The ‘Star Wars’ Rankings and the 'Andor' Miracle

May the Fourth be with you! Sean is joined by Chris Ryan to revisit the hit second season of ‘Andor’ and break down the countless things that make it a truly special television show (0:48). Then, they conduct their ‘Star Wars’ rankings and sort through every movie, as well as ‘Andor’ and ‘The Mandalorian’ (59:29). Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Chris Ryan Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Sarah Reddy and Lucas Cavanagh This episode is sponsored by State Farm®️. A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.®️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:15Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fantasy and this is the Big Picture A Conversation Show about Star Wars. It's May the 4th, which is the best possible opportunity to talk about a year-old season of television. That's right, we're finally digging into Andor Season 2 and putting it in the hierarchy of Star Wars movies and TV shows. Helping me to do so is my pal, the number one Tony Gilroy whisperer in the land, Chris Ryan. Thanks for having me. We will dig into the show, rank the movies, talk about the future of this beloved franchise, right after this.

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• 3:18Sean Fennessey?

  Well, may the fourth be with you, Chris. How are you feeling?

• 3:20Speaker 05

  You as well, man.

• 3:21Sean Fennessey?

  Thank you.

• 3:21Speaker 05

  You know, I know this is a big holiday for both of us.

• 3:23Sean Fennessey?

  It is.

• 3:24Speaker 05

  But it's cool to honor it in this way.

• 3:26Sean Fennessey?

  Do you believe in the Force?

• 3:28Speaker 05

  No, I don't.

• 3:29Sean Fennessey?

  You don't?

• 3:30Speaker 05

  No, and I think Andor kind of... Brush that aside. Is any kind of like childhood sort of like attachment to some of the stuff in Star Wars? Like, you watch Andor and you start to see it as a lens through which to view reality and view history.

• 3:46Sean Fennessey?

  Let me, let me share a little bit of my personal experience with you and how it connects to Andor. So, over the last 10 years, and especially the last five years, you have seen me evolve or devolve into a person who has less and less of a relationship to television. You host the signature television pod in the universe, The Watch.

• 4:05Speaker 05

  I don't know about that, but thanks.

• 4:06Sean Fennessey?

  That's my opinion.

• 4:07Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 4:08Sean Fennessey?

  And that show, you know, you have to watch a ton of TV, and so every once in a while, and increasingly less so, you'll say like, "Hey, did you check this out?" Or "What'd you think of this?"

• 4:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, usually for its cinematic value or something genre that I think you're gonna just respond to very strongly.

• 4:23Sean Fennessey?

  Right. You've always been very generous in that way with recommendations or just being curious about what someone thinks about something. And I did watch the first season of Andor, effectively while it aired, but you started sending me messages about Andor Season 2 because you were watching it, you and Andy were covering it on The Watch, and I was like, "Yeah, I'll get to it, I'll get to it, I'll get to it, I'll get to it." And last year was particularly busy on the big picture. We did the 25 for 25 thing. And we were coming out of a long Academy Awards season and I felt like I had a lot of catching up to do on movies. And so, you know, Andor Season 2 aired essentially a year ago, started airing at the end of April of 2025. And I never got around to it until January and I watched it earlier this year after much prodding from you.

• 5:07Sean Fennessey?

  And then a lot of people, I think people heard me say on shows that I hadn't watched it yet.

• 5:12Speaker 05

  That was starting to become like Bill's Big Lebowski thing or something like that where you're like, I know it's going to be great and I'm going to love it.

• 5:19Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 5:20Speaker 05

  Can I just maybe simulate the experience of loving it?

• 5:23Sean Fennessey?

  But sometimes that can be very dangerous to raise expectations like that and to have so many people that you trust and so many people you don't even know say like, you're going to love this. This is so in your wheelhouse and I was so, so delighted for it to be in my wheelhouse. Now, I knew what it was going to be because of season one and I think there's an interesting conversation about season one versus season two. But season two, uh, to me was the superlative season and it was the one that I got, I felt the most connected to the show.

• 5:48Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 5:49Sean Fennessey?

  And I felt was most kind of fascinating in terms of what I'm interested in, which is this collision of writing and filmmaking that is happening on this show.

• 5:59Sean Fennessey?

  With some removed from it, I, what, what do you make of this TV show? Where do you think it stands?

• 6:05Speaker 05

  I think it's the crowning achievement of Star Wars, um, especially in my adult life. Obviously nothing will ever change my relationship to the first three films and how it created for me or gave me something to call my own that were very old myths and very old stories. And now spoken about this so well with like the relationship between the Joseph Campbell stuff and, and Star Wars. And it really is our translation of all that stuff. But I've been thinking about this a lot since Star Wars has been kind of stalled out for a while, you know, especially in the movie theaters. But like whether we need it anymore and whether or not it's something that is actually

• 6:47Speaker 05

  as durable as maybe we once imagined and whether or not it's actually something that really resonates with people anymore, especially younger people.

• 6:54Sean Fennessey?

  Well, we is it's an interesting choice there because we were fortunate to already get the movies in the way that we did at the ages that we did. And I just went through this with my daughter where we just watched all the movies and boy, they still work. They still work on young kids. I think the question you start to ask yourself is in your twenties, your thirties, your forties, your fifties, do these stories resonate in the same way? And can they, can the new versions of them keep resonating?

• 7:18Speaker 05

  Yes. And so we also, I'm saying that off of the back of the sequels, which I think I went into with a lot of optimism and curiosity. And by the end of it was like, so we just did the first three movies again.

• 7:32Sean Fennessey?

  Right. The Rey trilogy.

• 7:34Speaker 05

  And we're just never going to be able to get out from under the Skywalker's and we're never going to be able to really get out from under these iconic performances from those first three films. And in some ways, Filoni, even though Dave Filoni, who now is a sort of creative president or the co-CEO of Lucasfilm, is not really, I really don't vibe with his vision of Star Wars and his staging of Star Wars. I think is actually like an interesting choice for this job because I think he takes things up to a certain point in time and is like, I'm going to explore all these pockets of history of the galaxy, but not push the ball forward or up in the apple cart when it comes to your expectations about what Star Wars can be.

• 8:15Sean Fennessey?

  So that's the thing that I find really interesting about this era of the shows and the films. Filoni and Gilroy are probably the two people who have brought the most to what you can call gap filling, where their interest in the stories is a lot of like, well, what happened when? Before this went on, Gilroy obviously kind of got backdoored into it by working on Rogue One. And that entire movie is premised upon, well, here's what happened right before the movie started.

• 8:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's worth pointing out that they could not be any more different in their approach to Star Wars lore, Star Wars as an institution, whereas Tony Gilroy came in almost as a job for hire to work on Rogue One and wound up taking over a bunch of the reshoots for that movie. Then actively tried, like campaigned against doing Andor and against himself being involved and sort of infamously wrote a long memo as like, nobody should do this. But if they were gonna do it, this is what they have to do. And Kathy Kennedy was like, sir, you've gotten yourself a job here by accident. Dave Filoni's been studying for this job for most of his adult life. Like, he has studied at the foot of Lucas.

• 9:24Speaker 05

  He is the keeper of the timeline of the galaxy, like, history. Everything he does is in service to the rules of Star Wars.

• 9:33Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 9:33Speaker 05

  So you have like this incredibly progressive and provocative side of things on one hand. I mean, it's almost a dark and light side of the force thing. And then you've got a very, very kind of traditional and almost, I wouldn't say safe, but I would say like reverent side of things with Filoni. And that's where Star Wars found itself up through Andor. And then I don't think Tony Gilroy ever wanted to do what Dave Filoni's about to do for Star Wars, but they have made a choice to go with Filoni as the sort of driving force.

• 10:06Sean Fennessey?

  They're so interesting to compare, and I can't really say too much about Dave Filoni's work because I haven't watched Clone Wars and I haven't watched Rebels. So having not seen those two series where he really made his bones as a storyteller, that's my understanding.

• 10:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:17Sean Fennessey?

  But I have watched roughly 75% of the Star Wars live action series, a lot of which he has shepherded, co-shepherded, kind of helped navigate.

• 10:26Speaker 05

  I think Andor's the only one that he hasn't had a hand in. Well, I may be accolade, I guess, but yeah.

• 10:33Sean Fennessey?

  And you know, I've found many of those shows to be quite leaden and dull and unfeeling in some ways. And I know that people can disagree and we can kind of talk about the ones that we've seen as we go through this discussion, but I don't think I'm really clicked with his tone of storytelling. Whereas Gilroy, you know, I'm an affirmed Michael Clayton superfan, and I find his level of characterization and story and also what kind of... What animates internal struggle for him and how it comes out in action and characters to be the best of the best. I think he's the most interesting mechanic of character storytelling that we have. I'm sure he gets to throw himself into this

• 11:14Sean Fennessey?

  world that I had really ever only seen enunciated by Kevin Smith. And in Clerks, very famously, there's the moment when Randall and Dante are talking about how the Death Star works and the idea of maintenance and the people, the cost of doing business in the Empire, which when I was a teenager blew my wig back. I was like, I didn't realize you could think about pop culture this way.

• 11:39Speaker 05

  And we got dozens and dozens of stone conversation of guys like you and me at parties or in dorm rooms being like, what about, like, what happens at Moss Isley? Like, what's the deal there? Like, what do those guys do? You know, and then like, interrogating those ideas. Andy and I, for a long time, when they announced that Star Wars was going to become a television property as well, we were like, here's the opportunity to do the Moss Isley Show. And here's the opportunity to do Death Star Janitor Show. If you wanted to really go for it, there is a huge swath of Star Wars fans.

• 12:17Sean Fennessey?

  I remember you guys talking about this.

• 12:18Speaker 05

  I want the marginalia. I want like the little stories. And in some ways, that's what Rogue One was. It was a throwaway line in A New Hope that became an action adventure movie and a basically a heist movie leading up into it. And then Andor is Rogue One-ing Rogue One. Where it's like, well, what happens before that? What leads this guy to the point where he's like, I'm going to go on a suicide mission to save the Rebellion?

• 12:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And the first season of the show.

• 12:51Sean Fennessey?

  I think is quite interesting, but ultimately not as satisfactory because of that way that it's built, the way that you're describing it, where if you can get on board with it as a pure espionage story and about a story about a person ultimately committing to an idea and committing to a movement that he's skeptical of at first, it's very effective. I like that the move, that the series immediately shows you like Cassian shooting a police officer in cold blood and just like, this is noir storytelling. I'll never forget watching that first 20 minutes for the first time and just feeling like Star Wars has never done this before.

• 13:25Speaker 05

  He got, like, he did it.

• 13:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there's been something adult unlocked here. It's not adult in like a lurid way. It's just, it's mature, it's thoughtful, but it's not afraid to be transgressive against maybe some of the religiosity that we bring to Star Wars, like, and that this whole endeavor is very ground level. It's about individual people coming together to make change. They don't always agree with each other. They don't always really have the same specific political valence, but broadly speaking, they know that they have to come together to overwhelm something that is more powerful than they are individually. Such a great idea, but the first season ended and I was like, okay, we have a lot, like a long way to go here.

• 14:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, it's worth noting that it was originally conceived as a five season show and that it was going to be a season per year leading up to Rogue One. And I don't know how much of the story that they actually sketched out of what, how many episodes and how many like of the seasons they really were like, and then this happens and this happens. And one of the cool things about Andor is you can actually re-watch this because of the collection of short stories that it is, rather than the novel that I think people think of it as. It's really about the most important 10 to 11 to 12 moments over the course of five years. And they're broken up into these three episode arcs. So you have the Aldani arc, or the Gorman arc, or the prison, the prison

• 14:50Speaker 05

  arc. And you can kind of pick and choose if you're like, I'm going to skip the first three episodes of season two, or I'm going to skip this or skip that. And go back and revisit it, which is strangely like for as much TV as I have to watch, I think because it's there's so much new stuff all the time. Like I look on people who are like, I'm just rewatching Succession for fun. I that's what I don't have time for, and that's what I have no interest in doing. But Andor I have revisited a lot, maybe not like episode by episode, I'm doing an Andor rewatch, but I will go back and be like, I went back for one line that I wanted to see or reference and now found myself sitting there for 40 minutes watching an episode.

• 15:29Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't been able to do that yet, and it is something that I want to do. I did obviously revisit a little bit just for this conversation that we're having, but I I do feel when I watch the show, what I think Gilroy has talked about in some of the other authors of this series, which is those three episode arcs they are describing feel like individual novels pulled from a series around one or two characters. So by citing Le Carre or Alan First, which are those books are sacred texts for you, really operating in that mold, which like, does a lot of television do that at this point? Like, I feel like it's, if there's something, it feels something very novel, forgive the the double usage of the word,

• 16:12Sean Fennessey?

  to saying like, a few episodes of our series are basically one tract of story and then we're moving on and it's part of a wider experience, but like the prison break experience in the first season is a completely different show. The production design, the characters that are featured, the tonality, the energy, the lighting, like everything is just different from the previous three episodes that have come before that.

• 16:33Speaker 05

  There's something to be said for Andor's probably, I think Andy and I were just talking about this with a different series, maybe 000. Oh, we were talking about this in the physical media podcast, um, that as he has to be released, but it's almost a vestige of this boom time of streaming television where they're like, yeah, like you tell us, you know, here's a bunch of money. And so Gilroy got like $600 million or whatever it wound up costing to make this show. But they weren't like, you have to prove it every three episodes, or we'll talk to you at the end of season one and we'll see where we go from here. Or, hey, it's a big hit. You've got to come up with 35 more hours of this now. It kind of feels like because of COVID, they weren't going to be able to keep mounting

• 17:17Speaker 05

  this and because of people's schedules and because of people getting older and because of how time consuming it was, they were like, we can do this in two seasons. And I think he got the miracle chance to tell the story exactly the way he wanted to tell it. And so even in those three episode blocks, he's got, he knows why the prison break is important. He knows that this is when everyday, normal people who have been stepped on by not just the empire, but just life and the world are like, yeah, you know what? Fuck these guys. I am, I am against it. We don't have to just like accrue credits in some weird way in this prison when we find out that in fact, you're just walking to your death anyway.

• 17:59Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. But one thing that I love about the show does is something that I have groused about over the years around Star Wars. And most specifically, when we talked about our draft, we talked about the lack of courage in not killing Chewbacca in Rise of Skywalker, where that felt like a real kind of, you know,

• 18:19Speaker 05

  Chiky, they chikyed out.

• 18:20Sean Fennessey?

  Bending the need of the fandom too, that like, we wouldn't take this away from you under any circumstance. This show frequently introduces characters and kills them three episodes later, or five episodes later, or two years later.

• 18:30Speaker 05

  Or tells you in the beginning of the series, like, this guy's gonna die.

• 18:33Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 18:34Speaker 05

  And not just Cassian, because he's gonna die in Rogue One.

• 18:36Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 18:36Speaker 05

  But they're like, this guy knows that this is gonna kill him.

• 18:38Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's the other thing, maybe just we should say is like, this show's called Andor, and Or dies in Rogue, at the end of Rogue One. And we're like, okay, so we're gonna watch this guy's whole life, knowing what it's already leading up to.

• 18:48Speaker 05

  It's crazy that they made this. If you think about everything that happens in the sequels and how they're just like, we'll kill Han Solo, but like, we're gonna bring him back almost immediately as a ghost. And he's just Harrison Ford. It's not like, in any way like-

• 19:02Sean Fennessey?

  Do you like Yoda? We've got Yoda here as a force ghost.

• 19:04Speaker 05

  And-

• 19:05Sean Fennessey?

  The Emperor, have you heard of him?

• 19:06Speaker 05

  Star Wars has always done that. You know, it's like, as soon as Darth sacrifices himself for Luke, he's back in some capacity. But- I always was, it wasn't the fact that they brought Chewbacca back that would upset me. It was the fact that it was like, you want your cake and you want to eat it too.

• 19:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 19:21Speaker 05

  You want us all to go through the anguish of seeing a beloved character die. And then instantly take away that feeling by bringing him back to life. In the case of Chewbacca, it's like, oh, a mistaken identity. But Andor does not have that move. Now, you could say like, oh, like a bunch of these people could have survived. But not the hero. And from the first decisions that he's making where he's stealing things and killing security guards, like you were pointing out, like it sets him down on this, it sets him down this path.

• 19:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's really interesting because it's so evident that Gilroy brings none of the infantile romanticism that most of us do to Star Wars. I mean, it's just, I, I kinda don't blame J.J. Abrams for doing the things that he did because it's like, this shit matters to me, man. Like, there is a kind of possessiveness, a youthful possessiveness to these stories. But if you don't have that, or you don't care about that, you might be better suited to telling some of these stories in some ways.

• 20:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think he's got a heretic sensibility when it comes to this. And you start with Star Wars when you're a kid and you're like, this is about good versus evil. And this is about a kid who's from nowhere being special, like me, I think.

• 20:35Sean Fennessey?

  I think so.

• 20:36Speaker 05

  Or you can just be like, it's about the really cool guy who comes along 30 minutes into the movie and is the, is who I want to be when I grow, whatever it is.

• 20:46Sean Fennessey?

  I think the same goes for Leia. I've watched that happen with Leia.

• 20:48Speaker 05

  But taking Star Wars, the idea to take Star Wars and be like, this has like Russian novel backbone. Like, we can go, it would be one thing if they were like, a sitcom set in Mos Eisley, like at the cantina, that would be like fine. Or I'm sure that there's versions of that that would work. But he saw it and he was like, no, this is gonna be, what is the rebellion? They keep throwing that word around in the first few movies and, and into the, the prequels. No, rebellion is a revolution.

• 21:18Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:19Speaker 05

  And I can put everything I've ever read and everything I've ever thought about resistance into a story about a doomed protagonist who's gonna give up his life for like, you know, against the object of fascism, which is the Death Star. And to see that, like, that's true point guard play.

• 21:39Sean Fennessey?

  Like, so.

• 21:40Speaker 05

  To be like, I can see where the cut is coming, you know?

• 21:42Sean Fennessey?

  I'm so interested, though, to to situate the movie in time because there's just so much, there's a lot of history, American and European history, that he is kind of working his way through as he draws some of these characters. But Rogue One starts in the Trump era.

• 22:00Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 22:00Sean Fennessey?

  You know, the film's in production at that time and being put out in the world. And then this series is happening over the course of the second.

• 22:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:07Sean Fennessey?

  Trump term. And a lot of these ideas just feel like they're they're in everyday life in a lot of ways.

• 22:15Speaker 05

  Lines from the show being used as placards in like, no more, no king's marches and stuff.

• 22:20Sean Fennessey?

  Exactly, which is just such an interesting crossover. And obviously, you can see that Gilroy is thinking about that, maybe not literalizing it as much when he's being interviewed. As though it's not to draw too much like overt, obvious political tension, but.

• 22:30Speaker 05

  If I had to guess, I think he would rather be the person who was like warning us all when things felt good. Then be like, oh, the show is weirdly prescient.

• 22:40Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 22:40Speaker 05

  And now kind of being brought into a zeitgeist to like, talk about like fascism.

• 22:45Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's the thing is even over the course of the last nine to 12 months of American history that has transpired since this show ended. A bunch of stuff that's in the show.

• 22:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:53Sean Fennessey?

  Feels like we watched a version of it at home. Um, and I think that the show is, one of the things that the show is really adept at, very skilled, is portraying paranoia and dread.

• 23:06Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 23:06Sean Fennessey?

  Which I find most stuff these days, it can accomplish. And I'm so interested in the idea that, because we we recorded the 1976 draft. And we talked about a bunch of movies in that draft, Taxi Driver, Network, Old President's Men. That time

• 23:24Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 23:24Sean Fennessey?

  Of the conspiracy thriller and how it seemed to be echoing something we were feeling in the culture at large, that people were doing things behind our backs and that those things that they were doing were nefarious and that we should be concerned as a society.

• 23:35Speaker 05

  And that's maybe why those movies have all continued on in the consciousness and like remain rewatchable.

• 23:39Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 23:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:40Sean Fennessey?

  Never expired. This show is the same thing. See, I mean, it's doing the exact same thing. I, I, I was struggling to think of like a really good conspiracy thriller movie of the last few years.

• 23:51Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, I mean, would you call How to Blow Up a Pipeline a conspiracy thriller?

• 23:55Sean Fennessey?

  Sure, but that's a movie about direct action.

• 23:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, and a little bit more confrontational in its what it is about.

• 24:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but that is a good example.

• 24:01Speaker 05

  But when you watch, uh, Krennic, we, the working group that's going to plot out the fake resistance on Gorman.

• 24:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 24:12Speaker 05

  To be the catalyzing event that allows them to mine the planet to death.

• 24:16Sean Fennessey?

  This is when that exact kind of storyline, that strain of the story is what took the show, I think, from very, very good to truly great and exceptional to me and the way that that is all drawn. And it's not, it's not subtle. It's fairly clear what's, what's happening here.

• 24:32Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 24:33Sean Fennessey?

  But like enunciating the way in which power operates under authoritarianism and the way in which people's emotions are stoked.

• 24:39Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 24:40Sean Fennessey?

  So clearly, and what is undergirding all that and what people want from foreign territory, um, is just an incredible act of writing. And taking someone like Krennic, who I love Ben Mendelsohn, but it's a fairly one dimensional character.

• 24:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:55Sean Fennessey?

  In, in Rogue One and an actor who can sometimes be one note. It's a note I love.

• 24:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's one of the beautiful notes.

• 25:00Speaker 05

  But he can be flamboyant, he can choose scenery, sure.

• 25:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, but I think he imbues him with like a much more deeply insidious and kind of pathetic nature and the way that he flexes his power is amazing. And then you also realize, you know, within that framework that he's also.

• 25:17Speaker 05

  He's got a boss too.

• 25:17Sean Fennessey?

  Working for a higher power. That's right. That's right.

• 25:20Speaker 05

  Um, the reason for me.

• 25:24Speaker 05

  The counterbalance has to be that the other side of the conflict is complicated as the empire. And that is the flip of Andor. And it would have been easy to just be like, these guys are resistance fighters. Their, their aim is true. Their motivations are pure. And the reason why these guys wind up being sacrificed, the reason why so few of these characters ever show up again is because they're all fucked up. And they all decided to give their lives over to a fight. And they have their ideas about how the fight should be fought. And

• 26:03Sean Fennessey?

  They frequently don't agree.

• 26:05Speaker 05

  I mean, the rebellion, quote unquote, is all these different factions.

• 26:09Sean Fennessey?

  And hanging by a thread by every turn. It's the great drama of the show.

• 26:12Speaker 05

  Yeah. And they basically is, you know, funded, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not, by these rich people who are indulgent to the ideas, but, you know, not willing to get their hands dirty. And they've got this guy Luthen who can't come out and just say straight up, I am Axis. I am the guy. So he's pretending to be an antiquities dealer.

• 26:34Speaker 05

  And he and Cassian go all over the galaxy and meet all these different people like Saw Gerrera and, you know, and they're all like, I think I'm the rebellion. You know, I am the Luthen of my storyline. And they're like, yeah, checkmate, man. Like, you're gonna do what I need you to do here.

• 26:50Sean Fennessey?

  I know. Well, that's the thing that is so clever about it is that everyone feels that they are the most important person in the execution of the plan, and that they have the most at stake at any given time. I would say Luthen weirdly is the only person who doesn't have any anxiety about that. He is like the true philosophical militant, where he kind of follows through on every single step that he feels is necessary for this work. And it is his life's work. But Mon Mothma is a completely different.

• 27:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:19Sean Fennessey?

  She's like, I'm a center. Yeah. She's a public facing figure who Clearly got into this line of work to help make change and make society better and safer, witnesses something happening, but can't act publicly against it until she absolutely has to and does. But the idea of drawing together spies living in secret, but publicly, politicians, true down and dirty rebels who are doing the grunt work and are being, you know, eliminated time and time again, while trying to accomplish one incremental thing that gets you over a year's time, a step further to vanquishing whatever the perceived evil is, is I find it hard to kind of like, hold the whole show in my head, you know?

• 28:03Sean Fennessey?

  That's, that's one of its great achievements.

• 28:05Speaker 05

  This is why, like, I'm not really looking at my computer, like, I, there's, those, there are episodic sequences of this show that still are with me like they were yesterday. And like, that whole Aldani thing is essentially like, exactly what you're talking about, where you've got the Ebmas Backrock character is essentially an outlaw. You've got Cassian, who is one trigger pull away from just being the Ebmas Backrock character. Nebek, who is the political ideologue, and winds up being perhaps the most important person in the rebellion in some ways.

• 28:39Sean Fennessey?

  He's like the Marx Lenin figure, yeah.

• 28:41Speaker 05

  Yeah. And, and then you've got these dutiful soldiers like Fae, who are all working for Luthen and trying to get Luthen's, you know, the light of Luthen to shine on them. What a fascinating collection of portraits of people in resistance that aren't just all like, we all have a common goal, let's work for it. It's like, no, like, Mon Motha might as well be like, a blue check lib person, who's like, I thought maybe if I just voted the hardest, it would work, but it turns out I'm gonna have to raise money and give it to separatist groups.

• 29:13Sean Fennessey?

  No, I mean, in, in all examples of dramatic political, social movements, whether it be the civil rights movement in America, whether it be changing, changes in Chile, like, you can like, look at all these examples that Gilroy cites or that are clear inspirations on it. They're warring factions within the groups. There are people who don't agree about the way in which it works. One of the things I really like about the show is it shows you characters who seem minor and become major over the course of two seasons.

• 29:40Speaker 05

  It's the wire thing.

• 29:41Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like, which is, that's a, there's a kind of deliberate. Like thought through quality to the show that I've is one of the reasons why I struggle with television so much is it often feels like they're like, I hope we get renewed. And if we get renewed, we'll come up with more stuff to do. And I fucking hate that. And I know that it's the business and I, you know, I don't really blame the creatives who are in, working in that environment. But in this particular case, even if the show didn't get to have its five seasons, seeing Clay and the way that we do.

• 30:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's, that is of, of many artistic masterstrokes. I wonder if Clay might be the greatest one.

• 30:13Sean Fennessey?

  I, it's the kind of what her character gets to do and become over the final three episodes of the season gives me chills to think about that.

• 30:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, but what she doesn't get to do, I mean, like any other television show on, she is just like the woman who's in the store who says, you can't do that, Luthen.

• 30:27Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right, right.

• 30:27Speaker 05

  And that's in every fucking show is there's a character who's just like, hey, hero, you, you gotta think twice about this.

• 30:34Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 30:34Speaker 05

  That that person to be the person who like saves the rebellion by killing Luthen and then escapes and gets the only salvation. Almost of anybody on that show is her and Bix getting out of there, you know?

• 30:46Sean Fennessey?

  I know. It's beautiful though. And it really, it, it's a real genuine payoff. If you've stuck with the series through all of the episodes that. Spending time with them, caring about them, trying to understand who they are. But like, I didn't, I don't feel any affection for Clay through the first 20 episodes of the series, you know?

• 31:04Speaker 05

  Cool actress?

• 31:05Sean Fennessey?

  She's, yeah, she's interesting to look at and she has great chemistry with Stellan Skarsgård and they're kind of like father daughterish quality, but who, why does this person matter?

• 31:13Speaker 05

  This is the, I would, I would say this is a good case for TV is this is, I think, also Gilroy getting off book. English badass actors and then being like, oh, like they can handle even more of this stuff. And another example of this on the Imperial side of things is Partidaz, who is this ISB kind of counterintelligence chieftain. Who runs terrifying meetings. In fact, one of my favorite lines is, nobody get comfortable. This is not a meeting. Call your families. You're not going home tonight. Uh, nobody, I mean, Gilroy really is the Shakespeare of the business meeting. But that last scene that he has with Krennic where.

• 32:00Speaker 05

  They've put out an APB for Clea and it's like, what are we gonna say is the reason behind basically like turning the entire Eye of the Empire on one person? And Partagaz is like, she's diseased, she has a virus, and if she's exposed to anyone, she'll cause thousands of deaths and she needs to be quarantined. And, you know, the guy, the underling goes running out of the room to send this. And, uh, you know, it's just Krennic, it's just Mendelson, and I can't remember the Partagaz actor.

• 32:32Sean Fennessey?

  His name's Anton Lesser.

• 32:34Speaker 05

  And he's in Thrones, and you've seen him 100 times.

• 32:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 32:37Speaker 05

  And he just turns to Krennic, and this entire time, he has been like, so still and so precise, and he just like, his shoulders drop, and he's like, you were supposed to be ready, man. Like, you were supposed to have the Death Star built by now, like, I can't. And, and Krennic's like, I can't protect you, you're gonna go down for this, you know? To write that character into that moment and give these two guys an unreally spoken intimacy with each other, because they've come up through the military academy together or whatever, it will just set off fireworks in your brain if you, when you're watching it. And that's what, when it's good, television can pull off.

• 33:16Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 33:16Speaker 05

  You know, when it's Mad Men, and when it's The Wire, and when it's Deadwood, and when it's this, it's, it's like cooking at a level that maybe even movies can't achieve.

• 33:25Sean Fennessey?

  I think there's, I will admit here on this podcast, this movie podcast, that is true.

• 33:32Speaker 05

  We just don't get that routinely enough, and...

• 33:35Sean Fennessey?

  Here's my, here's my thing, and here's why we're talking about it today. The moment that you're describing is also very similar to moments that happen in the Parallax View. Like, there, we don't have as much time spent with the figures in that world, but that sense that there's something between two people, and that they're making a choice and one has more power than the other. Movies can, can, can do that. And this show doesn't exist without movies, and I would say that that is the foremost inspiration on the show. Now, the time spent and the novelistic quality, the scope of the story, definitely, that's a huge influence there. But there are so many movies about this idea and so few television shows about this idea of revolution and change within societies because it's hard to dramatize this. Like, one of the reasons why the show is so acclaimed is because it's been so rarely

• 34:20Sean Fennessey?

  achieved, but...

• 34:22Speaker 05

  The only reason they got to make this show is because they called it Star Wars.

• 34:25Sean Fennessey?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 34:26Speaker 05

  The only reason they got to make this show is because it was the Death Star that they're trying to blow up.

• 34:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 34:30Speaker 05

  If it was just overthrowing a sci-fi government, like, there's no way, there's no way they get to build Gorman, you know?

• 34:38Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:39Speaker 05

  But because, because he could go into a timeline and be like, "What's this? We've never built that. We should show this," you know, like, that's, that's it.

• 34:48Sean Fennessey?

  I was thinking about the different kinds of movies that are heavy influences on this show, and there are multiple because of that trio episodic structure that you were describing, but it's, you know, we've got revolutionary classics, a lot of European films like Z and State of Siege, the Costa Gobres movies, you got Army of Shadows and the Jean Pierre Melville films, you got Battle of Algiers is clearly a huge influence back in the news, thanks to one battle after another.

• 35:12Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:14Sean Fennessey?

  You've got prison break movies.

• 35:16Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 35:17Sean Fennessey?

  Stalag 17, Purge on the River Kwai, La Tru, Man Escaped, spy craft movies, all the Le Carre adaptations.

• 35:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:25Sean Fennessey?

  The Conversation. You noted that Sandbaggers is a big influence on this show.

• 35:29Speaker 05

  It's a BBC show from the early 80s, late 70s, early 80s. It's available on Prime Video and it is basically a special operations department of the British Secret Service or the British, you know, MI6. It's really only told from the perspective of guys waiting for the phone call to come back in to be like, "Mission accomplished."

• 35:51Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:52Speaker 05

  And it's just dudes smoking and doing inter-office politics and trying to manipulate...

• 35:58Speaker 05

  Members of Parliament or members of Whitehall into doing their bidding. And it's, I don't know if Tony saw it, but it is a very good and or precursor.

• 36:07Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 36:07Speaker 05

  You know, it is Saw Gerrera and Luthen talking in a cave rather than the fight that they're talking about.

• 36:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there's, there's another form of movie that is no longer very popular, but was at a time, which was this sort of World War II adventure resistance movie, like where Eagles dare and there's some Fritz Lang movies like Hangman Also Die.

• 36:28Speaker 05

  Guns of Navarone.

• 36:29Sean Fennessey?

  Guns of Navarone is a big one. I think Guns of Navarone is probably a pretty dramatic influence on the show, given the sort of like men on a mission quality.

• 36:35Speaker 05

  And changing the, the scope of the sort of physical landscape that they're in a bunch. Yeah.

• 36:41Sean Fennessey?

  And then also my personal favorite kind of movie like this is the sort of post-war racketeering espionage. The Third Man and The Conformist, The Lives of Others, like people kind of operating on the fringes of a very vulnerable society. And the show is clearly interested in all of these things. And in fact, it's sometimes like replicating moments from some of those films, or at least recalling them specifically. And you mentioned this already, but this idea of the really the off-book British actor. The show does what so many good TV shows can do, which is it takes complete unknowns to us.

• 37:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:20Sean Fennessey?

  And just says like, come into the world with this person. And in fact, this show would be much worse if it was a bunch of famous actors. But the fact that you've got certainly some holdovers from the films. You've got Diego Luna, you've got Forest Whitaker, familiar faces from Rogue One.

• 37:35Speaker 05

  Ma Ma Fua.

• 37:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, Genevieve O'Reilly, you've got her. But then you introduce Dylan Skarsgård, and I think one of the great performances of his career.

• 37:44Sean Fennessey?

  Ben Mendelsohn returns from the film. Fiona Shaw is introduced in the first season, giving an amazing performance.

• 37:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:51Sean Fennessey?

  Catherine Hunter, Benjamin Bratt, these are all people we've seen before quite a bit. But then all these other people, Denise Goff, who I, you know, British actor, so I'm sure I've seen before.

• 38:01Speaker 05

  Mind blowing.

• 38:01Sean Fennessey?

  She did what perhaps the best performance in the series.

• 38:05Speaker 05

  Uh, her, yeah, her and the guy who plays Cyril have this truly.

• 38:14Speaker 05

  Indescribable weird relationship that I think is like such a beautiful invention of this show that really could have only worked because they get such a long duration of time circling one another, being with one another and splitting apart.

• 38:26Sean Fennessey?

  Kyle Solar is the actor who plays Cyril Karn. Even someone like Richard Sammle, who is the Gorman leader, who believes that his people are prepared for resistance, who is a longtime working German actor, and the thing I recognize him from immediately is in Glorious Bastards, he's the German lieutenant who is beaten by the Beju.

• 38:47Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 38:47Sean Fennessey?

  And it's like, oh, right, that guy. And then a whole bunch of new faces. You mentioned Kyle Solar, who I'd never seen before, I don't think.

• 38:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, Faye Marseille, who's in Thrones, but is quite amazing in this.

• 38:56Sean Fennessey?

  Terrific in this. We mentioned Elizabeth Dulau, Claudia. Adrienne Horner, possibly the first time I saw her in season one, and has now gone on to become a... You think she'll be Wonder Woman?

• 39:11Speaker 05

  I think she is Wonder Woman.

• 39:12Sean Fennessey?

  You excited about that?

• 39:13Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 39:14Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think there should be a Wonder Woman? Do you think that's a character that should exist?

• 39:17Speaker 05

  You think they're just like, James Gunn's doing a great job, we're gonna keep everything as is, once they do the merger?

• 39:25Sean Fennessey?

  No, I don't. But we'll see. Could be wrong. You gonna see Supergirl?

• 39:31Speaker 05

  Probably. Would you see it if you weren't obligated to?

• 39:37Sean Fennessey?

  Wow. It's hard for me to even fathom that life. You know one thing, speaking of Supergirl, that I like about the show too, is that even though it is, does feel like a hand-to-hand spy show most of the time, when it needs scale, it can get that Star Wars scale up.

• 39:54Speaker 05

  I mean, Luthen's spaceship fight is among the great set pieces in Star Wars history.

• 40:00Sean Fennessey?

  Incredibly cool. The other thing is just, I knew I was in good hands in season two when Cassian steals the tie fighter, and I was like, holy shit. This is actually what it would be like if somebody tried to fly one of these things, you know? Like, that was another way of kind of tilting our perspective of what we think this world really is, where it's like, it's human beings, it's not just stormtroopers pushing buttons and moving things around.

• 40:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, Cassian escaping from Aldani while a paralyzed guy is giving him the instructions of like, when to turn to get out from under this like, incredible like, natural light explosion happening in the sky, the prison break on Arquino with Circus.

• 40:33Sean Fennessey?

  Unreal.

• 40:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:34Sean Fennessey?

  So to me, the... In addition to Clay's arc at the final third of the last season, the thing that confirms the show's greatness for me is the Gorman massacre. Thought we could take a little bit of time to talk about episode eight and why it's a very interesting and fascinating piece of filmmaking.

• 40:54Speaker 05

  Of course.

• 40:56Sean Fennessey?

  Can you take me back to when you and Andy were doing the pod? What was your reaction to that episode?

• 41:01Speaker 05

  So I think that we were like, this was the one thing that had been in the air that this was gonna happen. So when Gorman starts to get mentioned at the beginning of this season, if you were doing any online reading, people were like, this is canon. So there was something that happened there. And if you want to get nerdy, you can get into Wikipedia and you can start reading some of this stuff. And there was some incident that happened on Gorman. And Tony basically used that. And he was like, this is where everything is gonna come to a head. I still think the thing that blows my mind is Cyril's death from that whole thing. And the idea that they spent so much time on a guy whose

• 41:46Speaker 05

  life amounted to pretty much nothing, and who is forgotten to history almost instantly. But there are so many achievements within that episode. I mean, what did you think when you saw it?

• 41:59Sean Fennessey?

  I think I was amazed by the way that they integrated real life history into that scene. I mean, it's a seemingly a moment that shows like the French Resistance, it shows American political movements. It's extremely violent and upsetting.

• 42:16Speaker 05

  It's echoed in the backed and crossed sequences in One Battle, like, you know, basically like double agents working on other sides.

• 42:26Sean Fennessey?

  You know, the orchestrated rebellion and the Reichstag fire and all of these different moments in world history where authoritarian state incites people to fight back so that it can make a larger point in its efforts to seize power. And I don't know, it just got me very emotional. It's like I'm crying at this Star Wars TV show. And I, especially because I have had such a blah relationship to most of the TV shows, I was really taken aback by how How sharply drawn I think all this was, even though you know where it's going. I mean, in two episodes earlier, as you said, Krennic essentially explains what they're gonna do. Like, we know where this is all headed.

• 43:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:11Sean Fennessey?

  And Luthen and Andor have these conversations and Andor kind of warns Luthen about why this shouldn't happen, how they're not ready. And...

• 43:20Speaker 05

  But Luthen and Krennic are like, "We need this to happen."

• 43:22Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 43:23Speaker 05

  Because of what's gonna come out of it.

• 43:24Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. And these two men being so savvy about the way that these things work. You know what it reminds me of a little bit? And I'll just share this personal piece with the world at large. Me and you and Zach Baron occasionally will have some conversations about politics.

• 43:39Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 43:39Sean Fennessey?

  And whenever we're having that conversation, I find that you both are a little bit more hopeful than me. And I tend to see the world patternistically. And I'm like, "Well, this happened here, and then four years later, this is gonna happen here." And like, I think I'm always trying to think about it as like, no matter how painful or bad things get, things swing back. It's not good that they're swinging, you know, they swing back to the negative side, but that... This has to happen for this to happen. And that there is a group of people in the world who try to manage power that way. They say like, "Well, if we do this here, we'll do this." And then there's some people over here who are much more impressionistic, or reactive, or impulsive. And the movie really psychologizes that so well in the individual characters.

• 44:22Sean Fennessey?

  The idea that both Krennic and Luthen know that you gotta break a few eggs to put a light gloss on it in order to get the things that they want. And how deeply that affects somebody like Andor, who has fully thrown himself over to this movie. He's finally accepted that he is a rebel.

• 44:39Speaker 05

  Well, every, almost every moment, I think throughout the entire series, Cassian has like an actual objective that is not what Luthen wants him to do. It's either find my sister, find Bix, get back to Marva, get out of this whole fucking thing. Like, all these things that are never like defeat the empire. And he is an unwilling participant in the beginning of Rogue One. When you first meet him, he's like, "So I've become a murderer."

• 45:06Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 45:06Speaker 05

  "I've become an assassin."

• 45:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 45:08Speaker 05

  "And these four people on a base somewhere in Yavin send me out."

• 45:13Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, and he resents Jin so much.

• 45:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:14Sean Fennessey?

  And he's so angry with her when they first come together in the movie. Yeah, I just, I again, feel like that is such an incredible act of writing to... To make us feel like there are people who are true believers who can't see the big picture. There are people who see the big picture, who are true believers, but are have also been made cynical by their own dedication to the cause.

• 45:36Speaker 05

  Or there's Mad Men. There's there's Saul Guerrero.

• 45:38Sean Fennessey?

  Saul Guerrero also.

• 45:39Speaker 05

  Smoking Rydro and just like, I just want to live in a constant state of guerrilla warfare.

• 45:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, which is also, I mean, there are people in real life movements who operate that way, you know, who bomb throw, literally. So I find all of that to be incredible.

• 45:57Sean Fennessey?

  I think it was kind of a relief to me to not have to worry about where the show is going. That's another thing.

• 46:04Speaker 05

  Which is kind of weird, because I think we probably go into a lot of these expanded timeline experiences being like, what is the point of this?

• 46:14Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 46:14Speaker 05

  We know where this is going.

• 46:15Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 46:15Speaker 05

  You know?

• 46:15Sean Fennessey?

  It's the prequel problem.

• 46:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:17Sean Fennessey?

  And and for that reason, I guess, I'm still trying to wrap my head around how this happened. How they let this happen. And how could they have let this happen and not let so many other things that sounded cool happen?

• 46:27Speaker 05

  I think that because this was still on the side, and I think that this doesn't mess with Skywalkers.

• 46:34Sean Fennessey?

  A $600 million side, though.

• 46:36Speaker 05

  Well, I mean, for for for a brief Bob Chapek moment, we were like, hey, you guys scared money.

• 46:42Sean Fennessey?

  Better than Iger?

• 46:45Speaker 05

  Scared money does not make any. So but like, they they were pouring money into Star Wars and Kathy Kennedy, to her credit, somehow got them to greenlight this. I'm sure she also was like, they are not going to give you $1 billion to make five of these.

• 46:58Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 46:58Speaker 05

  But, you know, we can, we can tell a really great story, and this will go down as one of those great unacknowledged masterpieces of television, like The Wire, where, you know, true heads know how good this is.

• 47:12Speaker 05

  I was curious whether or not you felt like the end of season two, sort of after. After Luthen and Kaya's storyline and after the the Dedro storyline is all wrapped up, did you feel like it rolled too heavily into Rogue One in a way that like, almost was too deferential to Rogue One? I mean, I think Tony always knew Andor was gonna end with the opening moments of Rogue One, the same way Rogue One ends with the opening moments of A New Hope.

• 47:37Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 47:38Speaker 05

  But I felt like it gave Rogue One like more resonance to me, honestly. Like when I went back and watched Rogue One after Andor.

• 47:46Sean Fennessey?

  But doesn't Rogue One open with a flashback to Jin's childhood?

• 47:52Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 47:52Sean Fennessey?

  So it's not like a direct, like it picks right up here.

• 47:54Speaker 05

  But I think he's getting on the ship to go to find Galen Orso's daughter or something.

• 48:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, yeah. Um, no, no, I was like, this is fairly logical to me. I'll tell you what, in the same way that one of the things about Rogue One that I really enjoy is that it ends exactly where A New Hope picks up.

• 48:12Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 48:13Sean Fennessey?

  And I'm like, this actually feels coherent to me and it gives you both things. It gives you CGI Princess Leia receiving the plans for the Death Star and walking on, but it also gives you Vader, you know, wreaking havoc and doing something we hadn't quite seen before. I think the show does the same thing. Speaking of Vader wreaking havoc, the show features no lightsabers, no Jedis.

• 48:33Speaker 05

  Brief mention of the Force.

• 48:34Sean Fennessey?

  Brief mention of the Force. Just very little of the core mythology.

• 48:38Speaker 05

  And the Force is kind of treated like Maha. Like they're like, hey, I don't know space healing. Like I need a doctor.

• 48:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, which is such a fascinating choice and indicates, I think,

• 48:49Sean Fennessey?

  probably how a lot of non-believers feel about believers in the world, you know?

• 48:52Speaker 05

  Well, it also blows out the aperture of the Star Wars galaxy to all of a sudden have somebody be like, hey, man, don't touch my shoulder. Like, I need actual.

• 49:01Sean Fennessey?

  You know what else it does though for me? Is it makes something like Alderaan being exploded feel more weighty in the other films. Like it gives more literal gravity to these planets. Because you come to realize that they're populated by people who have no idea who the fuck the Skywalkers are, who probably don't even know Darth Vader is.

• 49:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:20Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like there is this expansive galaxy, and that's a word that you hear used or you see on the scroll at the beginning of the film. And you just come to accept them as expressions of the Titanic nature of existence that is being fought for. But by dispensing with all of those things that feel so essential to these stories, that the Skywalker saga. You get more humanity. You get more like the sense that this is maybe, maybe this is a real place that could exist.

• 49:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it's like, this would be the equivalent of making a movie about Dark Ages England, but having King Arthur just be somewhere in the background.

• 49:58Sean Fennessey?

  That's right.

• 49:58Speaker 05

  You know, and rarely, but rarely do we get that kind of like a depiction of a, of a time period.

• 50:03Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, can I tell you what I always thought would be a cool idea for a Star Wars TV show? You reminded me of it earlier. It's sort of to that point. I think it would be cool to have a kind of like Have Gun, Will Travel style show that just follows one blaster, but like it goes into the hands of different people. So every episode is like-

• 50:19Speaker 05

  This was the promise of Mandalorian when it started is it did feel like a episodic Western from like the 50s and 60s.

• 50:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 50:27Speaker 05

  I wanted to talk a little bit about, I wanted to hear about some of your favorite performances. Like, I know we kind of went through like the-

• 50:33Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:33Speaker 05

  The litany of people that joined the show, but did you have anything in particular that jumped out at you?

• 50:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think, um, it's easy to overlook Diego Luna. Even though he's the titular character and he's a person who's constantly pushing back against what we want to happen. Like, we're kind, he's one of the people who, for the first season and a half, is like, he's kind of doing the thing, but he's not fully committing. And he's such an interesting actor to me because he has leading man good looks and not leading man energy. He's like a much more vulnerable and suspicious type as an actor.

• 51:07Speaker 05

  But has like, almost like a young Dustin Hoffman kind of-

• 51:10Sean Fennessey?

  A little twitchy.

• 51:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, neediness, yeah.

• 51:12Sean Fennessey?

  And like a little bit, just angsty as an actor. And I've heard, I heard Tony talk with you and Andy about just how, clearly how much he like admires Diego and that he wouldn't have done this without him.

• 51:22Speaker 05

  Also, like Diego was essentially the onset, onset ambassador for like the larger project. Because Tony would be like, I'm writing, I'm approving, I'm doing, doing cuts and stuff like that. And Diego was there every day doing all these scenes.

• 51:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and I, so I think he gives a truly special performance. I think the two new faces, Elizabeth Dulaud and Faye Marseille, are-

• 51:45Sean Fennessey?

  They're like, if not the heartbeat, then like the pulse of the show in a lot of ways. And like the, the constant cutaways to them in a room alone, just like trying to navigate and make sure everything is okay.

• 51:59Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 51:59Sean Fennessey?

  It's very, very similar to like looking at Gene Hackman in The Conversation and you're just like, something is not okay.

• 52:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:04Sean Fennessey?

  Right now, like what is wrong? What is it he's hearing? What is going to be around the corner that could blow everything up? The sense of suspense that the show has. So I really love them.

• 52:13Speaker 05

  She has a great reaction when some guy comes into the antique store and tells them that El Donny has been attacked and she has to pretend to still be a clerk in this store. But she's also looking at this guy who she knows is essentially the orchestrator of this. And her eyes are kind of wet and she's just like, it's a great moment.

• 52:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Um, what about you?

• 52:34Speaker 05

  I would say Skarsgård. I think that, uh, he has like three of the four or five moments of articulating the thesis statements of the show. And I think he's like, somebody who uses probably at this point, like a bit of his physical limitations, like he is not going to do a lot of running around. Um, to his advantage where like Luthen is like often confronted with possible capture or death. And it's just like, I'm either going to talk my way out of this or I'm not, but I'm not going to run. You know, we're not going to go scooting across and having like a fake 70 year old man set piece here.

• 53:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I think there's also something about the, his character as an actor where he's kind of ornery and confrontational as a performer.

• 53:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:23Sean Fennessey?

  Like most of his best characters are sort of like, are you fucking kidding me? And that's perfect for Luthen.

• 53:28Speaker 05

  No, it's a guy who's like mourning the loss of his life, but not his death, but like, I gave everything to this thing that I'm not even going to be able to have a victory lap for.

• 53:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, yes, totally.

• 53:38Speaker 05

  But there's a confrontation he has with Saw in the first season where he's basically like, hey, I know you want to go ride shotgun on this mission, but we're going to let this guy basically get caught by the empire so that they think they've got a beat on us. And Saw's like, well, what if I tell them that's what you're going to do? And he's like, do what you want to do. Like I'm, but like you have to decide right now if you're going to go or not.

• 54:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 54:01Speaker 05

  And it's like, he's caught by a crazy. Guerrilla military leader, but he stands stock still. And it's just like, it is what it is. And it's just a great moment of like, the conception of that character coming to life for me.

• 54:18Amanda Dobbins?

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Shout out to the friends with the same niche taste as you. You know, ones that will join you in watching a three hour silent film about the cats of Europe, followed by a cheesy superhero blockbuster. State Farm brings that same supportive energy to insurance. Their 19,000 local agents are there to help you choose the coverage you need. So you can spend less time thinking about coverage and more time in front of the big screen. Go online at statefarm.com. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 54:49Sean Fennessey?

  One other thing I want to cite is I love the scenes between Genevieve O'Reilly and Ben Miles, who is her high school pal, who is funding the-

• 54:59Speaker 05

  That gets in over his head.

• 55:00Sean Fennessey?

  Right. He's a banker who goes into some debt, has some money troubles and then, you know, suggests he may expose Mon Mothma and what she's doing for the rebellion. And then Luthen does what Luthen does.

• 55:12Speaker 05

  I was told I would be taken care of. And this is sort of like, he's the great. You see all these billionaires now who are like turning, maybe they're pivoting to the right. And they're all like, hey, I gave heavily to the Dems for years and now I'm the bad guy. Like, fuck you.

• 55:26Sean Fennessey?

  Like, I mean, that's such a subtle dagger to that whole wing of people who have flipped in the last five years. So, and I love the interplay between those two actors. And Ben Miles, who's like an actor you've seen before, but I'm sure you don't know his name, has just such a smarmy, insinuating quality. And he's really put Mon Mothma on the back foot. I mean, she really is terrified for her future. And then there's that, you know, wonderful scene, is it her daughter's wedding? Where she has to kind of perform and has this exultant dance.

• 55:54Speaker 05

  Well, because she knows that now she's in too deep.

• 55:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 55:56Speaker 05

  Now she's gone past, because I think she knows what's going to happen to him when he leaves the wedding. In, and or is a show set inside of a movie that itself was set inside of a movie. But within this show, there could have been five or six shows. You could just do- Mon Mothma's Palace Intrigue show.

• 56:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, the diplomat for Mon Mothma.

• 56:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a testament to being able to take small sections of story and imbue them with the depth that you would usually give an entire other series.

• 56:30Sean Fennessey?

  You want to shout any other superlatives out before we move on?

• 56:33Speaker 05

  Well, to me, the show is all about the conversations that happen between characters within it. So I think I've referenced a couple of these, but I wanted to throw out some of my favorite scenes that aren't set pieces, but have the importance of them. When Luthen recruits Cassian in that warehouse and Cassian, he's like, your dad got hung out in that public square and Cassian pulls the blaster on him. And he's just like, if you want to actually stick it to these guys, you have a decision to make. Come with me. Cassian saying goodbye to Marva, probably the most like heartstring tugging moment of the series. And that's when she's like, that's just love, you know?

• 57:11Sean Fennessey?

  These are both season ones.

• 57:12Speaker 05

  Yeah. And Luthen's sunrise speech that's in when he's just like, I'm never going to see the fruits of my victory if it does come to pass. And then honestly, like the Krennic two for the him interrogating Dedra and the amazing moment where Mendelson puts his finger on the top of Denise Goff's head, which was unscripted, apparently, and the Krennic imparted as moment that I mentioned.

• 57:38Sean Fennessey?

  One other one that is so great is it's not much of a conversation, but when Cyril spots Andor during the Gorman uprising and he's like, it's you. And Andor's like, who are you? Just like a perfect stroke of we know everything, but not everybody in this world knows everything and realization. And also you pointed out Cyril's death, which is so perfect because it's basically like a blaster shot from the side that we don't even see coming. That's just like old school Western.

• 58:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:04Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's like a John Ford movie. Will Star Wars ever do anything like this again? Can they afford to do anything like this ever again?

• 58:16Speaker 05

  I think, I don't want to say something as silly as in our lifetime, but I don't think for the next decade, at least.

• 58:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, so we have the Mandalorian Grogu film coming later this month. Seen, I guess roughly a fifth of it so far. Wasn't that impressed. I hope, I hope it's good. I hope I like it. But it's crazy how big this show feels and how small what I saw on a big screen felt. And that's kind of the inverse of what you want, not that and/or would have been achievable as a film, it wouldn't have been, but

• 58:48Sean Fennessey?

  it could have been directionally like the, a kind of story you could have told over a period of time baked within the world.

• 58:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:54Sean Fennessey?

  And that's one thing that it felt very missing from what I saw, at least from Mandalorian Grogu. And even what I feel was missing from the show The Mandalorian, which I did like the first two seasons of.

• 59:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, the first season especially is quite good.

• 59:03Sean Fennessey?

  But I never really felt like the bigger story, the sort of like the wraparound.

• 59:08Speaker 05

  I don't think there was supposed to be one.

• 59:10Sean Fennessey?

  I don't, is it Dindajarn's like quest for clarity within the way?

• 59:17Speaker 05

  I think Favreau was making, I'm sure they were in collaboration.

• 59:21Sean Fennessey?

  An episodic western.

• 59:21Speaker 05

  But Favreau's like, you know what would be cool is if Werner Herzog was chasing this cowboy across space.

• 59:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:27Speaker 05

  And.

• 59:28Sean Fennessey?

  Which is cool.

• 59:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, and he's got a baby and he's got to protect it and it's a Samurai movie, yeah. And then I think Filoni's like, yes, and also The Mandalorian have a rich history of like this sword that they have, you know, like, and like all this stuff that goes into it.

• 59:44Sean Fennessey?

  The dark saber?

• 59:45Speaker 05

  The dark saber, yeah. Which I think, you know, like, there are people who are like, that whole story is amazing and you gotta go and read about this character.

• 59:51Sean Fennessey?

  Some of that stuff was cool.

• 59:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:53Sean Fennessey?

  Jean Carlo Esposito and, yeah.

• 59:55Speaker 05

  I think the more crucial movie to talk about is Starfighter, which I don't know anything about, but giving Gosling's sort of pivot to optimism and sort of more lighthearted fare, I'm gonna safely assume is like a really heartwarming comic heroic film.

• 1:00:16Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, will it be Han Solo as a Jedi? That's, I'm a little concerned about that because of the genius of the first Star Wars film is there's Han Solo, and then there's the Jedi.

• 1:00:24Speaker 05

  Yes, and is it like a glib Jedi? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know if it's like Han Solo with a young Jedi, you know, but I don't think that augurs well for the idea of, let's have.

• 1:00:39Speaker 05

  Chandler LeVax, you know, like Star Wars High School movie.

• 1:00:43Sean Fennessey?

  Would love that.

• 1:00:44Speaker 05

  You know, like probably not.

• 1:00:46Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's funny.

• 1:00:46Speaker 05

  But there was a moment in Star Wars. It was like, Ryan Johnson and Benny Offenweiss are gonna get one. I, you know, I would be interested. I don't think Mangold's High Republic show is a movie. Is that gonna happen or?

• 1:00:58Sean Fennessey?

  It still is on the long list, so maybe it could happen over time. Alice has a book out of the library, out from the library right now called, it's like Jedi School or Young Jedi Adventures or something, and it's written as almost like, um, gosh.

• 1:01:16Sean Fennessey?

  It's not an epistolary novel exactly, but it's like a series of documents, some diaristic, some of like homework assignments from a young kid who's gone to Jedi School. And so like, I read this book to her and there are all of these kind of like, it's like found media inside of the thing that shows you like, well, here's what Yoda told me today. And I thought to myself, like, The Goonies, but Star Wars or something like that would be a lot of fun.

• 1:01:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:41Sean Fennessey?

  You'd have to accept it. And this is some of what, um, uh, gosh, what was the most recent Star Wars series called?

• 1:01:47Speaker 05

  Acolyte?

• 1:01:47Sean Fennessey?

  No, after that, the, about the young kids with Jude Law.

• 1:01:51Speaker 05

  Oh, uh.

• 1:01:52Sean Fennessey?

  Skeleton Crew.

• 1:01:52Speaker 05

  Skeleton Crew, yeah.

• 1:01:53Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:02:34Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:02:46Sean Fennessey?

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• 1:03:17Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, let's just rank some stuff with me.

• 1:03:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:18Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:03:19Speaker 05

  You know what?

• 1:03:19Sean Fennessey?

  Do the exercise.

• 1:03:20Speaker 05

  We're gonna do the exercise. And I think one thing that I, I don't know that I thought about much while watching Andor in real time, but when we did the draft a couple of weeks ago and I revisited the prequels, I was like, narrative wise, it's closer, Andor is closer to the prequels than it is to the original films.

• 1:03:39Sean Fennessey?

  Well, how, well, what makes you say that?

• 1:03:41Speaker 05

  In terms of all of the like taxation, senatorial process, parliamentary games. Like a lot of Andor is like, um, how are we going to explain a mining project?

• 1:03:56Sean Fennessey?

  Right. Yeah. It's interested in the bureaucratic nature of the empire.

• 1:03:59Speaker 05

  And, and I thought.

• 1:04:01Sean Fennessey?

  But there, but there is a key difference.

• 1:04:02Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:04:03Sean Fennessey?

  Well, the key difference is the performance style in the prequels, which is obviously not very good, is classic melodrama. And the performance style in Andor is a very clean, pure, it's not naturalistic. It's like, it's tight. It's like every character is portrayed by Robert Ryan. It's very straight talking, very clearly delivered. And, and it's not grand, the performance style either. It's not, there are speeches, but it's not Shakespearean.

• 1:04:29Speaker 05

  No, it's like, it's the Michael Clayton school of acting.

• 1:04:31Sean Fennessey?

  Exactly.

• 1:04:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:04:31Sean Fennessey?

  Which is obviously our favorite thing. But you're right that the subject matter is closer to that than. The original trilogy or even the sequels.

• 1:04:40Speaker 05

  I it did make me laugh, though. The, you know, I think Topher Grace famously has done like recuts of some of the prequel movies and I was like, could you do a Tony Gilroy cut of the of the prequels that would actually kind of get closer to that? I don't know if you could do it with those performances per se, you know, but I would mind going back in time and saying Liam Neeson, Samuel L. Jackson and and Ewan McGregor are in a Tony Gilroy trilogy. It would be pretty cool.

• 1:05:07Sean Fennessey?

  It would be very exciting, but even Sam Jackson, it's like, he's a little off his game in those movies, you know?

• 1:05:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, we can get into that now. I mean, I, when we did the draft, so I did the more or less the rewatch project, you know, skipping through stuff that I'm basically singed in my memories.

• 1:05:24Sean Fennessey?

  I've seen rewatched everything this year.

• 1:05:26Speaker 05

  And knowing that we were also going to do this ranking, I found myself having this funny impulse to get some reclamation projects going.

• 1:05:33Sean Fennessey?

  Good.

• 1:05:34Speaker 05

  I really, really, really tried, for instance, to revive Solo and

• 1:05:40Sean Fennessey?

  Didn't work out?

• 1:05:42Speaker 05

  It's not Aaron Rake's fault. It's the script's fault or whatever they, I think that that was like, wouldn't it be cool to do a young Han Solo movie? And nobody stopped to be like, what's the story? And nobody stopped to be like, here's something that Tony has mentioned a ton of times when he's talked to me and Andy, and I've heard him talk about it in storytelling in general, is intention. The idea that what's the story's intention? What is your style's intention? What is this actor's intention? And I don't think Solo, I dare say, I don't even know if Rogue One in its original conception had like an intention. It's cool.

• 1:06:19Sean Fennessey?

  A cool idea.

• 1:06:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a cool idea to have the Death Star with modern special effects, but I don't know if they were like, yeah, we have a complete clear idea that will, we can get from A to B without somebody coming in and being like.

• 1:06:33Sean Fennessey?

  But that's hard, and that's not something that I think most studio executives respond to because intention implies theme, that there is a, an emotional and intellectual core to the work that you're doing as opposed to this is why this should be made. And this is why this should be made is because people want to see it because they're curious about how they got the plans to the Death Star.

• 1:06:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:52Sean Fennessey?

  And that's actually at the absolute intersection of Star Wars's problem.

• 1:06:56Speaker 05

  Yes, but the problem, one of the issues is that's a Wikipedia entry. That's not as.

• 1:07:00Sean Fennessey?

  I know. But so is Andor if done wrong.

• 1:07:03Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:07:03Sean Fennessey?

  Right?

• 1:07:04Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:07:05Sean Fennessey?

  Where'd the rebellion come from? Who were its chief architects? Who pushed the ball forward? Could have been really boring. Could have been really action packed.

• 1:07:12Speaker 05

  No, it could have been House of the Dragon. It could have just been like, hey.

• 1:07:14Sean Fennessey?

  Precisely.

• 1:07:15Speaker 05

  You know, like here's, I'm walking in and I'm going to say what I want.

• 1:07:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:07:18Speaker 05

  So for you, there are 28 pieces of.

• 1:07:23Sean Fennessey?

  No, 14.

• 1:07:24Speaker 05

  So we're just doing movies here?

• 1:07:26Sean Fennessey?

  Movies, Andor, Mandalorian, and Grogu.

• 1:07:28Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:07:28Sean Fennessey?

  Or excuse me, movies and/or The Mandalorian. If you want to talk about the Book of Boba Fett, if you want to talk about.

• 1:07:34Speaker 05

  They would be towards the bottom for me.

• 1:07:36Sean Fennessey?

  I've seen those shows. I don't think they're successful. I don't think Ahsoka is successful personally. Haven't seen the two animated series. I haven't seen the Clone Wars film. So we can only work with what.

• 1:07:47Speaker 05

  That's fine. How high would Andor go here?

• 1:07:50Sean Fennessey?

  Well, so I think we can dispense with like, is it Empire and A New Hope at the top of the rankings?

• 1:07:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:07:57Sean Fennessey?

  And what order would you say they go in?

• 1:07:59Speaker 05

  Well, I, I am now in a New Hope phase.

• 1:08:03Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, tell us about it.

• 1:08:05Speaker 05

  I just think that there's some parts of New Hope that I find a bit dull. Like I find Dagobah a little bit dull.

• 1:08:13Sean Fennessey?

  You mean in Empire?

• 1:08:14Speaker 05

  Sorry, in Empire, yeah. So I have New Hope a little bit above Empire right now.

• 1:08:18Sean Fennessey?

  No kidding?

• 1:08:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:08:18Sean Fennessey?

  Is this just you trying to undermine my draft status or?

• 1:08:21Speaker 05

  No, it's just, I think I talked about this. I was just like, I just think New Hope kind of rocks from the first note to the last. And I think Empire maybe gets.

• 1:08:31Sean Fennessey?

  We spent a lot of time on Tatooine.

• 1:08:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:08:34Sean Fennessey?

  It's like a lot, a lot of Luke like wandering around the desert.

• 1:08:37Speaker 05

  But you get the fucking binary sunset. You get like the origin of like him being crabby.

• 1:08:41Sean Fennessey?

  The Jawas and he's avoiding the Tusken Raiders and.

• 1:08:46Speaker 05

  Tusken Raiders are still cool. No?

• 1:08:48Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, it's great when Obi-Wan shows up.

• 1:08:50Speaker 05

  Do you find?

• 1:08:52Sean Fennessey?

  I'm negging the most important movie of my life, but you know.

• 1:08:56Speaker 05

  Would you put Andor above either of them?

• 1:08:58Sean Fennessey?

  I, I wouldn't, but only because they, it cannot exist without them. And my, my pitch is gonna be Empire One, New Hope Two, is Andor the third best thing? Now, I know you said Andor is basically your favorite Star Wars thing.

• 1:09:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:13Sean Fennessey?

  At least because of the phase of life.

• 1:09:14Speaker 05

  I mean, it's most intellectually stimulating and emotionally resonant movie to me as an adult. But these are two of the most important movies of my lifetime as a child. And ones that I still watch once a year, you know, as a, as an adult.

• 1:09:30Sean Fennessey?

  What do we do about the New Hope Empire situation?

• 1:09:34Speaker 05

  Coin toss? Like, I don't know.

• 1:09:36Sean Fennessey?

  Like on Survivor?

• 1:09:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:38Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think of that?

• 1:09:39Speaker 05

  I have Mr. Beast right here.

• 1:09:41Sean Fennessey?

  Beast games on the Star Wars rankings? Holy shit.

• 1:09:45Speaker 05

  Is Mr. Beast really one of the most famous people in the world?

• 1:09:47Sean Fennessey?

  I believe so. I, I don't really know who, who's in front of him or behind him. It's probably you're in there.

• 1:09:53Speaker 05

  But like Mr. Beast is more famous than Bill.

• 1:09:57Sean Fennessey?

  Are you fucking kidding me?

• 1:09:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I'm just asking.

• 1:09:59Sean Fennessey?

  Bill Simmons?

• 1:09:59Speaker 05

  Yeah. If Mr. Beast and Bill were both at a Lakers game, who gets more like, hey?

• 1:10:04Sean Fennessey?

  Well, that's kind of a loaded proposition there.

• 1:10:08Speaker 05

  It's a home game for Bill.

• 1:10:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. I think, I think Mr. Beast is more famous.

• 1:10:11Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:10:12Sean Fennessey?

  How many, how many, doesn't Mr. Beast have 500 million YouTube subscribers?

• 1:10:17Sean Fennessey?

  It's a lot.

• 1:10:18Speaker 05

  I think Bill's probably had 500 million listeners over the course of his career, right?

• 1:10:22Sean Fennessey?

  Do not think that's the case. Uh, do you have a coin in your pocket?

• 1:10:25Speaker 05

  I don't have any change. I'm gonna give you Empire, cause it's your podcast.

• 1:10:28Sean Fennessey?

  Thanks, appreciate it.

• 1:10:29Speaker 05

  Empire One, New Hope Two, Andor Three.

• 1:10:32Sean Fennessey?

  You think that's crazy?

• 1:10:35Speaker 05

  No. That Andor is better than Return of the Jedi, which is kind of silly.

• 1:10:40Sean Fennessey?

  Just, just be nice.

• 1:10:41Speaker 05

  What?

• 1:10:42Sean Fennessey?

  Just be nice to Return of the Jedi. It's underrated at this point in my opinion.

• 1:10:44Speaker 05

  I like Return of the Jedi. I'm just saying like-

• 1:10:46Sean Fennessey?

  Is it possible that anything could get above that? Thank, thank you, Lucas. Keep filling those in.

• 1:10:50Speaker 05

  Could get above Jedi?

• 1:10:53Speaker 05

  At four?

• 1:10:54Sean Fennessey?

  Can any, can any prequel or sequel get above Jedi?

• 1:10:57Speaker 05

  I'd, I'd have the Rogue One conversation. I'd have the highs of Rogue One.

• 1:11:00Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 1:11:03Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:11:04Sean Fennessey?

  Seriously?

• 1:11:05Speaker 05

  I'd have the conversation. I'd take the meeting. You don't like to take the meeting. You like to be definitive in your proclamations. I like to take the meeting. I like to say like, yeah, let's get coffee. Let's talk it out.

• 1:11:16Speaker 05

  I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna have a cigarette, I'm gonna come back in, we'll talk some more, you know?

• 1:11:18Sean Fennessey?

  Rogue One over Return of the Jedi?

• 1:11:21Speaker 05

  I think it's a, it's just a conversation to have.

• 1:11:25Sean Fennessey?

  I'm fascinated. I probably wouldn't put Rogue One over Revenge of the Sith.

• 1:11:29Speaker 05

  Oh, I would.

• 1:11:30Sean Fennessey?

  I wouldn't put it over Jedi, Last Jedi.

• 1:11:35Sean Fennessey?

  Rogue One is really cool, but Rogue One to me actually commits an interesting sin that you could argue Andor does too, but Rogue One does it in more overt ways where with Rogue One, I can feel all the archetypes from other movies being plugged into that movie. You know, the individual characters that represent the team that they'll work on. I'm like, oh, well, this is Dustin Hoffman from Papillon. And oh, this is, um, you know, a character that Donnie Yen has played in five Samurai movies and, you know,

• 1:12:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:12:00Sean Fennessey?

  which is cool.

• 1:12:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:12:02Sean Fennessey?

  And it kind of scratched that part of my brain in a way I enjoyed, but I was like, this is barely a movie. Like they just kind of took all these archetypes and slung them together.

• 1:12:08Speaker 05

  Okay. So you have Return, let's, you have Empire Strikes Back, A New Hope, Andor. Would you put Last Jedi four above Return of the Jedi?

• 1:12:17Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think I can.

• 1:12:19Speaker 05

  Okay. So Return of the Jedi three, four.

• 1:12:21Sean Fennessey?

  What do you, what, you like Last Jedi. You're not like an all, you're not a major legion.

• 1:12:28Speaker 05

  I may be like the, the last man in the world who it doesn't feel very strongly about it one way or the other. You know, like I thought it features some incredible sequences. What?

• 1:12:38Sean Fennessey?

  That's the funny way of putting it.

• 1:12:40Speaker 05

  Well, you know how like it's either you're on one side of this war or the other, and I'm somehow I'm Switzerland here, you know? Like I, I think

• 1:12:49Speaker 05

  the discourse around it overtook the movie itself. And when I tried to re-watch it, I was like, there's lots of stuff that I like. I find the Luke and Rey stuff a bit tedious to watch.

• 1:13:04Speaker 05

  Like on the planet of like, and, and her sort of apprenticeship.

• 1:13:07Sean Fennessey?

  It is a bit tedious.

• 1:13:08Speaker 05

  And the casino planet stuff is awful.

• 1:13:13Speaker 05

  But then there's some really cool stuff in it. And, and this is, this is the best driver.

• 1:13:18Sean Fennessey?

  You don't like Benicio?

• 1:13:20Speaker 05

  He's good. He's good. I like it more in the way of the gun.

• 1:13:25Sean Fennessey?

  I'll bet you do. Uh, so what do we do here? This is really the pickle of this whole enterprise is the original trilogy magic. And or falls in our lap some 50 years later. Like, holy shit.

• 1:13:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:37Sean Fennessey?

  This happened.

• 1:13:38Speaker 05

  And then there's 17 other things or whatever. Yeah.

• 1:13:40Sean Fennessey?

  And I like all this stuff. I gotta say, I went and I saw the prequels of my daughter.

• 1:13:46Sean Fennessey?

  We had a great time. It was fun.

• 1:13:48Speaker 05

  Good. If I had a daughter, I'm sure I'd say the same thing.

• 1:13:52Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know, man. Like Attack of the Clones, Yoda's fighting Count Dooku. I'm like, this is pretty cool. I'm just a kid again.

• 1:13:58Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:13:59Sean Fennessey?

  Nothing wrong with that.

• 1:13:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:00Sean Fennessey?

  I've told this story before about fighting with Chris X on the phone when I moved to New York. And he was like, you keep talking about this fucking prequel shit, man. This is garbage. And I was like, I don't know. I kind of enjoyed it. I think it's okay to kind of enjoyed those movies. Their flaws are huge. Their flaws are vast.

• 1:14:16Speaker 05

  It's just funny because at this point, we have like these more than a dozen things to choose from. And as hard as I tried, I just couldn't figure out like a crazy zag pick. Or like I said with Solo, like this isn't like watching James Bond movies and you're like, actually never say never.

• 1:14:34Sean Fennessey?

  I'll tell you where my gut would take me on this one. I would probably go five Last Jedi, six Rogue One, seven Revenge of the Sith.

• 1:14:45Speaker 05

  So you have Rogue One over Sith here in this telling?

• 1:14:49Sean Fennessey?

  With you in mind.

• 1:14:50Speaker 05

  Okay, thank you.

• 1:14:51Sean Fennessey?

  Navigating this with you.

• 1:14:55Sean Fennessey?

  Probably Force Awakens after Revenge of the Sith.

• 1:14:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:58Sean Fennessey?

  Which I think is a very fun movie.

• 1:15:00Speaker 05

  Me too.

• 1:15:00Sean Fennessey?

  Um, certainly it absolutely mimics the um, the arc of A New Hope, but there are moments, Han on the ship, it's true, all of it. Kylo killing his father. There's stuff in that movie that I'm like, these are movie chills.

• 1:15:17Speaker 05

  It's actually a good way of summarizing how I feel about those sequels, which is like, there are a dozen across the three movies, wonderful moments, and I don't think I can coherently tell you the story of those three movies.

• 1:15:30Sean Fennessey?

  I can, but only because I've spent so much time with them recently.

• 1:15:34Speaker 05

  But like the story of Force Awakens.

• 1:15:36Sean Fennessey?

  You were over at my house with Alice and she's brought out the book, the little golden book retelling of the stories. And she was just narrating it to you word for word because she's committed it to memory.

• 1:15:46Speaker 05

  Uh, very fun reading to Alice moment because I've gotten to start pitching relief. I'm reading to her at night.

• 1:15:53Sean Fennessey?

  Thank goodness, yeah.

• 1:15:53Speaker 05

  And um, first of all, like very cute thing is that she eats apples before she goes to bed. And she eats them very close to your face while you're reading.

• 1:16:03Sean Fennessey?

  This is true.

• 1:16:03Speaker 05

  And so she's like crunching down while I'm reading a Spider-Man book to her. And I'll like stop to kind of look up at the crunching and she goes, "Keep reading."

• 1:16:15Sean Fennessey?

  I'll return that in kind. Keep ranking.

• 1:16:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:16:17Sean Fennessey?

  Please, keep ranking.

• 1:16:18Speaker 05

  Force Awakens.

• 1:16:19Sean Fennessey?

  Force Awakens, and then?

• 1:16:22Speaker 05

  You can put Clones here.

• 1:16:23Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's Clones, and then I think is a little messy. I don't really know where you go from here.

• 1:16:28Speaker 05

  I think Solo goes here. Well, okay, wait. It goes-

• 1:16:30Sean Fennessey?

  I think it might be Mando.

• 1:16:31Speaker 05

  I was gonna say Mando. Mando is a show.

• 1:16:34Sean Fennessey?

  Is Mando even better than Clones? I think it might be.

• 1:16:37Speaker 05

  What they did to Mando as a secondary act-

• 1:16:41Sean Fennessey?

  At the end of the first season, though, it would have easily been in the top six.

• 1:16:44Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, it's better than, I would probably put Mandalorian season one

• 1:16:51Speaker 05

  definitely above Revenge of the Sith, for me.

• 1:16:54Sean Fennessey?

  Definitely about, yeah. I think it would have been right behind Rogue One. That was where I would put it.

• 1:16:57Speaker 05

  But then when they turned it into, here's two seasons, then they're gonna do Boba Fett, but in the middle of Boba Fett, they're gonna lose their nerve and do a-

• 1:17:05Sean Fennessey?

  I hated that.

• 1:17:06Speaker 05

  A backdoor Mandalorian-

• 1:17:07Sean Fennessey?

  I hated it.

• 1:17:07Speaker 05

  Season 3A.

• 1:17:09Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Well, let's make Mando 10.

• 1:17:11Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:17:12Sean Fennessey?

  I think the, is it then Solo? Or is it then Phantom Menace?

• 1:17:18Speaker 05

  I, I, I can't, I have to put Solo above Phantom Menace. I find Phantom Menace to be almost unwatchable.

• 1:17:23Sean Fennessey?

  Phantom Menace has Duel of the Fates, though.

• 1:17:25Speaker 05

  I know.

• 1:17:25Sean Fennessey?

  You don't like it? You don't care about it?

• 1:17:26Speaker 05

  It's fine.

• 1:17:27Sean Fennessey?

  Solo doesn't have a single moment that's as good as Duel. I'm, I'm, I'm overruling you. Phantom Menace is above Solo.

• 1:17:32Speaker 05

  You don't think the train robbery in Solo is, or the, the-

• 1:17:35Sean Fennessey?

  It's fine. It's so CGI.

• 1:17:36Speaker 05

  Game when he walks in and Donald Glover's like, everything about me is true.

• 1:17:40Sean Fennessey?

  That part is fun.

• 1:17:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, but it's not as good as-

• 1:17:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's not magical.

• 1:17:42Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:17:43Sean Fennessey?

  To me, Duel of the Fates is magical. And then that would leave Rise of Skywalker 13th, and the worst thing that Star Wars has done.

• 1:17:50Speaker 05

  And, and they have to hold that. They have to take that.

• 1:17:53Sean Fennessey?

  What a consequential film. I mean, really a film that I think changed this, this entire franchise's past, present, and future.

• 1:18:00Speaker 05

  We've been talking about Star Wars as an industry and as like a business story and as a behind the scenes story for almost as long as we've probably been talking about Star Wars as like a story that means something to us. Is there any-

• 1:18:14Speaker 05

  Sliding doors or moment in the sort of production history or the gossip history of Star Wars that you're like, God damn it, I wish that had worked out. Whether it's Ryan finishing the trilogy.

• 1:18:27Sean Fennessey?

  I'll tell you, um, I don't think that was ever realistically going to happen. I don't know the details, but I remember, and maybe it's Andy who's brought it up a few times, but wasn't the original idea of the first JJ movie, the Michael Arndt script, the lightsabers falling from the sky?

• 1:18:45Speaker 05

  It's falling out of, from space into a planet and it lands, yeah.

• 1:18:49Sean Fennessey?

  And there was something about the refresh concept there and not being, not having too much fealty to what's come before that I think messed with that trilogy. And that trilogy, which I think is ultimately one third very cool, one third very entertaining and one third disastrous, could have been something completely different. And I never actually read that script, I don't think. You might have read it. Did you, did you read it?

• 1:19:18Speaker 05

  I don't know that that script in its entirety ever got out, but I think people were like, here are sections from Michael Arndt's script and they've used some of it. And some of it is about like hunting for Skywalker and like looking for where Luke has gone. But it's funny. I mean, that's like one of those things where it's like that broke Van's brain that Luke abandoned his friends.

• 1:19:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:19:42Speaker 05

  And I'm like, who cares?

• 1:19:43Sean Fennessey?

  It never even crossed my mind. I know. It's so interesting though, with the different relationships that we have with these things. I, is there any, anything else for you? A sliding door that you think would have been interesting?

• 1:19:52Speaker 05

  I think JJ is the sliding door. I think JJ's, you know, the guy who made Super 8, the guy who kind of was originally just sort of like, I love Star Trek. I'm happy to be on Star Trek, getting this job and then being like, ultimately my job is to remake New Hope and remake, you know, Jedi and try to use these people, these older actors as much as possible and keep them present in these movies. I thought they cast those sequels wonderfully well, but ran out of script to give them. And so like, there was just basically not enough for Oscar Isaac to do, you know? And there's not enough for John Boyega to do.

• 1:20:32Sean Fennessey?

  Agreed.

• 1:20:35Speaker 05

  And they didn't make the tough choices like it for every, every moment of Ben Solo killing his own father, like you get like a hundred things that you're like, you really, you really pulled out of the spin at the last second.

• 1:20:46Sean Fennessey?

  I totally agree, totally agree. Um, the Star Wars rankings, according to us, number one, Empire Strikes Back, number two, A New Hope, number three, Andor, number four, Return of the Jedi, number five, The Last Jedi, I'm sure we'll get some good feedback on that one. Number six, Rogue One, A Star Wars Story, number seven, Revenge of the Sith, number eight, The Force Awakens, number nine, Attack of the Clones, number 10, The Mandalorian, number 11, The Phantom Menace, number 12, Solo, A Star Wars Story, and number 13, The Rise of Skywalker. Where do you think Mandalorian and Grogu will go on that list?

• 1:21:19Sean Fennessey?

  Gut check.

• 1:21:23Sean Fennessey?

  Can it get above Attack of the Clones?

• 1:21:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think it can.

• 1:21:27Sean Fennessey?

  It could.

• 1:21:28Speaker 05

  It could.

• 1:21:29Sean Fennessey?

  It could.

• 1:21:29Speaker 05

  I find it very strange how unclear with this, like what this movie is about has like the fact that like we've gotten so close to its release date.

• 1:21:39Sean Fennessey?

  Having seen the beginning, but even what I know through the first 20 minutes, I'm like, this is the movie?

• 1:21:43Speaker 05

  Or that they're like, we did tell you what the movie is about. And you're like, that's it?

• 1:21:47Sean Fennessey?

  Could be.

• 1:21:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:49Sean Fennessey?

  Um, thanks for doing this, Chris.

• 1:21:50Speaker 05

  Well, thanks for having me and thanks for watching Andor. What's your next big TV project?

• 1:21:55Sean Fennessey?

  I'm watching, uh, um, uh, Euphoria in real time and

• 1:22:01Speaker 05

  Did you watch episode three?

• 1:22:02Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not caught up yet.

• 1:22:03Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:22:03Sean Fennessey?

  Um, so I've seen the first two and, uh, it's a show I like. Uh, what's the, I, I haven't, I haven't finished Succession, season four, not Succession, um, Industry, season four.

• 1:22:15Speaker 05

  Oh, you did finish it?

• 1:22:16Sean Fennessey?

  I haven't.

• 1:22:17Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:22:17Sean Fennessey?

  So that's on the plane that can, that's what I'll be doing.

• 1:22:20Speaker 05

  That's the exact place they'd want you watching it. Being serious.

• 1:22:23Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's exciting. Uh, hey, thanks to Lucas Cavanagh and to Sarah Reddy for powering through a series of recordings this week. Thank you, guys. Appreciate you. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Later this week, a very special treat, a very fun podcast. The Physical Media High Council will return. See you then.

• 1:23:01Speaker 07

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