredible storytelling outside of the movies in the comics. Where's that VR experience we're seeing? I mean, we're seeing a lot of other things already. Vader's been the focus of some of it. The best comic is the Vader comic, and it's exploring who that guy is, how he becomes. This is a guy who is answering to grand Moff Tarkin and is part of the biggest military failure of the empire at that point and is sent off spiraling into space and somehow by Empire knows Luke is his son and is in a position where he can force choke to death any admiral that he wants. So there was clearly a story to be told there.
53:32
Addy
I can imagine that there's a story to be told in the Clone wars as well because we saw some great storytelling in the Clone wars that hints at this is the darkness in him, but this is the light in him as well. A lot of the, instead of the whiny kid who hated sand and had an awkward romance. Yes, I think there's room for good storytelling.
53:54
Ben
There is, but we've already gotten it for that character yet.
53:58
Addy
There are comics coming out all the time.
54:00
Ben
There's comics are coming about the Clone wars. Their comments are coming out after we.
54:04
Addy
Had a comic that's come out actually between episode one and two with a very young Anakin and Obi Wan. We've had, we have Canaan during the Clone wars. We're getting stories in those.
54:16
Ben
I know, but what I'm saying is, what else are you gonna.
54:18
Case Aiken
Yeah.
54:19
Addy
And that's, I guess that we're not gonna get any.
54:22
Case Aiken
Yes.
54:22
Addy
We're not getting anything new.
54:24
Ben
Like, why would you tell that story in such an expensive, audacious way? It's like, it's like were talking about, you know, San Diego Comic Con and Marvel.
54:32
Addy
Yeah.
54:32
Ben
It's a hell of a lot easier to tell that story in a comic book than it is in a movie.
54:36
Addy
Yeah.
54:37
Ben
What are you get, like, what do you need to see?
54:39
Case Aiken
Why?
54:39
Addy
Cool of it. The spectacle of the battle.
54:41
Ben
Well, if you can tell that, and you don't need Darth Vader to do that.
54:44
Case Aiken
Well, let's say Anakin, or Anakin. The goal of Anakin being in this isn't to show off. Here's the thing about Anakin, like, his deeper character stuff. Like, what if it is just to show off what Anakin looks like to the common man, which, sure, he's not the main character, but he could be a character throughout the movie. He doesn't have to be, like, just a quick cameo. He could just be like this omnipresent hero that everyone is, like, awestruck by. And maybe he does something bad at the end of it and, like, the troopers lose their lives or something, and we start to see, like, we see a little bit about the darkness, so we get a character beat for him. But for the most part, what we're really getting is how the world as a whole sees this hero of the Clone wars.
55:27
Addy
Right?
55:28
Case Aiken
Like, that could be a really cool project. And, like, I mean, ultimately, what are you getting out of any of these things? We've told the broad stroke story, so we're just trying to get to the nitty gritty for all of them anyway.
55:39
Ben
Yeah, yeah. My problem with that idea is it's still a Star wars movie. That's a pretty dark tale to tell for a Star wars movie. Let's not like these movies are aimed for kids. You know, Lucas original intention wasn't, you know, like, you know, to reach, you know, 30 and 40 year old nerds. It was to reach kids telling a story where the, you know, the hero, Anakin Skywalker, ends up killing, you know, at getting, keep people killed and everybody killed.
56:09
Addy
Like, that's not the Jedi order. I'm just saying, I don't know. I think there's room for a war movie in there.
56:18
Case Aiken
What about our aforementioned saw style. Like, the security cameras are following Anakin, killing everyone. I think it would be worth it if we paid Anakin for that or, like, paid Hayden Christensen for that.
56:31
Ben
Yeah, I don't like those movies. I mean, I guess there's.
56:37
Addy
The younglings like to play a game.
56:39
Case Aiken
Yeah.
56:40
Addy
So dark.
56:41
Ben
I think that the nice thing about the way that they've set up the universe with the saga movies and the anthology movies is they're looking forward of, like, we've already dealt with a lot of this stuff that we already, like. We already know what we already know. We've already dealt with Vader and Luke, and we're kind of moving forward now. And we're trying to like it with the saga films. We're trying to figure out, like, what's happening with Rey. And, yes, Luke is involved, but it's really about Reye.
57:08
Addy
Right.
57:08
Ben
Okay. It's not. And Vader's involved, but only because he's Vader. You know, it's just continuing on that film.
57:15
Addy
Yeah.
57:16
Ben
Now, the anthology, the other films are filling in the holes there, but they're not involved with the Skywalker family necessarily. You know, they're. They're out there, and they're part of that. But we're expanding the universe. We're not stuck in this, like, whoa, I want to see more Anakin. I want to see more Vader. I want to see more Obi wanna. You know, we do. But it's different. It is different.
57:40
Addy
Addie, we're getting a whole. Rolling your eyes, getting a trilogy about a young Han Solo.
57:46
Ben
Yeah, but that's not Anakin. That's different. That's not a Jedi. That's not the Jedi list.
57:51
Addy
Star wars.
57:52
Case Aiken
Here's the thing. I think once we see Rogue one, we can talk about what these other movies are, because Rogue one might play in a lot to either episode seven or eight, but we don't know yet. Like, what it looks like is just the mission that happens right before a new Hope. But they might be tying it in as a movie that really matters in relation to understanding other movies in this new franchise they're building. But we don't know yet. So it's hard to say what has merit as a Star wars movie. What is them just spinning their wheels versus doing something new? Because we know that there's a movie coming out that is a prequel to the first Star wars movie, which is this, like, the description of what Rogue one is could have been what episode one was. Well, they.
58:38
Ben
But the thing that I'm trying to get across is they've said that the.
58:41
Case Aiken
Anthologies actually could have been what episode.
58:43
Ben
Three are about, the Skywalker legacy.
58:46
Addy
Right.
58:47
Ben
Everything else is about, you know, outside of that, the Skywalker legacy is like the throughpoint that drives the entire Star wars universe.
58:54
Case Aiken
Universe.
58:54
Addy
Right.
58:55
Ben
Okay, so you can have Han Solo trilogy that doesn't have anything to do with the Skywalker legacy.
59:01
Addy
Right.
59:02
Ben
And yes, Han Solo is one of your major characters. That's fine. But it is not necessarily like, it's not directly attached to that main throughput of the Skywalker legacy. Does that make sense? You understand what I'm trying to say?
59:15
Addy
I don't think every Anakin story, though, necessarily needs to be tied to what the fate of the Jedi Order is.
59:22
Ben
But it is by nature, by the fact that it is a Skywalker, that he is Anakin Skywalker who becomes Darth Vader. It automatically ties. It's automatically attached to that. It's automatically attached to that. And the only way that you can avoid that is kind of like what Kay says and just have him ancillary character that you kind of see.
59:41
Addy
But see, the thing is, when I read the Darth Vader comic, I don't think about the balance of the Force. I think about Vader as well.
59:51
Case Aiken
That's good. It was a well written thing, and it took you away from that whole stupid idea.
59:56
Addy
I mean, I like, but I think about, this is about Vader, and his relationship to the Emperor is a big.
01:00:08
Ben
Part of that and to Luke.
01:00:10
Addy
Right. And Luke is a big part of.
01:00:11
Ben
That as well, which ties into return of the Jedi.
01:00:15
Addy
Well, yes, and ties directly and more, you know, into who he is going into empire. But again, like that, I think there is room for a war story along the way.
01:00:29
Sam
Yeah.
01:00:29
Ben
And we're getting it. And it doesn't have to do with Anakin Skywalker. Yeah, we don't need Anakin Skywalker to have a war story in a Star wars universe.
01:00:38
Case Aiken
Well, here's the thing. Episode one, two, and three are about Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi. They didn't have to be. They could have been about anything else. That led ultimately to episode four. Like, episode four is where, like, okay, Darth Vader's in this position, Obi Wan's over here, Luke's over here. Here's some of the backstory stuff. But it could have been about other things that happened that led to that point. Like, I just joked, like, rogue one could have been episode three, and it didn't have to be at all about Darth Vader. Like, it doesn't have, like, the fact that one, two, and three are about Anakin Skywalker becoming Darth Vader and that Darth Vader has such a pop culture cache to him.
01:01:13
Case Aiken
Yeah, sort of makes the four, five, and six feel more like they're part of the Anakin Skywalker and the Skywalker as a whole family tree legacy. But it only is because we reinforced it by putting out those three movies and by having later ones or, like, other, like, expanded universe stuff. They're, like, tied into it all. But it could have been about, like, the Han Solo's career. Like, it could have been about other people in the rebellion. It could have been just about palpatine.
01:01:40
Addy
That's true.
01:01:40
Case Aiken
Like, those movies create a larger, like, if you're trying to, like, create the line of the story, like, by putting further and further back details, then all of a sudden it becomes more of, like, a singular line of skywalkers. But it could have been from a different direction, hitting, like, hitting Han or hitting Leia. And Leia ultimately is a skywalker, but hitting a detail in there and then having it. We know four, five, and six had this trajectory, but that trajectory could have come from a different angle is what I'm saying.
01:02:12
Case Aiken
So the fact that we make Anakin have so much weight that the idea of doing a spin off movie where he's featured or that he even could be the star of means that, like, it has to be, like, all this gravitas and he has so much, so many implications is a construction of episode one, two, and three, ultimately. Like, if. If one, two, and three had been about totally different things and you wanted to do that Anakin story, we haven't seen it. Like, we still haven't seen it. Like, it's not like we're retreading. We're just.
01:02:48
Ben
But we have seen a majority of it. We had. We saw a lot in the Clone Wars. I mean, that's all clone wars was about, was Anakin Skywalker running around and having battles and doing all of this stuff. We've seen. We've seen that. We've seen what Anakin is like. Like, that's what I'm saying, is, like, how many more battles do we need to see in, you know, with Anakin and grievous or Anakin and Ventress and Anakin, you know, and Obi Wan and.
01:03:12
Addy
I mean, we had four more years worth of storytelling. We did, but.
01:03:17
Ben
Well, how much is that, honestly, though? How much of it was a retread they started to do? Was when they talked about a lot.
01:03:26
Case Aiken
Of what they've said that they were.
01:03:28
Ben
Going to do was shifting away from Anakin and moving, they were telling stories about Ahsoka.
01:03:35
Addy
Right.
01:03:36
Ben
Okay.
01:03:36
Addy
Which they did throughout the series. And you even mentioned that the series is really more about Ahsoka. And what about.
01:03:41
Ben
Right.
01:03:42
Addy
Because they told all the stories that.
01:03:43
Ben
They could really tell about Anakin.
01:03:45
Addy
They need to space out those Anakin moments, because I was watching a couple, I was watching a couple things about Anakin, and they wanted to make sure that they paced out some of these moments for Anakin. So there's plenty of other. Again, I know we can harp on this forever, but I think there is, because we're gonna have, we're gonna get more comics about who Anakin is. We're gonna get more books about who they are.
01:04:08
Ben
And that's the word. I just don't have a good movie.
01:04:12
Case Aiken
They used to have a rule, like the editorial staff for the expanded universe, that they couldn't do the stuff right before episode four. Like that. It was, like, off limits because all it did was it sort of shoehorned the narrative into this very narrow framework and then restricted additional stuff from dealing with material kind of related, but doesn't have to because all of a sudden they have to deal with the continuity of it all. As we've talked about stuff with, like, Admiral Thrawn. Yeah, he's coming back, but, like, admiral Thrawn, like, his whole story deals, like, cloning technology that contradicts what we ultimately saw when they finally did tell that story. Like the. There used to be just sort of an impetus, like, no, move in a different direction, do different things.
01:04:55
Case Aiken
And now kind of because of the prequels coming out and, like, the Clone wars and all this stuff, we are constantly going back to that same time period, like the period before episode four, because we want to talk about all the things that could have happened, and there's years of these characters running around and being relevant people in the galaxy, that there's surely infinite stories, and we want there to be infinite stories. And we have so many ideas for these stories, but it's probably a bad idea. It's probably all a bad idea. The Clone wars sure fixed a lot of things. It was probably told us more than we needed to know, because now we've seen it all.
01:05:32
Case Aiken
Like, you know, there's a reason why if they were gonna do a past story, they went thousands of years in the past, and, like, you could do stories, but they kept on having like, push further and further into the future and, like, do different kinds of things. Like now. Now, every time we try to talk about a Star wars story, it is stuff that takes place around the timeline of the original movies right before it.
01:05:51
Addy
Right.
01:05:51
Ben
Because nobody really likes what happened in the prequels.
01:05:54
Case Aiken
Yeah, well, that's also part of it, and we're trying to fix it and, like, we're doing right now, or we started doing with this podcast before being horribly derailed. So ultimately, episode one was kind of a disappointment, and two was kind of a disappointment, and three was kind of a disappointment. And we want to do better things. They made a cool cartoon in the samurai Jack style that sort of filled in the blanks, and we liked that. They made ultimately, a cool CGI show and, like, another CGI show. And they keep trying to do things to sort of make these first three movies better, but they're. They're deeply flawed movies, and no amount of, like, you know, justifying and rationalization makes it better.
01:06:34
Case Aiken
Like, episode one, going back to, like, talk about this, I was like, oh, I guess, like, the ring theory has, like, a certain merit of, like, the natives of, like, the Gungans. Like, being kind of like the Ewoks. Right. Like, okay, I guess that kind of makes sense, but it is still stupid. Like, the movie is still bad.
01:06:51
Ben
Yeah.
01:06:51
Case Aiken
There. It's ambitious, and I respect it. I respect a lot of the ideas of the first movie more than the next two. The next two almost get it right, kind of. But they're not as ambitious as the first one.
01:07:02
Addy
Right.
01:07:02
Case Aiken
But it. And that's the problem. Like, the first one is, like, this brilliant failure. That's why we hate it.
01:07:08
Addy
Yeah. As much as I hate the pod race, it was still an interesting idea to go with.
01:07:12
Case Aiken
Yeah. And the fight choreography there is meaningless.
01:07:15
Ben
But really good, really fun to watch. Yeah. And that's, you know, as I was thinking about how I would fix this, and I was doing my rewrite for it, and I was, like, thinking back about this movie that that idea kept coming to my head of, like, man, this was just. There was a lot of, like, really great ideas that were kind of presented. And you've said this many times, Addie. Like, there's so many great ideas in episode one that just fall apart or fall flat and just don't work ultimately, do you know? And that was the struggle I had, was like, do I continue to go with some of those ideas? Do I embrace some of those ideas and try to fix them? Or do I just, like, wipe the sweet, the slate clean and say, you know what?
01:07:59
Ben
Let's just make a good movie. Like, that was my challenge because I think Lucas and even, you know, going all the way back to episode four, five and six and his, and the Star wars, he had this whole idea of how this whole play was gonna. Was gonna take part and who, you know, Starkiller and, you know, fall of the father and the redemption and stuff like that. These are all, like, big themes that he was thinking about even way back then before he made the prequels. I think, you know, it's hard to get away from that story. It's hard to tell Star wars stories and go back to the prequels like you were talking about. Like, they don't have to be that.
01:08:39
Ben
I think it's hard to get away from that and still stay true to the original idea of what Lucas was creating with that story. I think you lose. I think you lose a good bit of that when you kind of go, forget the whole idea of the fall of Anakin and stuff like that, and let's tell a bunch of other stories. I don't think as a lifelong Star wars fan and seeing those films as a kid and following it my whole life, I really wanted to see that story.
01:09:07
Case Aiken
Well, I mean, like, the. The prequels are married to that one central idea. And, like, if that story had happened as part of other stories happening, that would have been a better structure for the movies. Like Luke's. Luke's ascension as a Jedi is one story in the original trilogy. Like, but Vader's fall is the story of the prequels.
01:09:28
Ben
You know, there's attempts at other stories in the prequels attempts, but they're failing. Yes, but that's just bad script, right?
01:09:35
Case Aiken
Yeah, well, but that's the thing. He tries to sort of focus on characters who ultimately should have been.
01:09:41
Addy
So Vader's fall, that's a failure of a story, too.
01:09:43
Ben
That is. It was really badly done.
01:09:45
Case Aiken
I mean, the joke of, like, the first movie is, like, who's the protagonist? Like, it's hard to say. Anakin doesn't show up for a while. Obi Wan's not an axe.
01:09:52
Ben
It's mostly qui gon.
01:09:53
Case Aiken
It's mostly qui gon. But qui gon's like, this distant, aloof character in a lot of regards and ends up dying. Yeah. So it could have if it had been movies that were about other things going on. And, like, Obi wanna. On meeting Anakin and Anakin rising up and falling were main plots, but not necessarily the only plot or, like, the sort of central plot of each episode that could have made it better, too.
01:10:17
Case Aiken
It was just this one thing had been so built up, and we had talked about it, and I knew exactly how the fight between Obi Wan and Anakin happened that left Anakin so horribly wounded, like a full decade before the movies came out that screwed so horribly up any sort of expectation of what this movie was going to because all of a sudden, it was just like, all this focus on that one central story to the detriment of everything else.
01:10:45
Ben
No, I disagree. I think that they just paste it out incorrectly. I think that they made the Darth Vader, the creation of Darth Vader, the end of that story, when it should have been the middle, the end of.
01:10:58
Addy
Attack of the clones. Because I remember. I remember going into attack the clones and expecting, totally expecting that.
01:11:03
Ben
Yes.
01:11:03
Addy
Yeah. To become Darth Vader at the end of that movie and then Vader just.
01:11:06
Ben
Running around the galaxy killing jed.
01:11:07
Case Aiken
Or if it was going to be the end of the story, it should have, like, there should have felt like more was going on because we felt like we got to it at the end of attack of the clones, certainly at the beginning of revenge of the Sith. Like, at that point, all of a sudden, it felt like it was Darth Vader. He murdered a person who was, like, cold blooded.
01:11:24
Addy
Until then, he's just a whining kid.
01:11:26
Case Aiken
Yeah. Like, the thing is, this was such a dominant story arc that the fact they spread it out over three movies made it feel very, like, slow and tedious and not very fulfilling.
01:11:38
Ben
No, I totally disagree. It felt like total knee jerk.
01:11:41
Case Aiken
Well, that it all of a sudden shifts like that.
01:11:44
Addy
Right? If he. For the long time. For the longest time, it feels like it's stretched out. But then they realize, oh, God, we only have 20 minutes.
01:11:50
Case Aiken
If they had completely. If they had a compelling site or secondary plot to go to when he, like, shifts more, it wouldn't have felt quite so rough because we wouldn't have been spending all this time with him, like, being like, I'm about to be evil. I'm about to be evil. I'm evil now.
01:12:05
Addy
And I think that's why most of our pitches have focused on stuff like the mystery involving the Jedi or the clones or the nature of the Jedi order and the corruption, compelling other characters.
01:12:16
Case Aiken
Like, that's the thing.
01:12:16
Addy
Like building out the rest of the universe so that there is a stage for Anakin's fall instead of Anakin's fall, and then just picking up the pieces. Well, just a bad matte painting, basically serving every pitch we can be.
01:12:31
Case Aiken
Every pitch we've done has had, like, a cool mace Windu because we want Mace Windu to be awesome. But he's awful in the prequels. He does nothing in the prequel or.
01:12:38
Addy
A slightly different nature to Anakin. Oh, I mean, I'm sorry. To Obi Wan and to Yoda and who they are within the Jedi order and how Palpatine operates.
01:12:45
Case Aiken
Yeah. And pitches for other characters just to be there. Like Mandalorians, like, interesting ones to be around. Like, our boba Fett pitch from. From the last one would have been really interesting, but that would have taken up at least a third of the movie.
01:12:57
Addy
Right.
01:12:57
Case Aiken
Which would have been fine because the movie is, like, spends too much time on certain bullshit details and not enough time on important details. Like the, like, I don't mean to say that, like, they spread out and it's like, such a slow pace to get to Anakin and, like, you can see it coming from a mile away. And, like, he's already evil, and he's still evil. And it's like, it is very knee jerk because they still have to have him be the quote unquote good guy because they don't have anyone else compelling to be the quote unquote good guy. So that when he does snap like that, because there has to be a snap point. Like, that's the way they write movies.
01:13:30
Case Aiken
Even if he's clearly already about to be the bad guy, it feels so knee jerk because they have to delay that part of it to keep us moving with the movie because we have to be with Anakin. Like, he could have. He could snap kind of in the background or earlier in the movie, and we're following someone else who comes to.
01:13:49
Addy
Face the fact, which is a couple of the moments they did in the Clone wars. They did two moments I remember because there was one where there's an assault on a planet and the general they deal with is a major slave trader, and Anakin is not willing to follow orders because he's especially angry because this guy is a slave trader and is so much more reckless dealing with him. And then there's another arc where Obi Wan fakes his death and pretends to be another guy, some criminal, and actually pretends to be the guy who supposedly killed Obi Wan. And Anakin, obviously. Well, the Jedi order wasn't prepared for him to let loose, but he tries to go and kill this guy, who is actually Obi Wan. And all of that.
01:14:33
Addy
So, I mean, like, you start to see how his attachments affect him negatively, you know, and those are things we never really saw they talked about, but we didn't really get to, you know, they fleshed it.
01:14:45
Ben
A lot of that stuff out in the Clone wars, right?
01:14:47
Case Aiken
Yeah, right. Which goes back to the prequels. Should have just been the Clone wars.
01:14:52
Addy
Exactly.
01:14:52
Case Aiken
Regardless of what you mean when you.
01:14:54
Addy
Say the Clone Wars, I like that. Washington, something interesting, especially again with your pitch and all of our stories. Not so much my pitch, though, but you guys have stretched the Clone wars across all three movies, and I think that's a much more interesting backstory to paint this story on, rather than the trade Federation and Newt gunray and his overly racist version of the Neimoidians and whatever that was, that became the separatists alliance. So anyway, so let us know what your thoughts are. If you have any other ideas about what the Star wars prequels could have been, what your rewrite for the phantom menace would be like, how that would affect the rest of the trilogy, you can let us know all about that. Just go to our website, certainpov.com. Comma, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, email, Instagram, all of that, again on our website, certainpov.com.
01:15:49
Addy
And until next week, stay scruffy, my nerf herders.
01:15:53
Case Aiken
Thanks for listening to certain point of view. Don't miss an episode. Just subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on iTunes. Head over to certainpov.com.
01:16:05
Sam
Did you know Rob Thomas has been writing since the mid nineties?
01:16:08
Case Aiken
The Matchbox 20 guy?
01:16:10
Sam
No, the guy behind Veronica Mars.
01:16:12
Case Aiken
Oh, and I, zombie and Cupid party.
01:16:14
Sam
Down the cupid reboot.
01:16:16
Ben
I haven't seen.
01:16:17
Sam
Me neither. But we should watch them and then talk about them on our podcast.
01:16:21
Case Aiken
Yes. We could call it the Rob Thomas.
01:16:24
Sam
No, not that one.
01:16:25
Case Aiken
Robcast.
01:16:26
Sam
Every other Tuesday with Alex and Mj.
01:16:28
Case Aiken
Find us at not that robcast dot libsyn.com or wherever you download podcasts. Do, do do.
01:16:36
Sam
Mana. Mana.
01:16:40
Case Aiken
Yeah. Yeah. All right, well, let's get back. And we're back.
01:16:44
Sam
So, yay, we're back. Are you all. Are you all still here? Are you okay?
01:16:52
Case Aiken
I mean, that was a classic certain point of view episode. I think anyone who was tuning into the early days of the show and of the network that feels like it, Ben, Addy, and me had such a good vibe when we get into these big tears. But, man, we had a hard time not getting into that where were like, all right, let's have structure. Let's have structure. And there are moments where I'm trying to push on structure in there.
01:17:13
Sam
I.
01:17:13
Case Aiken
But because it wasn't my show, I didn't have quite enough to be, like, we have to hold it together. We have to hold it together. And I'm not going to say I wasn't contributing. I was definitely breaking off into crazy directions. But, yeah, this is a proto episode. This was an episode of a certain point of view that was the inspiration for another pass, as opposed to being an episode of another pass.
01:17:35
Sam
Another pass, which is fairly structured. We can go on about things, but especially when with some films. But, you know, we do have a structure, and this was something that was new to you guys, so you didn't have that yet. I just want to put this out there. This is the third episode that I've listened, and dark Jar always comes up, and I. And I just want to say, I've never been opposed to that. I know. I know how people feel about Jar, but I don't think that would have been terrible. So I just want to say that I don't. I don't have a proposal for how he fits in to the world or. Or what you would do with him. But I will say that, yeah, I I'm. I'm okay with it.
01:18:34
Sam
And I don't know if buying a portrait of dark jar is a bad investment. I think if it makes you happy, then good for you.
01:18:44
Case Aiken
Yeah, that was a good, solid running bit at the time. And I think we're all fans of that fan theory, because it did kind of legitimize aspects that were difficult for us to grapple with in terms of, like, what the prequels actually were. Yeah.
01:19:04
Sam
Okay, so let's just talk about. We both agree, and we've talked about this briefly, you know, in the last episode, that Anakin needs to be older in this movie.
01:19:16
Case Aiken
Oh, yeah.
01:19:17
Sam
No matter. No matter where you begin him, no matter if you use the idea of a force baby and blocks, which I did like, or you just start him on an assignment, like that kind of thing, or you do make a bond with him and Obi Wan, which I also actually liked that I was not a fan watching this movie of how, like, watching Obi Wan being resentful of kind of qui Gon's need to have this child on. I mean, I guess, like, on some level, you could say, like, well, that can cause a riff between the two of them. Right. If their beginning was always kind of awkward, but that's never quite played out. Like, it's never, you know, what I mean, and then also, like, because he's a child, it feels like the resentment is such a dick move.
01:20:16
Case Aiken
Oh, yeah.
01:20:16
Sam
Like, if he was, like, 15, right? 15 years old, and he's a punk, and Obi Wan's like, he's too out of control. Like, you can't. He's done. He's too old. We can't do it. He's out of control already. He doesn't listen to things. I don't think that he's gonna be able to understand what he's saying. And qui gon Jin's like, no, listen. Like, everyone. Everyone has the ability to, like, really tap into this, and he's got exponential power, and we just need to help him, you know, find the right path. Like, no one's been here to find the right path. And then you have Obi Wan still be like, then that kind of works better. But to do it to a ten year old kid, you're just kind of a dick. You're just a germ.
01:21:01
Case Aiken
Yeah. Ewan McGregor's too old, actually, and I never really thought about that before, but he actually is kind of too old for the Obi wan that's the older brother looking to father for approval kind of model. Imagine the cast of Game of Thrones, which, you know, had a lot. You know, by the time they really got up and running, a lot of the kids were, like, a little bit older than the books, but they were still actually really young. You know, like, Kit Harington was, like, 15 when he was cast. They didn't start filming till he was, like, 17. But, like, you know, like, we're talking about young people in general.
01:21:30
Sam
Yeah.
01:21:31
Case Aiken
And, like, you could see them really grow up, and, like, that would be actually really cool. You get, like, a 15 and a 17 year old, you know, and that's a big difference in terms of size. And, like, you keep both of them, like, kind of looking lean for the first movie, which sounds kind of fucked up, but actors do this. What I really mean is have them bulk up by the time you get to the third movie and they're both 21 and 23 and in the prime of their life, and have them be in the best shape that they could ever be in, and you could really set them apart as this era, this growth, and have the older Obi wan be this big brother figure who raised him practically kind of thing.
01:22:13
Sam
Right. Because also, if you do the whole sibling, if you. If you put them closer together in age, like, five to six years within range, then what you've actually created is like, a sibling rivalry, right? A rivalry for Qui gon's attention. And if you already have kind of, like, the two by two kind of thing, you can also kind of say, I mean, like, I kind of feel like that's the one thing that they should have left behind. But what that's a. Neither here nor there. I feel like a sith army would have been cool, and that's besides the point.
01:22:46
Sam
But if you're saying for every, like, one Jedi, they take one apprentice, like, until that apprentice is fully trained and has become a full fledged Jedi, you can see Obi Wan being resentful of this kid being taken on just because he's in the outer reaches, right? Just because he's somewhere that you. That, like, there's not a Jedi order nearby. And qui gon's like, no, we're gonna train him. And he's like, hello. Like, you're only supposed to have one. And that's me. Like, are you serious? And so, like, what you're saying is true. Like, if you do, like, the aging of, like, Sean Bean and Kit Harington, and then the kid who played Joffrey, who. I'm sorry, he. Wonderful, but I don't remember your name. Joffrey. Like, that kind of aging where, like, you see that.
01:23:32
Sam
Like, he's, like, he's still, like, you know, he's a teen and, like, he's kind of scrawny, but he's a teen and he's got attitude. And, like, if you can do that aging and you can, you still have Obi Wan kind of be young and a little bit immature and just be like, master. Like, this is not fair. Like, yeah. Like, this is.
01:23:52
Case Aiken
Have it feel like a prodigal son story.
01:23:54
Sam
Yeah, exactly. Like, and then. And then you can see. Still have that feeling because, again, I just feel like the prequels, more so than even the first original series, follows a lot just biblical kind of things because they're telling the chosen one story, but you can still do. You can do Joseph and his brothers. You can do all sorts of things. You can still take from that source material. Although please do not make. Well, I've already talked about this. I do not want Amidala to become the Virgin Mary. Like, it's not okay that she does that in the last movie. She's just so about sacrifice and dies of a broken heart anyway. But you can still choose other stories, like Cain and Abel. Like, there's still plenty of source material to kind of base this on and still be of biblical proportions.
01:24:56
Sam
And still have this be, like, a rise and fall story, and I think, like, honestly, fixing that age gap and just making it, like, cleaning that up and that relationship cleans up a lot of the series. Like, there's still fundamental flaws within this film, and there's a lot of things that, like, should not have happened, and I still think that, like, one Sith, one apprentice, fine, but I think that there should be more siths. Like, I feel like. I feel like.
01:25:30
Case Aiken
Yeah, like, there's one, like, one apprentice to every Sith master, but there's, like, actually a lot of, like, Sith masters out in the wild or something like that, you know, like, the Jedi, but they're clandestine.
01:25:40
Sam
Yeah. Like, right. And I just think that, like, because here's the thing. Like, no matter what, like, even if you're sourcing the entire universe, there has to be people that just went wrong. Like, not everyone's going to successfully graduate from the Jedi Academy. You know what I mean? Like, it's no matter what, like, there in every magical realm kind of thing, right? Like, wizards, right. People turn dark. People get. People get seduced by the power that they hold. Like this. The force is an incredible power, and I'm sorry. Anger and hate are very easy emotions to feel. They're very easy to feel. So I feel like, in general, for this film, I would definitely fixed, like, that relationship just, like, just by changing the ages of those two characters.
01:26:43
Sam
And honestly, I love union McGregor, and I think that he does such a good job with what he has throughout the series that I would hate to recast him, but maybe he could still be like Obi Wan in the last film. You know, just, like, just, you know, you can jump through time. I don't know. All I'm saying is that age difference, really, and then just having this kid be so young, so incredibly young with and then deciding that Amidala was going to meet him and their relationship as it is, and we've already talked about this. It's just super creepy.
01:27:31
Case Aiken
Well, and also that Natalie Portman is old. Like, she's an old as a relative term. She's 18 here. She's playing a 14 year old.
01:27:38
Sam
Yeah.
01:27:38
Case Aiken
You know, like, honestly, if Hayden Christensen had just been cast from the start.
01:27:42
Sam
Yeah.
01:27:43
Case Aiken
And, like, you know, like, I don't know exactly what he looked like, what, four years prior to attack the clones, but, like, hey, he would probably look kind of in the same. Like, he's in roughly the right age range for being a younger brother to. To Ewan McGregor, although, you know, Ewan's, like, a little bit on the older side, and then part of that is that we knew him already as an actor. You know, like, you know, he had already been playing junkies and trainspotting at this point, and, you know, yes, but, like, Heyden Christensen and Natalie Portman would have looked at, like, the appropriate ages together. And if they're both playing characters, you know, four years younger, that's fine. Like that, you know, like, we see the age dump there.
01:28:23
Case Aiken
That's why, like, the machete order, if you cut out phantom menace, it actually works fine because you just see these two who look about the same age, and they remember them like, they remember being younger and, like, she was more mature and possibly maybe a little bit older, but, like, you know, not creepy. And it's like, oh, yeah. Remember when were kids together? Yeah, those are crazy times. Like, that would have worked just so much better. I don't know why they decided to go with Jake Lloyd. I even seen. I've seen the interview where George Lucas is talking about, like, Jake Lloyd and then the other actor, and they're, like, going, I shouldn't say interview because it's BTS footage. It was like, footage while they're going on about, like, who they can get the better take from.
01:29:01
Case Aiken
And, like, the other kid is like, well, he's the better actor, but Jake Lloyd has the better range of takes. And it's like, I bet we could cut together the right take from this kid. And it's like, no, George, don't fucking do that. You are not an actor's director. That's the biggest thing here. Like, you're not an actor's director. And this, especially the Phantom menace. Like, the Phantom menace is, I've always said, the most ambitious of the prequels. Like, it's the movie that required the actor's director. It's the movie that required the subtle performances from everyone. And you don't get any of that in this movie.
01:29:31
Sam
Right? And again, and we discussed this a little bit when we talked after attack of the clones, that these films needed to be slightly more on the political side because it has to build up something that is a little bit, you know, because you have to create the schisms that basically will create the clone war and basically lead to the Jedi order falling and, like, you know, basically throw this universe into the hands of the empire. Right? Like, and I think, like, that's generally, like, the biggest challenge of this ambitious series, because the truth is that the prequels are very ambitious because there is this need to keep it light because it is, in George's mind and for reals, for kids. Like, this is a fantasy space adventure, and. And he wants to get the kids in on the ground floor.
01:30:37
Sam
Like, he wants the kids attention. And this is why I never have a problem with any of the cute characters. Also, I fucking love cute characters. Give me all the cute characters. But I will say that the thing is that this story required some more subtle, like, interesting ways and not just. Not even thinly veiled caricature racist shit. But it needed actual layers within the script to actually start building the real treble. And. And I understand the pod race looked really cool. It does. It. You know, it does. But it goes on far too long, and it doesn't need to exist, to be honest with you. Like, it doesn't actually serve the story other than to say, like, this kid is really good at flying. Like, that's. That's what it is.
01:31:36
Sam
But it's like, he's a little kid, so it has to be a pod race instead of, like, taking a jet and just understanding, you know, like, jumping behind a starship. And, like, if he was older, what could have happened? And I get it. We want a kid because kids relate to kids, and. But it just. It's not. It doesn't work for the overall what the story actually needed to be an actually good story.
01:32:06
Case Aiken
Yeah. Yeah. Like, this is why I was actually really proud of my idea of it being Anakin is a smuggler living on Naboo and having that be, like, a rufio type figure, because, like, that's the character I cared about in hook. I didn't care about the other Lost Boys. I liked Rufio. He was cool. Like, I was looking. I was looking for the cool older brother. And I think kids relate to that actually really well. And Anakin would have worked really well in that capacity because Obi Wan's not acting in that role. Even if you had a young Ewan McGregor, who looked like an older teenager, early 20 something guy, he doesn't come off that way. We talk about how the Obi Wan Qui got Jinn script is flipped at all points. Like, Qui Gon should be stoic, and Obi Wan should be enthusiastic.
01:32:51
Case Aiken
And at every spot, it's reversed. If you're not gonna do that, have Anakin be the cool, exciting young figure who's on his way out to adventure. That would have been perfect right there. And I'm very proud of that suggestion. I just want to say that because then you get the pilot stuff as part of the escape. You don't need to, like, cut away for a second sequence of, like, we're going go karting.
01:33:18
Sam
Yeah. And honestly, it works really well with our other. With my other point with. With making it a sibling rivalry, because what can happen is that, like, you know, you could. Obi Wan, he's belonged to the Jedi order forever. He. He is a model student. He is always with, you know, we're able to find that inner peace and that inner calm and that control, and here comes this cocky son of a bitch who thinks he's, like, you know, Jedi's gift to Jedi order, and he and Qui Gon Jinn, my master, likes him, and, okay, yeah, maybe his midichlorians are through the roof. I still fucking hate midi chlorians. I hate that explanation. But anyway, his midi chlorians are through the effing roof, and that's just gonna turn his head. And I feel like that works because it's like, he's not qualified. Look.
01:34:17
Sam
Look what he's doing. Like, he's such a hothead. Like, he's. Like, he's. This is not appropriate. This is not proper. Like, what are you talking about? And it would have been a fun dynamic, because, first of all, people love the odd couple, and by the end of the movie, they have to figure out how to work together and become the odd couple. And. And, like, basically, like, oh, God, you're actually 100% correct.
01:34:44
Case Aiken
Like, that's the thing were missing in this movie, which was Anakin and Obi Wan, like, having an enemy's the lovers situation, but that enemies, the lovers, is. Oh, my God. Right?
01:34:54
Sam
Oh, yeah. So, so now, right? And just as they're starting to kind of get along and understand each other, they see qui gon together. They actually see him get cut down. And this bonds them because trauma bonds people, and this bonds them. And. And they decide to come together, and. And Obi Wan basically takes on Anakin as his responsibility because he. Even though he's rough around the edges, they've been through something together, and they've watched this person that they both cared about pass and be defeated. And they know that there's something bigger than their differences, right? They know that there are sith out there. They saw Darth Maul. They saw it strike down. They know that there's a threat to the Jedi order, and they know that there's something larger than whatever.
01:35:50
Sam
Like, the fact that, like, Anakin will not clean his side of the spaceship. Like, they know that. And it's fine. And then they're bonded, and then that makes everything throughout the films actually become so much more, because now you have a friendship where, you know, two people don't necessarily agree, but they really do care about each other and they're bonded. And, and then that makes that our suggestions for the Clone wars, where they side with different Jedi masters as the Jedi order is falling apart, become more intricate because they still have love for each other, but they really do see the world differently. And then that makes that final scene, which should not be changed in the third movie with you were my brother, that much more poignant?
01:36:44
Sam
Because we actually feel it like it's not just Ewan McGregor doing the heavy lifting, because I did tear up a little bit at it because he delivered it well. But I didn't really get that in the journey. I didn't really, if I'm very honest, watching these films, I did not experience that journey with them. I didn't experience the brotherhood, and that's what I needed.
01:37:07
Case Aiken
Oh, yeah. Because, like, that's the, that's always the problem with revenge of the Sith, which is that it's doing all of the heavy lifting of the. Of the trilogy. Like, yeah, it's trying to cover way too much ground because the first two movies meandered to get to the point where we needed to be just from.
01:37:20
Sam
A story beat standpoint, I think in this particular film. The other thing is that they spend far too much time with Anakin and Amadella bonding. They don't need to bond. They can cross paths if you want. If you want, like, destined to be. They've crossed paths. Oh, my God. They can cross paths. And she can still be an intricate part of the movie because, like I said, politics needs to be in there, and she is the queen of Naboo. But I feel like that it should feel more like how empire felt, where there's, like, two storylines going on that kind of interact kind of happening so that you're seeing what's happening in one place and seeing what's happening another. And I think a space mission is, like, the perfect thing, like a smuggling thing, where they're smuggling something to Naboo.
01:38:10
Sam
And I know that this ruins Jar, which, you know, I support jar. I don't care what people say, but maybe he fits in later on, or maybe he's just with Amidala and telling his jokes to her because that almost makes sense because they share a planet and he realizes that something's wrong, and he goes to her and he's like, yeah, I know that other gungans don't talk to you, but I know that there's something that's up, and you can still have that character be in the series. And probably it would better because he's not only used for, like, just kind of comedic relief and also to make sure that all the kids are having a good time through the serious stuff, but. But he's. He's there to, like, he actually has a bigger motive, right? Like, he's, like, he finds something out.
01:39:03
Sam
The gungans won't listen to him. And then he goes to Amidala and kind of, like, appeals to her.
01:39:09
Case Aiken
I.
01:39:09
Sam
And she realizes that something has to happen, and she goes to the senate and she realizes that it is an ineffectual body and that it is no longer doing what it's like. And then she calls a couple of smugglers because God knows why. I don't know. This needs to be storyboarded and worked on and fleshed out.
01:39:26
Case Aiken
Oh, yeah. I mean, like, the politics side is such a frustrating aspect, looking at the ultimate product, because it's just that George Lucas is a wealthy, well off, but well intentioned liberal, you know, like, and he's always been, like, he was into racing cars in high school and college and got into filmmaking as an aside after he was hurt in a really bad accident. Like, that's the kind of opportunity you only get when you're a rich California boy. And, like, I always think that he has had good politics, but has not been able to actually relate to it directly.
01:40:02
Sam
Like, yeah, you know, I feel like I've. I feel like, in general, and this is from not knowing him. Right. So this is a. This is just a call from a fan. I think that, like, there are things that George Lucas is genius at, and that is, like, how something should look. Like he. He really, like, you know, but I don't know if George Lucas knows how to. People, like, just in general, like, not even just directing, but sometimes he's very awkward and. And again, the world is still very white. This this, like, the. One of the things, you know, that has always been kind of a thing. And it is just that, like, I feel like with this movie because. Oh, God. Who, what? Who is.
01:40:59
Sam
Who's the big physicist who called him out on the fact that there weren't any black people in the first series? Why can't I think of his name right now? I can see the interview with Johnny Carson, like, in my head.
01:41:14
Case Aiken
Carl Sagan.
01:41:16
Sam
Yes.
01:41:16
Case Aiken
Yes.
01:41:16
Sam
I was thinking Carl, but I was, like, so like, carl Sagan actually, like, after the first movie came out, he actually said something about how there were no people of color at all in this film and that this is supposed to be a film of, like, a vast universe. And he was very surprised that there were only white people in it. And he, like, called it out very, like, you know, very bluntly on Johnny Carson. And, you know, then Lando appeared the very next movie, and. And then I feel in this movie, what ended up happening was that George was like, oh, I gotta get other cultures involved. But what he did was he made the aliens caricatures, right?
01:42:03
Case Aiken
Yeah.
01:42:04
Sam
Of those. And, like, that is. It is still very difficult to sit down and watch this film. It was hard then when it premiered, and I think, like, in general, society was less aware of those things, but it is particularly difficult now. More aware, like, just like every time, because, like, on some level, Georgia is a walking minstrel show. Like, I defend him because I feel like the fandom gives him a lot of shit. And I don't think that the character or even the things that he does is half as bad as what people says. Like, I actually sometimes laugh at Jar and the things that he does. I'm like, oh, Jar. But honestly, subterranean kind of rasta speaking. And they don't care about the rest of the world. They're fun in their own little space. They're isolationists, and it's like.
01:43:04
Sam
And then the trade federation, and they have asian accents, and it's just like, it's all over the place. Those are just two examples.
01:43:12
Case Aiken
Well, and then Naboo itself, like, the culture of the humans on Naboo has this mid century modern oriental appreciation thing that fad that our grandparents were into once they'd already had their kids. That era of let's collect some cool artwork that is coming from abroad vibe is in all of their dress, all of their architecture. It's this weird fusion of Venice and classical China in terms of how it all looks, but it's all very white people.
01:43:42
Sam
Yeah. Well, again, you know, and this is. This actually came up because someone online was upset because they didn't feel, like, with the new Star wars visions show that, like, Star wars should be involved with samurai. And, like, people online were like, I have, like, a really. I have a really hard pill for you to swallow right now. There's been several videos of people being like this and that and the helmet and Amidala's, all of her outfits from the first movie and or fortress.
01:44:20
Case Aiken
The movie that Star wars was written as a rip off of and seven.
01:44:24
Sam
Samurai and just like throwing things out like that. But the truth is there's always been some borrowing, right. From asian cultures. But this is like, this movie in particular, like, really doubles down on that bullshit. And it's bad. It's pretty bad. So, you know, I mean, again, I feel like he got the wrong message. Like, he was like, I'm gonna make it multicultural. No, no, that's not how to do it.
01:45:05
Case Aiken
Well, he was like, I'm going to make it multicultural, but I'm going to cast all my friends.
01:45:09
Sam
Yeah, exactly.
01:45:10
Case Aiken
Or go through central casting for the majority of it. Yeah, I mean, some of it's of the times and some of it's that he hadn't advanced with the times. You can argue with the first Star wars probably when they were just looking for cheap extras they could get. It's the people who could afford to be off work and fit in the very restricted list of clothes that they had to offer.
01:45:31
Sam
Right.
01:45:32
Case Aiken
You know, like, there's probably an excuse for the first Star wars.
01:45:36
Sam
Yes.
01:45:37
Case Aiken
Just in terms of the pool of people, if you weren't actively making an effort. Probably.
01:45:42
Sam
Although possibly.
01:45:43
Case Aiken
We also know there are a lot of actors who were black who were in Hollywood at the time because it's also the same era as like blaxploitation movies. So, you know.
01:45:51
Sam
Yeah. Also, also, like, even though part of the time they were in England, there are definitely black people.
01:45:59
Case Aiken
Yep. And indian people. Desi people.
01:46:02
Sam
Yeah. Yeah. There's actually lots of varied people in the United Kingdom.
01:46:07
Case Aiken
Yeah. Crazy. When you have a world spanning empire, how you will be multicultural. Imagine if you were a galaxy spanning empire.
01:46:14
Sam
Yeah. Like, not just. I mean, okay. Like, I get it. Like, maybe you don't have that for the actual empire. You know, actors, since you want to drive this space nazi thing home. But, like, definitely the rebels. Like, you know, you can get. And like, honestly, it's. I don't know. I don't know if there really is an excuse other than they didn't really think of it.
01:46:43
Case Aiken
And it's true. Like, again, I don't want to put too much on Lucas in the seventies. I, you know, I. The production was hell. Like, we talked about the first Star wars as episode 40 of the show. It was the first proper fifth episode that we did where were discussing a movie that we thought overcame challenges. And Lucas went through a lot. And I understand when you are putting together a movie that everyone thinks is going to fail, it's a tough bind, but at the same time when his initial cut of the movie was terrible, fucking all of the big names in Hollywood helped him out. You know, Spielberg helped him out. Brian de Palma helped him out. Like Prince, Ford, Coppola, like that. You know, he was part of this murderer's row of talent that, you know, he had his beck and call.
01:47:33
Case Aiken
He could have at least asked someone to be like, hey, also, how can we make this look diverse and whatnot? Like, I realized it probably wasn't on the forefront of their mind, but at the same time, this is the seventies. This is not like the thirties, you know?
01:47:46
Sam
Yeah, you know, again, but for this film, for Phantom Menace, right said the right film to test time. This, this film, I feel like this, this is, I want to say that this was his misguided attempt of making it multicultural.
01:48:09
Case Aiken
Well, this is a movie that has no feedback. Like, everything about it. Like, it's him, his first impulse as he goes. And he's like, oh, let's get all these pretty actors to come on board from my, like, you know, the first group of headshots I saw and I didn't think like, oh, can I include more people the same way? Yeah, he definitely wrote one draft and then he made this movie. Like, of all the movies, this is the one where there was no feedback beyond just being like, I love it, George. It's great. And there was no critical feedback either. Like, at least the other prequels have people saying these were the problems with the first one. This one, everyone's just like, I can't wait to see what you're gonna do, George. Like, this sounds so great, George.
01:48:47
Case Aiken
Oh, that sounds like a really good idea, George. Every single part of it. And this is a movie that he built from scratch while, like, sitting back and having people, like, run with his ideas and try to make it into reality as opposed to him struggling to communicate with people, to convey the ideas he had and hearing responses from people being like, oh, that's a, you know, that's an idea. What about this? This might better. And actually working with, like, that give and take, that is the creative process.
01:49:17
Sam
I have to say. I did not say this, but I kind of, just because we're talking about this feedback thing, one of my very good friends, and I will not name her just in case. I mean, I don't know, maybe George Lucas has hitmandeh one of my good friends and I, because before, for the young people who possibly are listening before this movie came out, they did a release in theaters of all of the original movies.
01:49:48
Case Aiken
Yes, they did.
01:49:49
Sam
With special touches that George put in himself with the advance special effects that he could now put in. So there are scenes that he couldn't do before that. Now he could do because technology had advanced, partially because of work that his team had done, which is incredible work. So giving him props to that. However, when we left, I don't remember which one it was, my friend turned to me and said, you know, maybe he wasn't a genius per se. It's just that sometimes limitations really do you a favor and curtail what should or should not be.
01:50:38
Case Aiken
Yeah.
01:50:38
Sam
And, you know, and I think, like, on some level, right, if you don't have someone around to tell you to kill the baby, like, kill the thing that you really like, that's probably not working. You end up with the phantom menace.
01:50:53
Case Aiken
Exactly. Exactly. And that's why we have the fifth episodes of this show. Like, we want to celebrate the shows that worked through adversity to make a better project, because Star wars is such a good example of that. And you can see even by the time you get to return of the Jedi, which is the first episode of the proper show, that those limitations start to go away and that they're not making the best movie possible. Like, adversity allows us to test ideas and for the cream to rise to the top. And you can see that with Star wars, you can see that with Empire. But even by the time you're getting to Jedi, you're starting to run out of the pushback that actually forces you to develop. The struggle to become a butterfly is what allows them to actually fly.
01:51:38
Sam
Yeah, it's true for a lot of properties, but I definitely think that it's true of those. In fact, I ran out and bought the set that had the regular dvd's of the regular cut before it was no longer available anywhere else because I needed my childhood to be intact before George messed with his original vision. But, yeah, I mean, I think that, unfortunately, this was very ambitious movie that did not pay off, and that meant that the every other movie in this series had to try to course correct and try to rush to create the story. And I don't know if it's just because, like, George wanted to give us time with Anakin where he was innocent. And again, that is another reason to go with a young child so that we'd be like, oh, but he was innocent.
01:52:46
Sam
But I don't think that was necessary. I think that. I think that in the long run, it made the first movie and the second film just feel so arduous because the second film basically had to, like, try to catch you up as possible to, like, action anakin. And I feel like, because we had to focus on him being, like, active and the love story, which was terrible. There was no room for anything else, really.
01:53:26
Case Aiken
Yeah.
01:53:27
Sam
You know, no real development.
01:53:29
Case Aiken
Yeah, I mean, we talk about that here. And, you know, I maintain that attack of the clones does enough to explain the universe to you compared to phantom menace. Like, everything in Phantom Menace is recapped pretty quickly.
01:53:42
Sam
Yeah, movie. Yeah, I just. I just. Now that. Now that we've decided the age difference and the odd couple, now I am sorely missing that. I am missing the enemies to lover, friendship that I need to see. And, you know, it honestly is enemies to lovers, asexual addiction. That's fine. And because they're jedis and. But, yeah, I miss that. I miss that.
01:54:14
Case Aiken
Yeah. I bring up in this, the Godfather, the complete epic that had been marketed for a while before, really before three came out, but then once three was out, they kind of pulled back on it, but where they, like, re cut it. So it was like one continuous story. And I talk about how, like, how unsatisfying a movie that is. And I think ultimately, looking at the prequels for all the work that they are, they had an impossible task that was only afforded them by virtue of this kind of just like, fun element that George inserted into his work, setting it in media rest and pretending that you were jumping into the middle of a story.
01:54:55
Case Aiken
So much so that in the releases after Star wars first came out, but in the home video releases and so forth, they added the episode four, five, six kind of component there that only happens here everywhere else where we have like, oh, yeah, this series of books then jumped into prequels or something like that. It's either a sub series or it's like the latest book happens to be a prequel. I'm thinking of the magician's nephew from the Chronicles of Narnia, for example, where that's still book five. It just happens to be a prequel to the rest of the Narnia books. And that's across the board. The stainless steel rats did that.
01:55:35
Case Aiken
If you have a book series that has a prequel book, it is going to still be in the sequence of the books that have come out so far, because book one remains book one. You can't all of a sudden shift the numbers like you could an Excel spreadsheet. And so they had this weird chance to be like, hey, this is the actual first part, but we're still jumping in media res like we're still dealing with a galaxy far away where they're fucking knights with laser swords and magic powers. There's a story well before this. There's so much backstory well before all of these movies. So then what you're saying is this is the story we're telling. It's not the complete story, it's just the story we're telling. We're actually at chapter one.
01:56:14
Case Aiken
And there was no way they were ever going to succeed because it always was going to come out after what the actual chapter one was, what Star wars was, because Star wars introduced the audience to the world, because the audience literally had never seen this world before. And then since then, everything is built on that foundation in a way that they just assume, you know, what the Jedi Knights are in this movie, and there's no chance that the world would not know what Jedi Knights are. That's true.
01:56:43
Case Aiken
But it's still unsatisfying as a movie to just not have an assumption of, like, well, here we're coming into the world and like, I wonder if the movie had just been, yeah, this is, you know, if they never dealt with the episode stuff and this was just the fourth, fifth, and 6th Star wars movies, and they had to be like, all right, we have to build a story from this. And they could have all been prequels, or maybe the last one could have been a super sequel. So it's really spanning a huge amount of time, or just build new stakes so that we see how then we treat the first few movies as falling action, and that it's all in the wake of this much bigger thing. And maybe is sequel bait for something future or something else.
01:57:29
Case Aiken
Again, this is about the time where I'm first really consolidating my thoughts and really vocalizing for the first time my thoughts about how prequels should always be informing the larger narrative and how they really work in the middle of a story, but not the end of the story. And so the fact that these three come at the very end makes it difficult to have their conclusion matter. I think they always had an impossible task, and I think that giving this to a person who had infinite power in terms of what could be produced was not the right idea because you needed to have a lot of people in the room trying to work this out into a coherent. This is what we're kind of building to so that it actually matters.
01:58:13
Case Aiken
And it doesn't feel like, oh, we're actually just getting bonus features from a movie that came out in 1983.
01:58:19
Sam
Yeah, I mean, I feel like also there's a missed opportunity. Like, if you're really going to, like, let's say you want to entice the children. I mean, like, they're not that I'm saying that you should steal from other tropes, but, like, maybe you have Anakin show up, like, at 15 at the Jedi orders doors, and maybe, like, you have basically the introduction of the order and what it's like to join the order even late through his eyes and kind of build up that way as a secondary kind of through line to, like, what is the collapse of this world and then, or this government, like, this galaxy government. And then you can also, like, because it's, like, within the Jedi order, you're able to give kind of a backstory to the Jedis, you know, because he's learning.
01:59:24
Sam
This is, like, a very classic staple, you know, like, normal cliche shit to do, but you have him kind of, like, learning about what the do's and the don'ts are. And so then you kind of get to know, like, kind of what are the political pitfalls of falls, of being there. But you can also, because it's kind of a school setting, right? It's an order, but it's a place where people are training. You can kind of have moments where. Where it is more lighthearted, where he's making friends, where he's learning things, where he's doing his training.
02:00:00
Sam
And in that way, you get a chance to kind of show Jedi training and do maybe cool Jedi shit, like, and even show, like, groups of people doing cool, coordinated Jedi shit together, like, in a courtyard, you know, and kind of, like, you know, show him being trained. Because, you know, here's the thing. No one in Star wars ever actually finishes their training, at least not on screen. Nobody ever does it. But, like, I think then what is kind of great about that thought, just for me as a fan, is I would get to see, like, what the Jedi Order would be like before this. And so, like, as someone who's watched Luke train with something, like, just like a little metal globe on a spaceship, like, in a hurried training to kind of try to prepare him for this ultimate evil.
02:01:04
Sam
I can see, like, what this prepared training was like before, when the Jedi Order was giant and it was big, and you don't really have to do the inklings of something being wrong till maybe even the end or the next movie. You don't have to begin unraveling it. And that way, we as a people, as an audience, as a people. Oh, my God like, but we as an audience can, like, feel more also with our proposed change of the Jedi order falling apart in the second movie, because we've also watched, like, these people. And then when he's fucking killing children and he's killing, like, things, you know, killing off all these Jedi's at the end, maybe we know some of them. Like, maybe, like, you know, maybe it's someone who he's actually grown up with. And then we see what the true sacrifices.
02:02:04
Sam
It's not just a child. It's people that he's trained with. It's people that he knows. It's people that he believes is on the wrong side of this, that he has seen the new light, that he has seen the way, and that is following the emperor and his grand vision. And. And this line, like all Jedi's, must end. Because there will never be balance. There will always be Siths, and there will always be Jedi. As long as there are Jedi, there will be Siths. As long as there is a full Jedi army, there will be a full Sith army. So Palpatine convinces him that he's just got to, like, kill everybody. We've just got to kill everybody. I'll get rid of all the Siths, you get rid of all the Jedi's, and then you come to me and we'll take care of this universe.
02:02:53
Sam
We'll lead the universe. There'll be peace everywhere, because we're going to bring order, which is a total fascist thing to say. Right? Fascists believe that they're actually doing what they're doing for the betterment of the world. This is something that, like, Anakin could buy into. And by having him come as an orphan, Athenae, 15 to the Jedi order because his mom left him some fucking note that's where he should go after her death. Yeah, that's right. Kill his mom. He goes there, and that's it. So this is the only home he's ever known, and he kills it off. I don't know. This is better. I like it, but it's definitely strong.
02:03:31
Case Aiken
And, like, it points to what the central problem is, which is that Lucas is so insulated in his existence, and I am not trying to be mean. I am just. He struggled in specific regards, but he's just never been like a man of the people. That's just the thing. And so it's the Hollywood writing problem of everything, where it's always about the big presentation because Hollywood works on, here's a big sale. Here's a big pitch. Here's a big movie. But I always imagined when I heard that the prequels were coming out that the third movie was going to be a Highlander style. We're whittling down the Jedi. It's the nadir. Like, it's impossible for Lucas not to imagine just one sudden occurrence. Like, one big thing, one order 66.
02:04:14
Case Aiken
And that is ultimately the downfall of this franchise because it's structured the way most of the challenges of his life have been, which are specifically get to this one moment and succeed or fail.
02:04:25
Sam
Yeah.
02:04:25
Case Aiken
And that is a way that it can happen. And it's dramatically interesting for movies, but it's not how it always happens. And, in fact, real institutions usually have to, like, fade away.
02:04:37
Sam
It mostly dies slowly. Right? Mostly it gets chipped away at slowly and surely and fascism creeps up.
02:04:49
Case Aiken
It doesn't just win.
02:04:50
Sam
It doesn't just win.
02:04:52
Case Aiken
It has to have the beer hall push and then not succeed and then rally again and, like, only get 30% of the vote, but that's just enough to turn the tide and then slowly convince the people who are like, I won't stand with you, but I don't. I'm not gonna fight you eventually to be on your side. Like, that's the problem. And, you know, I've talked about how, like, the Star wars movies kind of reflect the political view of the consensus of the time in that it's like, there's a lot of optimism and, you know, more a rebellious streak in the first Star wars movie. And then you start to see the shift towards, like, more of a Reagan esque kind of existence of the eighties. And these are the Clintonian, I might say.
02:05:34
Sam
Yeah, yeah. Not a lot of substance. Lots of cigars.
02:05:39
Case Aiken
Yeah. I mean, like, there's certainly some good ideas going on here, I think. And again, I think phantom menace, I think, is the most ambitious with, like, the strongest point that you're trying to make. Like, it's a really charismatic leader who seems like the nice guy on your adventure, like, saving your world, but it's not subtle enough, and it's not really appreciative of the true, insidious, infectious nature of evil in the real world.
02:06:03
Sam
Right. And I think that it's sad because there is a missed. It's such a missed opportunity to kind of talk about or to illustrate the way that a society can break down because that ultimately, like, Anakin, would represent us. Right. How does a person get lured from something that is altruistic and about. Well, it's perceivedly altruistic and about serving a community and keeping balance and that kind of thing, right? And get basically pulled in to a fascist ideal. And the truth is that anyone can be led into a space where they will start believing things. And, and often tools that are used in fascism are fear and hate and otherism and things that make you feel like you're going to be special and especially when you don't feel special. And that's what Anakin's story should be.
02:07:18
Sam
The fact that anyone can really just get swallowed up inside of their own insecurities, inside of their own fears, inside of, like, their own inadequacies. Because that's the thing what would make it more interesting to all of us, right? They make a point of saying, oh, he's too old, because even though he's, like, ten, because he's, you know, we usually have them as babies, but no one really makes Anakin feel this fully. Like there's like a discussion, but it's not like, ever pressed on. And even in, like, the second movie in attack of the clones, it's kind of like, well, he's just a star. Like, yeah, he's a little bit, but, you know, we got him young, but he is amazing. And I feel like he has to have imposter syndrome. Like, Anakin has to have imposter syndrome throughout this movie.
02:08:16
Sam
And that's why I think, like, him being a smuggler like you suggested, or being someone who showed up late at the doors of the Jedi order and kind of coming late to it and feeling like he's behind all of his peers and feeling like he's always working to catch up and feeling like he's always chasing Obi wanna. Even though he's a mentor and he's a brother, he's never quite measures up to him. And yes, he does amazing things on his own. And then, you know, and you have that in the first film and maybe even part of this, you know, second film, and maybe you can have him, like, win a huge victory and then, like, oh, it's me. And then he gets cocky and then his ego takes over. Because here's the thing.
02:08:59
Sam
When you're insecure, you're still insecure, even when you're sure of each yourself. And because we never fully get that. I mean, like, maybe you get a little insecurity when it comes to their relationship, which is where the creepiness works, I guess you don't really get that. And so, like, I don't feel, I just feel like you've got three movies of anakin arc where Anakin doesn't really have real gross. Does that make sense? He doesn't have an actual journey. Like, he has a story, but there's no actual journey for Anakin. Like, he was a kid, and then he left home and he missed his mom, and then he was, like, you know, doing cool stuff with a lightsaber. And then he thought that older woman he met years ago was real hot, and then he broke some rules, and, like, he was like, yeah.
02:09:57
Sam
And then, like, he could, like, couldn't be with her, and there was other stuff that happened, and then this guy was like, hey, I got a really great plan. I'm evil, and you should be evil. Go kill all these children. He's like, okay, cool. And then he became Darth Vader.
02:10:11
Case Aiken
Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. Cause I keep looking. I keep thinking about, like, even if you're committed to the young kid, why not have him be, like, a refugee of the war that's going on Naboo rather than, like, okay, well, he's a slave that has, like, a cheeky race sequence. Like, every choice that they made to introduce this character and make him as interesting as possible is averted.
02:10:34
Sam
Yeah, like, let's be honest. He's got a pretty. This is gonna sound terrible, but I'm gonna say this. He's got a pretty cushy life for a slave, kind of.
02:10:45
Case Aiken
Yeah.
02:10:46
Sam
I feel so guilty saying that, but, like.
02:10:48
Case Aiken
But it's true.
02:10:49
Sam
It's true, honestly. But, like, he's still living with his mom. Like, she still makes him meals.
02:10:55
Case Aiken
They have a house.
02:10:56
Sam
He has a job. He has a job. He is not a slave. He's a child. Like, he's a child worker. Like, they use the word.
02:11:04
Case Aiken
No, I mean, he is a slave. Like. Like, I don't know, like, sugar. Cut that. But, like, it.
02:11:09
Sam
But. But I'm saying that, like, I don't feel like. Like, I just wish that it was, like. I mean, I'm not saying it has to be Conan hardship. Like, I'm not saying he's got to, like, push a wheel, but I just feel like there's not. He. I don't know. Like, it just gets too. It takes too long to get to the point where he's not. Where he has the rug pulled out from underneath him and where he would, like, live with this insecurity or possible, like, trauma that would be the crack in his armor to kind of turn him. You know? I just feel like. I don't know. He's very. He's a very cute kid, and, you know, and the Padres scene is cool, but too long and actually shouldn't exist.
02:12:08
Case Aiken
Yep. Yeah, I think. Yeah.
02:12:12
Sam
Yeah. I think we're on the same page. We're just.
02:12:15
Case Aiken
I think so.
02:12:16
Sam
It's disappointing, you know, what this has become.
02:12:18
Case Aiken
Oh, yeah.
02:12:19
Sam
This has become a certain point of view instead of another past.
02:12:25
Case Aiken
I think we're a little bit more on track, at least like talking about this movie specifically. But.
02:12:30
Sam
Yeah, that's probably.
02:12:32
Case Aiken
But just by virtue of the fact that we don't have at least three more movies ahead of us, if not what actually turned out to be four ish plus all the series. Anyway, yeah, that was a weird time. And thanks, everyone, for joining us on this journey. I feel like it was really good to revisit this, and it was really good to get your thoughts, Sam, because I think you have a really nice perspective that is different than the ones that Ben Addy and I, who often really, we're just arguing about degrees as opposed to monumental changes between our thoughts. So it's nice to have more points of view.
02:13:10
Sam
You're welcome. I do have a certain point of view. Yeah, I do.
02:13:14
Case Aiken
Yes, you do. You do. And listeners, thank you for coming on this journey.
02:13:19
Sam
Yeah, we're sorry. And thank you.
02:13:21
Case Aiken
Well, I mean, I stand by those episodes. I think that they were good episodes. They're certainly of the time. But like, you can check out the original certain pov feed. So while the podcast is no longer up for the RSS feed, it is still up on our YouTube channel, and you can find each of those episodes@certainpov.com. So if you want to check out more of what it was like, and we had lots of great Star wars or other nerd stuff discussions. It wasn't all just like, here's a review of a movie that just came out. Although if you're a Marvel, Stan, there were a lot of them. If you're a Planet of the Apes, Stan, we had a really good episode about that. Go check those certain pov episodes out. You can also check out plenty of new shows that we've been adding.
02:13:56
Case Aiken
As of the time this is dropping, we will have added fables and reflections, a Neil Gaiman podcast that JD Martin part of certain point of view already with comics Quest and Angela Bones Bullock, who has been a frequent guest on comics Quest, have been doing. And it's great. They are several episodes in at this point. It's wonderful. We've also added Circling Cersei, which is a book club podcast, talking about the book circe by Madeline Miller recently added books that burn another book show. We have been very literate recently, and I approve.
02:14:25
Sam
Thank you.
02:14:26
Case Aiken
That's really good because we have a lot of nerd conversations and it started as nerd, but we want to prove that we can actually string a sentence together here as well.
02:14:36
Sam
My TBR pile is not too pleased because there might be book suggestions. It's quite high, and there's plenty of.
02:14:46
Case Aiken
Classic ones as well. Judging book covers and also circle of friendship. Tons of books. So many books.
02:14:52
Sam
All the books. All the books.
02:14:54
Case Aiken
But that just shows the amount of stuff we're doing at a certain point of view. It started off as a Star wars podcast and then became Star wars and movies and also some D and D stuff. And we have since grown. We've got so much video game content. Reignite is coming out with a new season, so check that out. There's such great stuff going on at the network. It's a lot of fun. And while you're at certainpov.com, you can also find a link to our discord server. We are currently having this call on Discord. You can just come hang out. We won't bite. We're really nice.
02:15:25
Sam
Yeah. I mean, sometimes they're ewoks in the chat, so they might bite, but don't worry, it'll be fine.
02:15:31
Case Aiken
Yeah, it'll be a welcome kind of bite. A nibbling, if you will.
02:15:34
Sam
Yeah.
02:15:34
Case Aiken
But come just, you know, hang out. We're actually having a really good time there. It has been a welcome solace in the face of all of the stuff that has happened in the past year and a half. So it's been nice to have, it's been a great time and I really am proud of the work that we've been putting out. If you don't feel comfortable going there to interact with us, you can find us on Twitter. You can find the podcast at another pass. You can find me acase Aiken, Sam, where can they find you?
02:15:59
Sam
They can find me here and discord on our discord because I will check it out. If you write something, I'll check it out. But if you have any complaints, please tweet at another pass or directly to case because he is customer service.
02:16:17
Case Aiken
Yeah, well, and I also actually, like, thrive on that hashtag engagement. So, yeah, bring it on.
02:16:22
Sam
Come at me.
02:16:24
Case Aiken
You know, I'm so glad we got a chance to revisit these episodes. It's crazy to think that. So these have been episodes 117, 18 and 19, which means that the show has been going for a long time, and we've had pretty good amounts of conversation on each of these in addition to the original episode. So that just takes it back to just all the in those early days of the show and of the network. But it's been fun to revisit and it's been fun to actually kind of grow further from that, both because times have changed and your opinion has been valuable. So, listeners, I hope you appreciated it. Yeah, but we're done with this retrospective now. Sam, now that we are done with this retrospective, what have we got up next time?
02:17:04
Sam
Well, boys and girls, hold onto your seats. Next time on another pass, we'll be talking about Highlander two, the quickening. But until then, if you enjoyed this, pass it on.
02:17:26
Case Aiken
Thanks for listening to certain point of.
02:17:28
Addy
View's another pass podcast. Don't miss an episode. Just subscribe and review the show on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com dot.
02:17:56
Case Aiken
Boop and Craig, you did great, buddy. So I have a question.
02:18:03
Addy
Have you ever wanted to get into comics, but you just didn't know where to start? Well, welcome to Comics Quest. I'm JD Martin, and every week I.
02:18:13
Case Aiken
Sit down with a guest to talk a comic that I think anybody can pick up and start their comics reading journey.
02:18:18
Addy
We take a look at Psycho, Sci-Fi.
02:18:20
Case Aiken
Fantastic action, heart rate, love stories, and, of course, superheroes. So check us out@certainpov.com. Or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
02:18:32
Sam
Yay. That was basically brainstorming. That's how brainstorming works. Are you tired of watching your beloved character being tortured by careless authors? Are you sick of feeling like they.
02:18:52
Case Aiken
Could have swapped out all of the painful action and the plot would remain untouched? Subscribe to books that the fortnightly Book review podcast. Focusing on fictional depictions of trauma.
02:19:02
Sam
We assume that the characters reactions are reasonable and focus on how badly or.
02:19:06
Case Aiken
Well they were served by their authors. Join us for our minor character spotlights, main character discussions, and favorite non traumatic things in the dark book we love.
02:19:14
Sam
Find us on Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's just. Maybe it's good that Facebook crashed. That's where most people are getting their misinformation.
02:19:26
Case Aiken
Yeah, well, though there was, like, conspiracy brain in me that today there was, like, this whole leak from that leak, but, like, a leak occurred and the news, like, covered it.
02:19:35
Sam
Oh, yeah.
02:19:36
Case Aiken
Yeah. What they're calling the Pandora papers, like, all these, like, tax shelters for, like, the super rich all across the world. And there's, like, the little piece of me being, like, someone, like, crash, like, all the big social media platforms or, like, try to crash them all to prevent the spread of this, because that's, like, really bad.
02:19:55
Sam
Yeah. I mean, yeah.
02:19:59
Case Aiken
And again, that's conspiracy brain. I know it sounds crazy, but, like, I asked that question of myself, and I was like, I don't. I don't have a. I don't have a reason to say no. I mean, they'll be like, mark, you're taking one for the team.
02:20:11
Sam
Listen there. I honestly believe that you have to believe in at least two or three reasonable conspiracies, because there are conspiracies that have totally been proven. Like the CIA funneling drugs into inner city spaces in the eighties and seventies. Like, that's. That's been proven now that there was a, you know, a drug line there, and. And that. That's a. That's a thing that people were saying and people didn't believe, and now we know is true. So, I mean, it was. I don't think it was Mark Zuckerberg, because they did announce that. They did estimate that Facebook lost $50 billion before the wicked witch of the west and those gals from Salem. There was circe, the captivating and kind of catastrophic greek witch who did more than just turn men into pigs. I'm Rose. I'm Kelsey. And I'm Gloria.
02:21:01
Sam
Join us this fall on Circling Circe, the podcast where we talk about Madeline Miller's incredible book Circe. We go through the novel chapter by chapter. We laugh. We cry from laughing. We swoon over Daedalus and other greek hotties and talk way too much about food, life, and scented candles. I'm hydrated.
02:21:20
Case Aiken
I'm ready.
02:21:21
Sam
I'm here. Pumped. Talk about greek gods and titans.
02:21:24
Case Aiken
Do.
02:21:24
Sam
This.
02:21:25
Case Aiken
Lasagna is not supposed to be cool.
02:21:26
Sam
It's supposed to be eaten hot. Stupid who just looked at the count was like, hey, sexy. Moo. Right over here. Like, it's 1145. I need to go eat my liver, my prometheus potato, and granny's like, get out. We post every Wednesday. So mark your calendars, make like Scylla, grab a sailor and dive in. Find circling Cersei on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Do you want to do an outro? Yeah. Is that your outro?
02:21:59
Case Aiken
Yeah, that's it.
02:22:04
Sam
I'm kind of sad that Matt's not going to hear all our lunacy tonight. We've been particularly punchy.
02:22:13
Case Aiken
I'm sorry. I'm tired. And I decided to switch from.
02:22:16
Sam
No, it's okay.
02:22:17
Case Aiken
I decided to switch to wine and.
02:22:19
Sam
Yeah, no, it's good. It's good. I think that's perfect for the phantom menace.
02:22:25
Case Aiken
This is a classic CPOV episode. Cpov certainpov.com.