The Mandalorian and Grogu with Chris Gethard

The Mandalorian and Grogu is the first new Star Wars movie in 7 years. It was also directed by Jon Favreau while he was making grilled cheese sandwiches. What the heck is going on with our favorite franchise? "Bad Boy of Blank Check" Chris Gethard returns to the pod to discuss The State of Star Wars: the deal with Dave Filoni, the Male Loneliness Epidemic, how watching Andor felt like texting your ex, and the complete and utter catastrophe of Rotta the Hutt. It's a cathartic three hours, so grab your Grogu Nilla Nummies and buckle up. Listen to Hits Different https://open.spotify.com/show/1Kkwl4vYvHQk3oaY2pPaWC Listen to Beautiful Anonymous https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrFGXnBJRJqq_kA_qcPxQt.;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1780783809/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fpodcasts.apple.com%2fus%2fpodcast%2fbeautiful-stories-from-anonymous-people%2fid1090147504/RK=2/RS=Ra_dbrEtEkdB0G6NTqqpmabqUKM- Watch TCGS #28 | Ruin This Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm8uOzWxaqI Watch Chris Gethard: Career Suicide https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrErZlrWRJqfmYFdpQPxQt.;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Ny/RV=2/RE=1780797036/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.hbomax.com%2fmovies%2fchris-gethard-career-suicide%2fe2e34137-663b-47fa-a7f8-a4241c6a6d40/RK=2/RS=r8M2BdXsROgGwcOLYBm92EZHABE- Read The Bracing Authenticity of Chris Gethard's Career Suicide https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/05/the-bracing-authenticity-of-chris-gethards-career-suicide/525768/ Check out Dave Filoni’s “Plan” https://gizmodo.com/dave-filoni-teases-his-plan-for-the-future-of-star-wars-2000759382 Read Star Wars: Thrawn Series by Timothy Zahn https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/D34/star-wars-thrawn/ Read the New Canon Novels https://books.disney.com/series/star-wars-the-high-republic/ Read The Rise of the Fools by Allison P. Davis https://www.vulture.com/article/clowning-hottest-new-comedy-los-angeles.html Read the Kathleen Kennedy Exit Interview https://deadline.com/2026/01/kathleen-kennedy-exit-interview-1236665253/ Watch The George Lucas Talk Show LIVE From Smodcastle with Kevin Smith and Chris Gethard (2024) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wrychhWVaQ Check out Smodcastle Cinema https://www.smodcastlecinemas.com/ Watch the 2020 Disney Investor Day Presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl8J9u5Aeu8 Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://www.blankcheckpod.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 0:03David Sims?

  Yep.

• 0:03Griffin Newman?

  We did a live show.

• 0:04David Sims?

  Yeah, remember?

• 0:05Griffin Newman?

  Ranking Scorsese at the Bell House in Brooklyn. We did the definitive power ranking of Martin Scorsese things.

• 0:12David Sims?

  Uh, it was so fun. Uh, it was very silly.

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

  Ben and Marie were with us and they're with us right now.

• 0:18David Sims?

  Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

  And thanks to our friends at Dynasty Typewriter. It was livestreamed for the first time ever. But also, the replay is still up there, but only until October 30th.

• 0:31David Sims?

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 0:33David Sims?

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36Griffin Newman?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37David Sims?

  It's $20. We had a blast and the Spreadmaster really got to work.

• 0:43Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah. I was moving things around. Laptop was on.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  I don't know if I'd have seen you that happy.

• 0:48Griffin Newman?

  You were thrilled. You were like a pick and share.

• 0:50David Sims?

  I was locked in.

• 0:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, very locked in and you were funny.

• 0:53David Sims?

  Thank you. You were funny. You were also funny.

• 0:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh, thank you.

• 0:57David Sims?

  And if you want to see like, you know, Griffin's shine box on camera, it's the only way to see it.

• 1:02Griffin Newman?

  You might see me shine Marie's shoes.

• 1:04David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you're into that sort of content.

• 1:07Griffin Newman?

  If that gets you off.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:10David Sims?

  So once again, that's at dynasty.tv.

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  This is the podcast.

• 1:43Griffin Newman?

  What? You guys aren't cheering? He's.

• 1:47Griffin Newman?

  You're not ramped up by the high energy? The Mando, when he says things like. Okay.

• 1:55Griffin Newman?

  Bro, come here.

• 1:56David Sims?

  Where's that? I feel like it's a lot of him going like, okay, and where do I go now?

• 2:02Griffin Newman?

  I'll give it a shot.

• 2:05Speaker 03

  You're saying they need to be shot by me? Fine, fine by me.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  I'll ask one to two questions and then just do it anyway.

• 2:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19Griffin Newman?

  Mandalorian, thank you for helping.

• 2:21Speaker 03

  I don't help.

• 2:23Griffin Newman?

  Feels like help.

• 2:25Speaker 03

  Maybe a little bit. Bye.

• 2:32David Sims?

  But I mean,

• 2:35David Sims?

  you know, it's a fine line. A man with no name who doesn't speak obviously can be cool. Can be cool.

• 2:40Griffin Newman?

  I saw a really good quote and I want to see if I can find who it was. I was reading through reviews yesterday and I saw, I think it's the greatest distillation of what this movie fucks up to me.

• 2:48Speaker 03

  Am I allowed to speak yet?

• 2:49David Sims?

  Yeah, you can speak. Can I do my impression of Rottweiler Hut really fast before I forget?

• 2:53Speaker 03

  Oh, boy.

• 2:55Griffin Newman?

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. Can we get a photo in one time? Hold on, hold on, fuck.

• 3:00Speaker 03

  The physicality is fierce.

• 3:02David Sims?

  And then, of course, with the addition of, I'm not like my dad.

• 3:07David Sims?

  I'm a good guy. I'm not like my dad. Yeah, I'm my own man. You're a giant slug. But it's just, he's like, You're not a man. What are you talking about? I'm not like my dad. I'm like, will this come up again? He's like, not really.

• 3:18Griffin Newman?

  My, my little sister-

• 3:19David Sims?

  Your dad's dead. I don't care. Like,

• 3:21Griffin Newman?

  My little sister Romilly had, when Revenge of the Sith came out, a toy that was a Darth Vader mask with a voice changer inside. And it's one of those things where she was like, that's so cool. I can sound like Darth Vader. And it's like, kind of. All it's gonna do is make your voice deep and reverb-y.

• 3:38David Sims?

  Sure.

• 3:38Griffin Newman?

  There's not a $30 technology at Toys R Us that makes you sound like James Earl Jones.

• 3:43David Sims?

  No.

• 3:44Griffin Newman?

  And the Rottweiler Hut voice performance sounds like Jeremy Allen White wearing that toy. Where all it's doing-

• 3:49David Sims?

  I'm not like my dad.

• 3:50Griffin Newman?

  It's just pitching his voice down and reverb-y.

• 3:52David Sims?

  Why'd you hire him?

• 3:54Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 3:54David Sims?

  Doesn't sound like him or anyone.

• 3:56Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 3:56David Sims?

  Yeah. Great, get what you're saying. I'm sorry.

• 3:58Speaker 03

  I feel like I'm already gonna be the bad boy.

• 4:01Speaker 04

  Say I liked this movie way more than the reviewers did.

• 4:03Griffin Newman?

  Okay, okay, more than.

• 4:05Speaker 04

  More than.

• 4:05Griffin Newman?

  Would you identify yourself as liking it? Or would you say that you just like it more?

• 4:10David Sims?

  Or you just sort of like, thought it was all right.

• 4:12Speaker 04

  Well, first thing I want to say.

• 4:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 4:14Speaker 04

  Is you guys asked me to be here at 11 a.m.

• 4:16Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 4:17Speaker 04

  And I canceled plans I had at 7 p.m. just in case we are still talking about this. David has said.

• 4:22Griffin Newman?

  It's not happening.

• 4:23Speaker 04

  No intention of it, but just so the fans know, I'm liter- I lit-

• 4:28Griffin Newman?

  Your pot coming.

• 4:28Speaker 04

  Without exaggeration, canceled a commitment to drive an ambulance for a volunteer first aid squad. I got someone else to cover the shift.

• 4:36Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 4:37Speaker 04

  I said, I don't know if we'll be done.

• 4:38David Sims?

  You really did. I mean, I understand that's probably in New Jersey.

• 4:42Speaker 04

  I do need a little bit of transit time.

• 4:43David Sims?

  Right, so you've got, you've got the transit buffer to worry about as well.

• 4:46Speaker 04

  That still anticipates a 6 p.m.

• 4:48David Sims?

  Memorial Day weekend.

• 4:49Speaker 04

  We could still be talking at 6 p.m. and I might have to get back through traffic.

• 4:52David Sims?

  I mean, you could be. I won't be here.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  I might be.

• 4:54Griffin Newman?

  I think it's a wise decision.

• 4:55David Sims?

  There'll be a David shaped hole in the wall.

• 4:58Griffin Newman?

  Look, you're gonna leave it all on the field today? So even if you make it back to Jersey by 3 p.m., by, by, by noon?

• 5:05Speaker 04

  If we, if I make it home by 3 p.m., we have failed in our promise to the fine fans of the Blank Check Podcast.

• 5:11David Sims?

  I would love it.

• 5:12Speaker 04

  Shout out to Ryan who works at the Dublin Pub in Morristown, New Jersey. I was there one night.

• 5:16Griffin Newman?

  Shout out, Ryan.

• 5:16Speaker 04

  He said him and his all, all his friends listen to Blank Check and are on a WhatsApp group about it.

• 5:20David Sims?

  This isn't your fault, Geth. I just have to speak to this right away.

• 5:22Speaker 04

  What?

• 5:23David Sims?

  There's a problem developing in our podcast where now every guest comes in and is like, don't you worry? I'm not working for a week after this.

• 5:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:32David Sims?

  All the time. We're going for it. Okay?

• 5:35Speaker 04

  Who set the bar on that?

• 5:35David Sims?

  I'm never leaving. I won't leave.

• 5:38Speaker 05

  We had a new record breaking episode this week. Well, I don't know if we can necessarily announce the guest or can we?

• 5:45Speaker 04

  We can. We can do it.

• 5:46David Sims?

  It was Tracy Letts.

• 5:47Speaker 04

  Tracy Letts.

• 5:48Speaker 05

  Who has better, you know, who has things to do?

• 5:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 5:52Speaker 05

  Won a Pulitzer.

• 5:53David Sims?

  He's a man of letters.

• 5:55Speaker 05

  And said, I'm gonna beat the record.

• 5:57Speaker 04

  For Letts, but old Gethard here.

• 5:58David Sims?

  No, I wanted to kill myself.

• 5:59Speaker 04

  Old Gethard comes through, you threaten to run through the wall like the fucking Kool-Aid man.

• 6:03Griffin Newman?

  Gethard shows up, he says, let's get out of here.

• 6:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:05David Sims?

  Oh, serious.

• 6:05Speaker 04

  Old Tracy, the guy who's been here from the very beginning.

• 6:08Griffin Newman?

  No, no.

• 6:09Speaker 04

  The guy who's part of the very DNA and fabric of this.

• 6:11Griffin Newman?

  As we often say, the three of us would not know each other if not for you.

• 6:15Speaker 04

  Everybody says I'm the bad boy of like check mostly me, but maybe I'm the glue holding this goddamn thing together, but god damn Tracy Tracy Tracy Letts walks through and you'll stay as long as he.

• 6:26David Sims?

  Well, there were, there were two issues. One, of course, I do not want to be rude to Tracy Letts, who is obviously an estimable person. Two, we did have another thing to record after he was done. So I couldn't leave.

• 6:37Griffin Newman?

  It was a very long.

• 6:38David Sims?

  It was a very long day.

• 6:40Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna admit.

• 6:40David Sims?

  My wife was like, are you okay? And I was like, legit, I am not okay. I'm fucked up. And I was fucked up all day and pretty much tomorrow. Yeah. I was just like, that was, we can't do that.

• 6:51Speaker 04

  It was too much.

• 6:52David Sims?

  Too much. So.

• 6:53Griffin Newman?

  Stay tuned for that episode. It's a corker.

• 6:55David Sims?

  The episode I thought was very good. We're all like holding it together.

• 6:59Griffin Newman?

  Broken.

• 6:59David Sims?

  But two, Geth.

• 7:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:01David Sims?

  He used to run, you know, like shows, you know, big scale, kind of like you got all these balls. You understand the logistics and the nightmare.

• 7:09Speaker 04

  I'm also a father.

• 7:10David Sims?

  And you're a father.

• 7:11Speaker 04

  I'm also a father. And a husband. And I understand, I understand all of it, but.

• 7:16David Sims?

  But at the same time, you're like, if we don't.

• 7:18Speaker 04

  Well, no, David, I mean, I understand all of those obligations. And I also feel like, you know, if there's a counterpoint, I would say even with all those obligations on the table, I never shortchanged the people.

• 7:28Griffin Newman?

  Beyond that.

• 7:29David Sims?

  You never did.

• 7:30Griffin Newman?

  Has Gethard.

• 7:30David Sims?

  You've never shortchanged.

• 7:31Griffin Newman?

  Ever seen a self-destructive or self-harming bit that he hasn't run headfirst into? If I know one thing about the man, my friend.

• 7:38David Sims?

  Feel like a little bit.

• 7:39Griffin Newman?

  My hero.

• 7:40David Sims?

  You're a little bit like, yeah, well, you know, those were the glory days. That's, you know, back when.

• 7:44Griffin Newman?

  You always got that itch.

• 7:45Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:46Griffin Newman?

  But I mean.

• 7:46Speaker 04

  If we can do something ridiculous.

• 7:48David Sims?

  I feel, I think about your face all the time, though, on that TCGS episode. Was it?

• 7:53Griffin Newman?

  The Chris Gethard Show, for those who don't.

• 7:55David Sims?

  The Chris, you know, was it when Fallon was on, or maybe Hugh had just been on Fallon?

• 7:59Speaker 04

  Oh, that was a bad night.

• 8:00Griffin Newman?

  That was the first time I ever went live.

• 8:02David Sims?

  And you're like, people are actually paying attention. I just plugged this show on national television and that episode was particularly chaotic.

• 8:09Speaker 04

  It was horrible. It was horrible.

• 8:10Griffin Newman?

  Ruin this show. You went on Jimmy Fallon, you got network TV coverage for a cable access show.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  Yes. And I said, call up and or show up and do whatever you want to try to ruin.

• 8:23Griffin Newman?

  On Fallon, you said tomorrow night, I'm going live. The theme is ruin the show.

• 8:27Speaker 04

  Show up and ruin my show.

• 8:28Griffin Newman?

  Do anything you can, you can stay, you even suggested you can stand in front of the camera.

• 8:33Speaker 04

  Yes. And then.

• 8:34David Sims?

  Which it's a good bit.

• 8:35Speaker 04

  It is a good bit, but what I didn't anticipate, and I say this with love. I think, you know, I think there are other people who have done renegade talk shows like Eric Andre, who I think is hilarious and who I love and admire greatly.

• 8:47Griffin Newman?

  Jimmy Fallon, one of the wildest out there.

• 8:48Speaker 04

  No, but I was, I was gonna say, I think one of the things Eric Andre has that made him more successful than me is like, he can be ruthless if he has to.

• 8:56David Sims?

  Totally.

• 8:56Speaker 04

  And I don't, I, I, I don't have it in me. Like my boundary on ruthlessness is not extended far enough.

• 9:04David Sims?

  Everyone had a mile long pier to walk.

• 9:08Griffin Newman?

  I think that Sims was about to say.

• 9:10Speaker 04

  But I was just gonna say on that show, what I didn't anticipate was that a lot of green comedians that we probably would not have been booking at that point.

• 9:17David Sims?

  Right.

• 9:18Speaker 04

  Used it as a chance to come grab screen time.

• 9:20David Sims?

  Yeah, sure.

• 9:21Speaker 04

  And I didn't have it in me to just be like, get the fuck out of here.

• 9:25David Sims?

  Yeah, right. It was, it was kind of a worst of all.

• 9:27Speaker 04

  It wasn't weirdos wandering off the street.

• 9:29Griffin Newman?

  No, no.

• 9:29Speaker 04

  Who I could speak to in a certain way. It was young artists who ultimately I do feel very much proud of my ability to support young artists over the years.

• 9:38Griffin Newman?

  But unfortunately, it was a bunch of.

• 9:39Speaker 04

  So I'm not gonna trash young artists who show up in costumes.

• 9:42Griffin Newman?

  It was a bunch of Din Grogus who hadn't yet learned the way.

• 9:45David Sims?

  Din Jaren and Grogu. You've sort of combined them.

• 9:48Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no, no, excuse me.

• 9:50David Sims?

  Oh, right. Is Grogu's first name?

• 9:51Griffin Newman?

  I have only recently watched The Mandalorian season three, which I finally polished off.

• 9:56David Sims?

  You're slightly more, uh, you probably have a little fresher than I.

• 10:00Griffin Newman?

  I had tapped out on everything post Book of Boba Fett.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:04Griffin Newman?

  A year ago, we put this episode on the calendar.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:08Griffin Newman?

  We were looking ahead at the schedule and we went like, we basically never book guests on new releases.

• 10:14David Sims?

  Yeah, it's usually sort of a pain for them because they would have to watch the movie right away.

• 10:18Griffin Newman?

  If we, if we do, it's, it's a thing we usually do at the last second because something sort of makes sense. A year ago, we were looking at the schedule. We were like, gotta get Geth back on. What's the right thing for Geth?

• 10:28Speaker 04

  And you guys were throwing episode ideas and I forget, it kind of organically came up. Maybe we just do a Star Wars episode. So my, my commitment to the Star Wars bit actually makes functional sense and doesn't distract from anything else.

• 10:41Griffin Newman?

  Of course. And I do want to call out, I'm wearing a Spider-Man two t-shirt today and a Spider-Man hat. I do want to talk about Spider-Man a bit. I have some Spider-Man talk I genuinely want to do. It's important we talk about Spider-Man in this episode.

• 10:51Speaker 04

  I have two other franchises that I also want to bring up. I also have two other franchises. I do want to, just to answer the question.

• 11:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 11:00Speaker 04

  I would say I did land on the side of enjoying the experience of watching Mandalorian and Grogu.

• 11:07David Sims?

  I think that's fair.

• 11:08Speaker 04

  It had things I liked.

• 11:09David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 04

  But I do think that the sadder conversation is.

• 11:13Griffin Newman?

  What is this anymore?

• 11:14Speaker 04

  I think we all need, and I do, I also will say, I think the Blank Check Podcast honestly does matter in, in the world of film nerds. You guys and J D Amato, I think, came together and, and showed people that Speed Racer was in fact a good movie.

• 11:28Griffin Newman?

  You said that the other day. Crits Emily or Sita as well.

• 11:30Speaker 04

  And, but there's think pieces, I mean JD's my guy.

• 11:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  But there's think pieces out there about how Speed Racer is actually good. I think that started with Blank Check. But I think Blank Check is a really good place for us to have like an honest, not histrionic, not internet comment-y, rage-y conversation about like, we've kind of just have to admit defeat about the cultural relevance of Star Wars.

• 11:51Griffin Newman?

  Oh.

• 11:51Speaker 04

  And then we can go back to enjoying the movies again.

• 11:53Griffin Newman?

  I don't even know if it's.

• 11:54Speaker 04

  Yeah. They are not meeting the moment in any way. And there's so many ways that this movie shows that. But then if we can get past the fact that they just refuse to do anything that meets the moment outside of Andor, but then we hear about all the weird backbiting behind the scenes about the Gilroy Filoni stuff, where it feels like the Andor stuff is not appreciated there. You sit here, I go, I saw a movie where a rocket ship had turtle feet.

• 12:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:20Speaker 04

  I saw a movie where baby Yoda and a bunch of Babu Fricks scaled a vertical wall.

• 12:25David Sims?

  That was fine with me.

• 12:26Speaker 04

  David and I are on the same page.

• 12:28David Sims?

  Right. There's things I like.

• 12:30Griffin Newman?

  There was like a 20 to 25 minute section that David and I were locked in on.

• 12:33David Sims?

  But I, I want to report to you.

• 12:35Speaker 04

  Did you guys see it together?

• 12:36Griffin Newman?

  We did.

• 12:36David Sims?

  We saw it together in IMAX.

• 12:38Speaker 04

  I didn't get the invite.

• 12:39David Sims?

  Well, because it was.

• 12:39Speaker 04

  We knew a year ago I was going to be on this episode.

• 12:41Griffin Newman?

  We did book it a year ago.

• 12:42Speaker 04

  During one of the busiest weeks of my life, when I was already canceling other plans, I had to find time to fit this in when I didn't get the invite.

• 12:48Griffin Newman?

  You chose to not go to the after-party for Colbert's final taping last night so that you could be rested?

• 12:53David Sims?

  Everyone settled down.

• 12:54Griffin Newman?

  Get your beauty sleep?

• 12:55David Sims?

  Everyone settled down. Uh, I, I saw at a press screening. Uh, which, you know, suddenly get that invite a few days earlier and I had a plus one at Brock Griffin.

• 13:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:04Griffin Newman?

  Ben did not go.

• 13:05David Sims?

  Ben didn't go.

• 13:05Griffin Newman?

  Ben solidified himself last night.

• 13:07David Sims?

  I also figured like you would probably just see it in jury, you know, you would.

• 13:10Speaker 04

  I know, I'm giving you the guff.

• 13:12David Sims?

  I'm giving you the guff. The comfort of you're giving me.

• 13:13Griffin Newman?

  The bad boy gotta be bad.

• 13:15David Sims?

  I honestly, I didn't.

• 13:16Speaker 04

  You don't get mad at a dog for barking. You don't get mad at guests for being a bad boy. Wow, wow, baby.

• 13:22David Sims?

  I was a little annoyed at the, the screening, uh, because I like, my wife was out that night. We had to like fucking get a babysitter. Cause I was like, I got, cause it's like, she was like, is there gonna be another screening? I'm like, it's Disney. They're just kinda like, you show up or fuck you.

• 13:34Griffin Newman?

  Let's also acknowledge the other thing.

• 13:36David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 13:36Griffin Newman?

  We were coming from Citi Field where we had spent the afternoon at Star Wars.

• 13:41David Sims?

  That was fine.

• 13:42Griffin Newman?

  Star Wars Day, which I, I will say also, I think factored into our experience of being very, very underwhelmed by this movie was Star Wars Day with the Mets was a, an experience that reminded me more of what I like about Star Wars.

• 13:59David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 14:00Griffin Newman?

  Than the Star Wars movie I saw that night.

• 14:02Speaker 04

  I mean. Mr. Met was dressed up as the Mandalorian.

• 14:06Griffin Newman?

  I thought he gave a better performance than Pedro Pascal. I thought he was a little more locked in.

• 14:10David Sims?

  He was locked in, uh, the T-shirt cannon. Uh, there was just a lady dressed as Padme and I want to say episode two.

• 14:16Griffin Newman?

  And the T-shirt is cannon, right?

• 14:19David Sims?

  Like they were just kinda doing shit. Like there was just a stormtrooper walking around, you know, like.

• 14:23Griffin Newman?

  And it does.

• 14:24David Sims?

  And it does. You could kinda like high five him.

• 14:26Griffin Newman?

  And they had like good video package stuff.

• 14:28David Sims?

  They had great video packages that you didn't see this cause of where our seats were exactly, but on the screen for every picture.

• 14:33Griffin Newman?

  A little bit.

• 14:34Speaker 04

  Your current enthusiasm for the New York Mets Star Wars Day versus what I can only imagine your tone and body language will be for the actual Mandalorian experience is making me sad.

• 14:45David Sims?

  I also wanna say.

• 14:46Speaker 04

  It's making me sad ahead of time.

• 14:47Griffin Newman?

  We went to Citi Field. We took the seven.

• 14:49David Sims?

  I'm currently, we took seven to the Upper West Side. Yeah. Right.

• 14:52Griffin Newman?

  And saw the film.

• 14:53David Sims?

  I'm currently all in on the Mets. It was also a fucking great game.

• 14:56Griffin Newman?

  They're bouncing back, right?

• 14:57David Sims?

  Quality start from Nolan.

• 14:58Griffin Newman?

  See, I didn't know any about that.

• 14:59David Sims?

  Five dingers.

• 15:00Griffin Newman?

  Watching any of that stuff.

• 15:01David Sims?

  Great game. It's true. Uh, we were, my friend Ellen was there and she was like, I really, I hope, I wanna get Griffin into it. Like, and I was just like, Griffin's been going to sports games all. All his life, like he knows how to entertain himself at a sports game. He gets his food.

• 15:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 15:14David Sims?

  He's got his like business.

• 15:16Griffin Newman?

  Check out the merch.

• 15:16David Sims?

  Right, yeah. He's not, you're not about to be like, Griff, look at this guy. Like, let me get you in, you know, right?

• 15:22Griffin Newman?

  She did turn to me at one point, and this is Ellen Cushing, who co-hosts your secret podcast.

• 15:27David Sims?

  It's different, not secret podcast that you should all listen to.

• 15:30Griffin Newman?

  She turned to me at one point and went, so Griffin, what relationship do you have to baseball? And I'm like, everyone thinks that I've just been like, never looked at it. And I'm like, this was shoved down my throat for 12 years.

• 15:41David Sims?

  Yeah, right, right, right.

• 15:42Griffin Newman?

  There was an extended prison sentence.

• 15:43David Sims?

  That war was waged.

• 15:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 15:45David Sims?

  You know, I'm not gonna wage that war, right?

• 15:47Griffin Newman?

  It was much like Andor. We fought so hard for our freedom.

• 15:51David Sims?

  The Gorman massacre.

• 15:52Griffin Newman?

  From the tyranny. I mean, I've been talking about this with my therapist lately. I'm like.

• 15:55Speaker 04

  About Andor?

• 15:57Griffin Newman?

  No, I should talk more about Andor with her. I don't know if she's watched it, but I feel like until I was 12, I played two sports a week.

• 16:03David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 16:04Griffin Newman?

  They kept making me do it.

• 16:06Speaker 04

  That doesn't seem true.

• 16:06Griffin Newman?

  They did that shit.

• 16:07Speaker 04

  I've known you, I've known you almost 20 years now, and that does not ring true.

• 16:10Griffin Newman?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 16:11Speaker 04

  But sports. Was it Manhattan sports? Were you playing like highlight?

• 16:16David Sims?

  No, no, no. I was in Manhattan too. I did all the little league sports.

• 16:20Griffin Newman?

  I did baseball, I did soccer.

• 16:22Speaker 04

  For Griffin in particular.

• 16:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 16:24Speaker 04

  Would you be shocked if he was like, I had to play two sports and it was racquetball and chess? Like, would you be shocked if Griffin?

• 16:30David Sims?

  I'm laughing, I'm laughing.

• 16:32Griffin Newman?

  Would you be surprised that when I got to high school to fulfill my PE requirement, I took a physio ball class? That was when I had the agency to lean into the bit.

• 16:42Speaker 04

  What is physio ball?

• 16:43David Sims?

  Is that like where you got like a medicine ball?

• 16:45Griffin Newman?

  Basically like Lamaze class. It's, yeah, doing exercises on a big medicine ball.

• 16:50David Sims?

  Kind of like rolling up and down or whatever.

• 16:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and I almost got an incomplete. I'm not even joking. I'm not even joking.

• 16:55David Sims?

  They were like, what's the right field of you doing this? Cause you're not, like, how do we make this easier?

• 17:01Griffin Newman?

  From 13 on, I was exactly what everyone thinks I was. From before 12.

• 17:05Speaker 04

  Like in gym class discussing Betty Friedan with the other kids in gym class, like that type?

• 17:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes, not to stereotype with the girls.

• 17:14Griffin Newman?

  Until I was 13, I was doing baseball, I was doing soccer, they made me go to basketball camp, roller hockey, boxing.

• 17:25Speaker 04

  You boxed?

• 17:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 17:26Speaker 04

  There's not a, no.

• 17:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes, this shit was a nightmare.

• 17:32Speaker 05

  And by boxing, were you just a punching bag?

• 17:34David Sims?

  He was foxy boxing.

• 17:35Griffin Newman?

  Well, no, I wasn't like competitively boxing against people, but my dad was like, you should learn how to defend yourself. And I'm like, what if I'm a professional podcaster? And he's like, what's a podcast? I'm like, I'm gonna figure out how to make this a thing.

• 17:47David Sims?

  Do that instead. And I'll defend myself on mic. Thank you very much. Um.

• 17:52Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I had a good time.

• 17:54David Sims?

  The game.

• 17:55Griffin Newman?

  I had a good time at the game.

• 17:56Speaker 04

  And so you guys really don't want to talk about the.

• 17:58Griffin Newman?

  Ellen, we've gone through all of it. The game was good.

• 18:01David Sims?

  Game was great.

• 18:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 18:02David Sims?

  And then we went to the movie and, you know, we're watching the movie and I would say, you know, we're chatting a little bit. We're sitting in the back row and like, you know, a lot of times we're sort of like, this ain't really, you know, lighting my fire. And then the Grogu part, which we'll talk about more, where it's only Grogu, right? Where he's in the swamp alone, trying to help. Like two minutes in.

• 18:20Speaker 04

  I have massive thoughts on it.

• 18:21David Sims?

  I whispered to Griffin, like, not saying this is good, but I'm more interested.

• 18:24Griffin Newman?

  I'm leaning in.

• 18:25David Sims?

  Two minutes later, I was like, I'm officially declaring this part of the movie good.

• 18:29Griffin Newman?

  And I was.

• 18:29David Sims?

  I like, I came aboard.

• 18:30Speaker 04

  And up until that point.

• 18:31Griffin Newman?

  For how long into it?

• 18:32David Sims?

  Basically the whole Grogu alone segment, I was very.

• 18:35Griffin Newman?

  Into spoilers, the Mandalorian wakes up again.

• 18:37Speaker 04

  Now again, I know that anytime I'm, I don't want to lean in too much to my relationship with your guys' fans, but anytime that I have a counterpoint to you guys, it does set me apart.

• 18:48David Sims?

  Don't worry about it.

• 18:49Speaker 04

  I got very restless during that stretch.

• 18:51Griffin Newman?

  See, I was restless during every other part.

• 18:53David Sims?

  I would agree.

• 18:54Griffin Newman?

  And David and I were checking it. I did like hate this movie. It did not inspire enough to like make me angry.

• 19:00David Sims?

  It is not the worst Star Wars movie.

• 19:03Griffin Newman?

  No, because.

• 19:03David Sims?

  Can we agree?

• 19:04Griffin Newman?

  No, not even close.

• 19:05David Sims?

  Right.

• 19:05Speaker 04

  And, and Solo, I would argue.

• 19:08David Sims?

  I think I prefer Solo to this.

• 19:10Griffin Newman?

  I do as well.

• 19:11Speaker 04

  I like.

• 19:12David Sims?

  But I mean, it's probably kind of.

• 19:13Speaker 04

  Okay, I would say I liked this better than.

• 19:17David Sims?

  Keep going.

• 19:17Griffin Newman?

  Are you gonna say it?

• 19:19Speaker 04

  Most of the prequels and sequels?

• 19:22Griffin Newman?

  That's a little low.

• 19:23David Sims?

  Yeah, I'm not there.

• 19:24Speaker 04

  If I had to sit down and watch one of them again, I might watch this one again because it's standalone and not tying me into a bunch of lore that I know is kind of a headache and confusing.

• 19:33Griffin Newman?

  Oh, I'm, look, I'll say this, this probably will end up being a Star Wars movie I re-watch a lot because I, of course, suffer from insomnia. And this movie was threatening to put me asleep.

• 19:44Speaker 04

  When you guys get to the press screening, I will also say, I saw it in Morristown, New Jersey, where I was in the theater and there were two moms who brought a group of about nine boys, who all seemed to be about 11 to 13 years old.

• 19:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 19:58Speaker 04

  So I also got to watch it in that context where, as I left the theater, in a way that I promised was not too creepy.

• 20:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 20:04Speaker 04

  The mom, one of the moms made eye contact with me and I was like, how'd they like it? And she was like, hey. So I'm like.

• 20:12David Sims?

  I had the same exact experience.

• 20:14Speaker 04

  That's a lot different than seeing it with a bunch of professional reviewers, no offense to one of my favorite viewers. It's Sims and Seppenwall, it's everybody else, baby!

• 20:22David Sims?

  That's very nice of you, Chris.

• 20:23Griffin Newman?

  Seppenwall was at the screening.

• 20:25David Sims?

  Oh, was he?

• 20:25Griffin Newman?

  I'm sure.

• 20:26David Sims?

  He was, he texted me.

• 20:26Speaker 04

  Seeing it in a room with Sims and Seppenwall, I think sets a different tone. Sims and Seppen, go right down the list. That's a different environment than eight kids in Jersey who like fucking monsters fighting. They want to see a poison snake.

• 20:41David Sims?

  I hear you on the kids.

• 20:42Speaker 04

  They want to see a dragon snake.

• 20:43Griffin Newman?

  They want to see IRL Djaric.

• 20:45David Sims?

  I very much was like, yeah, it's a movie, it's very much like a movie for kids. And like, I don't buy that as a defense exactly, but I'm like, certainly that's the tone it's going for.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  Experientially, though, I had that.

• 20:56David Sims?

  I would say at a Star Wars press screening, yes, there's a few learned espresso sipping. There is a lot of people who work in the sort of fan and genre journalism world, who are very enthusiastic about Star Wars.

• 21:10Griffin Newman?

  I would say it was, it was majority like fandom journalists or film critics.

• 21:16David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 21:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. I will throw out, it was like, pretty silent. It was very late in the movie. In that same section, I want to say, where I turned to Dave and I went, I think that's the first. Joke that landed like that got a laugh from the audience outside of like one.

• 21:31Speaker 04

  The jokes were bad. The dialogue was bad.

• 21:33Griffin Newman?

  The jokes were bad.

• 21:34Speaker 04

  The score was awesome.

• 21:35Griffin Newman?

  The score was awesome.

• 21:35Speaker 04

  The score was legitimate.

• 21:36Griffin Newman?

  Ludacris and beyond innocent.

• 21:38Speaker 04

  The score was good enough that multiple times throughout the movie, I clocked this score is fucking cool.

• 21:43David Sims?

  Well, you know what's interesting about the score is different. Like, and it's like, there's not a lot of stuff in this movie that felt too different.

• 21:48Speaker 04

  No.

• 21:49David Sims?

  The score is one thing where you're like.

• 21:50Speaker 04

  I also, even as someone saying I liked it, like seeing a movie and obviously spoilers, right? You don't need to say it. Seeing a movie where, where Grogu establishes no new powers that we haven't seen in the show to my memory.

• 22:06David Sims?

  He does not.

• 22:06Speaker 04

  Healing and lifting.

• 22:08David Sims?

  He does that already.

• 22:09Speaker 04

  And literally it ends with them getting just the two of them back in a fucking spaceship and flying away, which I've seen a thousand times again. I'm like, this reflects so much corporate.

• 22:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yes.

• 22:21Speaker 04

  Test grouping analysis in a way that's frustrating that again, the refusal to meet the moment, holy shit.

• 22:28Griffin Newman?

  I've settled, I've just settled the balance on a couple of things. Having rewatched season three recently, they do at one point dub him Din Grogu.

• 22:35David Sims?

  Yeah. Cause it's like a family name. Din is the family name.

• 22:38Griffin Newman?

  They accept that they're training him as a Mandalorian, even though in season two and Boba Fett, both Ahsoka and deep fake Luke trained him. So the idea is that.

• 22:48David Sims?

  They train him and he kind of is like, but I don't want to be a Jedi.

• 22:51Griffin Newman?

  The idea is that he's the first kind of hybrid, that he's like the first Jedi Mandalorian, but they don't do it.

• 22:57David Sims?

  Force using.

• 22:58Griffin Newman?

  They don't do it in this movie.

• 23:00David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 23:00Griffin Newman?

  But season three, they're like, he is canonically Din Grogu. And when they start calling him Din Grogu, they don't stop calling him Din Grogu, which speaks to kind of what you're saying, which is this movie is in this insane damned if you do, damned if you don't place, where the movies have just been on ice, the TV shows have become this unwieldy thing. Grogu as a character is the one thing that undeniably has been working for them.

• 23:24Speaker 04

  Selling toys for seven years.

• 23:26Griffin Newman?

  Making money hand over fist, right?

• 23:27Speaker 04

  Fuck with Grogu when kind of all we want to see is some character development from fucking.

• 23:32Griffin Newman?

  And you can just tell that this was a corporate mandate that Favreau has said this himself, that they had season four, at least like broken down into outlines. If not like basically scriptments, they had the season figured out and Disney was like.

• 23:47Griffin Newman?

  Can you make a movie instead? And they scrapped all of that and they wrote a new thing from scratch. And it was because he said, A, it felt like what we had was designed for TV and it wouldn't work in film because you need to tell one cohesive story and not be episodic. I would say this movie fails on that front. It is crazy to me that it's not just several episodes mushed together, that he claims all of that was thrown out and that would potentially maybe be a season four if they go back to TV, which is the real issue here. You're making a movie that is not like a finale to a TV show. It's not the graduation. It's just, here's another adventure. It's a little bit bigger in terms of length. We don't want to make it too tied into the lore of the three seasons of the Mandalorian,

• 24:32Griffin Newman?

  let alone the Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, what have you. So it's like basically not building on anything for the people who have watched that. But if you haven't watched that, it doesn't really like get you into the world well or make you care about these characters outside of just Grogu being cute. And I saw-

• 24:51Speaker 04

  Four Babu Fricks on a little dune buggy fly. Like, they gave me that.

• 24:55Griffin Newman?

  There's stuff, there's stuff, but I saw someone-

• 24:58Speaker 04

  Sigourney Weaver in a rogue squadron outfit.

• 25:00David Sims?

  We're gonna talk about that.

• 25:01Griffin Newman?

  I saw someone in a review say-

• 25:02David Sims?

  Nothing else she did was good.

• 25:03Griffin Newman?

  Things already were getting out of hand when season three of the Mandalorian lost the intimacy of the lone wolf and cub dynamic and the standalone adventures.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  They did try to make this one kind of lone wolf and cub and cub where the second cub was Jeremy Allen White. As a Jack Hutt.

• 25:23Griffin Newman?

  He's sort of, it was- Lone Wolf and Cub and Bub.

• 25:27Speaker 04

  Kinda wild.

• 25:28Griffin Newman?

  It's insane that that happened.

• 25:30Speaker 04

  I wanna keep, I wanna just be clear-

• 25:31Griffin Newman?

  That's a bit we would do of like, they're gonna make a movie with like Hot Java's son. He's played by Jeremy Allen White.

• 25:37Speaker 04

  I also wanna be clear though, even me saying like, I liked it better than the reviewers. I think being in a theater with a bunch of kids helped. My final feeling really was like going from a show that I loved, that season one made me feel like maybe Star Wars is back on track. That the end of the movie, as I walked out, I went, did I really just watch those two fucking assholes fly away in a ship again? Like that, that's the- Like, I liked it better than the reviewers and I still walked away like, it's not how movies work. In movies, the characters are different at the end than in the beginning and they just copped out on the very basic narrative choice. At point A, things begin and in the end, you see how characters change and how that affects the narrative.

• 26:16Griffin Newman?

  If this movie would even claim to have an emotional arc.

• 26:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:20Griffin Newman?

  It would be.

• 26:20Speaker 04

  Well.

• 26:21Griffin Newman?

  The Din Djarin, the Mandalorian himself.

• 26:24Speaker 04

  Who?

• 26:25Griffin Newman?

  Learns that someday Grogu's gonna grow up.

• 26:28Speaker 04

  Well.

• 26:29Griffin Newman?

  That that is, and like vaguely accepts it.

• 26:31Speaker 04

  Can I put something out there?

• 26:32Griffin Newman?

  One thing about Grogu, it's that he ages so fucking slow.

• 26:35David Sims?

  He's allowed to grow up, then we can't sell him in toy form.

• 26:38Griffin Newman?

  A, we can't sell him in toy form.

• 26:40David Sims?

  Right.

• 26:40Griffin Newman?

  B, timeline wise, I think Mando will be fucking dead before Grogu even hits puberty.

• 26:46Speaker 04

  Possibly, yeah. Can I, there's a thing I do want to talk about that I wrote down.

• 26:51Griffin Newman?

  Please.

• 26:51Speaker 04

  Ties in directly to what we're saying now.

• 26:53Griffin Newman?

  Brought in notes, the written one.

• 26:54David Sims?

  Right, like a napkin.

• 26:55Speaker 04

  And and what I don't want to do is dwell in the air.

• 26:58Griffin Newman?

  File under a storm.

• 26:59Speaker 04

  I don't want to dwell in the air of fanfiction, it's boring.

• 27:01Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 27:02Speaker 04

  But to the exact point that we're saying right now of like this little Muppet sells toys we can't ever have him change.

• 27:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 27:09Speaker 04

  Is very frustrating corporate thinking. And there is a thing that I perked up for. That I only want to put out there as like fantasy booking, so to speak.

• 27:21Griffin Newman?

  Okay, I wonder if it's the same thing I thought.

• 27:23Speaker 04

  Because, only because I have a feeling that if I say this out loud.

• 27:27Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 27:28Speaker 04

  Right here, the day after the movie came out on the Blank Check Podcast, that I have a feeling it may be revealed at some point that corporate interference interfered with something I thought they were about to do.

• 27:39Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 27:40Speaker 04

  And I have.

• 27:41David Sims?

  Just say the thing, please, what is the thing?

• 27:43Speaker 04

  Why are you already mad at me?

• 27:45Griffin Newman?

  David, this is our.

• 27:45Speaker 04

  You're already mad at me.

• 27:46Griffin Newman?

  We never would have met.

• 27:47Speaker 04

  I drove from New Jersey, I paid tolls and congestion pricing and gas.

• 27:51David Sims?

  We will absolutely cover your your travel, geez, just open.

• 27:56Speaker 04

  Drove very far.

• 27:57Griffin Newman?

  Business expense.

• 27:59David Sims?

  You know, no one told you to move to the boonies.

• 28:01Speaker 04

  Hey, hey.

• 28:02David Sims?

  Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, he's happy, he's kind of like. He's got a canoe. It's kayak, man, he got a kayak, he got a kayak.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  So.

• 28:11Griffin Newman?

  It's our best episode.

• 28:12Speaker 04

  That dragon, the dragon thing scratches.

• 28:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 28:15Speaker 04

  Mando.

• 28:15David Sims?

  The, the, the poisoning.

• 28:17Speaker 04

  They established this poison's gonna kill him. It tells Grogu to get lost.

• 28:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 28:20David Sims?

  Right. In the.

• 28:20Speaker 04

  Grogu comes back. Yeah. He puts him in the weird little mud hut. He tries to build. Bonks his head a couple of times. It's sort of cute, but I've seen it a million fucking times.

• 28:28David Sims?

  The one Bonk I laughed and then they kept doing it. I was like, guys, you got me the first time.

• 28:33Griffin Newman?

  By the way, Bonk was the laugh in the audience. That was the one.

• 28:36Speaker 04

  I'll also say too, nobody loved Babu Frick's original appearance more than me. You guys heard it.

• 28:41Griffin Newman?

  True.

• 28:41Speaker 04

  I don't know that multiply it by four and put him on a fast little doom buggy is like, come on, guys.

• 28:47Griffin Newman?

  I, I.

• 28:47Speaker 04

  We're treading on why people hated the Ewoks.

• 28:49Griffin Newman?

  I posted a negative Letterboxd thing and people in the comments went, how was Babu Frick? And I'm like, this is the trick they're pulling in the marketing. People are like Babu Frick's in it. And I'm like, no, this is set decades before Rise of Skywalker. At best, we are watching Babu Frick's uncles.

• 29:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:05Griffin Newman?

  That's the best.

• 29:06Speaker 04

  I know that some of what I'm about to say is.

• 29:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:09Speaker 04

  It's truly handsome. Some of what I'm about to say is tangled up in the existence of this timeline that they're bound to, but he's there with the fucking scratch.

• 29:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:16Speaker 04

  They establish that. They have said so many times that Grogu doesn't speak, right? They explicitly say he doesn't speak.

• 29:22Griffin Newman?

  Guess.

• 29:22Speaker 04

  These all feel like choices here.

• 29:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:24Speaker 04

  I will tell you, when I'm watching Mando with that scratch.

• 29:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:28Speaker 04

  I am brought back to one of the most influential moments of my entire childhood, which is Transformers, the movie, which I did not see in the theater.

• 29:36David Sims?

  I've only seen it once, but is Optimus Prime dies in it? Someone famously dies in it, right?

• 29:41Speaker 04

  Famously dies. 1986.

• 29:42David Sims?

  Year old movie.

• 29:43Griffin Newman?

  Optimus Prime dies, Orson Welles was dying when he recorded.

• 29:47David Sims?

  But Orson Welles plays the planet.

• 29:49Griffin Newman?

  He plays Unicron. He is a giant transformer the size of a planet.

• 29:52Speaker 04

  It's incredible. That's a great, fantastic use, fantastic use of weird.

• 29:55David Sims?

  But Optimus Prime.

• 29:57Speaker 04

  By the way, incredible use.

• 29:58David Sims?

  But Optimus Prime dies.

• 29:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 30:00David Sims?

  He dies in like the first act of this movie.

• 30:02Speaker 04

  Let me talk to you about this. So, cause I'm older than you guys. I was watching Transformers, uh, episode by episode as a six year old child.

• 30:10David Sims?

  It was like one of your first genre.

• 30:11Speaker 04

  I'm hanging on to this thing. Half an hour, half an hour, half an hour.

• 30:15Griffin Newman?

  Is it the Matrix of Power? Matrix of Leadership? Yeah. The thing in the chest, right?

• 30:19Speaker 04

  Now, my parent, I did not have, my family didn't have money growing up. And that was the same year we, my parents bought a new house. So there was zero disposable income. Plus, I don't think anyone in my family wanted to sit through the Transformers movie.

• 30:31Griffin Newman?

  But also, you're not getting Hot Rod that year.

• 30:34Speaker 04

  I only had mini bots. I never had the big Transformers toys. I only ever had mini bots, many of them botic garage.

• 30:39Griffin Newman?

  Like Headmasters?

• 30:40Speaker 04

  No, mini bots.

• 30:41Griffin Newman?

  Okay, mini bots, mini bots, mini bots. Point being.

• 30:43David Sims?

  Whenever we do Michael Bay.

• 30:44Speaker 04

  I don't see Transformers, the movie. I'm also six years old. I think it was 86 it came out.

• 30:48Griffin Newman?

  Uh, you're right. Yeah, this is the anniversary.

• 30:51Speaker 04

  I'm six years, I turned six in May of 86, okay? I don't see the movie. Thank you so much. The show comes back on in the fall. And for some reason, it was not on at 3:30. I was watching it before school. And before school, the new season comes on and it is revealed to those of us who didn't see the movie. Cause at six, you're not catching spoilers, not in the free internet world. I turned on this show and realized they fucking killed Optimus Prime. And when I tell you without exaggeration, I remember distinctly falling to my knees and grieving the death of Optimus Prime as a six-year-old boy. That's not an exaggeration.

• 31:23Griffin Newman?

  It is widely reported as one of the greatest kind of like corporate boondoggles of all time.

• 31:28Speaker 04

  They went for it.

• 31:29Griffin Newman?

  On the level of like New Coke. Right. Where it, it really fucking damaged the brand.

• 31:34David Sims?

  They were like, we're doing this. And then they were like, what have we done?

• 31:37Griffin Newman?

  They reversed.

• 31:37Speaker 04

  Flying in the theater.

• 31:38Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 31:39Speaker 04

  They also sold a bunch of Hot Rod, Optimus. And he went from Hot Rod to Rodimus Prime.

• 31:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 31:44Speaker 04

  They sold toys for him. Fucking, what was the blue and red guy's name? Alpha of something.

• 31:48David Sims?

  Is there a reason they did this? Like, what was their?

• 31:51Griffin Newman?

  They thought it was dramatically interesting.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  There is a story to that.

• 31:53David Sims?

  It wasn't like some like, we need to get rid of Optimus because we don't like the voice actor.

• 31:58Speaker 04

  I have read that they wanted to kill.

• 32:00Griffin Newman?

  He kept doing the Michael Bay movies.

• 32:01Speaker 04

  I've read that they wanted to kill Duke in the G.I. Joe movie.

• 32:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:04Speaker 04

  But that there was, it was flagged that it would be like really disturbing to kill a human. So they used the idea.

• 32:10Griffin Newman?

  They were around the same time. I think they just.

• 32:12Speaker 04

  Point being though, it was a big narrative swing.

• 32:14Griffin Newman?

  And Empire Strikes Back, can we end on a downer note? I think it was that kind of thing.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  I'm watching Mandalorian and Grogu and I go, are they really about to kill fucking Mando?

• 32:23Griffin Newman?

  It did kind of feel like it.

• 32:24Speaker 04

  Interesting. And I have a feeling there was a script where he was gonna die. And I have a feeling where then Grogu is gonna come back and we're gonna watch Grogu go fucking ape shit. We're gonna watch Grogu murder those huts in a way. You're just fucking. Jabba the Hutt, listen, let me finish the thought. Let him finish, let him finish. Let, I think, I think you're gonna see him fucking wheeled up. He's, he's gonna pull off fights that fucking Ray Park as Darth Maul didn't pull off. Yeah. He's gonna do disturbing shit that's more disturbing than we saw Vader do in Obi-Wan. The most redeeming aspect of the Obi-Wan series. We're gonna see him fight more with more fucking Yoda shit than Yoda did versus Count Dooku. And it's gonna end with him finally saying, he's gonna say, he's gonna end with him saying his first words.

• 33:10Speaker 04

  My father he was. And we're gonna realize that Jabba the Hutt's son is witnessing it. And we're gonna see a franchise that so canonically says that sons hang on to the, it is the responsibility of a son to reject the sins of the father and not carry them forward in generations. We're gonna realize that Mando's refusal to have Grogu trained fully with Ahsoka and Luke was about the emotional attachment, the most dangerous emotional attachment in this franchise since Padme and Anakin himself. And we're gonna be left with a cliffhanger that suggests that perhaps Grogu is reactivating as the Jedi Master Yoda was. Or perhaps the Sith have been reborn because Mando was not brave enough as a dad to let his son go live his own life.

• 33:51Speaker 04

  And it's gonna be one of the most, it's gonna be the best and most intriguing heel turn. No. Since Hogan joined the goddamn NWO. And somebody came in and said, we can't do it. Grogu's gotta stay a good guy. There is no way they were ever gonna do that. I will predict that someone will hear this on Blank Check. Yeah. And it will eventually come out that there was talk of killing Mando and turning Grogu bad. I would bet money on it. I, I agree with you on two out of three things. I, I agree. David, let me finish before you make sticky poo poo face. Don't make sticky poo poo face. I'm making the face, I'm making the face.

• 34:30Griffin Newman?

  I thought there was no universe in which Grogu ever turned bad.

• 34:33Speaker 04

  No.

• 34:34Griffin Newman?

  I did think for a second, this feels like at some point someone pitched, can Mando die? It got shut down almost immediately and they were like, what if he's out of commission for 30 minutes?

• 34:46Speaker 04

  It's a great, it's not great, it's a far more intriguing movie if Mando fucking dies.

• 34:52David Sims?

  I, I agree with you. It felt like that was killed immediately.

• 34:55Griffin Newman?

  You guys are crazy.

• 34:56Speaker 04

  What? David Sims, you're letting me down right now.

• 34:59David Sims?

  No, you guys are crazy.

• 35:00Speaker 04

  You're letting me down right now. You're calling me crazy.

• 35:03David Sims?

  I'm just getting yelled at, so I will actually shut.

• 35:05Griffin Newman?

  You're literally calling us crazy.

• 35:07David Sims?

  You guys have ranted for five minutes about how you think they wanted to kill the Mandalorian in the first Mandalorian movie. That is fucking nonsense.

• 35:16Speaker 04

  Okay, okay.

• 35:17David Sims?

  Let David have the floor, please. Sorry, but like, no, guys.

• 35:20Speaker 04

  That got weirdly heated.

• 35:21David Sims?

  Yes, you guys were like yelling at me after blathering on.

• 35:26Speaker 04

  You started telling a notoriously mentally ill friend of yours that he was crazy on mic.

• 35:31David Sims?

  True.

• 35:32Speaker 04

  Career suicide, 2017, highly rated on Rotten Tomatoes.

• 35:35David Sims?

  I raved it in the Atlantic.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  Thank you so much, but it's insecurity of mine to be called crazy.

• 35:39David Sims?

  Sorry, you're crazy. About this. Uh, no, it's just like, why the fuck would they kill, this is a.

• 35:47Speaker 04

  To fucking grow and change and take a narrative chance and to meet the moment. We are not living in a time of happy fucking endings right now.

• 35:56Griffin Newman?

  I will say something differently, Gethard.

• 35:57David Sims?

  You guys are triggering me because I think the worst, worst, worst dramatic choice any franchise ever makes is that death is it is like a way of, you know, conveying storytelling, like maturity and shit like that.

• 36:08Speaker 04

  But you don't think in Star Wars, a father dying is not?

• 36:12David Sims?

  It's been done a million times, boring, so boring.

• 36:15Speaker 04

  Make my case.

• 36:15David Sims?

  Sure, go ahead.

• 36:17Griffin Newman?

  I agree with you generally.

• 36:18David Sims?

  Yeah, oh, he died, great, now it's important.

• 36:22Griffin Newman?

  I think it was a thing that probably in sitting down ideation, oh, we have a Mando movie on the schedule two years from now. We just threw out our season, what's the movie about? I bet you it was pitched at one point and he is just asleep for 30 minutes was the solve for that. The reason why I am inclined to feel like Gethard that there were seeds of intention somewhere, even if they were nipped out immediately, is that the movie is all trying to be about what happens to Grogu when the Mandalorian's gone. How is he gonna be on his own? And the only good section of the movie, as we said, is him being on his own. It is different than just killing a character for emotional weight

• 37:04Griffin Newman?

  or growth, because the whole notion of the movie is, can this thing survive on its own? I also think the only section of this movie that had any narrative tension to me was, oh, I'm a little bit worried about Grogu now. He doesn't have someone protecting him.

• 37:18David Sims?

  You're Occam's razor-ing yourself. You just made it. It's not that they were like, should we kill the Mandalorian? They were like, we need a Grogu section. I really think they just fundamentally were like-

• 37:26Speaker 04

  Anything with it?

• 37:27David Sims?

  Of course they did. This movie has the mandate of not doing anything.

• 37:30Speaker 04

  But they couldn't even say, give him a little fucking lightning bolt.

• 37:33David Sims?

  Chris, this movie has-

• 37:35Speaker 04

  Let him go crazy because his dad's mom is dying.

• 37:37David Sims?

  A literal card with a blank head and a question mark on it of like, this is the real bad guy. And you're like, oh, okay, like-

• 37:44Griffin Newman?

  I turned to David, I go, it's Sigourney, right? They don't hire Sigourney.

• 37:49David Sims?

  Because she's the only famous person they got.

• 37:51Griffin Newman?

  We're looking at the opening credits, there's no surprise cast members.

• 37:54David Sims?

  Or there's some secret, you know, reveal they're gonna do of either a new celeb-

• 37:59Griffin Newman?

  Do who's back.

• 38:00David Sims?

  Or-

• 38:01Griffin Newman?

  Back.

• 38:02David Sims?

  Or fucking-

• 38:03Griffin Newman?

  Dark Grogu.

• 38:03David Sims?

  You know, Filoni will start-

• 38:05Griffin Newman?

  Or dark Grogu.

• 38:06David Sims?

  Jacking it and it's like Thrawn or whatever, right? Instead, they're just like, oh, that was just the bald guy you saw right at the start. That was just him. And that's that. And that's done. This movie absolutely is just kind of like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Stop, stop, stop. Don't worry. Nothing happened.

• 38:25Griffin Newman?

  But also-

• 38:26David Sims?

  It's like, close circle, guys.

• 38:27Speaker 04

  Getting heated, which I do apologize for. David, how much do you think that was from the start? How much do you think that was corporate interference?

• 38:34Griffin Newman?

  Because I think Griffin and I are both on the side of-

• 38:36David Sims?

  From what I can gather-

• 38:37Speaker 04

  This guy thinks tanks to death.

• 38:38David Sims?

  Filoni wanted to do a Mandalorian Ahsoka crossover series.

• 38:45Griffin Newman?

  Can I set up, can I interest the podcast? And then I feel like we can do all of this.

• 38:49David Sims?

  We haven't introduced the-

• 38:50Griffin Newman?

  This is why I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to help you.

• 38:53David Sims?

  Oh, well, sometimes you're trying to help me, but I am in the middle of saying something. And you say, can I do something while I'm in the middle of saying something?

• 39:00Griffin Newman?

  We're about to chip off. It's a massive conversation.

• 39:03Speaker 04

  Is this all still the intro?

• 39:04Griffin Newman?

  This is blank check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 39:09David Sims?

  I'm David.

• 39:09Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmography. Directors who had massive success early in their careers, given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passing products they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. This started out as a Star Wars podcast and then for the first five years, even when we moved on from Star Wars, new Star Wars movies were coming out and we kept talking about Star Wars and Gethard would come on to talk about other movies and we'd still talk about Star Wars and people loved it until they hated it. Some were calling a dark Grogu turn. And it has now been seven years since the last Star Wars movie. Now, to set up your point, in that time, fewer films that have been announced and then canceled.

• 39:48David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 39:49Griffin Newman?

  Patty Jenkins.

• 39:51David Sims?

  Rogue Squadron.

• 39:52Griffin Newman?

  Rogue Squadron, announced at Disney Investor Day livestream in 2021.

• 39:57David Sims?

  In a video with like an Air Force guy or whatever.

• 40:00Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 40:01David Sims?

  Rogue Squadron movie. Might have been cool. Who knows? Like, who can say?

• 40:14Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 40:14David Sims?

  Yes.

• 40:15Griffin Newman?

  Mmm.

• 40:18David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's cow?

• 40:20Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's cow is back.

• 40:21David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 40:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, she's reactivated because she's horny for chicken fingers.

• 40:27David Sims?

  Okay.

• 40:28Griffin Newman?

  And she's excited for the streaming debut of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

• 40:32David Sims?

  Wow.

• 40:33Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 40:35David Sims?

  Remember cow and chicken? Let's look it up. While you tell the great listeners about the great stuff on movie.

• 40:42Griffin Newman?

  Well, movie is a global film company, bringing great cinema to the world and to you. Curating and elevating visionary filmmaking, all handpicked, always. That's what movie does. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, one of my favorite movies of the year.

• 40:55David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 40:56Griffin Newman?

  You can feel the rush now at home. There's a hole at the bottom of the lake where the movies come from.

• 41:02David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 41:03Griffin Newman?

  In the new movie from Jane Schomburn, Past and Future Guest.

• 41:05David Sims?

  Past and Future Guest, a great filmmaker, a great podcast guest, a great friend.

• 41:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 41:12David Sims?

  This movie rocks. It's got, of course, it stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson.

• 41:16Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 41:17David Sims?

  Legends and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 41:19Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 41:20David Sims?

  Friend of the show, Zach Cherry.

• 41:22Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 41:23David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 41:24Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 41:25David Sims?

  Such a cool movie. One that Queer Paul McCann, if you haven't heard about this movie, I don't know what's going on with you, but like it obviously has, it was out in theaters this summer and now it's on movie.

• 41:35Griffin Newman?

  Hannah Einbinder plays the filmmaker attempting to reboot the Camp Miasma franchise, trying to track down the original final girl from the first movie to, to make some sort of legacy sequel, who's played by Gillian Anderson, who lives at the summer camp.

• 41:50David Sims?

  Yes. And you know, and then they hang out and it's regular.

• 41:54Griffin Newman?

  What happens?

• 41:56Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's one of those Hollywood's out of ideas. No, it's very much a movie about Hollywood being out of ideas while being an example of there still being new stories to tell.

• 42:06David Sims?

  It's now streaming exclusively on movie and you can try movie free for 30 days at movie.com slash blank check. That's M U B I dot com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free.

• 42:18Griffin Newman?

  They got so many great movies on there to watch, but worth it for 30 days for Miasma.

• 42:23David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 42:29Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 42:29David Sims?

  Yes?

• 42:30Griffin Newman?

  Shop.com is giving away $1 million in Shop Cash.

• 42:34David Sims?

  Wow. Shop has all the stores you love and lets you track every order in one spot.

• 42:39Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 42:41David Sims?

  And now 1,000 shoppers are each going to win $1,000 in Shop Cash, just in time for the holidays.

• 42:48Griffin Newman?

  You get gifts for everyone on your list or get yourself something a little merry and bright. Find exactly what you're looking for at shop.com.

• 42:57David Sims?

  Uh, got stocking stuffers, maybe the sickest luxury items. Cookware to kicks, toys to high tech, even tinsel and tree toppers. Type in what you're looking for to instantly search every shop at once. Okay. That's shop.com. You can just go click around, find brands you love, search across all the stores, track every order in one spot.

• 43:20Griffin Newman?

  From cult favorites to the world's biggest brands, score suite deals and checkout fast, all at shop.com. Enter to win the $1 million Shop Cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win. That's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 43:51Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 43:52David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 43:53Griffin Newman?

  It's not cuffing season for me, it's hosi season for me. And this year, that meant finally upgrading my new mattress from Lisa.

• 44:00David Sims?

  Lisa.

• 44:01Griffin Newman?

  It's supportive, comfortable, and just what my body needs after a long day. It makes crawling into bed on a chilly fall night feel like luxury.

• 44:09David Sims?

  Yeah, I have a Lisa too. Uh, they've got a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses tailored to how you sleep.

• 44:15Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 44:15David Sims?

  Each mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind. They've got eco-friendly materials.

• 44:22Griffin Newman?

  Maybe you hear eco-friendly and you go, oh, but I'm gonna sacrifice comfort.

• 44:25David Sims?

  No.

• 44:26Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 44:27David Sims?

  They've been awarded best hybrid and best memory foam mattresses by New York Times' Wirecutter. They're featured by West Elm as their go-to mattress partner. And they work with local nonprofits across the US to donate thousands of mattresses each year to families in needs. Over 43,000 mattresses donated to date. Go to lisa.com for up to 30% off mattresses. Plus, get an extra $50 off with promo code BLANKCHECK. Exclusive for our listeners. That's L-E-E-S-A.com promo code BLANKCHECK for up to 30% off mattresses plus an extra $50 off. Let them know we sent you in the survey after checkout. Lisa.com promo code BLANKCHECK.

• 45:15Griffin Newman?

  Also canceled or announced and never realized, Untitled Taika Waititi movie.

• 45:20David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 45:21Griffin Newman?

  Ryan Johnson trilogy.

• 45:22David Sims?

  Sure.

• 45:23Griffin Newman?

  David Benioff and, uh,

• 45:25David Sims?

  DBWise.

• 45:26Griffin Newman?

  Trilogy.

• 45:27David Sims?

  Was that, that was movies, right?

• 45:28Griffin Newman?

  Trilogy.

• 45:28David Sims?

  These things are all canonically dead.

• 45:31Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 45:31David Sims?

  Yes.

• 45:32Griffin Newman?

  And then at the Star Wars Celebration three years ago, they came out and said, we're finally ready to announce the next couple of movies.

• 45:39David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 45:39Griffin Newman?

  Here are the three. James Mangold is gonna make a movie that's the earliest thing we've ever done on the Star Wars timeline.

• 45:45David Sims?

  Right.

• 45:45Griffin Newman?

  It is the birth of Jedi.

• 45:46David Sims?

  Years ago.

• 45:47Griffin Newman?

  The first Jedi.

• 45:48David Sims?

  Sounds cool.

• 45:49Griffin Newman?

  Sounds like the old Dark Horse comics.

• 45:50David Sims?

  It's like these things where they bring a guy out and they're like, he's got an idea.

• 45:54Griffin Newman?

  And he just signed the contract a minute ago.

• 45:56David Sims?

  Right.

• 45:57Griffin Newman?

  And gave us one sentence.

• 45:58David Sims?

  And everyone's like, what's it called? When's it coming out? And they're like, see you later. But yes, that is a thing.

• 46:03Griffin Newman?

  The second thing they announced was episode 10.

• 46:05David Sims?

  Or something like it.

• 46:07Griffin Newman?

  They said it was episode 10.

• 46:08David Sims?

  Did they actually say it?

• 46:09Griffin Newman?

  Daisy Ridley is back.

• 46:10David Sims?

  Yes, that.

• 46:11Griffin Newman?

  This is episode 10. They had just fired, uh, what's his name? Lindelof, Damon Lindelof.

• 46:19David Sims?

  Like, or he walked away.

• 46:20Griffin Newman?

  Damon Lindelof had been on a secret movie that was then retroactively revealed to have been episode 10, which was announced with Daisy Ridley's coming back. That movie was originally going to take a different direction. Now they were like, it's the Continuing Adventures of Rey. That movie has had seemingly no public progress.

• 46:37David Sims?

  Although it doesn't seem entirely dead. They keep trying to figure out what that is.

• 46:41Griffin Newman?

  The third movie that was announced is Dave Filoni has this master plan, Feige style of all these series. They're building up to Thrawn as the Thanos.

• 46:50David Sims?

  Right.

• 46:50Griffin Newman?

  And he is going to make a movie that counts as basically the phase one finale of the entire Disney plus project. It's gonna be Ahsoka and Mandalorian and Boba Fett and fucking everybody.

• 47:01David Sims?

  Who the fuck does Thrawn? You know what, Ben? It's just a great question.

• 47:06Speaker 04

  Thrawn's from the Timothy's on novels. He's one of the only people from the extended universe they've brought into Canada.

• 47:11Griffin Newman?

  He blew. Oh, he's the blue guy.

• 47:13Speaker 04

  He's great. Okay.

• 47:14Griffin Newman?

  Ben has watched all of it.

• 47:15Speaker 04

  Those old Timothy's on novels are fucking great.

• 47:17David Sims?

  You know, people of those.

• 47:19Griffin Newman?

  I remember them being great. I read them, to be fair, when I was 12 years old.

• 47:22David Sims?

  I also read them as a child. I don't really remember them. I remember Thrawn being cool, but right, they brought him into the show.

• 47:28Speaker 04

  Weird alien race. What was that species? Those like assassins that were under his thumb? They were cool.

• 47:33David Sims?

  Wish I could tell you. And.

• 47:35Griffin Newman?

  I'll Google it.

• 47:35David Sims?

  They brought him in. He's played by, what, a third Mickelson or whatever? Which Mickelson is it?

• 47:40Griffin Newman?

  Sir, we've located a third Mickelson. It's something Mickelson. Mickey Mickelson.

• 47:45David Sims?

  And I think I already said this on an episode. I can't remember where, Lars Mickelson.

• 47:48Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 47:50David Sims?

  He fucking has like Joe Biden energy, where they're like, meet Thrawn, like the scariest. And he's just like, hello, you should get Ahsoka. I'll see you later. Like, he doesn't do anything.

• 48:00Speaker 04

  Well, this is the Filoni thing, right?

• 48:02David Sims?

  He has no energy.

• 48:03Speaker 04

  Like, bring a character from an obscure cartoon that he also is behind and it's just.

• 48:08Griffin Newman?

  Okay, it's also here. There's a thing that's here.

• 48:11David Sims?

  Look at him, point, pointing, you know, just the way the Filoni show's brought back Hayden Christensen to play Anakin. And he's like, here I am.

• 48:19Griffin Newman?

  Well, the major project of the Filoni shows, of course, is that when Disney buys Lucasfilm, they go, here's the canon of Star Wars. The canon of Star Wars is the six movies that have been theatrically released. And the Clone Wars cartoon show.

• 48:35David Sims?

  Yes.

• 48:36Griffin Newman?

  End of story.

• 48:36David Sims?

  Well, and I think was Rebels in the works?

• 48:39Griffin Newman?

  Rebels was the first thing started by them.

• 48:41Speaker 04

  And a bunch of comic books?

• 48:42Griffin Newman?

  Right. Uh, well, once those started, they basically said, all previous comics.

• 48:48David Sims?

  Prior comics and books are now.

• 48:49Speaker 04

  The Marvel relaunched.

• 48:51David Sims?

  But the prior stuff is now consigned to what they call legends.

• 48:54Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 48:54David Sims?

  And it's not canon.

• 48:55Griffin Newman?

  Marvel is now going to start new comic series. This is the start of the new canon. Uh, we're going to do new cartoon shows. That is expanding that.

• 49:03Speaker 04

  I will just say the Lando series.

• 49:05Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 49:05Speaker 04

  Very good. And gives you a lot of background.

• 49:07David Sims?

  Comic book?

• 49:08Speaker 04

  It is a comic book that, uh, does a pretty good job of explaining everything you've ever wanted to know about low bot.

• 49:14Griffin Newman?

  I would say, well, your dream.

• 49:16David Sims?

  A few questions.

• 49:17Griffin Newman?

  I will say, I think the first two years of the Marvel comics were really excellent. And I was reading all of them. And then like everything else, it got overwhelming. There was too much.

• 49:25David Sims?

  It's the exact thing that happened with the TV.

• 49:28Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 49:28David Sims?

  We all, the first season, the Mandalorian rocks.

• 49:30Griffin Newman?

  It's a triumph.

• 49:31David Sims?

  And like, you know, I feel like even those early novels, like the new official novels that were being written in the wider people were like dialed into.

• 49:39Griffin Newman?

  High Republic novel people were all about.

• 49:41David Sims?

  The reason is because they were really making an effort, like to, you know, they were picking talented people and they were right. They were like, yeah, we have to make. And then, as you say, they, you know, start to lose the thread a little bit. There's too much style.

• 49:56Griffin Newman?

  Also think Filoni's.

• 49:57David Sims?

  Too many wheels spinning.

• 49:58Griffin Newman?

  I think Filoni's major project.

• 50:01Griffin Newman?

  From the outside has seemed to be, I want to salvage things and bring them back into the canon. It has felt like that is his priority on the work he does.

• 50:10David Sims?

  He's a bit of a keeper of the flame.

• 50:12Speaker 04

  What is the world building?

• 50:13Griffin Newman?

  What is the extended universe stuff that has now been knocked out of canon into legends that I want to reintroduce? So like Thrawn was not on the Clone Wars. They reintroduced Thrawn on Rebels. It was a big deal. Holy shit, Thrawn counts again. And then live action Thrawn in Ahsoka.

• 50:29David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 50:30Griffin Newman?

  This feels the pipeline of what he's been doing for the last 10 years is just, let me pick my people. Let me put them in a cartoon. Let me make them live action. They count again. Next, repeat, repeat, repeat. That movie is supposed to be the payoff of all this shit.

• 50:44David Sims?

  Yes.

• 50:44Griffin Newman?

  And then as you are setting up here.

• 50:47David Sims?

  Yes.

• 50:47Griffin Newman?

  The movie mysteriously kind of disappears, doesn't really get talked about again, and there's a sudden surprise announcement. Mandalorian and Grogu movie coming 2026, standalone adventure. Does this negate or replace season?

• 50:59Speaker 04

  There's a whole other aspect.

• 51:01Griffin Newman?

  And they were like, I don't know, maybe we do another season after this, or maybe it would just be other movies.

• 51:05Speaker 04

  And then we also have to point out, which I think everybody knows, Andor, which hits and is truly special.

• 51:11Griffin Newman?

  Is a phenomenal.

• 51:12David Sims?

  A miracle. And we will talk about it.

• 51:14Speaker 04

  Of course. But it just also say, just to only tie it into what we're saying here, that with this thing that's regarded as phenomenal, that's getting credit with something that I bet drives them nuts, even if this wasn't Star Wars.

• 51:26Griffin Newman?

  How does this even come out of the Star Wars system? Like, a lot of the praise is backhanded?

• 51:30David Sims?

  Yeah, like, how do they pull over their eyes?

• 51:32Speaker 04

  You start to hear that there's bitterness about this, and who knows how true it is, but the internet rumblings are that.

• 51:37Griffin Newman?

  There are sides.

• 51:37Speaker 04

  There's like a Filoni bitterness about the Gilroy of it all.

• 51:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 51:42Speaker 04

  And you hear all, you hear these rumblings.

• 51:44David Sims?

  Filoni has his garden, the Ahsoka Rebels.

• 51:47Speaker 04

  Regards it as his.

• 51:49David Sims?

  Yes. And it's kind of left to it.

• 51:50Speaker 04

  And has apparently indicated that he's not a huge fan of Andor, which is only the more frustrating for all of us hardcore fans who feel like Andor is the thing that nailed it.

• 52:00David Sims?

  And it's also just the thing that felt different.

• 52:02Griffin Newman?

  It's also, it's two entirely different philosophical approaches. Do you want to make things that are exploring the ideas? Already within Star Wars in new ways? Or do you want to just kind of circle back to what Star Wars has been? You know? And it's a lot of like, you know, can I make movies that feel like the old movies? And Filoni, it's like, can I reintroduce my friends?

• 52:25David Sims?

  Well, and like Filoni, we should acknowledge is George Lucas's like apprentice.

• 52:30Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 52:30David Sims?

  His Padawan learner of sorts.

• 52:32Griffin Newman?

  He was the guy that Lucas entrusted with.

• 52:34Speaker 04

  He's the Roy Thomas to his Stan Lee.

• 52:36David Sims?

  Right. He brings him over from Avatar, the last airbender.

• 52:40Speaker 04

  Which we have to talk about. I think it has major implications.

• 52:43David Sims?

  Very briefly talk.

• 52:43Speaker 04

  You brought it up. I was, I was, I was trying to be.

• 52:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes, there is.

• 52:46Speaker 04

  You brought it up.

• 52:47Griffin Newman?

  Has dropped his pen and like.

• 52:49Speaker 04

  Gorman, his hands on the table.

• 52:51David Sims?

  I don't know much about Filoni. Who's always heard is like a lovely guy, you know, everyone's always like, he's a sweetie pie. But like, I do feel like he's the last like keeper of the flame of like the Lucas 2000s era of Star Wars a little bit.

• 53:03Griffin Newman?

  Feeling of, even though George Lucas is still alive, I'd say it's a little bit like Steve Whitmire with the Muppets. Where, you know, he was eventually pushed out of playing Kermit. But there was this feeling of Jim chose him and now Jim's gone. We have to all kind of follow what Steve says is right.

• 53:23David Sims?

  Right. Because it's like, he's still invested with Jim's energy and we don't want like, yeah.

• 53:28Griffin Newman?

  And it's odd when George is still alive, but there is this feeling of like, I don't know, George picked Dave.

• 53:34Speaker 04

  Ralph is the most overrated. His name's Rolf.

• 53:37David Sims?

  You, I feel like you've said that before.

• 53:39Speaker 04

  Respect.

• 53:40David Sims?

  You, you like to bust that.

• 53:41Griffin Newman?

  Joe Boyz has been doing a Muppets month and Weiger loves Rolf, but hates all of the electric mayhem. He has the exact opposite take, which is.

• 53:49Speaker 04

  David, do you hate when I'm on this show?

• 53:51Griffin Newman?

  Not at all.

• 53:51Speaker 04

  The internet always says you do. And today's the first day where I really feel like it might be true.

• 53:56David Sims?

  I do not, I do, I.

• 53:57Griffin Newman?

  No, we're having a great time.

• 53:59David Sims?

  I low key, again, we'll just stress you, Tuesday was very traumatizing for me. And I'm feeling a little anxious about the amount of branching things going on, but no, I love having you on the show.

• 54:09Speaker 04

  I know I've been through, to be fair, I won't do it. I have been threatening to the boys to make this entire episode about Avatar.

• 54:16David Sims?

  I don't think they've seen it, right? Have you never seen it?

• 54:19Griffin Newman?

  I've only seen the first three episodes for when I auditioned for the Shyamalan.

• 54:23Speaker 04

  I gotta say one thing about it.

• 54:24Griffin Newman?

  That's lore we said back in the day.

• 54:26David Sims?

  You watched it recent.

• 54:27Speaker 04

  My son found it. My wife and I both realized separately that we would go in to tell him it was time to turn off the TV and would sit and watch full episodes with him. And then asked him at the age of then six, hey, can we, once he finished it, can we go back to the beginning and watch it together again as a family?

• 54:44David Sims?

  Right, like can we actually?

• 54:45Speaker 04

  And it's, I will say it is, it's a 2005 Nickelodeon cartoon.

• 54:50David Sims?

  I think people know what Avatar is.

• 54:51Speaker 04

  Incredible. Like Griffin doesn't.

• 54:53Griffin Newman?

  No, I know what it is, I just haven't watched it.

• 54:55Speaker 04

  But when you watch it, I kind of always lumped it in. There was a phase there where Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon, these things that either were from Japan or inspired by Japanese animation.

• 55:03David Sims?

  Right, when it was on, I was in college and I was a little bit like, eh.

• 55:07Speaker 04

  I was 25 years old when it came out, but.

• 55:08Griffin Newman?

  My sister was the exact right age. She was weirdly into it because it's not her kind of thing.

• 55:13Speaker 04

  It's not weird.

• 55:13Griffin Newman?

  And she tried to get me into it. And then I had, I got an audition for what was supposed to be Shyamalan's trilogy.

• 55:19David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 55:19Griffin Newman?

  To play Sokka?

• 55:21Speaker 04

  You were gonna play fucking Sokka?

• 55:23Griffin Newman?

  Well, I didn't get the fucking part.

• 55:24Speaker 04

  You almost played Sokka.

• 55:25Griffin Newman?

  I did not get anywhere close.

• 55:27David Sims?

  Griffin is one of the leads of Avatar.

• 55:29Griffin Newman?

  I remind you, they made Sokka like a fucking hunk on the, on the movie. And he's not funny.

• 55:35Speaker 04

  But he's kind of a crybaby on the show in a hilarious way, but I just want to say.

• 55:39Griffin Newman?

  But that's the, I've only ever seen the first, uh, the first three episodes.

• 55:42Speaker 04

  I've watched Avatar about, I would say six months ago. Instantly really, really fell in love with it.

• 55:49Griffin Newman?

  You've been texting me about it a lot.

• 55:50Speaker 04

  And I've been talking a lot about it with people, but.

• 55:52Griffin Newman?

  Have the steals.

• 55:53Speaker 04

  I had lots of Korra. Wow. You're the one who told me Korra's underrated and it's worth a watch.

• 55:58David Sims?

  I stick up for Korra.

• 55:59Speaker 04

  But David, I don't know if you had the same feeling. I remember watching it with my son.

• 56:04David Sims?

  Yes.

• 56:04Speaker 04

  And the reason I want to tie it into today's conversation is that I had this feeling that was maybe slightly heartbreaking for me, but also made me really happy for him.

• 56:13David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 56:14Speaker 04

  Which was, oh. Everything I got out of Star Wars, he's getting out of the show.

• 56:19David Sims?

  Oh, like that you're not able to have the Star Wars shared experience with him?

• 56:23Griffin Newman?

  Or that Star Wars isn't meeting him where he lives today?

• 56:26David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 56:26Speaker 04

  Kids today can just go watch an adventure movie and be like, Star Wars, cool.

• 56:30David Sims?

  Right.

• 56:31Speaker 04

  It's all of us who are old and who grew up with it, who feel like, why can't they fucking figure out the mortal tales again? But since 2005, I legitimately think you could put, I'm not blowing smoke. I don't know if you'd agree with this, David, but I'm like, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and Avatar, The Last Airbender are to me the three fantasy epics that teach kids morals, right and wrong, good and evil, how to exist in a scary world. Avatar's very layered. So since 2005.

• 56:55David Sims?

  Sure.

• 56:55Speaker 04

  Kids don't need Star Wars to do that. Avatar's been doing that for a few generations of kids now.

• 57:01David Sims?

  A good thing? Like, it's like.

• 57:02Griffin Newman?

  There's more options there.

• 57:04Speaker 04

  But I think it's part of why, I think, I think it's part of why I can go to Mandalorian and Grogu and not be angry. Why I can, I can go, cause.

• 57:13David Sims?

  I don't think Griff or I were angry. We were just like, that was a bit of a nothing burger.

• 57:16Speaker 04

  But we're really doing nothing here. Come on. Like, I felt exhausted by it. I just think that as an adult, when you watch Avatar, and I watched it with a kid, but I do think there's something said for like, okay, Star War, I'm sadly recognizing that Star War, Star Wars used to be something like for a lot of us. I think a lot of us grew up and if you weren't that religious, Star Wars kind of gave you what religion gave you.

• 57:40David Sims?

  I hear you.

• 57:40Speaker 04

  And we get mad that it's not that anymore, but like, maybe we can let that go.

• 57:44Griffin Newman?

  It does need to change. We do need to let things go, as, as Kylo Ren said.

• 57:49David Sims?

  Yeah, right. Let the past go.

• 57:51Speaker 04

  Like, the first one came out.

• 57:52David Sims?

  From Last Jedi.

• 57:53Speaker 04

  The first one came out a year after the bicentennial and like predicted Reaganism and good versus evil. And it was at the same time as the Ramones and this whole idea of like, look backwards while also establishing the future.

• 58:05David Sims?

  You're not gonna recreate.

• 58:05Speaker 04

  That no, well, no, we gotta bring the Ramones back.

• 58:08Griffin Newman?

  Well, new Ramones.

• 58:09Speaker 04

  You think about the cultural moment, like a new hope metacultural moment that ties into

• 58:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 58:14Speaker 04

  looking back at the 50s and moving forward to the 80s. And Star Wars is part of that. And like the heroes we needed then were Luke Skywalker and Rocky, you know, like it gave us these heroes that met the moment.

• 58:25David Sims?

  I don't know if we want to bring back Johnny Ramone right now.

• 58:28Speaker 04

  Of course, of course.

• 58:29David Sims?

  President, he might be a little too into it.

• 58:31Speaker 04

  Good. The most important band of that era was also looking back while reestablishing an exciting future.

• 58:36Griffin Newman?

  Records.

• 58:37Speaker 04

  Star Wars refuses to fucking give that to us anymore. And then when they almost do with Andor, a bunch of people involved in Star Wars publicly, at least they get mad about.

• 58:46Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say.

• 58:47Speaker 04

  It's sad. It's sad, but we gotta start letting it go if we're ever gonna be able to enjoy these movies as anything except a toy factory.

• 58:53Griffin Newman?

  Weirdly, I think, you know, differing opinions, but Last Jedi really, really tried to do that. And instead it launched a culture war rather than becoming part of a conversation of what it was commenting on.

• 59:05Speaker 04

  No argument.

• 59:06Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 59:07Speaker 04

  End of my contributions to the Last Jedi discussion.

• 59:09Griffin Newman?

  And then, and then Andor, I agree with you, is sadly because of how fucking cyclical humanity is, is really in conversation with what's going on in the world today.

• 59:19Speaker 04

  Inputs into the original trilogy in a way none of this other stuff does.

• 59:23Griffin Newman?

  But it is fascinating to me that now having finally watched it for the first time, it's the greatest fucking TV show. It's unbelievable. It's an astonishing work.

• 59:30Speaker 04

  I have, I've thought too, I think if you watch the two seasons of Andor.

• 59:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 59:34Speaker 04

  Rogue One and the original trilogy, that's the perfect Star Wars experience.

• 59:39Griffin Newman?

  I finished Andor last night, so I have not done the Rogue One rewatch post Andor. I will let you know how that goes. I imagine, because even like certainly I care a lot more about, let's say Cassian Andor.

• 59:52David Sims?

  Yes.

• 59:53Griffin Newman?

  But let's also say a little guy that I know you like, Chris Gethard.

• 59:57Speaker 04

  Who's this?

• 59:57Griffin Newman?

  Someone who you've said is maybe the new Kit Fisto of the Star Wars universe.

• 1:00:01Speaker 04

  Oh, we, if you want to get into a Fisto discussion, we're talking.

• 1:00:04David Sims?

  I have a million things to say, but bring your point.

• 1:00:06Speaker 04

  Saw Guerrero is the current Fisto of Star Wars. Kit Fisto is no longer the Fisto.

• 1:00:10Griffin Newman?

  Fisto is now the title.

• 1:00:11David Sims?

  I'm down.

• 1:00:12Griffin Newman?

  I love Saw Guerrero.

• 1:00:13David Sims?

  It's funny.

• 1:00:14Griffin Newman?

  Character.

• 1:00:15Speaker 04

  The most intriguing fisto.

• 1:00:18Griffin Newman?

  I love.

• 1:00:18Speaker 04

  The most intriguing fisto.

• 1:00:20David Sims?

  I'm playing ref. Give him the floor. I really need to talk for a sec. Yes. Okay. David, go. On Avatar, the Last Airbender. Very good show. Wonderful. I think it's good. I can't wait to watch that with my kid. That'll be great. I also can't wait to watch Star Wars with my kid. I think there's room for all of this.

• 1:00:35Speaker 04

  My kid was unimpressed by Star.

• 1:00:37David Sims?

  Well, I was gonna ask. Okay, so maybe this is part of your.

• 1:00:41Griffin Newman?

  Oh, oh, oh, but you didn't take him to the movie yesterday?

• 1:00:43Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:00:43David Sims?

  Yeah. But you're saying this is your emotional journey you're on. You're right. You tried to get your kid into Star Wars. Or like you get, you know, you showed it to him and he was kind of like, eh, right.

• 1:00:53Griffin Newman?

  And with Avatar, I saw him getting.

• 1:00:55David Sims?

  He got it organically.

• 1:00:56Griffin Newman?

  Everything Star Wars gave me when I was his age, Avatar's giving him now. This idea, we live in a layered world. People are put up on your friends.

• 1:01:03David Sims?

  Okay, okay, all right. Wait, wait. I still need to reply. Okay, so Avatar. I watched that in the pandemic. My wife had already watched it when it was on. So she knew it. And it was one of those pandemic things of like, we ought to watch something all the time, right? Like, the TV's just gotta be on because we're so bored. So I watched all of Avatar, all of Korra, like then. I remember I was watching with election night 2020. Biden, Trump, when Trump tragically, I mean, he won. We all know he won, obviously.

• 1:01:30Griffin Newman?

  Right. When he was lied to and the public was lied to.

• 1:01:32David Sims?

  Uh, no. Like, I remember, like, we were really stressed out election night and, like, I was like, I'm putting on Avatar. Like, we were not gonna know anything for a few hours anyway. We remember us watching. It's sort of a cherished movie. Love Avatar. Got the steals. Griff. Love that. Love that. Haven't re-cracked that, but I have been kind of like, yeah, that'll be perfect for my daughter in like a year or two. Like, pretty soon.

• 1:01:52Griffin Newman?

  And you haven't done Star Wars with your daughter yet, but we have several friends, mutual friends of ours who have kids around your daughter's age.

• 1:01:58David Sims?

  Yeah, and they're into it.

• 1:01:59Griffin Newman?

  We have like a bunch of friends who have all in the run up to Mandalorian been like, is it time to show my kids Star Wars? We've gone through them and have Star Wars obsessed kids now.

• 1:02:08David Sims?

  I would say.

• 1:02:09Griffin Newman?

  It's not a thing that's completely bouncing off the entire generation.

• 1:02:11David Sims?

  My daughter's pretty interested in Star Wars because the toys are around.

• 1:02:15Griffin Newman?

  She likes what she's seeing.

• 1:02:16Speaker 04

  He likes the toys. He likes the characters.

• 1:02:18Griffin Newman?

  Kit Fisto. I gave him some Kit Fisto toys.

• 1:02:20Speaker 04

  You did. You gave him a Kit Fisto onesie when he was born.

• 1:02:23Griffin Newman?

  That's pretty awesome. And it was also a Coca-Cola onesie. It was soda and Kit Fisto. Get her two favorite things.

• 1:02:29Speaker 04

  That is true.

• 1:02:29David Sims?

  Very thoughtful.

• 1:02:31Speaker 04

  He likes Boba Fett.

• 1:02:32Griffin Newman?

  His Fizz.

• 1:02:33David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:02:33Griffin Newman?

  But.

• 1:02:35Speaker 04

  The sense I get from the kids his age is like, I can look back and I didn't know this as a kid, but I'm like, oh, right. I'm gonna wind up not being a practicing Catholic and Star Wars is a little bit more of my moral and ethical code.

• 1:02:49David Sims?

  Which is great.

• 1:02:50Speaker 04

  They're not getting that out of it.

• 1:02:52David Sims?

  Yeah, it's a big ask. It's a big ask where like, I need my kid to essentially religiously connect.

• 1:02:57Speaker 04

  Avatar is a little bit closer to that.

• 1:02:59David Sims?

  But that's fine. That's a good, at least that's good.

• 1:03:01Speaker 04

  It's great.

• 1:03:01David Sims?

  At least he's not like, I love, I mean, I don't know what the, what the bad version of this is.

• 1:03:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's not out here like watching looks maxing videos. He's not getting in on that shit. He's not like, dad, can I eat elk's meat and can I eat elk meat and get a jaw reconstruction surgery?

• 1:03:15Griffin Newman?

  What year do you introduce a kid to clavicular?

• 1:03:17David Sims?

  I don't know, 12, 13. Um, just the second they sort of start asking questions about their body, you're like, oh, these are questions can all be answered by Mr. Clavicular.

• 1:03:26Griffin Newman?

  Someone who has it figured out.

• 1:03:27Speaker 04

  Height lying.

• 1:03:28David Sims?

  Ree Saw Gerrera Kit Fisto.

• 1:03:31Griffin Newman?

  Or limax.

• 1:03:31David Sims?

  It would be awesome if there was a scene in any of the Star Wars movies where someone said to Kit Fisto, like, you come on pretty strong. You know what I mean? Like, what I love about Saw Gerrera is that even fucking Stellan Skarsgård, you know, even he's like, he's a lot. Like, you know, we need every weapon in our toolbox over here, but my God, is that man tough to deal with?

• 1:03:54Speaker 04

  I fucking love it because it takes Star Wars from rebellions are built on hope and goes, no, they're sold on hope.

• 1:04:00David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:04:01Speaker 04

  They're built on fucking lunatics like Stellan Skarsgård and Saw Gerrera.

• 1:04:07Griffin Newman?

  Skarsgård's name is Lutheran Ray.

• 1:04:10David Sims?

  Lutheran Ray.

• 1:04:11Speaker 04

  It's Lutheran and that's who, they're built on fucking extremist mania.

• 1:04:15David Sims?

  And when you watch Rogue One.

• 1:04:17Speaker 04

  By Luke Skywalker and the branding.

• 1:04:19Griffin Newman?

  You know, when I was gonna say.

• 1:04:20David Sims?

  When Andor season two ended and I was like, I gotta watch Rogue One right away. You put it on.

• 1:04:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:25David Sims?

  You're dialed into Cassian and then there is Jin Erso.

• 1:04:29Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:04:29David Sims?

  And you are, after watching Andor, kind of like, I don't care about you or your dad's stuff.

• 1:04:34Griffin Newman?

  My exact concern is.

• 1:04:35David Sims?

  Now, the movie is a really rocky. Yeah.

• 1:04:38Speaker 04

  I like that, that, and maybe I'm giving them too much credit because I love so much.

• 1:04:43David Sims?

  And Cassian's like flirting with her and you're like, you're a baby.

• 1:04:45Speaker 04

  But I, I do like the idea that, that. All these characters were operating in their own little vacuums to foment this fucking thing and they barely know each other and putting their lives on the line and this implicit non-trust.

• 1:04:57Speaker 05

  That's the best stuff in that movie.

• 1:04:58Griffin Newman?

  In a better world too.

• 1:04:59Speaker 04

  Andor and Rogue One, retroactively make one of Luke Skywalker's lines in A New Hope so sad.

• 1:05:07Griffin Newman?

  Which one?

• 1:05:08David Sims?

  I used to, uh, bullseye.

• 1:05:10Speaker 04

  Have we talked about this before?

• 1:05:11Griffin Newman?

  I'm not sure.

• 1:05:12Speaker 04

  That's the line. That line becomes so tragically fucking naive and you realize everyone else in that room must hear that kid say that and go, I hope he's not my scotching because not only is he dead, he's going to get us fucking killed.

• 1:05:24Griffin Newman?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 1:05:25Speaker 04

  Then like the contextualizing of that.

• 1:05:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:27Speaker 04

  That Luke is legit A New Hope. Like optimism was dead.

• 1:05:33Griffin Newman?

  The thing that's crazy about Andor is that like, right? It feels like, I know.

• 1:05:38Speaker 04

  See what the Empire did.

• 1:05:40Griffin Newman?

  It makes original Star Wars even richer because it is not diminishing it by being like, well, that's like silly frothy surface level kid shit. It's being like, no, this is like religious myth. These are the sort of like figures that we can prop up as miracles that help sell a belief system and literally.

• 1:05:59Speaker 04

  Allow society to move on from trauma.

• 1:06:01Griffin Newman?

  A new hope. Right. And it's like, here's actually the historical account. Here's what was happening.

• 1:06:06Speaker 04

  Whereas the Book of Boba Fett says, what if this character you've always wanted to see kick ass becomes a low level county level bureaucrat?

• 1:06:13Griffin Newman?

  So weird.

• 1:06:14Speaker 04

  He effectively becomes a county's sheriff.

• 1:06:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. We should also mention, I think everyone knows this, but Dave Filoni is now in charge of Star Wars. He is now the creative head at this moment.

• 1:06:25Speaker 04

  And I like a lot of what he's done.

• 1:06:26Griffin Newman?

  Captain Kennedy stepping down. I like some of what he's done. Have you watched all of Clone Wars? No.

• 1:06:31Speaker 04

  Right? I've watched a lot of it.

• 1:06:32David Sims?

  Okay. He was announced as, uh, president of Lucasfilm in January 2026. However, Linwin Brennan.

• 1:06:41David Sims?

  Who's a long time like ILM person was announced as like co-president.

• 1:06:45Griffin Newman?

  It's similar to the James Gunn situation where she is sort of the business person and he is the creative person.

• 1:06:50David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:06:51Griffin Newman?

  Because there is only one Feige who is seemingly good at doing both of those things. And anytime they've tried to make someone do both.

• 1:06:57David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:06:58Griffin Newman?

  It's been a calamity. And I think part of the worry, if people trying to do an autopsy on the Kathleen Kennedy era, their takeaway was this is kind of one of the greatest producers in Hollywood history. Not kind of, inarguably, one of the greatest producers in Hollywood history. But she worked with incredible creative minds and storytellers. She was never someone generating stories or even developing material as much. And do you need a balance between someone who understands the logistics of production and management? And someone who can have the big overarching story view? And in theory, Filoni is now placed to.

• 1:07:33David Sims?

  He's not because it's over.

• 1:07:35Griffin Newman?

  At this moment.

• 1:07:35David Sims?

  Yes, at this.

• 1:07:36Griffin Newman?

  At the moment we're recording, that is his position.

• 1:07:38David Sims?

  Right, but like Kathleen Kennedy's obvious eye was for, you know, talent.

• 1:07:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:07:42David Sims?

  A great eye for talent.

• 1:07:43Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 1:07:44David Sims?

  And it paid off for her pretty well with Star Wars.

• 1:07:49Griffin Newman?

  Until I would argue she started getting the yips.

• 1:07:52David Sims?

  I think, well, from what I'm aware, and I guess I have enough goss.

• 1:07:57Griffin Newman?

  Mostly from the audience.

• 1:07:58David Sims?

  Last Jedi freaked out Disney, not Kennedy.

• 1:08:01Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 1:08:01David Sims?

  Kennedy loved it, Iger, et cetera.

• 1:08:04Griffin Newman?

  She has always stood by it.

• 1:08:05David Sims?

  Fans are yelling too much, so no more of that, whatever that was.

• 1:08:09Griffin Newman?

  Not only that, that it was like, that was the best production they had. That was the only Star Wars movie that was riddled with reshoots and panic. And she was unbelievably happy with the final result.

• 1:08:19David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:08:19Griffin Newman?

  And people like to erase from history. It made so much fucking money.

• 1:08:23David Sims?

  It was huge.

• 1:08:23Griffin Newman?

  Because it was divisive, people like to be like, and that one disappointed. It did not. In the year 2017, three of the 10 highest grossing films in history were Kathleen Kennedy's Star Wars movies.

• 1:08:36David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:08:37Griffin Newman?

  Force Awakens was number one of all time. It still is domestically. Rogue One was in the top 10. Last Jedi was in the top 10. So it was working.

• 1:08:45David Sims?

  Yes, I mean, one would argue. Oh, but then the movies after Last Jedi didn't do as well. It's like, well, yeah, because they were so low.

• 1:08:52Griffin Newman?

  Immediate problem.

• 1:08:52David Sims?

  Was a shambles.

• 1:08:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:08:54David Sims?

  And episode nine, which people are sort of like, you know, oh, that's J.J. Abrams' fault. It's like fundamentally what happened with episode nine was Carrie Fisher died.

• 1:09:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:09:03David Sims?

  And they had to completely dynamite what they were doing.

• 1:09:06Griffin Newman?

  They also had a director that they were losing confidence in.

• 1:09:08David Sims?

  They fire a director.

• 1:09:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:10David Sims?

  They bring in Abrams two months before production starts or whatever.

• 1:09:13Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:09:13David Sims?

  So late.

• 1:09:14Griffin Newman?

  They, they push it back four months when they needed to push it back two years.

• 1:09:18David Sims?

  Right. And Abrams is like, I don't know. I guess Palpatine returns.

• 1:09:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:21David Sims?

  I mean, he's just.

• 1:09:22Griffin Newman?

  Which, you know, many people think, and I don't think this is a baseless conspiracy theory. There's actually a lot of evidence that points towards this, that Palpatine was entirely a reshoot thing.

• 1:09:31David Sims?

  I mean, that, it seems impossible. I have no idea.

• 1:09:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:35David Sims?

  It's so crazy.

• 1:09:36Griffin Newman?

  I'm not going to go down this rabbit hole, but there's stuff that, that makes it seem somewhat valid. But yes, it, it does feel like they started to freak out. We should mention also that the first season of the Mandalorian TV show, a show we all love, uh, or that first season we all love.

• 1:09:51David Sims?

  Before production, by the way, two months after. It doesn't matter. Karen.

• 1:09:54Griffin Newman?

  Whatever.

• 1:09:54David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:09:55Griffin Newman?

  Um, one month before Rise of Skywalker comes out.

• 1:09:59David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:59Griffin Newman?

  Disney Plus launches and their big launch title is first episode of the Mandalorian.

• 1:10:04David Sims?

  It was before episode nine.

• 1:10:06Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:10:06David Sims?

  Is when Mando started.

• 1:10:07Griffin Newman?

  By a month.

• 1:10:08Speaker 04

  And in unison, the world says they put a little baby Yoda in a Pokemon.

• 1:10:12David Sims?

  I mean, truly.

• 1:10:13Griffin Newman?

  Love.

• 1:10:14Speaker 04

  They stuck a little Yoda in a Pokemon.

• 1:10:15Griffin Newman?

  We couldn't love this more.

• 1:10:17David Sims?

  I remember episode one, which ends with the reveal of him.

• 1:10:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:20David Sims?

  I was like, a baby Yoda. I don't know. And by episode like three, you're like, baby Yoda is one of my family members. I love baby Yoda.

• 1:10:26Griffin Newman?

  A conversation I remember was.

• 1:10:28David Sims?

  Everyone agrees.

• 1:10:29Griffin Newman?

  They were so mysterious about that show. Can you believe? It's weird. Jon Favreau, the Iron Man guy. He's making a TV show for Disney Plus, but they're saying it's not going to be cheap. It's going to be really expensive. It's going to look like a movie, right? They got fucking Greg Freezer to shoot the first season.

• 1:10:43David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:10:44Griffin Newman?

  It looks incredible, right?

• 1:10:45David Sims?

  But they're also like, it's called the Mandalorian. And I remember at the time being like, that's nerd shit.

• 1:10:51Griffin Newman?

  That's nerd shit.

• 1:10:51David Sims?

  Like this is supposed to be like, you know, for the masses.

• 1:10:54Griffin Newman?

  That feels like deep lore shit. And the other. Part of it was they kept saying, there's a twist in the first episode. That's why they're being so secretive. I remember you and I saying, I'm gonna be so annoyed if he's Boba Fett.

• 1:11:06David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:11:07Griffin Newman?

  And instead, the twist is, we've cracked the code. We've created, we found fire. This is Grogu. This is like a new element on this earth that is infinitely powerful. And we all were like, fuck, that puppet's pretty good. What is this show? And then the show reveals-

• 1:11:20Speaker 04

  Burner hurt songs in it. It's so cool. It feels fucking weirdly cool because of that.

• 1:11:25David Sims?

  Cool weird energy.

• 1:11:26Griffin Newman?

  The show reveals itself to be like a western, a like standalone. He's a bounty hunter. He goes out on a mission. You meet new characters every time.

• 1:11:34Speaker 04

  All we've ever wanted.

• 1:11:35Griffin Newman?

  And it's like, here's the cleanest new entry point to Star Wars in forever. Anyone can watch this. Actually, it is free of kind of lore shit.

• 1:11:43David Sims?

  Yes. The only lore is like, it's after Return of the Jedi.

• 1:11:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:47David Sims?

  The Republic kind of exists. The Empire's still kind of, you know, hanging around.

• 1:11:52Griffin Newman?

  You don't even really need to know that.

• 1:11:52David Sims?

  You don't really need to worry about it. Yeah.

• 1:11:54Griffin Newman?

  And I just loved, I was like, this is TV. This is not a 13 hour movie. This is, every episode is 30 minutes of an adventure in a different style.

• 1:12:03David Sims?

  Cause I'm just remembering when they're like-

• 1:12:04Griffin Newman?

  That's what I loved.

• 1:12:06David Sims?

  But they're, you know, when they start being like, let's learn more about the Creed.

• 1:12:09Griffin Newman?

  Season two.

• 1:12:10David Sims?

  Let's meet cartoon characters. Let's hear about the dark saber.

• 1:12:13Speaker 04

  And that's Filoni being too protective of his own own dignity.

• 1:12:17David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:12:18Griffin Newman?

  Yup. And the stuff he loves. It's both. It's like, what's the lore that I grew up on? And what's the lore that I made in homage to the lore that I grew up on, basically?

• 1:12:28Speaker 04

  I will say in general, I think the Disney plus stuff gets a real bad rap and I understand all the disappointment and sharing it. I generally think there is something redeeming about most of the shows. I like Obi-Wan and Asuka better than average.

• 1:12:42Griffin Newman?

  I disagree on those two shows.

• 1:12:44David Sims?

  Those two, I can't really go there with you. I watched them. I watched them.

• 1:12:47Griffin Newman?

  I can say with Obi-Wan.

• 1:12:50Speaker 04

  Hugely disappointing to once again waste the potential of Ewan McGregor. It's just.

• 1:12:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's the only good thing. It is just baffling. Him and Moses Ingram both give good performances and everything else in the show is bad.

• 1:13:01Speaker 04

  I do think for the first time since his introduction.

• 1:13:05Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 1:13:05Speaker 04

  We get to see why the galaxy was truly scared of Darth Vader. And like, I'm not gonna be mad at that.

• 1:13:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:12David Sims?

  No, it just was sort of like, what was he was like fighting with Inquisitors or whatever?

• 1:13:17Speaker 04

  Three of the shows. Showing up as this cloaked fucking.

• 1:13:21David Sims?

  Yeah, I mean, I think that sucks.

• 1:13:22Speaker 04

  And people are fucking dying and getting their fucking.

• 1:13:26Griffin Newman?

  Three of the shows.

• 1:13:26Speaker 04

  Torn up. Like that's, I've wanted to see that my whole life.

• 1:13:29Griffin Newman?

  Arguably, all become the exact same thing. This was my big takeaway from grinding tape and watching a lot of these very close together. Right? Cause I got really turned off by Mando season two where I was like, guys, you're doing the exact thing I was praising you for not doing in the first season. Why is every episode reintroducing a character from lore and being like, look, it's Bo Katan, here's Bo Katan's deal. It's Ahsoka, here's Ahsoka's deal. And then it ends with the deep fake Luke and I was like, I'm fucking out on this.

• 1:13:59David Sims?

  The deep fake Luke is indefensible.

• 1:14:01Speaker 04

  You think so?

• 1:14:02David Sims?

  Indefensible.

• 1:14:02Speaker 04

  I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I mean, the deep fake, anything is gonna miss. But the idea of Grogu traveling to go train with Luke Skywalker.

• 1:14:10David Sims?

  You can't do it. Do something else.

• 1:14:12Griffin Newman?

  You can't. That's how I feel.

• 1:14:13Speaker 04

  It looks like this. What they need to be smart enough to realize.

• 1:14:16David Sims?

  It looks like this.

• 1:14:17Speaker 04

  And it's literally like a robot voice. And that's where it becomes, let's fucking.

• 1:14:21David Sims?

  Deep fake Luke.

• 1:14:21Speaker 04

  That, that becomes like, let's just show our dick in public. You know what I mean? Like, this is like, take our dick out of our pants, basically. It's like, kind of the effect, like you're, there's no, you can't actually follow through on this.

• 1:14:33Griffin Newman?

  They created like a Mark Hamill soundboard. It's not even him giving a voice performance, because the other thing that happens in the Mando movie has a lot of this, is they become so obsessed with the tech of like, we're pushing virtual production, the pipeline and the volume, all this sort of stuff. We have our own proprietary deep fake thing. That rather than just bringing Mark Hamill, an incredible voice actor into a booth, having him give dramatic line readings and then putting a digital effect on it to try to make him sound younger, they like, study every second of line delivery he's ever given as Luke and put it into a computer and then basically just do like text to speech. So every line reading fucking Luke gives is flat, because it's like, Grogu, I will train

• 1:15:18Griffin Newman?

  you now. That bums me out, but more than that, watching all these shows close together, I defend Skeleton Crew and, uh, the Acolyte. I think the cardinal sin of both of those shows.

• 1:15:32Speaker 04

  Skeleton Crew got good reviews in general.

• 1:15:34Griffin Newman?

  Skeleton Crew is good.

• 1:15:35Speaker 04

  Skeleton Crew was like, let's do a Spielberg, let's do a Spielberg, it's for kids.

• 1:15:39Griffin Newman?

  Thing in, in the world of Star Wars. It came so late that people had kinda tapped out and were tired on the whole thing.

• 1:15:43Speaker 04

  I do think the people who.

• 1:15:44Griffin Newman?

  There's an upswing.

• 1:15:45Speaker 04

  I think it was under watched, but I think the people who watched it appreciate it.

• 1:15:48Griffin Newman?

  No one was really against it. I just think people kinda shrugged it off.

• 1:15:51David Sims?

  They shrugged it off because it's also Skeleton Crew, sorta like this movie is kinda like, we're just kinda doing our own thing over here. We're not really trying to mess with larger Star Wars.

• 1:16:00Griffin Newman?

  With Skeleton Crew, I genuinely appreciate that it's doing that. I think both Skeleton Crew and Acolyte have the exact same core problem, which is they should have been movies. They both have like peak TV issues for me where I'm like, this is a two hour story that's now stretched to five or six hours.

• 1:16:14David Sims?

  Acolyte I genuinely like.

• 1:16:15Griffin Newman?

  I like a tremendous amount, but I do think it would have been better as a movie.

• 1:16:19Speaker 04

  I haven't even watched it.

• 1:16:20Griffin Newman?

  You should watch it.

• 1:16:21David Sims?

  Acolyte is one of the, and this.

• 1:16:22Speaker 04

  I watched the first episode and then I heard.

• 1:16:24David Sims?

  This probably won't sell you on it.

• 1:16:25Speaker 04

  I'd heard such bad things that I was like, I guess I won't invest the time.

• 1:16:27Griffin Newman?

  I think you would find it interesting.

• 1:16:28David Sims?

  It is one of the only things in Star Wars since, you know, the Disney takeover, that one engages with the prequels, which I think is like vital if, unless, you know, we're not about to junk them.

• 1:16:40Griffin Newman?

  It's the primary mission is to engage with the weird stuff happening between the margins and the prequels texturally, not in a lore sense.

• 1:16:47David Sims?

  Engages with like Jedi rot.

• 1:16:49Griffin Newman?

  The ideas.

• 1:16:49David Sims?

  You know, the idea of like, what happened that like Yoda's like, I'm not seeing this coming and then episode three ends up all giant.

• 1:16:57Speaker 04

  How did the Jedi become this bloated bureaucracy?

• 1:16:59Speaker 05

  And that's what. It's got witches.

• 1:17:01Griffin Newman?

  It's got witches. It does have witches.

• 1:17:02Speaker 05

  And it's got all this like interesting ideas about how witches are related to the Force.

• 1:17:08Griffin Newman?

  But demon eyes.

• 1:17:08Speaker 05

  But like they stand kind of in between the dark side.

• 1:17:12David Sims?

  Or like there's only one way to use the Force.

• 1:17:14Speaker 05

  It's interesting.

• 1:17:15Griffin Newman?

  It's about the birth of the Sith and it's also about how fucked up it is that Qui-Gon Jinn just abducts a kid. Like that's the starting point for the show clearly as you watch it and just be like, it's weird. Is this a thing they do all the time?

• 1:17:29David Sims?

  fundamentally is a to this day, the Qui-Gon's like, I won you in the bet, so I get to take you. And he's like, can my mom come? And he's like, I didn't include your mom in the bet. And I don't want to hear about it again. Get on the spaceship, eight year old.

• 1:17:40Griffin Newman?

  The accolades me in a way, I think people get pissed off by it.

• 1:17:44David Sims?

  Can't go with you. I'm like, why? You are a fucking Jedi. Just take her. What's gonna happen? What? Wado needs a 50 year old woman like that badly?

• 1:17:54Griffin Newman?

  No, he sells her off immediately. Once he's gone, Anakin's gone.

• 1:17:59David Sims?

  No, why? She wasn't in the bet I made with a bug Jew.

• 1:18:03Griffin Newman?

  Mom, spaceship's a little heavy. We already have 80 astromechs.

• 1:18:07David Sims?

  I can say that. It's just, but like when you're a kid, you're just kind of like, of course, because when you're a kid, like every story is about like a kid being orphaned or separated from, you know? But then when you're an adult, you're just like, oh my God, just take her.

• 1:18:20Griffin Newman?

  That is what Acolyte's about. Like Acolyte is digging so deep into the text of what has been made and stuff that George did. And being like, what does that actually say? What is that reflective of? Right? And if these movies, the prequels are about like how the Jedi were taken down by their own arrogance. Then like, where does that start? And what was going on? Big picture. I think it's a really good show. I think it would have been better as a movie. I think the exact same thing with Skeleton Crew and Obi-Wan was supposed to be.

• 1:18:49David Sims?

  Really should have been.

• 1:18:50Griffin Newman?

  Really should have been a movie. Obi-Wan should have been. Obi-Wan was supposed to be a movie.

• 1:18:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:18:54Griffin Newman?

  Obi-Wan, they had hired Stephen Daldry and they had started building the sets and it was gonna be the next standalone after Solo. And when Solo underperformed, they were like, let's slow our roll and redevelop this for TV. And you can tell, you can tell it feels so fucking padded and Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, and what Mandalorian becomes are all. And Boba Fett. And Boba Fett, but those. None of them are great, but.

• 1:19:17David Sims?

  Don't forget the book.

• 1:19:18Griffin Newman?

  But, but I was saying, those are in particular, what kind of blew my mind is that they're all the same fucking show, which is like, a stoic character has a younger war.

• 1:19:30Griffin Newman?

  That they're trying to protect while they're looking for one thing and one mysterious person is changed, chasing them.

• 1:19:37Speaker 04

  It's all lone wolf and.

• 1:19:38Griffin Newman?

  They're all that.

• 1:19:39David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:19:40Griffin Newman?

  And just the slider.

• 1:19:41Speaker 04

  Which are slightly different. We've talked about this.

• 1:19:43David Sims?

  I've never read the manga. I've seen a couple of the movies.

• 1:19:46Speaker 04

  They are a delight.

• 1:19:47David Sims?

  I, I believe it. I mean.

• 1:19:49Speaker 04

  Wolf and Cub is so.

• 1:19:51David Sims?

  It is.

• 1:19:51Speaker 04

  Fun to.

• 1:19:52Griffin Newman?

  Animated. Mall Shadow Lord is animated. It's Clone Wars continuation.

• 1:19:55David Sims?

  I was just following along as we were talking through all of the like releases in order.

• 1:20:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:01David Sims?

  Mall Shadow Lord?

• 1:20:02Griffin Newman?

  They've made.

• 1:20:02David Sims?

  I've never even heard of.

• 1:20:03Speaker 04

  They made so many new, right?

• 1:20:04Griffin Newman?

  Sequel shows that are also animated.

• 1:20:07David Sims?

  I haven't caught up with that one.

• 1:20:09Griffin Newman?

  Right, right, right. And this is a mini series that's following up on Mall. David, sorry you were about to say, I just had to answer Ben's Mall Perfection.

• 1:20:16David Sims?

  I, and I forgot about Mall. I feel like they just got into this sort of the Disney, whoever, Lucasfilm, got into this kind of endless trick of, on themselves of like, well, it can't be a movie. And it's like, well, why can't it be a movie? And the answer could be like, well, because that's too similar, you know, like Obi-Wan, like whatever, we've done something like that already, or we don't want to do a prequel again. Why can't Skeleton Crew be a movie? Oh, it just doesn't feel big enough. Like that's, that's more of a kid thing. So we can't do, why can't like Acolyte be a movie? It's too complicated. It's too dark.

• 1:20:55Speaker 04

  The tone and bump you too weird.

• 1:20:57David Sims?

  So what can be a movie?

• 1:20:59Speaker 04

  And they're like, I don't know.

• 1:21:00David Sims?

  You know?

• 1:21:01Speaker 04

  Right. I almost feel like that's giving them too much credit. I feel like they go, why should this be a show instead of a movie? And the sad answer to me is because a movie they'll give us 20 bucks once and a show they'll give us 10 bucks 12 times through the year.

• 1:21:16David Sims?

  There's a little of that, but like, if you ever hit movie, you're making ungodly money.

• 1:21:21Speaker 04

  One would think, but they had a streaming service to launch.

• 1:21:24David Sims?

  They did. They did. But they started to, right, move off of that.

• 1:21:28Griffin Newman?

  They're trying to unwind this now. And you're seeing all the tendrils of Disney where they had been like, please make more stuff for Disney Plus because all the money's going here. And now they're like, how do we train people off of thinking these things are unspecial and making them think once again that it's worth paying to go out on a Friday night?

• 1:21:47David Sims?

  You know, I think they just got in their head of like, well, the next movie's gotta be something big, right? It's gotta be something, you know, we've, we've had a couple of flops, like we kinda need something that's gonna set the new tone.

• 1:21:59Griffin Newman?

  Longer the gap goes on, the more they feel the pressure of, well, now it's gotta be even bigger to justify the return of Star Wars movies.

• 1:22:06David Sims?

  And so they've sort of compromised with like, well, if we have a movie with Ryan Gosling is a star fighter, well, you know, that'll be good enough. And that's the next movie that's coming out next year, right? You're aware of this.

• 1:22:15Speaker 04

  I'll buy a ticket.

• 1:22:16David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:22:16Speaker 05

  Well, I'll go see it.

• 1:22:18David Sims?

  But like with Mando and Grogu, it felt like Filoni was like, here's season four. And Filoni and Favreau, I guess, were like, we've written season four. I guess we want to do it. And Disney's like, that's gonna cost 300 million dollars. It's gonna suck. It's got, I'm sure the script has so much thrawn and fucking god knows, dark sabers, right? Like, I'm sure it's like heavy on lore. Cause they've said like, we pivoted from season four to something that had no lore, right? We want, we made sure the movie was gonna be a clean entry point. You know, Favreau said like, we didn't want to do any of the lore. So Disney's clearly like, can you just do a movie? And Filoni's like, sure, can it be a big movie? No, no.

• 1:22:59Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:22:59David Sims?

  Can it just be fun movie with Baby Yoda in it?

• 1:23:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:03David Sims?

  That's for kids.

• 1:23:04Griffin Newman?

  It's her kids.

• 1:23:05Speaker 05

  For basically middle school.

• 1:23:06David Sims?

  I mean, this movie is flirting with being a PG. It's a PG 13 because it's got enough kinda like gun shit, I guess.

• 1:23:12Griffin Newman?

  It feels PG.

• 1:23:13David Sims?

  But it feels kinda PG.

• 1:23:15Speaker 04

  And I, I solidly aiming for kid react.

• 1:23:18David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:23:18Griffin Newman?

  I, I think what you're saying.

• 1:23:19David Sims?

  And it just has this, from beginning to end, it's like, yes, sure, the bald guy is in season three. I guess I forgot about it.

• 1:23:25Griffin Newman?

  Which I did not remember, even though I had watched it one week earlier.

• 1:23:28David Sims?

  But it's basically just kinda like, all you need to know is the Mandalorian and Grogu go on adventures together. They, they're gonna go on an adventure.

• 1:23:35Speaker 04

  I do feel like fundamentally, one of the questions we're circling around is it seems like no one in the Disney era is asking the question of what do people out there need?

• 1:23:45Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:23:45Speaker 04

  Cause people used to get something they needed out of Star Wars. And that's why it's a franchise that for 50 years has meant so much.

• 1:23:51David Sims?

  Well, like.

• 1:23:52Speaker 04

  One thing that really stood out to me about Mandalorian and Grogu that I think is so insane. And I get it. I get what the world we're living in. I get the blend of visual. No, no, no. I mean, like the, the Star Wars universe is one with creatures and masks and, and a combination of, you know, always the debate about practical effects versus all this stuff. But I go, we are in an era where everyone's relentlessly talking about the loneliness epidemic and how much loneliness is killing us. And we literally have a movie where you only see human eyes for, it's five to six minutes of a two hour and 15 minute movie.

• 1:24:26David Sims?

  That is a good point.

• 1:24:27Speaker 04

  Everything is either a mask or digital. Like, we're living in a world where everyone's fucking lonely. And I can speak for myself. I'll get weirdly vulnerable this deep into a Star Wars thing where I go, I am literally like a mental health advocate, working to get kids less lonely in schools while also struggling deeply with the fact of, oh, I'm a living, I'm so relentlessly lonely on a daily basis.

• 1:24:51David Sims?

  You and I were saying this yesterday, that we're people who, for outside perception, people would be like, you got like a friend base and you're like busy and you're doing stuff. And we're like, you and I are both like,

• 1:25:00Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:25:00David Sims?

  burdened with the fundamental loneliness as a condition.

• 1:25:03Speaker 04

  Literally lonely. Like, my birthday is tomorrow and I never have a birthday party and reached out to friends because I go, a birthday is a reason that people will actually come out and I need to fucking connect with people.

• 1:25:13David Sims?

  I forgot that that was part of this planning was to do this the day before your birthday.

• 1:25:16Speaker 04

  This is a birthday present to myself is to be called crazy by David Sims on mic.

• 1:25:19David Sims?

  Apologize for calling you crazy. I mean, your, your notion that Mandalorian would die and baby Grogu would turn evil at the end of a movie was a little crazy.

• 1:25:32Speaker 04

  All I'll say is this, when it leaks that, that was proposed.

• 1:25:35David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:25:36Speaker 04

  We're gonna see who is crazy.

• 1:25:37David Sims?

  Excited for that leak.

• 1:25:38Speaker 04

  But I just wanna say, like, the idea that I watched a two hour, 15 minute long movie, where I did not look at human eyes is just such a lack of grace of like, what do people need?

• 1:25:50David Sims?

  Apart from Sigourney, it's like, you're right, right?

• 1:25:52Speaker 04

  And like, his, his helmet comes off one time and he says, I'm gonna kill you to the huts. And it goes right back on. And we've seen versions of that in the show before. And it brought me immediately back to.

• 1:26:04Speaker 04

  Fucking Princess Leia in that first movie with the blaster up. Looking around the corner and she's stone faced and badass.

• 1:26:11David Sims?

  Immediate humanity.

• 1:26:12Speaker 04

  But she's teeny tiny with these big doe eyes and she's a princess.

• 1:26:15David Sims?

  It's primal.

• 1:26:16Speaker 04

  And you sit here and like you don't even realize it in the moment, but then you watch it over and over and you go, oh, for like a late teenage era princess who's a tiny diminutive person to have that steely resolve is masking so much fucking pain and fear and you immediately are sucked in by Carrie Fisher's eyes.

• 1:26:35David Sims?

  Yeah, totally.

• 1:26:36Speaker 04

  And then now what they give us is a movie where Jeremy Allen White is playing a jacked. Yelling that he's not like his dad.

• 1:26:44David Sims?

  I'm not like my dad. I just want to take another look at him.

• 1:26:48Speaker 04

  It's hard being a hot son.

• 1:26:50David Sims?

  It puts the motion on it. It's like all of it.

• 1:26:54Speaker 04

  Like I wanna love baby Yoda, but like I kinda don't give a.

• 1:26:57David Sims?

  He's a cutie.

• 1:26:58Griffin Newman?

  He does have big eyes. He's the only addressing the eyes complaint.

• 1:27:02Speaker 04

  But he's a puppet doing cute shit and like I just kinda need someone in my life to make fucking eye contact with me.

• 1:27:08David Sims?

  I agree.

• 1:27:08Speaker 04

  And tell me a story that explains to me what's good and what's bad.

• 1:27:11David Sims?

  Wish you a happy birthday.

• 1:27:12Speaker 04

  And that's what Star Wars used to be.

• 1:27:13David Sims?

  Yeah, well, right. You are yearning for Star Wars. As you keep coming back to this, is this sort of like moral force, which like, you know, that's right. That feels kinda long lost and it's tough for any, you know, franchise to hold that.

• 1:27:27Speaker 04

  I think part of the, you know, part of the disappointment is that film, you know, film fans and film nerds like getting vocal on the internet, Comic Con nerds like getting vocal on the internet. Star Wars is a flashpoint for all of them. Like another big point of what's going on right now is like, this is a franchise that spoke to us on a deep level for a long time and just swings and misses and asks us to pay them for another shot.

• 1:27:49David Sims?

  Here's what, like the boomers who made shit like Star Wars, you know, had a sort of a more woo woo. And I'm, you know, speaking positively, right? Like this kinda like. Post hippie, you know, these interests, you know, this sort of expansive view of things.

• 1:28:04Speaker 04

  They had like.

• 1:28:05David Sims?

  There's a larger issue.

• 1:28:05Speaker 04

  They had the hippie optimism mixed with the punk cynicism.

• 1:28:09David Sims?

  Yeah, and it's like.

• 1:28:09Speaker 04

  Cool filmmaking of the era.

• 1:28:11David Sims?

  These days.

• 1:28:11Griffin Newman?

  I think there's a larger issue, in my opinion, is Grogu needs cooking. Grogu doesn't need cooking, and someone should address this. I've watched in the last couple of months, six seasons of Star Wars television.

• 1:28:22David Sims?

  You know what?

• 1:28:22Griffin Newman?

  And a movie for the first time.

• 1:28:23David Sims?

  I want to formally congratulate you on doing that.

• 1:28:25Griffin Newman?

  You thought I wasn't gonna get it done?

• 1:28:26Speaker 04

  We haven't even really started talking about Endor.

• 1:28:29Griffin Newman?

  I want to try to do something here. I want to try to do something here, Ben. Can we?

• 1:28:33David Sims?

  What's up?

• 1:28:33Griffin Newman?

  As an exercise.

• 1:28:34David Sims?

  Ben's eating the cookies.

• 1:28:35Griffin Newman?

  Ben's eating the cookies.

• 1:28:36David Sims?

  Do you want to bring this up? Do you want to mention this?

• 1:28:38Speaker 05

  Oh, I'm just hungry, yeah. I just wanted a snack.

• 1:28:41Griffin Newman?

  By the way, there's a merch spotlight, including a food spotlight at the end of this episode. I got bags under the table, but Ben's snacking on Grogu.

• 1:28:47Speaker 05

  Wait, do you guys want some? There's plenty to share here.

• 1:28:50Speaker 04

  I do want some.

• 1:28:51Speaker 05

  Blue.

• 1:28:52Speaker 04

  I do want some.

• 1:28:52Griffin Newman?

  Ben, alright, I got you. Ben, can you stick your tongue out quickly?

• 1:28:56David Sims?

  Oh, man, that's a blue tongue.

• 1:28:59Griffin Newman?

  Ben, can you start a counter for three minutes? I think I can, and I'm not saying this is all we're talking about it, but I just want to like, actually run through the entire plot of the movie in under three minutes.

• 1:29:12David Sims?

  Of The Mandalorian and Grogu?

• 1:29:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:29:14David Sims?

  Yeah, go right.

• 1:29:14Griffin Newman?

  Cause I was, I was practicing this on the way here.

• 1:29:17Speaker 04

  I think you can honestly do it.

• 1:29:18David Sims?

  Yeah, three almost seems roomy.

• 1:29:20Griffin Newman?

  Okay, ready? Start. Okay, we start with Mandalorian on a bounty hunter mission, trying to capture a warlord. He brings him back to Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver's like, cool, I got two more missions for you. One is find Rada the Hut, Jabba's son, and free him, bring him back to his aunt and uncle. Secondly, here's a mystery warlord, can you find this guy?

• 1:29:39David Sims?

  Rada might help.

• 1:29:40Griffin Newman?

  He goes to find Rada. Rada's like, I don't need to be freed, I like fighting because my dad was bad. And so, but by the way, I know where that warlord is, I can bring you to him. But then, Mando gets captured by the same people, and he gets caught in the fight with Rada. They escape, they find the warlord, bring him back to Sigourney Weaver. Sigourney Weaver's like, where's Rada? He's like, Rada didn't want to be freed. She's like, this sucks because we were. Closely with the aunt and uncle. Can you go make things good with them? He goes back to the aunt and uncle. They're like, fuck you. They throw him in a pit. He gets scratched. He falls asleep. Grogu, who's been separated from him and started, was about to go Gremlins 2 gizmo mode, like Rambo style badass.

• 1:30:24Griffin Newman?

  Instead, just learns to be alone, meet Stephen McKinley Henderson on a porch. Then Mandalorian wakes up and they have to escape and all their friends come and help them escape. And then Sigourney Weaver's like, thanks for your work. That's the entire movie, right?

• 1:30:36Speaker 05

  And for some reason, that was a minute 14.

• 1:30:39David Sims?

  Yeah. And for some reason, Sigourney Weaver decides they need to like nuke the hut, like house.

• 1:30:44Griffin Newman?

  They're already escaping.

• 1:30:46David Sims?

  The movie, it's kind of like, I don't know, something's gonna blow up.

• 1:30:48Speaker 04

  That was, that was wild. It was a bit of an Eagles and Lord of the Rings moment of like, if you.

• 1:30:53David Sims?

  Yeah. She's like, hi. And he's like, I'm out of here. And she's like, don't worry about it. Let it go. Let's blow them up.

• 1:30:58Griffin Newman?

  Quickly, because the bombs, it's shot already.

• 1:31:01Speaker 04

  I also was like, man, like you didn't even have to kill the Nazgul to get the eagle. Like, you could have done that the whole time.

• 1:31:07David Sims?

  Look, look, the Eagles and Lord of the Rings is too complicated for this day, I would say.

• 1:31:12Griffin Newman?

  I was fairly detailed there, was I not?

• 1:31:15Speaker 04

  Pretty, I mean, the only thing you left out was.

• 1:31:17David Sims?

  Scorsese.

• 1:31:18Speaker 04

  Star making turn by Scorsese.

• 1:31:20David Sims?

  Who, but, but Scorsese is not actually vital to the plot. He's just kind of like rotus over there.

• 1:31:25Griffin Newman?

  Who's in Florida who doesn't want to give information, which is funny.

• 1:31:28Speaker 04

  That motherfucker went so hard that that character shined.

• 1:31:32David Sims?

  Dude, dude, that character's the other part of the movie we like.

• 1:31:35Griffin Newman?

  We were like, I cannot believe how locked in he is.

• 1:31:37David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:38Griffin Newman?

  He's giving this his all and it has personality and humanity.

• 1:31:42David Sims?

  Does it speak to something that Martin Scorsese, who has sort of, you know, grumbled about franchise filmmaking, right? In interviews.

• 1:31:48Speaker 04

  Ben prepared all of us a little dish.

• 1:31:50David Sims?

  Uh, Ben's giving me some Mando cookies. It's a lot of cookies. I don't know. I'm gonna need all those. Uh, but thank you, Ben.

• 1:31:55Griffin Newman?

  I got five other food items on my back.

• 1:31:57Speaker 04

  They make a real cool banana pudding with these blue Nilla wafers. That's.

• 1:32:01David Sims?

  That, but that.

• 1:32:01Griffin Newman?

  They call it like.

• 1:32:02David Sims?

  He plays essentially.

• 1:32:03Griffin Newman?

  Banana wafers or something.

• 1:32:04David Sims?

  Like a guy being paid, you know, to like a shill, like in this movie.

• 1:32:09Griffin Newman?

  I just run a flat meat stand. I don't know anything. Don't ask me about it. I don't know. Maybe.

• 1:32:13Speaker 04

  An incredible impression of Martin Scorsese as that street card operator.

• 1:32:17Griffin Newman?

  Specifically, I.

• 1:32:18David Sims?

  It tastes like vanilla wafer. I guess there's no like blue flavor.

• 1:32:23Griffin Newman?

  No, but the cognitive dissonance of it not being blue flavor does fuck your brain a little bit.

• 1:32:27Speaker 05

  Well, we should properly name it. It is Grogu Nilla Nummies.

• 1:32:31Griffin Newman?

  Mmm, num, num, num, num, num, num, num, num.

• 1:32:33Speaker 05

  Says right here on the box, nummies.

• 1:32:45Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:32:46David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:46Griffin Newman?

  This episode is brought to you by XYZ Films and the acclaimed new documentary Capturing Bigfoot.

• 1:32:52David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 1:32:52Griffin Newman?

  On October 20th, 1967, Roger Patterson captured 59 seconds of film showing a creature walking through the Northern California woods. I wonder if you can log that on Letterboxd?

• 1:33:03David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:33:04Griffin Newman?

  Footage that became the most analyzed and debated in history. Fifty-nine years later, a reel of 16-millimeter film discovered in a safe changes everything. Capturing Bigfoot reveals the untold story behind the world's greatest mystery, told for the first time by Patterson's own son and the people who were there. This is a story about family legacy, broken friendships, and how far people will go to protect a secret.

• 1:33:27David Sims?

  Of course, you got the classic, what they call Patterson Gimlin film everyone knows, a Bigfoot out in the woods, like the famous Bigfoot picture. This has other stuff shot by him that no one's ever seen. That's what makes this movie different.

• 1:33:39Griffin Newman?

  But we're also talking brand-new 4K scans of the original film taken from the Patterson family archives that some historians have called the best rendering of the footage ever seen.

• 1:33:48David Sims?

  I feel like we've all seen that footage as like grainy.

• 1:33:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:33:51David Sims?

  You know, that you see, you know, whatever. You see it in a documentary for two seconds, but this is restoring it and making it look much more clear.

• 1:33:58Griffin Newman?

  There's also a companion podcast, the Capturing Bigfoot Podcast, which goes deeper into the legend and lore of Bigfoot and the Patterson Gimlin film, featuring weekly episodes with experts in cryptozoology, urban legends, and filmmaking.

• 1:34:12David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:34:14Griffin Newman?

  Well, of course. Yes, but that's more of a hobby.

• 1:34:17David Sims?

  Yeah, this podcast, Capturing Bigfoot Podcast, is hosted by the director of the film, Mark Evans, and it's available for free on YouTube and Spotify with exclusive episodes and content available on Patreon to members of the Capturing Bigfoot Society.

• 1:34:32Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Capturing Bigfoot is now available to rent or own on Amazon Prime Video. Learn more about Capturing Bigfoot at capturingbigfoot.com.

• 1:34:49Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:34:50David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:34:50Griffin Newman?

  Nobody likes bank fees. Why would you like them?

• 1:34:54David Sims?

  When I was younger, I really would have benefited from a bank that did not charge me fees anytime I did anything, basically, which is, I feel like, what I was always dealing with.

• 1:35:04Griffin Newman?

  Chime! That's where Chime comes in. Chime!

• 1:35:07David Sims?

  They're changing the way people bank. They're not like traditional banks who charge fees and get perks and rewards. They offer the most rewarding fee-free banking, all with no overdraft fees, no monthly fees, and no minimum balance fees, okay?

• 1:35:21Griffin Newman?

  We love being fee-free. We love it.

• 1:35:23David Sims?

  You're gonna get 5% cash back on a Chime card in a category of your choice, like gas or groceries.

• 1:35:28Griffin Newman?

  My two favorite things.

• 1:35:29David Sims?

  All while building credit through regular, everyday spending with no credit check, and you can grow your money faster with a savings rate that's nine times the national average. And if you're ever in a pinch, SpotMe lets you overdraft up to $200 fee-free.

• 1:35:43Griffin Newman?

  Fee-free!

• 1:35:43David Sims?

  So, join the millions who are already banking. Fee-free with America's number one choice for banking. Head to chime.com/blank-check. That is chime.com/blank-check. Sign up now. It only takes a few minutes.

• 1:35:59Speaker 06

  Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits required. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com/disclosures for details.

• 1:36:19Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:36:20David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:36:20Griffin Newman?

  He lurks in shadow. He slips into dreams. He casts no reflection. Audible presents Bram Stoker's Dracula, a new full cast audio thriller starring Ella Purnell as Mina Harker, Jonathan Bailey as Dracula, and an A-list cast, including Maggie Gyllenhaal as Van Helsing, Amy Lou Wood as Lucy, David Johnson as Dr. Seward, and many more that is an all-star cast.

• 1:36:41David Sims?

  Yeah, this new full cast thriller locks Mina Harker in a battle of minds with the Count. When Mina's fiancé, Jonathan Harker, Louis Partridge, vanishes in Transylvania, Mina pieces together letters, diary entries, and Killing testimony to hunt the predator stalking those she loves, only to discover Dracula's already hunting her.

• 1:37:01Griffin Newman?

  Joined by the enigmatic Van Helsing, Mina and a small fearless band race against time to stop this ancient terror. Using her intellect, her resolve, and a gift for drawing the unseen lines between clues. Mina may just hold the key to bring down the count if he hasn't already found his way inside her mind.

• 1:37:17David Sims?

  Featuring a haunting original score by Elon Ashkery and a spatial dolby Atmos sound design. Audible's Dracula invites you to welcome literature's most shadowy figure into your home. Feel the terror of being hunted and the thrill of the hunt. Don't miss this year's best new audio thriller, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Audible's new full cast original adaptation. Written by Robin Ahern, now on Audible. Listen to The Darkness. Go to audible.com/listen to Dracula.

• 1:37:53Griffin Newman?

  David and I, as, as he said, are sitting here at the theater. And I want to be clear, we're considerate moviegoers. We're not talking the whole time, but occasionally we turn to each other and whisper one sentence. And I would say about every 20 minutes, one of us would turn to the other and go. Is this really all there is? Like, we kept being like, there must be some, well, story idea that the trailers were hiding, not a big twist.

• 1:38:16David Sims?

  But it's not that I wanted that.

• 1:38:17Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:38:18David Sims?

  Like, it's not like I wanted the third act of the movie. I was, I was basically like, is this movie gonna be what it looks like? Which is just kind of like a disposal.

• 1:38:25Griffin Newman?

  They gotta find one guy, except they find the warlord halfway through and then you're like, what is the movie now? You turned to me and said, I actually don't know what the rest of the movie is.

• 1:38:33David Sims?

  Right. And so then I'm like, right, will the third act be AI Luke and fucking, you know, who, you know, take your pick, shows up.

• 1:38:40Griffin Newman?

  Is there a bad surprise behind the mystery door?

• 1:38:42David Sims?

  Grogu short shoots some lightning or grows wings or, you know.

• 1:38:46Speaker 04

  You really don't think Dark Grogu would have been a more interesting third act?

• 1:38:49David Sims?

  No, you, you really triggered me there because it's the kind of shit I hate the most.

• 1:38:53Speaker 04

  Do you know what? We were actually screaming at each other.

• 1:38:55David Sims?

  I really, I really hate the someone needs to die for a movie.

• 1:38:58Griffin Newman?

  Can you guys say that you love each other just so we?

• 1:39:00David Sims?

  I love you very much.

• 1:39:02Griffin Newman?

  Here's my pitch that hit me when we got to that section.

• 1:39:05David Sims?

  I was like, are they gonna do some slop?

• 1:39:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:07David Sims?

  And then, but they didn't.

• 1:39:08Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:39:09David Sims?

  But instead it was just kind of like Mando's.

• 1:39:11Griffin Newman?

  Why did you even make this? What was the idea?

• 1:39:13David Sims?

  Get away from the huts.

• 1:39:14Speaker 05

  What's your pitch?

• 1:39:15Griffin Newman?

  My, my pitch is.

• 1:39:16Speaker 04

  Can I just say one thing to close out that thought?

• 1:39:17Griffin Newman?

  Please.

• 1:39:18Speaker 04

  And I think this actually is. Truthful, this does feel like the exact Star Wars movie you would make at a cultural moment where it feels acceptable to people to remove Stephen Colbert and replace it with Byron Allen's comics.

• 1:39:32David Sims?

  I mean, just kind of like, let's not hurt anyone's feelings.

• 1:39:34Speaker 04

  A society where it's all like, we are looking, we're looking for something and we're not getting it.

• 1:39:38David Sims?

  Get there, I actually heard you just traveled over here from New Jersey.

• 1:39:44David Sims?

  Anything you want to share about that?

• 1:39:46Speaker 04

  We need to be talking about this Lincoln, Lincoln Tunnel of traffic Byron Allen. We gotta be talking, the Lincoln, the Holland, the George Washington.

• 1:39:55David Sims?

  You're like one of the greatest, you know, great comic figures of our lives.

• 1:39:59Griffin Newman?

  That is, that is a brutal comparison. It is 100% on point. It's not even about inoffensiveness. It's about this sort of like, the whole weirdness of comics unleashed is you're like, this looks like comedy, but it's something feels off.

• 1:40:16Speaker 04

  Everything's for sale. Everything's reasonable.

• 1:40:18Griffin Newman?

  Comedy, but it's in a hollow way and it's so packaged and strategized and they're acting like this is organic conversation, but it's neither stand up nor interview.

• 1:40:27Speaker 04

  And it's getting an 1130 slot, which used to be sacred to the American people.

• 1:40:31Griffin Newman?

  This as if it's the legit thing when this used to air at four o'clock in the morning and this was only watched by people who were struggling, people who should not be awake.

• 1:40:41Speaker 04

  Drug addicts. Yes, literally. The core demographic, the core demographic was men in hotel rooms debating whether they wanted to live through the night.

• 1:40:50Griffin Newman?

  Some of the worst nights of my life had been watching comics unleashed and it wasn't because of comics unleashed, comics unleashed was meeting me where I was.

• 1:40:57Speaker 04

  You and I both just revealed that we watched that show while having suicidal ideation.

• 1:41:03David Sims?

  I just also want to shout out to you that while we're all talking right now, everyone has a blue tongue.

• 1:41:10Speaker 04

  This is true.

• 1:41:17David Sims?

  It went blue immediately.

• 1:41:18Speaker 04

  Nilla nummies. Nummies, num nums?

• 1:41:21David Sims?

  Nummies.

• 1:41:21Speaker 04

  The nummin.

• 1:41:22David Sims?

  Right, alright. Griffin, can you get back to?

• 1:41:25Speaker 04

  I flagged my own mental health concerns.

• 1:41:27David Sims?

  Your pitch, I hope you're doing okay, Chris.

• 1:41:29Griffin Newman?

  So like minute 30, 40, I love you, Chris.

• 1:41:32Speaker 04

  I love you guys.

• 1:41:32David Sims?

  You're doing alright, right?

• 1:41:33Speaker 04

  It was a very funny dissonance for us to do that bit while eating these treats.

• 1:41:40Griffin Newman?

  I gotta say, you're, you're, you're making a little stinker face while you're eating vanilla nummies.

• 1:41:46Speaker 04

  We've never stopped talking, we never.

• 1:41:48Griffin Newman?

  We never stop snacking. Kind of good. It's, look, it's the most respectful way to honor the movie is to just keep snacking.

• 1:41:56Speaker 04

  Keep buying the product, baby. We don't give a fuck. Say whatever you want about our movie. You're literally eating our tie-in product while you talk bad about our movie. We're giving you what you want, Disney.

• 1:42:07Griffin Newman?

  Got a bag of.

• 1:42:08Speaker 04

  We were underwhelmed by the movie and thank you for the blue vanilla wafers, you fucking corporate fucks.

• 1:42:16Griffin Newman?

  Minute, like maybe 30, 40 of the movie, they go to get Rada. Rada's like, I'm not like my dad. And Din Djarin's like, okay, I guess I'll leave. And then they gas them. And as he's starting to pass out, he's like, Grogu, run, I'll find you later. And I was like, oh, is the core idea of this movie, because I'm not asking in going from TV to film, make the movie really big in a all plot threads connect, Thrawn comes in, deep fake Luke kind of way. I'm like, can you tell me a story that could not fit within an episode? Ideally, that's a story of greater emotional range. Right. That's what I want, not necessarily even scale that's bigger than the TV show. A

• 1:43:00Griffin Newman?

  lot of this is the murky uncanny valley of the more that TV has become like movies, does movies feel like TV? And how do we make this distinction? We saw it in IMAX. Weirdly, anytime it went to the IMAX ratio, what is closer to the traditional old school TV ratio. Right, a box. It felt more cinematic because it didn't look like Disney Plus. Yeah. Which is now super widescreen. This whole weird backwards thing we're living in, right? All I want is for this movie to be like, we came up with a story that is two hours long, that has an emotional through line. Sure. That's not an episode and doesn't feel like a couple of episodes smooshed together. And when. Mandalorian's getting gassed. You're like, they're gonna make him do the Dejaric

• 1:43:42Griffin Newman?

  fight, which for the listeners who don't know, is the hollow chessboard that Chewie has of the Millennium Falcon, where he plays against C3PO and then leans back and looks

• 1:43:51David Sims?

  Let the Wookiee win.

• 1:43:53Griffin Newman?

  Let the Wookiee win. We see like the real version of that in this. It's like a pit fight, right? With all the big creatures. And he's like, Grogu, go, I'll find you. And I was like, oh, is the big idea of this movie that they get split up?

• 1:44:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:07Griffin Newman?

  That it is Grogu has to fend for himself on his own, and Mandalorian has to deal with the emotions of feeling what that's like. Now, we've already split them up. Season two ends with Luke taking him. Mando's really upset, and it's the first major boondoggle in the greater Mandalorian experiment is they resolve that, not in a movie, which would have been a storyline fitting for a movie, or season three, they resolve that in the second half of Boba Fett, a different show. So then season three starts and it's like, this is resolved, now I'm training you. And then season three becomes basically a Bo Catan show. As you said, David, it's largely Mandalorian's talking about politics and caves.

• 1:44:47David Sims?

  Right, they're in a cave.

• 1:44:49Griffin Newman?

  Many caves.

• 1:44:49David Sims?

  It's like, dark.

• 1:44:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:44:52David Sims?

  There's like a big lake with like a serpent or something that they're like-

• 1:44:56Griffin Newman?

  Big fish.

• 1:44:57David Sims?

  Right, we maybe don't believe that it exists, and he's like, I saw it.

• 1:45:01Griffin Newman?

  Shoulders, except that we think it's fake.

• 1:45:03David Sims?

  And they're just like, and there's like, a lot of like, to what extent should we wear our helmets? And I'm like, guys.

• 1:45:10Griffin Newman?

  I'm also-

• 1:45:10David Sims?

  Shut the fuck up.

• 1:45:11Griffin Newman?

  I'm watching it, and I'm like, this show is barely about the Mandalorian or Grogu at this point.

• 1:45:16David Sims?

  They all kind of just sound like Emma Thompson, so I can't like, tell which one is which?

• 1:45:21Griffin Newman?

  Right, this movie still makes a big point of like, the disgrace of his helmet being off. And I'm like, I thought all of season three was litigating the helmet thing, and sort of going, eh, maybe we're not that serious about the helmet thing anymore.

• 1:45:33David Sims?

  Chill with the helmet rule.

• 1:45:34Griffin Newman?

  Truly.

• 1:45:34David Sims?

  Literally. To the extent that I was almost like, is this, was this written before season three? Like, but like, no, like, it was not.

• 1:45:42Griffin Newman?

  You also have a very famous actor who has famously, infamously, not done most of the- Physical performance for this character across the previous three seasons plus Boba Fett.

• 1:45:53David Sims?

  Credit to him, like his stunt performers are second and third billed.

• 1:45:57Griffin Newman?

  Single card billing, like, like big ups for the transparency on this.

• 1:46:01David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:01Griffin Newman?

  But it is fascinating that this movie is like, we had Pedro Pascal do one sequence.

• 1:46:06David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:46:06Griffin Newman?

  We had him do one sequence that starts with a little emotional dialogue and then is one big action set piece. The rest of the movie, I'm like, did he ever meet Sigourney Weaver until the press?

• 1:46:16David Sims?

  Yeah, right. Definitely not.

• 1:46:18Griffin Newman?

  But after the Dejaric fight, he just immediately reunites with Grogu. And then the movie has them split up and get back together like two or three times until it finally does the thing where he's asleep because he was scratched by a space slug or whatever. And then there's 20 minutes of him having to fend for himself. And I'm leaning in because I'm like, this, I mean, this is the thing, Grogu is the star. This is the thing they like. And the biggest reason-

• 1:46:44Speaker 04

  The exact point where I, I would actually say, I mean-

• 1:46:47Griffin Newman?

  It's also puppet stuff, which I like.

• 1:46:49Speaker 04

  One of the things that I was most disappointed though by, I'm like, at least we'll see Grogu finally level up. And instead I just saw him continue to be able to just lift-

• 1:46:57David Sims?

  I cannot deny that they consciously, clearly were like, we're not going to have him level up.

• 1:47:02Griffin Newman?

  It's also, it's a conceptual fuck up that they have him level up way too fast when he starts training with Luke. And when they start showing him do the Jedi shit, it always looks dumb. I think in your words, he looks like a fucking idiot jumping around. You said that about someone in the prequels, maybe Grievous back in the day.

• 1:47:21Speaker 04

  About many people.

• 1:47:21Griffin Newman?

  I think so. But it looked silly and they gave him too much power too quickly. And they've already set up this thing of he ages really slowly. When the Mando meets him, he's already hundreds of years old. So he's, but he's a baby. So any growth is going to be so slow as to be indistinguishable. And the money is this character needs to stay in this exact form. I agree with you that it feels like dramatically, he should say at least one word by the end of this movie.

• 1:47:48Speaker 04

  One thing in the style of Yoda and watch every theater go nuts.

• 1:47:51Griffin Newman?

  Totally, but they're too terrified of fucking with the magic of whatever the sanctity of this character sells t-shirts.

• 1:47:57Speaker 04

  Literally have him say, dad, wake up, you must, when Mando's passed out and watch everyone cry their eyes out.

• 1:48:03Griffin Newman?

  Or nummies.

• 1:48:06Griffin Newman?

  Could have said nummies. He could have said, he could have said daddy. Yeah, daddy. I want more nummies. Daddy nummies.

• 1:48:11Speaker 04

  Have him do one new force power or say one thing?

• 1:48:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:15Speaker 04

  And, and satisfy everybody, but that would, that would disrupt the status quo.

• 1:48:20Griffin Newman?

  I don't think, I don't think. At the Djaric gassing moment.

• 1:48:23David Sims?

  I don't think I would like that.

• 1:48:24Griffin Newman?

  Would like what?

• 1:48:25David Sims?

  Him talking like Yoda. I think that would annoy me.

• 1:48:28Griffin Newman?

  So, so he just says daddy. What if he just says daddy at the end?

• 1:48:31David Sims?

  That would obviously wreck me.

• 1:48:33Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 1:48:34David Sims?

  Well, because I'm a mark for this sort of stuff right now. Yes.

• 1:48:37Griffin Newman?

  But, but even that's too risky for them.

• 1:48:40David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:48:40Griffin Newman?

  I mean, the two major reasons they greenlit this movie.

• 1:48:43Speaker 04

  Yoda when he talks, he's a Yoda. He's a Yoda.

• 1:48:45David Sims?

  I mean, this is the debate, right? Of like.

• 1:48:47Speaker 04

  He's a Yoda and a Yaddle. All due respect to Yaddle.

• 1:48:49David Sims?

  Right. Like, it's like, we don't know.

• 1:48:50Griffin Newman?

  It's rude they don't call him baby Yaddle.

• 1:48:52Speaker 04

  That's true.

• 1:48:52David Sims?

  Did Yaddle talk that way? I know Yaddle eventually made like a cartoon appearance or something, right?

• 1:48:58Griffin Newman?

  If you remember the first season, yeah, Bryce Dallas Howard played Yaddle. Do you remember the first season?

• 1:49:02David Sims?

  I mean, that might be true.

• 1:49:03Griffin Newman?

  It is true. I'm not joking.

• 1:49:05David Sims?

  Love her, love her. I'm very pro Bryce Dallas.

• 1:49:08Griffin Newman?

  First season, we all call him baby Yoda. Disney's like, please call him the child. Don't call him baby Yoda. His name isn't baby Yoda. And we're like, okay, so his name is the child? And they're like, no, he has a name, but we're not telling you yet. I remember when the Ahsoka episode dropped in season two, she calls him Grogu and the internet was like, do we like this? Did they just fuck it up? Is the sanctity, the purity of just little cute thing eats things? We, we have a name we like for him ruined. Eventually everyone comes around to Grogu for a name. This movie refuses to even make a move as strong as his name is Grogu. They're like, nothing new about this guy. And part of it is, as they've said, their strategy in this is a movie now is they're like, there is one thing

• 1:49:54Griffin Newman?

  that the current generation has grown up with of kids under 10 as their Star Wars that feels proprietary to them.

• 1:50:01David Sims?

  It's baby Yoda.

• 1:50:02Griffin Newman?

  Even if they don't watch the show.

• 1:50:03David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:04Griffin Newman?

  Baby Yoda is just omnipresent culturally.

• 1:50:06Speaker 04

  My son has a baby Yoda water bottle.

• 1:50:08David Sims?

  My, my daughter knew who baby Yoda was before she knew any other Star Wars thing.

• 1:50:12Griffin Newman?

  They point, they say Grogu, they like.

• 1:50:13Speaker 04

  By far, my son is by far most familiar with baby Yoda as a Star Wars thing.

• 1:50:17David Sims?

  Probably doesn't know much about Yoda.

• 1:50:19Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:50:20David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:50:20Griffin Newman?

  It's the second thing, which is the Cars effect. Every Cars movie made less money than the previous one. They made three theatrical films and two planes movies and they all dropped.

• 1:50:30Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:50:31Griffin Newman?

  But the merch was insane and they kept being like, I guess we gotta make another movie to keep the merch relevant. And at some point they're like, do we? Maybe the merch is the thing.

• 1:50:43Speaker 04

  That merch still flies off the shelves.

• 1:50:45Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 1:50:45Speaker 04

  For that.

• 1:50:45Griffin Newman?

  Right. Maybe we can leave it alone. There hasn't been a Cars movie in almost 10 years, but they're just like, do we gotta do it again? Just to like the brand deposit? And that's some of their math. I don't think they were responding to a false notion of the public is demanding this, but it was a real path of least resistance thing. And also if our like majority shareholders are freaked out about our lack of action on Star Wars, is the promise, hey, I bet we're gonna sell twice as much, five times as much Grogu shit in 2026? Is that good enough? And it feels like that's the only justification for this movie. And I feel like if in that

• 1:51:27Griffin Newman?

  scene where he's gassed outside the Dejaric scene, they are actually split up for the next hour plus of the movie. And that's what the bulk of it was, that Mando's trying to figure out how to get back to Grogu and Grogu's trying to fend for himself. That's different than what they've done on the show. And that is a story that I feel like could sustain a slightly longer narrative.

• 1:51:48Speaker 04

  Would give us something.

• 1:51:49Griffin Newman?

  And, and there-

• 1:51:50Speaker 04

  And instead what I saw-

• 1:51:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:52Speaker 04

  Was them get back in a spaceship, just the two of-

• 1:51:54David Sims?

  You're so mad that they-

• 1:51:55Speaker 04

  Right, but it is-

• 1:51:56David Sims?

  How about the scene where they just Grogu or Mando's like, I need to take a break. And they like go back and they take a break and then it's like, okay, let's go again. And I'm like, did we just do like a commercial break? Like, isn't this a movie?

• 1:52:08Griffin Newman?

  There's a scene in this movie where they listen to our episodes with Gethard talking about Star Wars in the past. And I'm like, why are we watching them listen? It's not even a video podcast.

• 1:52:20David Sims?

  It's just like, it felt like television the whole time, like-

• 1:52:25Griffin Newman?

  The final moment back in the spaceship.

• 1:52:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:28Griffin Newman?

  He lets Grogu push the button.

• 1:52:30David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:31Griffin Newman?

  And you went-

• 1:52:32David Sims?

  Button, I didn't let you push.

• 1:52:33Griffin Newman?

  You sighed and you went, he gets to push the button now. And that to them is their notion of like, look at the character growth.

• 1:52:39David Sims?

  Because they're like, we planted the seed. In the first act, he was like, don't push the button.

• 1:52:45Speaker 04

  Can I also-

• 1:52:45David Sims?

  This is Hollywood elemental storytelling.

• 1:52:48Speaker 04

  I want to say one very nitpicky thing.

• 1:52:50David Sims?

  Please.

• 1:52:50Speaker 04

  And Griffin, you just rewatched the seasons of the show more recently than me.

• 1:52:56Speaker 04

  I also found myself feeling very not into how often Mando uses dog language to tell Grogu what to do.

• 1:53:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I don't like.

• 1:53:04Speaker 04

  Telling him heel.

• 1:53:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:53:06David Sims?

  The heel thing they they think is funny and it's not funny.

• 1:53:09Speaker 04

  It's like, is he your kid or is he a dog?

• 1:53:11Griffin Newman?

  It is. It is clearly that. It's it's bad comedy instinct.

• 1:53:15David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:53:15Griffin Newman?

  It was. It ended up being funny a couple of times. And I think when it used to happen, when it happens earlier, mostly in the first season, the joke is this guy doesn't have bedside manner.

• 1:53:24David Sims?

  He doesn't know how to be a dad.

• 1:53:25Speaker 04

  But at this point, he's made choice after choice that this is his child.

• 1:53:29David Sims?

  Yeah, no.

• 1:53:29Speaker 04

  And as a dad, I watch it and I'm like, that's child abuse.

• 1:53:33Griffin Newman?

  It's just.

• 1:53:33Speaker 04

  You seem like a dick now. When parents treat their children the same way they treat their animals.

• 1:53:38Griffin Newman?

  You know that.

• 1:53:38Speaker 04

  It's because they're bad parents.

• 1:53:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:53:40David Sims?

  Obviously, the Mandalorian is supposed to be, you know, whatever, a man of few words and so on and so forth. But yeah, there's not much of a connection that you can detect because of how muted and flat.

• 1:53:52Griffin Newman?

  But this is also.

• 1:53:53David Sims?

  The character is.

• 1:53:53Griffin Newman?

  The seasons lost their way. I mean, you have the end of season two and Luke comes on the ship and takes him.

• 1:53:58David Sims?

  So right, right. So season one is perfect and is the one that ends with the Taiko IT robot saving them and everyone, like all the characters they've met.

• 1:54:05Speaker 04

  Melting.

• 1:54:06David Sims?

  From all the episodes that have come together and it like, it just felt like great TV.

• 1:54:09Speaker 04

  Exactly. Does that also, though, Mark? I don't want to say.

• 1:54:12David Sims?

  No, let me just, let me finish before we, right, okay.

• 1:54:16Griffin Newman?

  And basically ends with him being like, I'm gonna keep the kid.

• 1:54:19David Sims?

  Yeah. And then season two ends with like Giancarlo Esposito wants the darksaber or something and then Luke Skywalker shows up to rescue them.

• 1:54:28Griffin Newman?

  And he takes Grogu and it's like.

• 1:54:29David Sims?

  Them all, but then he takes Grogu.

• 1:54:30Griffin Newman?

  I have to train him and Mando takes his helmet off and has a tearful goodbye showing his face to Grogu for the first time. And the emotional growth is he cares more about connecting to this kid.

• 1:54:42David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:54:42Griffin Newman?

  Than the creed and he's showing his emotions. The stoicism wall is over.

• 1:54:46David Sims?

  And Isoka's in season two, like she drops in somewhere in there and is like.

• 1:54:50Griffin Newman?

  Tries to train him a little bit. Yes. And I guess she's the one who tells Luke to go find him.

• 1:54:55David Sims?

  And then Book of Boba Fett was in between those two seasons.

• 1:54:57Griffin Newman?

  So like the first half of Book of Boba Fett is Boba Fett being like, do I want to be a sheriff, a mayor?

• 1:55:03David Sims?

  I'm in charge, I guess.

• 1:55:05Speaker 04

  He just becomes a sheriff, which is an elected county position.

• 1:55:09David Sims?

  There's never been.

• 1:55:09Speaker 04

  Truly.

• 1:55:10David Sims?

  You know what's so wild about Boba Fett? Let's leave Tatooine. Let's go.

• 1:55:14Griffin Newman?

  And the season ends with him kicking fat Bib Fortuna off a throne and going, I like that chair. Are you taking his position?

• 1:55:22Speaker 04

  It's.

• 1:55:22Griffin Newman?

  No, maybe just the chair.

• 1:55:24Speaker 04

  We have.

• 1:55:24David Sims?

  Say your thing. Yeah.

• 1:55:25Speaker 04

  I gotta say this. On this show, we have created, honestly, at this point, our own language, which is ludicrous. But the idea of a Fisto, as represented by Kit Fisto in the prequels, the character that you see. And you go, I want more of that. And we said today that the current person holding the crown of all Fistos is actually Sagarera.

• 1:55:44David Sims?

  Who is dead.

• 1:55:45Speaker 04

  In the, but in the Star Wars universe, even Fisto has been outfistosed by Sagarera. We've never talked about the fact that the most famous and iconic Fisto is Boba Fett, starting in the Star Wars special.

• 1:55:57David Sims?

  The original where fans are just like.

• 1:55:58Speaker 04

  The holiday special.

• 1:55:59David Sims?

  What's the deal with that guy?

• 1:56:00Speaker 04

  All right.

• 1:56:01Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 1:56:02David Sims?

  And. And then Vader says, no disintegrations. And you're like, so he's fucked up, huh? Like.

• 1:56:07Speaker 04

  So he's done just. That moment, we've been begging them to get him right. We haven't.

• 1:56:10David Sims?

  It's to be specifically told.

• 1:56:12Speaker 04

  They have mishandled him so much that we've never even addressed that he's the original Fisto.

• 1:56:17David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:56:17Speaker 04

  But he's actually the, he's the most mishandled, the attempt to Fisto, to give the fans what they want.

• 1:56:25David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:56:25Speaker 04

  In an incorrect way with a Fisto.

• 1:56:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:27Speaker 04

  Leads to what we have now with Boba Fett, which I would actually argue should now be phrased, a swing and a misto. It was a swing and a misto.

• 1:56:35David Sims?

  Was.

• 1:56:35Speaker 04

  He's the ultimate swing and a misto.

• 1:56:37Griffin Newman?

  Swing and a misto.

• 1:56:38Speaker 04

  You have a Fisto, which is Fisto himself, the absolute representation of what this should be.

• 1:56:43David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:56:43Speaker 04

  Tease us with some intrigue and then don't give us too much. Make us watch some deep cut cartoons to find out more.

• 1:56:48David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:48Speaker 04

  Sagarera currently there with, I would say, we're probably not the only people, Ben and I clearly kind of begging like, if you can get fucking Forrest Whitaker to recommit to a prequel about how that asshole came to be.

• 1:57:00David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:00Speaker 04

  I will put.

• 1:57:01David Sims?

  But you know, his backstory is great too. I went.

• 1:57:03Griffin Newman?

  Down a rabbit hole.

• 1:57:04Speaker 04

  Double my subscription.

• 1:57:05Griffin Newman?

  All about his shit.

• 1:57:06Speaker 04

  Character, right?

• 1:57:07Griffin Newman?

  That was a good cartoon first.

• 1:57:08David Sims?

  The weirdest thing is that Saw Guerrera not looking like, um, you know,

• 1:57:14Speaker 04

  Forrest Wren.

• 1:57:14David Sims?

  Forrest Wren, because like that they didn't have that idea yet, but he is in the Clone Wars cartoon.

• 1:57:20Speaker 04

  First.

• 1:57:21David Sims?

  You know?

• 1:57:21Speaker 04

  Shit.

• 1:57:22David Sims?

  And like, and like is a minor character that they decided to recycle for Rogue One, but then obviously Forrest kind of just transformed the character. And everyone kind of forgets that now.

• 1:57:33Speaker 04

  That character is so good.

• 1:57:35David Sims?

  Of a jump from the cartoon being interesting.

• 1:57:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:57:38Griffin Newman?

  And done very, in a very considered way.

• 1:57:41Speaker 04

  You also have to imagine that you're going to an actor of that caliber who whatever you tell him to go says, thank you so much for your input.

• 1:57:48Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:57:48Speaker 04

  I've got this from here and you actually shut the fuck up and listen.

• 1:57:51David Sims?

  Well, I think also Rogue One is crazy where it's like, cause like he was gonna be in more of it. There's the scene where he like rescues her and I think there's stuff.

• 1:57:59Griffin Newman?

  The trailer, he has two different haircuts and one of the haircuts never shows up in the film.

• 1:58:02David Sims?

  Decided to cut of their relationship. Cause like in Rogue One, he's a little weird because you only really see him, you know, at the last days of his life.

• 1:58:10Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:58:11David Sims?

  And he's crazy.

• 1:58:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:58:12David Sims?

  And then Andor gives you much more seasoning on him, but it is still basically like, you need to understand how this person became such a fanatic.

• 1:58:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:58:20David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:58:20Griffin Newman?

  He's kind of like the weather underground.

• 1:58:22David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah. We're just gonna blow shit up.

• 1:58:24Speaker 04

  Dirty work. He's the one who's getting shit done and they all love to pretend it doesn't have to be that blood and love machine.

• 1:58:30David Sims?

  Mon Moth was the least, like she's the most like, we need to win over the people, hearts and minds. We can't just be blowing shit up.

• 1:58:36Speaker 04

  And he, he's like, he's the IRA. That's like, actually we need to kill fucking Mount Baden. We need to, how about we bomb a boat and kill an ancillary member of the royal family?

• 1:58:45David Sims?

  But also I don't care if, right? If we're gonna kill some civilians, like they're all culpable, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean? Like that kind of thing. Right?

• 1:58:53Speaker 04

  Dirty.

• 1:58:53David Sims?

  And Luthen is more on that side of things, but Luthen has some control, whereas Saw likes to like huff, like.

• 1:58:59Griffin Newman?

  But Saw is the inverse of Vader.

• 1:59:03David Sims?

  Yeah, well, they that they kind of do that in Rogue One of like he kind of

• 1:59:05Griffin Newman?

  Even down to the suit. I mean, I love it, though.

• 1:59:09Speaker 04

  Luther is one of the most psychologically fucked up characters in Star Wars.

• 1:59:13David Sims?

  But what I love about Luther is he's like, I'm a bullet casing and I'm gonna be spent. Like, I will be done and I know I will die.

• 1:59:20Griffin Newman?

  It's incredible character.

• 1:59:21David Sims?

  And I know, like, that it's in service of something important and I know that I'm like a sin eater. Like, I will do the bad stuff. I know I won't be remembered. That's fine. Like, you know, this is my purpose.

• 1:59:34Griffin Newman?

  Shows up at the end of episode two in the first season, I think. And I was watching the first two episodes and I was like, yeah, this is good. But there are a lot of great TV shows that people tell me for years to watch. And I watch them and I'm like, I get this. This is well made, but I don't like TV this much. Or, you know, that's just not my temperature.

• 1:59:51David Sims?

  Four years from people like me who watched Andor and

• 1:59:54Griffin Newman?

  You love Star Wars. This is the greatest thing ever.

• 1:59:57David Sims?

  You don't understand it actually rocks. Like, it's actually, it's not just good TV.

• 2:00:01Speaker 04

  Stands up in

• 2:00:03David Sims?

  It's the best thing they've ever done apart from the big two. I mean, I don't think that's really

• 2:00:07Speaker 04

  Big two being Empire and New Hope.

• 2:00:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah. I basically, I'm inclined to agree with that.

• 2:00:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:00:12David Sims?

  My only regret is that they didn't do five seasons.

• 2:00:15Speaker 04

  I think I've said previously on the show about Rogue One, and I think, I think if you view Andor and Rogue One as a package deal, I think time will only perhaps elevate them even more.

• 2:00:23Griffin Newman?

  Possibly. Yeah, but I also think part of its power is that it's building something underneath the foundation of the original Star Wars. It's in conversation with the original such a smart way.

• 2:00:34David Sims?

  It serves it.

• 2:00:35Griffin Newman?

  It makes it better.

• 2:00:36David Sims?

  Yeah, exactly. It doesn't feel like it's like, you know, messing with it.

• 2:00:39Speaker 04

  I'm saying this as a callback, but also really, there's so much eye contact.

• 2:00:44Griffin Newman?

  It truly

• 2:00:44Speaker 04

  There's so much fucking

• 2:00:46Griffin Newman?

  And actors making choices in spaces, actual sets.

• 2:00:50Speaker 04

  The idea that like, it's not digital, that you go like, oh, sometimes the way a street revolution starts is someone takes a spoon and bangs on a fucking frying pan so you have time to lock your door.

• 2:01:01Griffin Newman?

  Those first

• 2:01:01Speaker 04

  That's the most human, real ass shit, you know?

• 2:01:04Griffin Newman?

  Those first two episodes, I'm like, this is well done.

• 2:01:06David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:07Griffin Newman?

  Second episode ends with Skarsgård on a train. I lean in a little bit. I go, oh, Skarsgård on a train.

• 2:01:12Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Third episode starts with him introducing himself to Andor. Like two minutes in, I text you guys, Andor's the best shit ever. I get it immediately. I see the whole thing now. Just the entire conception of his character is so perfect and so smart. And then his performance on top of it. And then everything feels like that, where you're just like, oh my God, I'm watching them practice rebellion runs in the mountains of how they're gonna infiltrate these things. They're doing their play. Right. This is like the fucking Cuban revolutionaries. Like, it's so smart about like commenting on human history and also the text of Star Wars. And this is a big thing I felt watching all these shows and watching this movie. And you saying, David, like the seventies creatives, more woo woo and all of this. There's a bigger thing, which is the magic of Star Wars is that George Lucas put basically the entire history of storytelling into one container.

• 2:02:04Griffin Newman?

  He was like, what if you could make a three in Legend exists with Saturday morning cereals and religion and Samurai and westerns and all of this shit. And he put it all in a blender. And then he kept pulling from different genres. What if you have an alien kind of mob boss? That's Jabba the Hutt. What if this? What if that? And you kept building and building. And the longer Star Wars goes on, Star Wars starts to become more and more about itself. The prequels for all of their faults are not about themselves. They are him saying like, this is actually what's like the foundation of this world I built. You know, it's about me commenting on the cyclical nature of how, you know, fascism rises and falls and all these sorts of things. The human instincts and structures and governments, you know, and in people in power.

• 2:02:50Griffin Newman?

  And the Disney era has had this really uncomfortable relationship with, are we trying to comment on Star Wars? Are we trying to make a new Star Wars for the current audience? Or are we just trying to point backwards for the things that the fans love? Minus any of the deeper meaning. I have not watched much Clone Wars, but the people I know who love Clone Wars, and I'm sorry, I'm forgetting who said this to me, but someone recently was making the case for why Clone Wars were so good and what the problem with the live action shows and specifically the Filoni led ones have been. And they said this thing that Filoni did that was really smart on Clone Wars. First handful of episodes, rough going. That was the stuff that felt a little more passed down by George. And then Filoni starts to find his own voice.

• 2:03:35Griffin Newman?

  And what he did was he clocked into, George was pulling from so many movies he had watched. So many stories he had read, books he had read and stuff. Filoni just starts watching like Turner classic movies and going like, oh, here's like a B noir from the 40s. This is kind of an interesting plotline. Could I transpose this onto Star Wars? And part of Star Wars to me, the magic is that it's taking a different mode of storytelling or a different genre and finding how to put it into this universe. Andor's doing that. Andor's like, what's the Star Wars version of Battle of Algiers?

• 2:04:10David Sims?

  Yes, totally.

• 2:04:11Griffin Newman?

  And it rules and it's in conversation with everything and it's deeper and more meaningful for that reason. I think Acolyte does that. I think even Skeleton Crew in a very superficial way, while not being self burdened with seriousness.

• 2:04:22David Sims?

  It's a Mambur movie or whatever.

• 2:04:23Speaker 04

  It put the goonies inside Star Wars. We said that in unison.

• 2:04:26David Sims?

  We did.

• 2:04:27Griffin Newman?

  And Mando, Mando smartly, why the first season works so well is it's like, wow, what if you just did, yeah, do Lone Wolf and Cub, do Gunsmoke, you know, do like have gun, we'll travel or whatever.

• 2:04:38Speaker 04

  Here's the question that I have for you, Griffin, having just watched it though, because we've talked so much about how, and again, I'm the one who liked the movie the most, had fun watching it, saw shit I enjoyed and still kind of rolled my eyes, but like, part of it feels like, don't change a thing about Grogu, he's our money maker.

• 2:04:54Griffin Newman?

  This is about Star Wars and beyond that, it's about Grogu. It's like about, like, it's so myopic and it's.

• 2:05:00Speaker 04

  But then we also talk about, you know, from Force Awakens to Last Jedi to the Rise of Skywalker, how they're constantly unwrapping what's been done based on overthinking fan reactions and this and that. How in the world in an era where it's clear that the creative and corporate culture is leading to so many moments like that, let alone the number of high caliber filmmakers that have been announced and then it's been pissed away? How the fuck does Tony Gilroy get two seasons of a show on that so clearly meet the moment in the way no other Star Wars is, in which he does a show about regular street level people trying to deal with the encroachment of fascism at an era where the news is so heavily dealing with.

• 2:05:45Speaker 04

  All over the world, street level protests of people trying to fight back against the idea of no kings, George Floyd, Minneapolis, last year.

• 2:05:54Griffin Newman?

  So I can answer this very quickly.

• 2:05:56Speaker 04

  How did he pull that miracle off of getting it on?

• 2:05:58Griffin Newman?

  He pulled it off in the way that most miracles happen in this level of like corporate art, which is like something slipped through the system. There was a mistake and it was actually, it solved a problem to let him do this. That same deep pandemic Disney investor conference day where they announced 87 projects and these things that used to happen behind closed doors were suddenly livestreamed and none of us had stuff to watch. So many people were watching it and it was being reported on. They announced these movies that didn't happen and they announced like eight TV shows and half of them never manifested. There was some new droid show that never happened. There's the Gina Carano show that never happened. There's the Lando show that never happened.

• 2:06:35David Sims?

  Oh boy.

• 2:06:35Griffin Newman?

  And Andor is part of that lineup. Andor was of the things they announced that hadn't actually like been going and Ahsoka was part of that as well. Andor was kind of highest priority. A, they have Diego Luna on a contract. They're trying to negotiate his holds. He's a busy actor. They're like spending money to keep him available to do a show.

• 2:06:56Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:06:56Griffin Newman?

  They hire writers quickly. They start developing it. They put months of work and money into it. I think there's some amount of pre-production.

• 2:07:03David Sims?

  Well, Jared Bush, it was Jared Bush's show.

• 2:07:05Griffin Newman?

  And it was also Steven Schiff, who had come off of the Americans. There were a couple different teams.

• 2:07:10David Sims?

  But Jared, no, Jared Bush develops the show, the Zootopia guy. He writes a pilot.

• 2:07:16Speaker 04

  God behind Zootopia.

• 2:07:16Griffin Newman?

  That's the original.

• 2:07:17David Sims?

  Yes, he writes a pilot. He writes a bible.

• 2:07:19Speaker 04

  So it wasn't Gilroy at first?

• 2:07:21David Sims?

  No, not at all. Then Schiff is hired as the showrunner.

• 2:07:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:07:24David Sims?

  And then Gilroy joins in a little later and that is how this all happens.

• 2:07:31Griffin Newman?

  It's what happened with Rogue One.

• 2:07:33David Sims?

  Where they, you know. Where he's like, I have a few notes. And then it's like, he seems to have just kind of taken over and in a good way.

• 2:07:39Griffin Newman?

  My understanding is, you know, Rogue One, they said like the movie has problems. Can you come in and fix it? And he was like an assassin and they credit him with solving a lot of the issues, even though it cost a lot of money, was a lot of panic late in the day. And so they're like working on this and they're like, this Zootopia guy. Even Schiff, who's coming off the Americans, oh, let's hire a spy show guy. None of this is working and they're like, can Gilroy come in and give us the three fixes?

• 2:08:03David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:08:04Griffin Newman?

  And he sort of says like, I think you sort of don't have anything. And Kathleen Kennedy challenges him and says like, okay, if you could do anything, what would you do? And he goes, let me think on it. And he comes in and pitches it and basically there was enough money sunk into it. That it was prudent to do something with it.

• 2:08:23David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:08:23Griffin Newman?

  And then I think they got excited by it.

• 2:08:25David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:26Griffin Newman?

  And they were like, let's fucking support this. But he never could have pitched that from the get go.

• 2:08:31David Sims?

  I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so.

• 2:08:34Speaker 04

  And it doesn't seem like there's any part of them that's going to look at it. I don't know about the actual subscribers, but the critical praise and the fan like they will.

• 2:08:42David Sims?

  It matters.

• 2:08:43Speaker 04

  Well, they listen to the negative fan love to the point where they have.

• 2:08:47David Sims?

  I think that.

• 2:08:47Speaker 04

  Abrams unwrapping Giants movies, but they don't listen to the positive fan love to go like, what's our next political story?

• 2:08:53David Sims?

  But how do you replicate Andor? They're like, that's like.

• 2:08:57Griffin Newman?

  Well, Saw Guerrero.

• 2:08:58David Sims?

  Well, you know, people.

• 2:09:00Griffin Newman?

  The book of Saw.

• 2:09:00Speaker 04

  Hell yeah. Buzz buzz, motherfucker.

• 2:09:04Griffin Newman?

  Guerrero from the book of Saw.

• 2:09:06David Sims?

  Um, you know, like, it's like this weird series of accidents that led to this thing. It cost a fortune.

• 2:09:12Griffin Newman?

  It was so expensive.

• 2:09:13David Sims?

  You know, I mean, partly it's COVID, partly it's streaming to you, you know.

• 2:09:16Griffin Newman?

  But also Gilroy was like, if we're doing this, it has to look real. We need like bodies in places.

• 2:09:21David Sims?

  They said it in like real places.

• 2:09:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:24David Sims?

  Um, but.

• 2:09:25Griffin Newman?

  Nando was shot entirely in LA.

• 2:09:27David Sims?

  Which they keep saying, and people have been making fun of Favreau for trotting that out. And obviously it's like Favreau is saying.

• 2:09:33Speaker 04

  He's doing right by the industry.

• 2:09:34David Sims?

  Exactly. He is doing that in Hollywood where a crowd understands like that matters right now. And I, I think that's fine that he's doing that.

• 2:09:41Griffin Newman?

  As a human being, it's a great move.

• 2:09:42David Sims?

  But some people are kind of pointing out like, hey, man, Star Wars is kind of defined by like going to a really crazy place. Tunisia or whatever, or even Australia, or you know, where.

• 2:09:51Speaker 04

  Arctic Circle like.

• 2:09:53David Sims?

  Yeah. And like getting some cool landscapes and instead like you're having a conversation with Rod of the Hut in what's clearly like nothing.

• 2:10:00Speaker 04

  Right. But credit to Favreau, like the unions and the out of work. What he's saying is I didn't shoot this in fucking Bulgaria, guys.

• 2:10:08Griffin Newman?

  Right, right, right. That's what he's saying. They weren't gonna shoot this in real places anyway. Favreau has basically become a guy who seemingly doesn't like fresh air or daylight anymore. Right? Like, you're right. It was a binary. It was either they go to Eastern Europe or they shoot this in stages in America, but it was gonna be shot on stages. That in and of itself is not a death knell, but it's like every decision on this movie is a version of that. And there's even a story, there's a Vulture article that came out, uh, yesterday at the time we're recording this about like.

• 2:10:39Speaker 04

  The clown scene in LA? I read that.

• 2:10:42Griffin Newman?

  No one's talking about it. Everyone's normal about that piece.

• 2:10:45Speaker 04

  Every, I, did you read it?

• 2:10:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:48Speaker 04

  I was just jumping in to make a joke.

• 2:10:49Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no.

• 2:10:50Speaker 04

  Anyway, you're the Vulture piece. You were saying.

• 2:10:51Griffin Newman?

  Um, it was the, it was asking the question of why is this the thing that they made? What was the strategy here? Is it gonna work? It's not opening well, right? The reviews have been bad. Everyone's kind of shrugging about it. And they call out this movie was very cheap to make, especially for Star Wars. It cost a hundred and seventy-five million dollars. LA was so grateful to get production entirely there. They gave a twenty-five million dollar rebate. It costs less than a hundred and fifty, which for Star Wars is nuts. I know it's an insane amount of money. It's nuts. It's money that was spent to put a lot of people to work and create jobs and fucking whatever. But they also have this anecdote that two friends texted us yesterday.

• 2:11:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:11:31Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, there's the review right there. And they go, Disney just trusted Favreau because he's like a smart, steady hand. He launched the Marvel Universe.

• 2:11:40Speaker 04

  Marvel, he kinda launched live action Disney in a way.

• 2:11:43Griffin Newman?

  He doesn't stress out. He gets things done. He works fast. He works quick. He's such a multitasker that one day when they were filming easy interior shots of Mando and Grogu in the cockpit. He also spent his time grilling up five hundred grilled cheeses on a griddle for the cast and crew. And I'm like, this feels like a movie made by a guy who's also making sandwiches at the same time.

• 2:12:07Speaker 04

  Chef call that.

• 2:12:08Griffin Newman?

  There are TV shows that feel like, you know, we joke, this is a show you're supposed to watch while you're folding laundry. This is a movie. Movie made by someone who's in the act of folding laundry. And it's like, it's the whole thing there where you're like, it's great that he brought production back to LA. That's nice that he made sandwiches for everybody. I don't know, maybe the scenes in the cockpit should be better.

• 2:12:27Speaker 04

  I would not be shocked if this movie outpaces the financial projections that the reviews are dismal about because people are gonna bring their kids to it.

• 2:12:35Griffin Newman?

  The Thursday numbers, which, which is not a kid thing, right? Obviously, the kids will come in the weekend matinee, the afternoon.

• 2:12:41Speaker 04

  Just wait to watch it on streaming is now also.

• 2:12:44Griffin Newman?

  It's also a problem.

• 2:12:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:12:45Griffin Newman?

  But the Thursday previews, when you went to see it, are lower than what Solo did. And Solo opened on this exact same Memorial Day weekend and made a hundred million for the four day and like eighty for the three day. And this is looking to make less than eighty for the three day. So it's coming in below the low watermark.

• 2:13:05David Sims?

  It's coming in at Solo or worse.

• 2:13:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:08David Sims?

  It could, you know, because it's a family movie, you know, you could see some improvement. It's kind of like a rainy weekend.

• 2:13:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:14David Sims?

  That's sort of good and bad, you know, like that can help drive people to theaters, but.

• 2:13:19Griffin Newman?

  Their triumph would be, we did the exact same number as Solo. The idea of them doing demonstrably better than Solo is basically out of the question.

• 2:13:26Speaker 05

  But also, wouldn't they make a bunch of money from all the toys and the nummies?

• 2:13:30Griffin Newman?

  They're fine. They're fine. They're fine. And it's cheap.

• 2:13:33David Sims?

  It wasn't that expensive a movie.

• 2:13:34Griffin Newman?

  Solo two times. Solo costs like four hundred million dollars.

• 2:13:37David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:13:38Griffin Newman?

  They're, they're gonna be fine on this, but like,

• 2:13:42Griffin Newman?

  what's the long-term gain of it's fine? When Star Wars is kind of in crisis and Andor is starting to feel like an aberration.

• 2:13:52David Sims?

  Yeah, and like, I guess Filoni's hope is next year, we have this other movie comes out. It'll work and it'll do well.

• 2:14:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:01David Sims?

  And my skin is saved.

• 2:14:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:14:03David Sims?

  But if I'm in charge of Disney, I'm seeing this go over so poorly. This is going over poorly.

• 2:14:09Griffin Newman?

  It's going over poorly.

• 2:14:09David Sims?

  It got bad reviews and it's not doing well financially.

• 2:14:12Griffin Newman?

  Blank Check's barely even talking about the movie itself.

• 2:14:14David Sims?

  Right. Blank Check's mostly just talking about Nilla Wafer's and Avatar, The Last Airbender.

• 2:14:17Griffin Newman?

  They're saying it's a good episode. I can't tell if people are gonna be upset that we're not talking about the plot, but I did do that three-minute challenge thing and that was one fourteen.

• 2:14:25Speaker 05

  Our editor's struggling a little bit with the screen.

• 2:14:27David Sims?

  Screaming, but we'll, we'll make it work.

• 2:14:29Griffin Newman?

  I didn't even think about that. Thank you. Thank you, Alan Smith.

• 2:14:31David Sims?

  Cut that part out.

• 2:14:32Griffin Newman?

  No, we can keep it in triple it.

• 2:14:33David Sims?

  Nope.

• 2:14:34Speaker 04

  Uh, Oppa's last day is the best. Oppa's lost days. That's the best stretch of Avatar.

• 2:14:39David Sims?

  That's, that's, that's very good. I mean, I love all the bossing say stuff a lot.

• 2:14:42Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 2:14:42David Sims?

  I think that stuff's really, really special for kids, especially like, you know, like teaching them about totalitarianism and about like.

• 2:14:48Speaker 04

  Displacement and refugees and all this stuff.

• 2:14:51David Sims?

  After rocks.

• 2:14:51Speaker 04

  Nickelodeon cartoon, Chris.

• 2:14:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, no, I didn't watch it. I don't question for a second.

• 2:14:54Speaker 04

  You will love it.

• 2:14:55Griffin Newman?

  It took me years to watch.

• 2:14:56David Sims?

  The Potloryan and Casco.

• 2:14:58Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 2:14:59David Sims?

  So I sent a text to you. Oh, but I was just saying that is, sorry, I just finished with it. Is Filoni fired? Right? Like, is there a world where someone above at Disney is like, Star Wars needs a very strong hand at the tail now. Star Wars is a little lost.

• 2:15:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:14David Sims?

  We need to do the James Gunn thing that DC did. We need to bring in a respected creative force. I have no idea if they do or don't. I don't know. But like, if I'm in charge of Disney right now, Kathleen Kennedy has gone out into that good night and Filoni with his cowboy hat. He's in this movie. He's wearing a stupid hat.

• 2:15:31Griffin Newman?

  Trapper Wolf.

• 2:15:32David Sims?

  God bless him.

• 2:15:33Speaker 04

  Do you think White TV's performance at that robot is when he said, I'm the shit and I won't take notes anymore?

• 2:15:38Griffin Newman?

  I think so.

• 2:15:38David Sims?

  I think it's all part of it. I think, I think a lot of things contributed to take a white TV.

• 2:15:44Griffin Newman?

  And he was really feeling himself girdling sandwiches.

• 2:15:46Speaker 04

  I was so wrong about, I, I thought that Thor movie was gonna be do the God butcher stuff.

• 2:15:50Griffin Newman?

  That's one of the funniest runs you've ever gone on in this podcast.

• 2:15:53Speaker 04

  A lot of your fans are making fun of me, but I would, I would say if you read the comment.

• 2:15:56David Sims?

  No, you're right about that.

• 2:15:57Griffin Newman?

  Tom is good.

• 2:15:57Speaker 04

  He betrayed it to have his own character make jokes.

• 2:16:01David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:16:01Speaker 04

  He betrayed everything amazing about the storyline so he could keep coming back to life and personally making jokes.

• 2:16:07David Sims?

  Thor Love and Thunder, which did you ever catch up with that?

• 2:16:10Griffin Newman?

  I still have not seen it. It is the only MCU movie I haven't seen.

• 2:16:13Speaker 04

  I haven't seen Iron Man three, obviously.

• 2:16:16Griffin Newman?

  So good.

• 2:16:17David Sims?

  Best ones.

• 2:16:17Griffin Newman?

  I regret to inform you, it has one flaw, but otherwise it is maybe our favorite Marvel movie.

• 2:16:23Speaker 04

  Is the one flaw that I was cut from the film.

• 2:16:24Griffin Newman?

  Correct. Obviously, it's the only thing that could have improved it.

• 2:16:26Speaker 04

  Acted opposite Don Cheadle and it got hit the cutting room floor.

• 2:16:29David Sims?

  That's great actor.

• 2:16:31Speaker 04

  Fortunately, he could not overcome the massive deficit I brought.

• 2:16:34David Sims?

  No, um, but uh, Thor 11 Thunder is one of those things where I'm like, that kind of slipped under a bit of a sort of post-COVID radar.

• 2:16:42Griffin Newman?

  It doesn't get enough shit.

• 2:16:43David Sims?

  But I think it actually does not get enough shit how fucking bad it is.

• 2:16:47Griffin Newman?

  And if you're dealing with that level of riffing, that's fricking sublime. Then the, then the force material goes out the window. The riffing was fricking sublime. The riffing was riffing.

• 2:16:57David Sims?

  What did you want to say, Ben, about, uh, the Mandalorian?

• 2:17:00Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me, the Potloryan and Cast goo.

• 2:17:03David Sims?

  I sent you a text.

• 2:17:04Griffin Newman?

  Can you just, yeah, look at it.

• 2:17:06David Sims?

  Take a quick look.

• 2:17:06Griffin Newman?

  The great Pat Reynolds, our, our longtime Photoshop artist, titled this episode, the Potloryan and Cast goo. We give him no.

• 2:17:15David Sims?

  I don't want to make you here. I'll just show you the picture.

• 2:17:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:17:18Speaker 04

  I know, I found it. I found my phone.

• 2:17:19Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Cause I, I do think there's some powerful stuff going on here. He doesn't, you know, we rarely even give him notes.

• 2:17:26David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:17:27Griffin Newman?

  But he usually drops the thing like a day or two before it needs to post and we just trust the process. He sent this photo yesterday and it did have us reeling.

• 2:17:37David Sims?

  I even showed it to my wife and I don't show her every, you know, Photoshop that crosses my desk.

• 2:17:42Griffin Newman?

  And was, was she smiling?

• 2:17:43David Sims?

  She, she, she was laughing.

• 2:17:45Griffin Newman?

  I like that you came to Cast goo's defense because Marie.

• 2:17:48David Sims?

  Yeah, they were all like, oh, cursed. And I'm like cursed with awesomeness.

• 2:17:53Griffin Newman?

  This is good. We've really landed on something. And in fact, maybe Blank Check's first movie is the Podcast Lorian and Cast goo. Cause I think we could sell a lot of Cast goo merch.

• 2:18:04David Sims?

  I think so.

• 2:18:05Griffin Newman?

  I mean, look, I know we're being critical of this movie, but we, we can do it right. Right? If we sold like Cast goo cookies and shit.

• 2:18:11David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:11Griffin Newman?

  Are you looking at this, Gav?

• 2:18:12Speaker 04

  This is really strange.

• 2:18:15David Sims?

  It's kind of, it's kind of an achievement.

• 2:18:17Speaker 04

  I wish I wasn't in the room with you.

• 2:18:18Griffin Newman?

  You wish you weren't in the room. Are you saying you want to be photoshopped in? Do you want to be Zeb or Ellis?

• 2:18:22Speaker 04

  I mean, I did, I did, uh, I did think maybe I would be in there, but that's okay.

• 2:18:26Griffin Newman?

  Do you want to be Zeb or Rada?

• 2:18:29Speaker 04

  Me as Rada.

• 2:18:30Griffin Newman?

  So I think.

• 2:18:31Speaker 04

  Rod is the right pick.

• 2:18:31Griffin Newman?

  Get this Rod and your Zeborelios.

• 2:18:33Speaker 04

  There's.

• 2:18:34Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:18:34Speaker 04

  You remember Zeb, our dear friend?

• 2:18:35Speaker 04

  I'm gonna email Pat right now and let him know.

• 2:18:38David Sims?

  Griff?

• 2:18:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:39David Sims?

  Until this second, I forgot about Zeb.

• 2:18:42Griffin Newman?

  Yup.

• 2:18:43David Sims?

  And they told you not to forget about Zeb, obviously, you know?

• 2:18:46Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Eminem said that.

• 2:18:47David Sims?

  Yeah, right, but so Zeb, who's in Star Wars Rebels.

• 2:18:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:51David Sims?

  Who's like.

• 2:18:52Griffin Newman?

  Which I love Rebels. Rebels is a show I actually watched.

• 2:18:55David Sims?

  Love is too strong, but I watched most of it. I felt it somewhat disappeared up its own ass eventually, but I enjoyed it.

• 2:19:01Griffin Newman?

  David, the exact same relationship. I don't remember if it was three or four seasons in total. I loved the first season of that show, much like Mandalorian.

• 2:19:09David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:09Griffin Newman?

  At season two, I was like, I still like this. Season three, I'm like, it's getting really into tying back to Clone Wars shit. And then I never finished the show.

• 2:19:16David Sims?

  Yeah, the end is not good.

• 2:19:18Griffin Newman?

  The start.

• 2:19:19David Sims?

  Well, did you love in Ahsoka where, um, you know, all those characters are flesh and blood now and they deliver lines like this, we have to go get the guy.

• 2:19:27Speaker 04

  I liked it fine. I mean, I also just, you know, I like Rosario Dawson.

• 2:19:32Griffin Newman?

  I do too.

• 2:19:32Speaker 04

  So much.

• 2:19:33Griffin Newman?

  I think he's a good actor.

• 2:19:34David Sims?

  I don't mind.

• 2:19:35Speaker 04

  I'll watch her be pensive and exist in this.

• 2:19:36Griffin Newman?

  Mary Elizabeth Whistled, I love.

• 2:19:38Speaker 04

  Rosario Dawson existing in a liminal space where she rejected Jediism but can never be.

• 2:19:43David Sims?

  Buck.

• 2:19:44Speaker 04

  Can never be human again, like, I'll watch it.

• 2:19:46Griffin Newman?

  Taking a nap for four episodes of that season.

• 2:19:48Speaker 04

  You guys are so harsh.

• 2:19:49David Sims?

  I'm not harsh. I watched all of that TV show. It was a lot of hours I put into it. It was very low energy.

• 2:19:55Griffin Newman?

  I was.

• 2:19:55David Sims?

  It was very, very low energy.

• 2:19:57Speaker 04

  Her face is lit up by the lightsaber.

• 2:19:59Griffin Newman?

  I was watching it.

• 2:20:00David Sims?

  And it's a white lightsaber. That's cool.

• 2:20:02Griffin Newman?

  It's a white lightsaber. I was watching it and I was like, what is this acting style? Why are they like this? What does this remind me of? And then I cracked it. I went, this is children doing Shakespeare. This is when you see a high school production of Shakespeare and it's like, no one knows what they're saying, but they know that it's supposed to be performed seriously. And so you just make an acting choice that is serious.

• 2:20:26Speaker 04

  I like Dawson. I like. Asoke fine.

• 2:20:28Griffin Newman?

  And I'm watching actors. I like just be so juiceless.

• 2:20:33David Sims?

  Quite juicy. Can I share my joke with Chris? Oh yeah, it's time. Yes, I've heard that there's a joke.

• 2:20:38Griffin Newman?

  I struggled to watch Asoke. I was really struggling and I made this commitment to I'm gonna watch all the shows before this episode. And Ben was a real friend and he helped me.

• 2:20:48David Sims?

  Well, cuz in a little more context, we're.

• 2:20:52Griffin Newman?

  Just say the joke first and then give the context. I think this is the way to do it.

• 2:20:55David Sims?

  Fine. Okay, well, whatever. So Griffin's struggling. I say, do you want me to come inside and jump on the bed while you're soaking?

• 2:21:02Griffin Newman?

  Got it. Got it. No context needed. Okay, so the context is we workshopped this joke a lot. It's been in the works for like two months.

• 2:21:12David Sims?

  I pitched it. I mean, I said it in real time when we were on our trip.

• 2:21:16Griffin Newman?

  We were drunk in the back of a car and you said, is a soaking anything? Is there a way to make that mean something?

• 2:21:22David Sims?

  That's, that's when the Mormons, they, they, they jiggle the bed.

• 2:21:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:21:27David Sims?

  Cuz they can't move, but maybe someone else removes them.

• 2:21:29Griffin Newman?

  You can insert.

• 2:21:31David Sims?

  But you can't, when you say you can insert, it's like, I think already some rules are maybe being bent here.

• 2:21:37Griffin Newman?

  Is they insert.

• 2:21:38David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:38Griffin Newman?

  And then they go, well, I'm not thrusting. And then someone else jumps on the bed like a, like a bunch of monkeys.

• 2:21:44Speaker 04

  Jury duty did a.

• 2:21:45Griffin Newman?

  They did.

• 2:21:45Speaker 04

  Famous joke.

• 2:21:46Griffin Newman?

  Yes. So Ben was joking that I was holding my finger over the play button. So I didn't wanna press it and then he started jumping on the bed.

• 2:21:54Speaker 04

  Ah, soaking.

• 2:21:55Griffin Newman?

  And that's a soaking.

• 2:21:56David Sims?

  So Zeb.

• 2:21:57Griffin Newman?

  Yes, Zeb. No, I like all Rebels, I think every character is well conceived and fun. And the way they've translated to live action, all of them have become so boring and sad. And Zeb's thing is basically, A, he's based off of like the original Ralph McQuarrie Chewbacca design, which is fun.

• 2:22:15David Sims?

  Chewbacca, right.

• 2:22:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. Which most of Rebels is original McQuarrie designs back to the drawing board. I like that. His character is basically like, what if the pilot is kinda like a big kinda monkey bear alien? Who's almost got like a football hooligan vibe, right?

• 2:22:32Speaker 04

  He's like a bit of a tough guy. But he's funny and he'll give you shit, whatever.

• 2:22:37Griffin Newman?

  This shows up, they just act like everyone's gonna be cheering that he's back. He's from a TV show that's now over 10 years old. They brought him in for one scene, basically a like blink and you miss a cameo in one episode of Mandalorian, season three, where he never interacts with Mandalorian or Grogu. And now he's just like their friend who pilots their ship, even though Mando famously loves piloting ships.

• 2:23:03David Sims?

  Is a pilot skilled.

• 2:23:05Griffin Newman?

  And they don't do any work to introduce him. They don't do anything to make you like this guy. He no longer has the traits that made him likable in his previous show. And they just act like we're all like, thank fucking god Zeb is here. And he's there and he disappears and he reappears twice.

• 2:23:20David Sims?

  Well, like Grogu pushes the button.

• 2:23:21Griffin Newman?

  Twice you think he's gone from the movie? And then he's like, oh, Zeb's back.

• 2:23:25Speaker 04

  I do have a follow up question for something you said, David, and it ties into this, which I think you said, like, is there a chance Filoni gets fired?

• 2:23:33David Sims?

  Yeah, or maybe fire might be too strong, but like exactly pushed again. Right. Over to the side of like, you know what? You can be in charge of cartoons.

• 2:23:40Speaker 04

  But I kinda, I think one of the thing that seems clear about him, and I don't know him, is that it seems like his greatest strength and his greatest weakness is that he really, really cares on a granular detailed level about the things he cares about.

• 2:23:54Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 2:23:55Speaker 04

  And that's what made so much of his early stuff feel so great and connected.

• 2:24:00Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:24:00Speaker 04

  And is why we're all sitting around like, who the fuck is Zeb? Like that's clearly it's, it's good and bad. My question is, if someone is brought in to share that load or to become the Feige of Star Wars that he is maybe proving not to be, fundamentally, is that better if it's someone who really loves Star Wars or someone who doesn't give a fuck about?

• 2:24:23Griffin Newman?

  You know who doesn't give that much of a fuck about Star Wars?

• 2:24:26Speaker 04

  Who's that?

• 2:24:27Griffin Newman?

  Tony Gilroy.

• 2:24:28Speaker 04

  Could you hand the whole thing to Gilroy with Disney ever?

• 2:24:31Griffin Newman?

  No, and he wouldn't do it. They wouldn't do it now.

• 2:24:34David Sims?

  Right, because it is right. The challenge is it's like James Gunn was, I guess, down for it. But it's like, right, do you want that job? It's like, kind of this weird executive managerial job.

• 2:24:43Speaker 04

  You always need someone that's like, I just want good stories. Totally. The Star Wars stuff will come in.

• 2:24:48Griffin Newman?

  Or at least a 50 50 split, you know, versus Filoni's interests feel 90% maintaining the tenants of Star Wars.

• 2:24:56David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:56Griffin Newman?

  In a very kind of like literal way. You say, you know, do they bring someone else in? Do they push him aside? The question is beyond who would even want to do that? Because it feels like such a poisoned chalice and the fandom has become so impossible to please. I feel like the fandom speaks as if they're monolithic, even though it's like a shattered, like 40 part fandom with different feelings. You know, it's like modern Christianity, that's like a bunch of different sects. And then they're speaking as a monolith. And then Disney reacts to them like they're also a monolith. So you're never actually making something that pleases everyone. And everyone's like, no, Star Wars is for me. And why are you not making the thing that I want? Which is a struggle.

• 2:25:39Griffin Newman?

  I'm not against the idea of this being a movie that's just for kids to get the new generation in. And if kids are loving this, I'm happy. The screening we went to, our buddy Matt Singer brought his daughter, who I believe has not watched the show.

• 2:25:52David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:25:52Griffin Newman?

  I don't know if she's ever seen the original Star Wars movies.

• 2:25:55David Sims?

  She's seen some Star Wars, I'm not sure.

• 2:25:56Griffin Newman?

  Certainly not specifically a big Star Wars fan and was.

• 2:25:59Speaker 04

  You said you brought her to the press screen?

• 2:26:01Griffin Newman?

  Matt Singer brought his daughter.

• 2:26:03Speaker 04

  Got it, got it, got it.

• 2:26:03Griffin Newman?

  And he, he, you know, was.

• 2:26:06Speaker 04

  I thought you did have a.

• 2:26:06Griffin Newman?

  I, I did not.

• 2:26:11Griffin Newman?

  He brought his daughter, who I think is nine and was just kind of like, I want to see that movie because I like Baby Yoda. And he said that she enjoyed it. But she also enjoyed like her green colored sprite as much as she enjoyed the movie. And it was just sort of the general celebration of Grogu was enough. I'm not going to be like cynical of that. I like anything that like makes people happy. That isn't aggressively harmful to society.

• 2:26:37Speaker 04

  We will all be dead sooner than those children.

• 2:26:39Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 2:26:39Speaker 04

  They need those children spending their money when they are in the workforce.

• 2:26:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes, but I, I question.

• 2:26:46Griffin Newman?

  Is there even an obvious or semi-obvious person to point to of should that person take over Star Wars? Because when people were angry about the movies four years ago, everyone would have said, probably makes sense to hand it to Favreau.

• 2:27:01David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:27:02Griffin Newman?

  And if not Favreau, Filoni's the bad fan choice. And now both of these guys have kind of like stepped in it.

• 2:27:08David Sims?

  Well, but I, I mean, I personally would never have wanted Filoni to be in charge of Star Wars. Favreau, I could have seen that happening.

• 2:27:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:15David Sims?

  Yeah. He's, he's more got that kind of like vague exec.

• 2:27:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:19David Sims?

  Kind of status.

• 2:27:20Griffin Newman?

  Now I would rather see him be in charge of a Cubano truck, for example, because it feels like that's what really makes him happy. It's so funny that he made one great giant franchise movie, one franchise movie that was a mess, then made his self-referential, I'm struggling working within these corporate demands. I just want to be doing my little thing, food truck. Got that out of his system, has become the ultimate like studio hired hand guy, has become the like, yeah, yeah, I figured out how to take all difficulty out of the filmmaking process and I will do nothing controversial.

• 2:28:04Speaker 04

  Can I ask a question?

• 2:28:06David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:06Griffin Newman?

  Please.

• 2:28:08Speaker 04

  And I just also want to say, I think you guys would agree.

• 2:28:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:12Speaker 04

  I think I've put the bad boy of blank check bit on hold for this episode. I think we've had a thoughtful discussion with a lot of good points.

• 2:28:18Griffin Newman?

  I think your blank check's good boy.

• 2:28:19Speaker 04

  Some passion along the way that maybe led to some early moments of contentiousness, but I think all in the spirit of the debate.

• 2:28:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's emotional arc.

• 2:28:26Speaker 04

  And I think that you and anyone listening can hear that we are, I believe, two hours in and I'm only bringing this up for the first time now.

• 2:28:32David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:33Speaker 04

  And I want you to know, I hope that that's a reflection that I'm asking this genuinely and not trying to force any past divisiveness back into the spotlight, for real.

• 2:28:42Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:28:43Speaker 04

  When I watched Andor.

• 2:28:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:45Speaker 04

  And I watched Rogue One, I mentioned before that I did have that. It's, it's not that much harder than shooting Wamp Rats in the T-14 back home. And you go, oh, Luke was so naive. So innocent. And it actually, like, A New Hope is, obviously, you kind of know this, but it just underlines. He's hope.

• 2:29:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:05Speaker 04

  He's a farm boy who represents this idea. Like, not only, not only does he step up in the face of people, like, who know the history of Cassian Andor, killing someone who's like, you're on my team, but you're making too much fucking noise. Blau, you're dead.

• 2:29:20Griffin Newman?

  But also, he's a vessel. He's an idea to believe in. He's a.

• 2:29:22Speaker 04

  He is.

• 2:29:23Griffin Newman?

  Blonde haired, blue eyed boy with optimism.

• 2:29:26Speaker 04

  How? And I don't.

• 2:29:29Griffin Newman?

  Oh, boy.

• 2:29:30Speaker 04

  You see where I'm going?

• 2:29:31Griffin Newman?

  I know where you're coming from.

• 2:29:32David Sims?

  I just want you to say it.

• 2:29:34Speaker 04

  How do we? Like, I sink my teeth into that, Luke, and it actually gets me choked up thinking about the beauty of like, oh, right. Any, there is no revolution in real life that can lose sight of hope and optimism. And Luke is the reminder of that in this universe that we love.

• 2:29:52Griffin Newman?

  But I think the other thing that Star Wars is about is that history repeats itself.

• 2:29:56Speaker 04

  But when we get to The Last Jedi and Luke himself is cynical, that's not even slightly heartbreaking?

• 2:30:01David Sims?

  No.

• 2:30:01Griffin Newman?

  It is heartbreaking, but that's the point. That's what it's using. That's the story engine, is that it's heartbreaking.

• 2:30:06David Sims?

  I just don't have this relationship with Luke that you do. I just don't at all.

• 2:30:10Speaker 04

  Then why do you like Star Wars? Fuckin' hell, you see that motherfucker? Why are you yelling at me?

• 2:30:16David Sims?

  Because you're, you're like, um, why do I like Star Wars?

• 2:30:19Speaker 04

  I'm being. I like Luke alright. I'm being so gentle about even bringing it up because I think it's a valid question in light of Andor.

• 2:30:25David Sims?

  I'm trying to respond. It's just like, it's just not what I feel about. I just don't care about Luke in that way.

• 2:30:30Griffin Newman?

  I care about Luke, but I, I think it's more interesting to have these things tested.

• 2:30:34David Sims?

  It's also just so funny to me.

• 2:30:36Griffin Newman?

  It's the same as you.

• 2:30:37David Sims?

  To Forever and Ever, and everyone's like, I can't believe Rian Johnson did that. And I'm like, episode seven begins with, he has vanished.

• 2:30:46Griffin Newman?

  That's the exquisite corpse he was handed.

• 2:30:47David Sims?

  And number two, George Lucas's entire plan for his secret trilogy was the exact same shit.

• 2:30:54Griffin Newman?

  It was the exact same thing. It was gonna be more Will's focus, but it was gonna be.

• 2:30:57David Sims?

  He was heavier on Will's.

• 2:30:58Griffin Newman?

  I had Luke on his own island.

• 2:31:00Speaker 04

  I really am not trying to have a fight.

• 2:31:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:02Speaker 04

  I'm really not trying to poke a beehive again. I'm not doing a bit. I just will say. The dismal nature of Andor, building up to the dismal ending of Rogue One, linking right to Vader on the ship and throwing you into Luke's story.

• 2:31:18Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:31:19Speaker 04

  With the new context of like, this world is fucking falling apart. This kid's aunt and uncle got killed. He's leaving this world and he somehow still fucking believes that like, he has the fucking idiocy, the audacity, if not idiocy, to think he can actually blow up the Death Star, but then he does it.

• 2:31:40Griffin Newman?

  Cause it's age 20 knowledge. He's a young man. He hasn't experienced anything.

• 2:31:43Speaker 04

  All I'm trying to put on record is that that's the Luke I love. And I'm just leaving it at that. I'm not trying to have a fight about it. That's the Luke I love.

• 2:31:51Griffin Newman?

  Sometimes you like, you, you love your dad and then he gets old and he's like racist and you're like, how is this the same guy? Not speaking of my own father.

• 2:31:58Speaker 04

  But they don't make a movie, but the credits can roll before your dad gets racist. That's the, that's why it's fiction.

• 2:32:03Griffin Newman?

  But then you're questioning the entire enterprise of making these movies.

• 2:32:07Speaker 04

  Which ties into, do we need more Star Wars?

• 2:32:09David Sims?

  Okay, but here's the thing. We're gonna have more Star Wars.

• 2:32:12Speaker 04

  It's happening. I'm not, I'm real, you guys can feel it. I'm being a good boy.

• 2:32:16David Sims?

  All these debates died with episode nine.

• 2:32:18Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:32:19David Sims?

  Any chance to sort of properly resolve whatever you felt about the Luke story or any of the other sequels or died with episode nine, which had no story.

• 2:32:26Griffin Newman?

  They whiffed in a way that pissed off both sides. Because everyone was unhappy other than Chris Gethard, Blank Check's a good boy.

• 2:32:33Speaker 04

  The ocean fight looks cool. Some things.

• 2:32:35David Sims?

  Looks alright. If episode nine had successfully kind of given you a satisfying conclusion to the stories of Rey and Finn and Kylo Ren and maybe Poe, but like those big three.

• 2:32:47Speaker 04

  Oh Poe.

• 2:32:48David Sims?

  I like, no, but I'm just saying like, no, but listen, if you had given them satisfying endings, then you would have been like.

• 2:32:55Speaker 04

  String him to a tree and chop his head off.

• 2:32:57David Sims?

  Hey, come on, come on.

• 2:32:59Speaker 04

  Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

• 2:33:00David Sims?

  Please, get it.

• 2:33:01Speaker 04

  No, no, it's so bad.

• 2:33:04Griffin Newman?

  I just run out of energy, guys.

• 2:33:06Speaker 04

  You're smart and I respect you.

• 2:33:07Griffin Newman?

  To please.

• 2:33:08David Sims?

  Dudes, I'm so out of energy.

• 2:33:10Griffin Newman?

  I want to hear this point.

• 2:33:12David Sims?

  It's too late. It's gone, guys.

• 2:33:13Griffin Newman?

  No, we're begging for it.

• 2:33:14David Sims?

  You cut me off so many times.

• 2:33:16Griffin Newman?

  We're making a joke about chopping both of them up. I'm sorry.

• 2:33:18David Sims?

  I want to be honest with you guys. I'm not mad, but I get cut off so much that I just, my brain can't fire anymore. I don't remember what I'm trying to say.

• 2:33:26Griffin Newman?

  You were saying if it had given satisfying endings.

• 2:33:28David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:28Griffin Newman?

  To the main character.

• 2:33:29David Sims?

  Then the Luke and Leia and Han stories in the sequels might not hurt your feelings as much.

• 2:33:36Speaker 04

  They might be a fun debate then, instead of a.

• 2:33:38David Sims?

  It would be like Luke did that and had all that in service of what happened to Kylo, which made sense and Rey, which made sense. And instead it was like Rey decides to be Skywalker because she thinks that's nice. Kylo died. He was all right in the last 20 minutes there.

• 2:33:55Speaker 04

  It is ultimately.

• 2:33:56David Sims?

  And Poe, what is, where does Poe end it? I don't know.

• 2:33:59Griffin Newman?

  He's sighing and rolling his eyes because Palpatine returned.

• 2:34:02David Sims?

  No, but I mean, like after that, is he around? He's around. He blows up the empire or whatever.

• 2:34:07Speaker 04

  In that like.

• 2:34:08David Sims?

  And Finn, I guess, like maybe meets his sister or his friend or something else.

• 2:34:13Griffin Newman?

  She wasn't his sister and she's not Lando's daughter, but she's.

• 2:34:18David Sims?

  But she's like, I don't know. She's like him or something.

• 2:34:21Griffin Newman?

  Cause she also was a stormtrooper or something.

• 2:34:23David Sims?

  They have force powers. We'll deal with it later. And it's just kind of like the, the movie just kind of ends with like, I don't know. Everyone's all right.

• 2:34:30Griffin Newman?

  Can we talk around?

• 2:34:31David Sims?

  Sorry.

• 2:34:31Griffin Newman?

  Any other elephant in the room?

• 2:34:33Speaker 04

  It is tough to be like, oh, right. It could be an interesting debate, but like, we don't even.

• 2:34:39David Sims?

  Blew it.

• 2:34:40Speaker 04

  We don't, we fundamentally don't trust that anyone's at the wheel of this entire thing anymore.

• 2:34:44David Sims?

  Luke's in episode nine, right? Like he's like.

• 2:34:47Griffin Newman?

  And Han Solo. They bring both of them back as force ghosts.

• 2:34:51David Sims?

  Han Solo, Han Solo, I remember because that moment is, is fine because he doesn't even speak, but Luke has like.

• 2:34:58Griffin Newman?

  He talks.

• 2:34:59David Sims?

  What does he say? He's like.

• 2:35:00Griffin Newman?

  Shit, son, I'm sorry.

• 2:35:03David Sims?

  But Luke has like the scene like Ghost Luke sits with Ghost Yoda and they're like, "Hey, Ray Skywalker, I like the sound of that."

• 2:35:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:35:12David Sims?

  Drink Schlitz. Like, I just, you know, it's just like, if, if there had been it, then maybe you wouldn't be so mad.

• 2:35:19Speaker 04

  Or I'm not mad.

• 2:35:21Griffin Newman?

  I'm not mad.

• 2:35:22David Sims?

  Or whatever your emotion is about the sort of the later arc of Luke that they blew.

• 2:35:28Speaker 04

  It's, it's, I don't even care to relitigate it. I'm sorry that got, it got any of us this upset. I just really.

• 2:35:34Griffin Newman?

  Dor is touching.

• 2:35:35Speaker 04

  I just really think Andor underlines the naivete of Luke in a way that I think it really underlines what I always liked about the character.

• 2:35:42Griffin Newman?

  I agree, but that's the naivete of a young man and also a white man who's not being challenged in the same way that Andor is. I mean, that's part of what Andor is about.

• 2:35:51David Sims?

  Nice, fun part of the juice of Andor.

• 2:35:52Griffin Newman?

  Totally. And even down to.

• 2:35:55David Sims?

  Over the top way.

• 2:35:56Griffin Newman?

  No, but it, but he is, he is like coded as immigrant within the universe of the movie.

• 2:36:01Speaker 04

  He's never gonna be the poster boy. He's hidden in the shadows.

• 2:36:03David Sims?

  Can't be the poster boy. Yeah, it's cool.

• 2:36:05Griffin Newman?

  What I would equate it to, Geth, is part of the enduring power of Jesus as an idea for people to believe in.

• 2:36:14David Sims?

  We're talking about Jesus now.

• 2:36:15Griffin Newman?

  Is that he died very young, right? As a pure symbol.

• 2:36:19David Sims?

  Kind of have to die to.

• 2:36:21Griffin Newman?

  And there's the, there's also, you know, the promise of he's gonna come back someday. But if he never comes back, we can all project how helpful he would be today. And I think there was a similar thing because you make this trilogy, it ends with Luke settling the universe, right? And now he's become the Jedi master. And then George Lucas is like, "I'm stepping away. And by the way, if I were to do more, they'd be prequels." It just takes Luke, Luke off the board where it's, we all have our head cannons of how great Luke could be, right? And then he does the prequels and people are disappointed and then they come back.

• 2:36:56Speaker 04

  I'm not have, I will, I will say not another word about it. I'm just putting on record, Andor made me like the Luke I met. When I was young.

• 2:37:05Griffin Newman?

  Totally, but that guy can't live forever. Like he, life experiences are gonna change him and test him.

• 2:37:10David Sims?

  I mean, the thing that sucks, and then we should just, of course, return to, well, we should be done soon.

• 2:37:16Griffin Newman?

  Just talk a little.

• 2:37:17David Sims?

  There's some toys we need to.

• 2:37:18Griffin Newman?

  A little Rada.

• 2:37:18David Sims?

  Little bit of Rada, but it's just like, that was your shot with Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher.

• 2:37:24Griffin Newman?

  That's the thing they absolutely fucked up is never putting the three of them in the same frame while they had the chance.

• 2:37:29David Sims?

  And.

• 2:37:29Griffin Newman?

  And that's a JJ fuck up.

• 2:37:30David Sims?

  It's a bit of a JJ fuck up and it's just kind of a like, you know, you had all those guys, they all look great in Force Awakens. It's like, you know, the energy could be there.

• 2:37:40Griffin Newman?

  Carrie dying is a tragedy. No one could have anticipated that. That was the force majeure disaster.

• 2:37:45David Sims?

  But just generally, it's kind of like, we saw old Han Solo, that kind of rocked.

• 2:37:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:37:49David Sims?

  We saw Luke Skywalker, old Luke Skywalker, people have complicated feelings, but he gave a big performance.

• 2:37:53Griffin Newman?

  He did.

• 2:37:54David Sims?

  We saw old Leia, you know, there's little bits where you're kind of like, that kind of rocks.

• 2:37:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:59David Sims?

  Like, there's not much of it and it's sort of, you know, and it's like, and now if they're like, hey, we're gonna do episode 10. It's like, yeah, but you're not gonna do it with them. So that's that over.

• 2:38:08Griffin Newman?

  But our.

• 2:38:08David Sims?

  So now what are you gonna do?

• 2:38:10Griffin Newman?

  Our friends who've been watching Star Wars with their kids are all like, Rey still fucking hits.

• 2:38:14David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. Rey rock.

• 2:38:15Griffin Newman?

  Like, watching this today, you know, born after these films ended, that trilogy ended, are like, I'm, I'm buying Rey. I'm buying Rey like I'm buying Luke. Both of these work for me. Like, I'm buying Anakin. I mean, that's the interesting thing about our friends with kids under 10 who have shown them all three trilogies are like, they're in on all three of these arcs.

• 2:38:37David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:37Griffin Newman?

  They like The Innocent, they like seeing The Innocent go bad, they like seeing the different versions of what The Innocent becomes. That all works. The elephant in the room, I think we should just talk about very briefly.

• 2:38:46David Sims?

  The Rada in the room.

• 2:38:48Griffin Newman?

  The Rada in the room.

• 2:38:49David Sims?

  The hut in the room.

• 2:38:50Griffin Newman?

  It was revealed earlier this year that they had been deep in development and had greenlit. And Lucasfilm internally was ready to go on a movie that was gonna be directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Scott Z. Burns, one of his regular collaborators. That was the Kylo Ren movie.

• 2:39:06David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:06Griffin Newman?

  That was basically Adam Driver being like, we gotta fucking undo this Rise of Skywalker past.

• 2:39:11David Sims?

  Clearly Driver just being like, that character rocked.

• 2:39:14Griffin Newman?

  Personally? Yeah.

• 2:39:14David Sims?

  Yes, like, and we didn't do it right. And can we just bring him back and like, do a better thing?

• 2:39:19Griffin Newman?

  Right. And no one knows exactly what the take was on how he's back or what, you know, it was, but it was gonna be set after episode nine. And it was gonna be called The Hunt for Ben Solo and not be episode 10 proper, but it be this Kylo Ren Ben Solo movie. And Lucasfilm greenlights it. Kathleen Kennedy greenlights it.

• 2:39:39David Sims?

  It went along some amount of time.

• 2:39:41Griffin Newman?

  And Disney says no to it.

• 2:39:43David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:43Griffin Newman?

  And Kathleen Kennedy did an exit interview earlier this year where she was like, that's the only time that's happened. That we wanted to make something and they overruled us. And the argument that was given to us is, we don't think you've justified in the story undoing his death.

• 2:40:00David Sims?

  Right. It's like, I just don't see how he's alive.

• 2:40:03Griffin Newman?

  Right. Versus like Mando and Grogu, I got no questions about, they're on another adventure. And it speaks to like, what a mess this thing is. We're kind of what everyone wants is a movie that could undo the damage of nine. And I'd accept some pretty stupid logic if it leads to a good movie that is functional on its own terms. And leaves me feeling like these characters are in a better place.

• 2:40:25David Sims?

  But then it's like, what? You're gonna make a whole movie that like exists to fix continuity, right? And it's like, on the one hand, sure. On the other hand, should you just do something else? Just forget it. Just like lob the ball to another field.

• 2:40:40Griffin Newman?

  But then I'm also like, if Adam Driver wants to do it, that's already more of an argument in favor.

• 2:40:44Speaker 04

  That's the thing. That's the baffling part, that you have an enthusiastic Adam Driver and Steven Soderbergh that wanna play in the sandbox.

• 2:40:50Griffin Newman?

  That's an energy that Mando doesn't have where Pedro Pascal's like, so what, five days total, right?

• 2:40:55David Sims?

  It speaks to the Disney thing where they are not hearing Soderbergh, Driver, that's, they're hearing like, they're gonna be expensive. They're gonna have notes. They're gonna push back. You know, like, they're probably hearing just kinda like, those are artists. We don't wanna deal with that. We just wanna make something that's like, you know, we can control.

• 2:41:16Griffin Newman?

  The thing with Soderbergh was part of his big pitch was, I figured out how to make this movie cheaper. I think these movies got too expensive and that created a fear. Around making big creative decisions. He's been figuring out how to shoot movies on fucking iPhones. This wasn't going to be that, but he was like, I think I can apply some of what I learned to make a movie that costs half as much as what these other things cost. Closer to probably the budget of this movie. Uh, and said like, it would be great if we could free Star Wars up to have different budget levels. You know, this is the thing that fucked Marvel eventually is that the movies got so big. They couldn't make a smaller film. Right. Right. So everything has to be 300 million dollars worth of justification. And I, I to some degree commend that Mando's small.

• 2:42:01David Sims?

  Sort of. At least he's not trying, right? To be the start of something new.

• 2:42:05Griffin Newman?

  It's not cacophonous. But it's like, it really places a lot of its bets on Rada the Hut, who is ripped, ab laden. Jeremy Allen White with a pitch down voice, whose characterization is just, my dad was shitty. I'm trying not to be like him.

• 2:42:23David Sims?

  Like my dad.

• 2:42:23Griffin Newman?

  I'm like a muscle break.

• 2:42:24David Sims?

  Now let's fight the chest pieces from the, the chest thing.

• 2:42:29Speaker 05

  So Chris.

• 2:42:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:32Speaker 05

  I, this character.

• 2:42:33David Sims?

  I'm actually watching a Twitter video of it right now.

• 2:42:36Griffin Newman?

  Rada the Hut.

• 2:42:37David Sims?

  Of Rada.

• 2:42:38Speaker 05

  This character.

• 2:42:39Griffin Newman?

  Here he is.

• 2:42:40Speaker 05

  Sucks. Sucks. This is like.

• 2:42:42Griffin Newman?

  Really rough.

• 2:42:43Speaker 05

  This is like hard to watch.

• 2:42:46David Sims?

  Can, can I ask where, where you saw the film, Ben? You actually, I know you saw it with some kids, but.

• 2:42:50Speaker 05

  Uh huh. I saw it at the Cobble Hill Theater. Oh, that's kind of a fun place to see it. And what actually I think enhanced it for me is like on an emotional level is that the 15 year old kids that were there were talking throughout the entire movie.

• 2:43:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:05Speaker 05

  And that. Were they into it? Get distracted from the film.

• 2:43:09Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:43:10Speaker 05

  Cause I could then lock in on my anger at like this kid whispering to his friend that that's Jer- Jeremy Allen White, the up there on the screen or whatever the fuck. What did you ask me?

• 2:43:21David Sims?

  Oh, just, uh, were they, yeah, were they into the movie? Were they like this?

• 2:43:25Speaker 05

  They loved it. They were laughing at everything. Every bad fucking joke. They were like rolling and fucking in the aisles.

• 2:43:32David Sims?

  We're the old heads and we just need to let it go.

• 2:43:34Speaker 05

  Every time Grogu came on screen, there was a group of like girls. They were just like, they were just like, ah.

• 2:43:42Speaker 04

  That's what I mean. I understand projections.

• 2:43:46David Sims?

  Thank you.

• 2:43:46Speaker 04

  But I watched a movie where I'm like, it's not for me.

• 2:43:50David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:50Speaker 04

  I have to let go of the idea that Star Wars is gonna give me anything to actually chew on like it really legitimately used to, but like, the kids in that theater walked out.

• 2:43:59David Sims?

  Is Andor almost a problem because it demonstrated that that can still be done? And we're like, why don't you do this all the time?

• 2:44:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:44:07Griffin Newman?

  This is the fascinating thing is I've been so deep in Star Wars and the closer we've gotten to this, the more I've been watching, right? To, to make my deadline, my self-imposed deadline. And the majority of the stuff I've watched, I have not liked. And a lot of it, I found kind of a slog to get through and kind of boring. And I'm not a binge watcher in general. So that notion of being like, ah, to stay on schedule, I gotta watch three tonight. Has like often felt like true homework. In a way, this job of doing the podcast and having assigned viewing usually does not. Yet, the more I'm watching the stuff I don't like, as much as watching the stuff like Andor that I love, I've come out of it just being like, fuck, I'm remembering how much I love Star Wars.

• 2:44:48Griffin Newman?

  Like when I see Andor, it reminds me of everything that makes me love Star Wars. And when I watch the stuff I don't like, it reminds me of what it's not doing, which reminds me of what I do like about Star Wars. Where I've just like, have bought three Star Wars shirts in the last two weeks. Cause I keep being like, fucking Star Wars.

• 2:45:06David Sims?

  What'd you buy?

• 2:45:07Griffin Newman?

  They're like old comic art shirts, which I kind of like. Like it's the Marvel comic.

• 2:45:11David Sims?

  Isn't it funny?

• 2:45:12Griffin Newman?

  The characters.

• 2:45:12David Sims?

  How all these like bespoke T-shirt shops online and stuff and like, you know, like with these sort of like indie designs of shit we like, like X-Men or Star, are basically just kind of like, you know, those guys on the street who would just have weird T-shirts that were kind of like bootleg?

• 2:45:29Griffin Newman?

  Bootleg stuff has become official.

• 2:45:30David Sims?

  Right. We're that.

• 2:45:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:32David Sims?

  It's forty five dollars, please. Right? Like it's like, we're that.

• 2:45:34Speaker 04

  You want a hoodie that makes you look like Nightcrawler? Do I have a ninety eight dollar deal for you? And by the way, you don't know if this is a dropshipping company in China that might take eight months to send it to you.

• 2:45:45Griffin Newman?

  Or is it like a hype beast company run by VC people?

• 2:45:49Speaker 04

  I almost think to speak to what we just touched on, Andor almost feels like a really profound accident that it ever slipped through.

• 2:46:00David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:00Speaker 04

  Like, I, I think that a lot of the explosions of nerd entertainment, when you look at them historically, actually maxed up with points of major societal anxiety.

• 2:46:09David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:09Speaker 04

  Right?

• 2:46:10David Sims?

  Totally.

• 2:46:10Griffin Newman?

  And we're living through one of those moments.

• 2:46:12Speaker 04

  Right? Like superheroes were invented by young Jewish creators as Hitler was rising in Europe. This is when superheroes were invented, like.

• 2:46:19Griffin Newman?

  And feeling empowered as survivors, making it through the other side.

• 2:46:23Speaker 04

  Well, that on, on 60s Marvel was a combination of those same Jewish creators now also talking about survivorship and nuclear anxiety, right? All the origins of Marvel.

• 2:46:33David Sims?

  Right, it's a lot of civil rights.

• 2:46:34Speaker 04

  If you look at Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, X-Men, all nuclear anxiety leading into social movements.

• 2:46:40Griffin Newman?

  Children of the atom.

• 2:46:41Speaker 04

  Feminism, racial anxiety, all of it, right? The same years that race riots were happening in major American cities are the same years Marvel's exploding.

• 2:46:50Griffin Newman?

  And Star Wars about the Vietnam War.

• 2:46:52Speaker 04

  Star, exactly.

• 2:46:53Griffin Newman?

  Another era, a new form of fascism on the horizon. It's about all of these things.

• 2:46:57Speaker 04

  And now we don't, like, I don't know what to point to that's doing that now. And then Andor maybe it seems accidentally, or Trojan Horse did in a way that feels like such a tease compared to everything else, which is like, now they fight a big dragon snake. Now they fight a couple of robots. And now they, now, now they fight this and that. And now they fight the whole fucking chessboard and now they fly away.

• 2:47:24David Sims?

  Oh, the chessboard are the monsters?

• 2:47:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:47:27David Sims?

  Oh.

• 2:47:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, you didn't love that then?

• 2:47:30David Sims?

  Well, because they just looked like nothing.

• 2:47:32Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:47:33David Sims?

  They just looked like.

• 2:47:33Speaker 04

  It was monster, the monster, the monster.

• 2:47:35David Sims?

  They looked like.

• 2:47:37Griffin Newman?

  Ben, thank you for calling that out. I, I have a thing I want to say about this. So the chessboard was done by Phil Tippett, who's like one of my favorite film artists of all time.

• 2:47:45David Sims?

  The original Star Wars movie with the little puppets.

• 2:47:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. It was.

• 2:47:49David Sims?

  Play guys.

• 2:47:50Griffin Newman?

  It was the first moment that Phil Tippett really kind of shown in the process. Cause he was brought in as sort of additional guy to do stuff. They had shot the. Tresps board as actors in costumes and it didn't look good. And George was like, can we get a Harryhausen type thing? And they were like, Tippett's good at stop motion. And he does that and it leads to the breakthrough of him being the guy who cracks the tauntaun and the AT AT and all these sorts of things, right? And then Robocop and Ed 209 is like a legend to me and like a genius. And I watched this documentary about him that was called, uh, let me look it up quickly. But I watched it recent. It's a documentary made by two French guys. That's mostly just kind of like informational about the entirety of his career and his worldview and whatever.

• 2:48:32Griffin Newman?

  And a lot of his compatriots were talking about him and what makes him so great. And they said, the thing about Phil is a lot of people start with detail and build out a design from there. And Phil always starts with really elemental shapes. He lands on a shape that's interesting and then he lands on a personality connected to that shape. And then he works into the finer detail. And it's like, right, you see the Dejaric Tresps board for like seconds? And the different shapes on that board beyond being different colors feel so distinct and recognizable. This movie shows them for 10 minutes.

• 2:49:08David Sims?

  It does. They move all around.

• 2:49:10Griffin Newman?

  It covers them in a way where you basically never see them full body. You can't distinguish between them and these are very honed designs by a genius. They brought Phil Tippett into work on this movie. He did work. A lot of the special effects feel like they are CGI trying to approximate Phil Tippett's stop motion, especially the little walker that Mando's on in the snow at the beginning of the movie.

• 2:49:32David Sims?

  Hated that.

• 2:49:32Griffin Newman?

  But I, it sucked.

• 2:49:33David Sims?

  Really?

• 2:49:34Griffin Newman?

  But then I felt like the big robots at the end might've actually been some version of stop motion. It certainly, they felt very Robo Kane. Um, so he's involved in this process. Like this is a guy that Favreau idolizes and yet he's not getting what made this guy's work, work.

• 2:49:50David Sims?

  What I didn't like about the opening sequence, apart from just generally kind of low energy, the weird thing of him going up and down the mountain in the walker, it just felt like a video game when you, where you like, one of those open world games where you like, end up, no, it's like, you're like, I'm gonna go this way. And then you like climb over a mountain by his sake. Like, it just didn't make any sense, the physics of it.

• 2:50:11Griffin Newman?

  Why would they be walking in the mountains?

• 2:50:14Speaker 04

  He is a character who flies.

• 2:50:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:50:17Speaker 04

  But there is still a part of me that's a sucker for like, Empire starts with a big dumb battle on Hoth.

• 2:50:21David Sims?

  Totally. And it's, it's a big smart battle. It's literally a cold open.

• 2:50:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:50:28David Sims?

  It's a pretty cold open. And Ben has quit the podcast.

• 2:50:31Speaker 04

  I guess I'm still just a bit of a sucker. Like, there's still just enough of a kid in me that's like, maybe they didn't nail it in every way, but like, I'll watch the heroes climb into a Star Wars walker machine.

• 2:50:41David Sims?

  I'll watch it. I was there, five out of 10. My chicken fingers.

• 2:50:46Speaker 04

  They got a convertible AT-ST. They got an open top AT-ST. Okay.

• 2:50:51Griffin Newman?

  This is me being 100% honest.

• 2:50:52Speaker 04

  I still am charmed by that.

• 2:50:53Griffin Newman?

  I wanted to feel that so badly. And because I was like, feeling so ramped up on Star Wars, I go into the screen with David and I'm like, I'm not excited for this, but I bet when it starts, some of the key jangling is gonna get to me.

• 2:51:06David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:51:07Griffin Newman?

  I bet they're gonna start showing me things that are Star Wars. By the way, I like these characters. I love that first season. I like Grogu. Grogu's like a Marvel, right? Like, they nailed the execution of this character on a technical level, which is half really fucking high level puppetry. And the genius of Grogu is when he's digital, they make the digital look like a puppet. They use the limitations. And like Grogu fucking just works visually this whole movie. And I sat there and I kept waiting for anything to give me any feeling of joy. And I wasn't sitting there with my arms crossed. I wasn't like, this sucks. I just felt bored. And I don't know if it's that I like maxed out on Star Wars, if coming off of Andor, the bar was set too high, it being so fresh in

• 2:51:49Griffin Newman?

  my mind, or if I just am like, guys, we can't be doing this. Like, there has to be something new. I see the trailers for the He-Man movie, which is another dumb baby thing that I love so much. And like, the trailers have not been great, but I'm like, I guarantee you, I'm gonna sit there and they're gonna show me characters and I'm gonna point at the screen.

• 2:52:08Speaker 04

  I got hope for Ram Man.

• 2:52:10David Sims?

  People are starting to say it's kind of good. There's starting to be some okay responses.

• 2:52:13Speaker 04

  Whereas the Street Fighter movie.

• 2:52:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. You're out on that?

• 2:52:17Speaker 04

  I don't know about that.

• 2:52:19Griffin Newman?

  Interesting. But yeah, I'm like, if I see Ram Man ram into a bunch of guys, I'm probably gonna like, my heart will-

• 2:52:26Speaker 04

  You have real connections to He-Man.

• 2:52:28Griffin Newman?

  I have been Orko.

• 2:52:30Speaker 04

  You've been Orko?

• 2:52:31Griffin Newman?

  I've been-

• 2:52:31Speaker 04

  What a wild thing to be able to say.

• 2:52:32Griffin Newman?

  Isn't that insane?

• 2:52:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:52:33Griffin Newman?

  It really is. It is a, Orko and Arthur are the two things where I'm like, it's actually crazy that they're characters that meant that much to me when I was young that I got a chance to play. And, and I like, think about this stuff where it's like, in both of those cases, I want to do my own thing, but there's a legacy of these characters. I want anyone who like grew up with them to recognize, not that it's identical, but that like the spirit of the thing is captured, but how do you do something new with it? I spent years professionally thinking on this stuff so much in a microcosm, only how it relates to like, these characters and just be like, it's gotta be new, otherwise you're just doing an impression. But also, don't try to make it your own thing and disregard the past entirely.

• 2:53:18Griffin Newman?

  And I just, this movie to me felt like it was just like snow, right? Like Hoth stuff?

• 2:53:24David Sims?

  Yeah, like you like that, you like Walker, like-

• 2:53:28Griffin Newman?

  I do.

• 2:53:28David Sims?

  And I'm like-

• 2:53:29Speaker 04

  I do like Walker.

• 2:53:29David Sims?

  Right, and I'm like, like I said, I'm like five out of 10, I ate my chicken fingers. If my kid was older, you know, old enough to see it, I would have taken my kid and been like, yeah, it was alright.

• 2:53:38Griffin Newman?

  You would have had a better time-

• 2:53:39David Sims?

  I'm not like-

• 2:53:40Griffin Newman?

  -with your daughter than me because she would have gotten a little something-

• 2:53:42David Sims?

  Totally, and I'm not like just gripping my hands together going like-

• 2:53:45Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:53:46David Sims?

  It's so fucking bad, but I am just kinda like, this ain't really getting my blood pumping.

• 2:53:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I was tired.

• 2:53:52David Sims?

  Alright, we ought to be done talking about that movie because I know you have toys to show me or whatever. Like, I, I'm, we, we cannot ignore the toys.

• 2:53:58Speaker 05

  Did we at least shout out Embow?

• 2:54:00Speaker 04

  It's crazy that we didn't even mention that. There's, there's a fucking assassin, the skinny assassin character-

• 2:54:06Griffin Newman?

  With the flat hat.

• 2:54:06Speaker 04

  Who basically becomes the antagonist for the second-

• 2:54:09David Sims?

  I called him Hat Man.

• 2:54:10Speaker 05

  I kinda like the character design.

• 2:54:12Griffin Newman?

  I thought he looked cool.

• 2:54:13Speaker 05

  Apparently he's from-

• 2:54:14David Sims?

  He's from something.

• 2:54:15Speaker 05

  One of the animated-

• 2:54:16Speaker 04

  He's a flony-

• 2:54:16Griffin Newman?

  He's from the Clone Wars?

• 2:54:18Speaker 04

  He's a flony thing, right?

• 2:54:19Griffin Newman?

  Oh, he's a flony creation?

• 2:54:20David Sims?

  I briefly thought he was, what, Constable Zubio?

• 2:54:23Griffin Newman?

  You did, and you went, that would be-

• 2:54:25David Sims?

  What did he give Zubio?

• 2:54:25Griffin Newman?

  You were like, that would be the coolest move.

• 2:54:28Speaker 05

  I, I did, I just, I thought he was cool.

• 2:54:30David Sims?

  He's like, I wanna be a constable.

• 2:54:31Griffin Newman?

  He has a dog.

• 2:54:32Speaker 04

  I thought that wolf was cool.

• 2:54:33David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:54:34Griffin Newman?

  No, I thought this guy was cool.

• 2:54:36Speaker 04

  Can I say, this is gonna-

• 2:54:37David Sims?

  Wait, what's the wolf?

• 2:54:38Griffin Newman?

  He has a little dog.

• 2:54:39Speaker 05

  He has a wolf.

• 2:54:40Speaker 04

  That's like his Grogu.

• 2:54:41David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:54:42Speaker 04

  But I'm gonna say something.

• 2:54:43Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 2:54:44Speaker 04

  It's gonna make me sound nuts.

• 2:54:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:54:46Speaker 04

  You either-

• 2:54:47Speaker 05

  Here we go.

• 2:54:48Griffin Newman?

  Uh oh.

• 2:54:49Speaker 04

  No. Nevermind, it's the type of thing that I say.

• 2:54:52Griffin Newman?

  You have to say it and then we're gonna do food. And toys.

• 2:54:55Speaker 04

  I think if you're gonna have the wolf pick up one of the Babu Fricks with its mouth, just kill the Babu.

• 2:55:00Griffin Newman?

  I agree with you. I agree with you 100%.

• 2:55:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:55:02Griffin Newman?

  Crumble the courage of your conviction.

• 2:55:04Speaker 05

  Babu Frick.

• 2:55:05Speaker 04

  Kill one of the Babu Fricks.

• 2:55:06Speaker 05

  It's okay if maybe one is me, much like, like two Ewoks like die in Return of the Jedi.

• 2:55:12Speaker 04

  Right. And you have it roll over and go, hmm. And it's sad.

• 2:55:16Griffin Newman?

  It's kinda sad.

• 2:55:17Speaker 04

  A little bit.

• 2:55:17Griffin Newman?

  It's good. It brings you in.

• 2:55:18Speaker 04

  Again, like the corporatism is showing when it's like, well, we can't possibly, we can't possibly kill one of the Babu Fricks. The children will be sad. It's like, then don't have the wolf ever put it in its mouth, but don't go halfway. Kill the Babu Frick.

• 2:55:33David Sims?

  Is there like, I just like the Star Wars thing of like the Anzellians. That's the Babu Frick aliens. Where it's like, so do they, do they just all like being mechanics? Is it a world of mechanics?

• 2:55:44Griffin Newman?

  This is where Star Wars gets weird with its like races sometimes.

• 2:55:47David Sims?

  There are no Anzellians who are like, I make fucking pizza. Like someone's gotta eat.

• 2:55:52Griffin Newman?

  I'm working on an EP. Dad, I like music.

• 2:55:54David Sims?

  Maybe they're like just all guys with a bunch of goggles.

• 2:55:56Speaker 04

  Maybe, maybe they're like Cornish miners. Maybe, maybe it happens to be an industry they have excelled in culturally for decades.

• 2:56:02Griffin Newman?

  Let's, let's go with that.

• 2:56:03Speaker 04

  We bring them to Michigan and have them.

• 2:56:05David Sims?

  Miners.

• 2:56:06Speaker 04

  They're like the Cornish miners of the Star Wars universe.

• 2:56:08David Sims?

  Do you remember how Carrie Russell is in episode nine is like a lady with a helmet or whatever?

• 2:56:14Griffin Newman?

  Sorry, bless. She's a spice dealer.

• 2:56:15David Sims?

  Right. And like, I've forgotten that. But there was Babu Frick and everyone was like, Babu Frick.

• 2:56:22Griffin Newman?

  Babu was on her shoulder and we forget that she existed.

• 2:56:25David Sims?

  And like that Babu Frick.

• 2:56:26Speaker 04

  Fantastic actress.

• 2:56:27Griffin Newman?

  Incredible. You don't see her face.

• 2:56:29David Sims?

  Incredible.

• 2:56:29Griffin Newman?

  She wears a helmet the whole fucking.

• 2:56:30Speaker 04

  Maybe one of our best living actresses.

• 2:56:33Griffin Newman?

  She's up there.

• 2:56:34David Sims?

  Yeah. Babu Frick only survives because Spielberg at the end was like, what, where's Babu Frick?

• 2:56:38Speaker 04

  Where the fuck is Babu?

• 2:56:39David Sims?

  Are you guys idiots? So they have him like pop up and go like, eh, hey.

• 2:56:44Speaker 05

  Okay. I know we're trying to move on and I think you should do your thing. I wanna, at least because we've been slamming on this movie, I wanna call out some good stuff quickly at the end.

• 2:56:53Speaker 04

  I went on record from the start that I liked it better than I thought I was going.

• 2:56:56Speaker 05

  Here's the thing I wanna shout out is I like all of the shady droids that work for the twins. I think there's awesome design there and even the assassin we've been talking about, Embo, he has some other.

• 2:57:10Speaker 05

  Guys and his crew.

• 2:57:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:13Speaker 05

  Including the one that's headless. I think that shit's cool.

• 2:57:16Griffin Newman?

  This is the stuff that felt very tippet to me. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the, the stuff he worked on directly. Cause he's got a pretty major credit in the film, I noticed.

• 2:57:24Speaker 05

  Yeah. But I just like the idea that there's mercenary droids.

• 2:57:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, no, that's been in Star Wars before though. But I guess it's cool.

• 2:57:35Speaker 05

  It's cool and it's, it's different.

• 2:57:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:57:38Speaker 05

  I'm trying to, I don't know.

• 2:57:40Griffin Newman?

  I don't know why.

• 2:57:41Speaker 04

  In speaking positively about most of the Disney plus stuff, like I said, I liked Obi-Wan more than most people. I liked Ahsoka more than most people. I found Book of Boba Fett, I watched it all.

• 2:57:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:52Speaker 04

  It was, I found it disappointing.

• 2:57:53Griffin Newman?

  Hate that. It was a little disappointing.

• 2:57:55Speaker 04

  I didn't.

• 2:57:55Griffin Newman?

  I think it gets worse.

• 2:57:56Speaker 04

  I think the Mandalorians, like the stuff on the Mandalorian world, it got away from what I liked about the first season, but on its own, I liked it well enough.

• 2:58:03Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:58:03Speaker 04

  But I, I think I've had to kind of almost start treating Star Wars as like, that's someone I used to date, who I was deeply in love with.

• 2:58:11Griffin Newman?

  That is how I feel right now.

• 2:58:12Speaker 04

  And but we.

• 2:58:12Griffin Newman?

  It's a great way to.

• 2:58:13Speaker 04

  And I'm buying.

• 2:58:17Speaker 04

  We can still text, like it's an ex that I'm still friends with, but we don't love each other anymore, but we can still text. There's a reason you fell in love, right?

• 2:58:24Griffin Newman?

  You had like a, a week long, like vacation with them later and like, it was like back to the glory days.

• 2:58:30Speaker 04

  And or is when.

• 2:58:31Griffin Newman?

  You had to leave it, you know, like.

• 2:58:33Speaker 04

  And, and or is when you are frustrated in your current relationship and then while you're on the toilet, you check your ex's Instagram to see how they're doing.

• 2:58:40Griffin Newman?

  I don't know, man.

• 2:58:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. That's what it is.

• 2:58:42Griffin Newman?

  That's why I like Andrew so much. I also, I feel like my relationship to Star Wars is closer to it being the ex where I'm like, we're friends and it's good. Is she still dating that guy? You know, I wanna believe.

• 2:58:54Speaker 04

  Me again.

• 2:58:55Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no, no, no, no. The opposite. I wanna believe like, maybe there's like a universe where it could work out again. Even if it seems unlikely.

• 2:59:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, you've, we've gotta get past that.

• 2:59:03Griffin Newman?

  The base of emotions is so strong.

• 2:59:05Speaker 04

  Culturally, we have to get past the idea that we're ever getting back together with Star Wars.

• 2:59:09Griffin Newman?

  David, I bought this toy for George Lucas Talk Show. We were in Pittsburgh and Connor wanted to do the George Lucas Pit Show, which is an insane idea. So I was like, oh, can I get a Grogu that does something?

• 2:59:19Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 2:59:19Griffin Newman?

  So I can act. Like Grogu is a patient. This toy is called Galactic Snack in Grogu. He's got a weird open mouth and if you push his tummy, his cheeks flex. And the idea is that he comes with little, little snacks.

• 2:59:32David Sims?

  Little niblets.

• 2:59:33Griffin Newman?

  And you feed him into his mouth and he chews them sort of, let's see. Yeah, there you go. They go down there.

• 2:59:39David Sims?

  They go down?

• 2:59:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:59:40David Sims?

  And then how do you get them back?

• 2:59:42Griffin Newman?

  Now, this was, it's more, I was just doing it for visibility. It's more about, you can do it facing up. I bought this for the show and then the theater had bad eye lines, so, or sight lines.

• 2:59:53David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:59:53Griffin Newman?

  So it didn't work at all. I'm gifting you this for your daughter.

• 2:59:55David Sims?

  Oh, sure.

• 2:59:56Griffin Newman?

  She will have fun with it. The food's in the backpack. Then this is what Mandalorian and Grogu is all about. It's about merchandise and it's about snacking. So I found four different food items. We don't have to eat all of them now, but I at least wanted to just introduce them.

• 3:00:10Speaker 04

  I have a feeling I know where you bought them.

• 3:00:13Griffin Newman?

  I don't think you can guess. I'm holding a big Target bag.

• 3:00:18Griffin Newman?

  These are.

• 3:00:19David Sims?

  So many toys.

• 3:00:20Speaker 05

  Oh, fuck.

• 3:00:20Griffin Newman?

  No, they're not toys. They're food. Oh, you're saying your box of toys?

• 3:00:23David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:00:24Griffin Newman?

  Did you get these as well?

• 3:00:25Speaker 05

  I did.

• 3:00:26Griffin Newman?

  Ben and I parallel thinking. Great. Okay. Fan foods, officially delicious, outer rim ranch flavored chips. The cutest chip in the galaxy. The chips are shaped like Grogu. I find this pretty morbid.

• 3:00:41Speaker 04

  There is a part of me that this is bringing me back to growing up in the eighties where Mr. T's face was just on everything though.

• 3:00:47Griffin Newman?

  Yes, it does feel like that. So that we have two boxes of vanilla wafers. We have two boxes of fan foods. Ben, did you buy anything else?

• 3:00:55David Sims?

  Ben was late to this, I mean, not late, but like, you know, delayed because he was buying these at Target.

• 3:01:00Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 3:01:01David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:01:01Speaker 05

  I do have, I have one other thing.

• 3:01:04Griffin Newman?

  Purchased Muddy Bites Cookies and Cream Filled Waffle Cones with Green Vanilla Filling?

• 3:01:09Speaker 05

  No, I didn't notice that at the Target I went to.

• 3:01:11Griffin Newman?

  Okay, so that's, that's a proprietary item to the Grif bag. Did you purchase this?

• 3:01:17Speaker 04

  What is that?

• 3:01:18David Sims?

  What the fuck is that? It's like a-

• 3:01:19Griffin Newman?

  It's a, it's called a pop, a pop holes.

• 3:01:23David Sims?

  Oh, boy.

• 3:01:23Griffin Newman?

  At home movie theater popcorn kit.

• 3:01:26David Sims?

  Does it make popcorn?

• 3:01:27Griffin Newman?

  Uh, it's three buckets and two bags of microwave popcorn. But most interestingly, Galactic Stardust popcorn seasoning.

• 3:01:37David Sims?

  Oh, sure.

• 3:01:38Griffin Newman?

  I don't know what that tastes like, Ben.

• 3:01:40David Sims?

  The stars, of course.

• 3:01:41Griffin Newman?

  What was the other item that you bought?

• 3:01:42David Sims?

  Well, cause I knew it was Chris's birthday tomorrow. So I thought it would be nice to at least get him a gift.

• 3:01:49Speaker 04

  That's so nice. Thank you.

• 3:01:50David Sims?

  Here, I'll, I'll give it to you. One sec.

• 3:01:52Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Here's the Galactic seasoning. It doesn't have ingredients listed on it. This unit is not marked for individuals, so.

• 3:01:58David Sims?

  Whoa.

• 3:01:58Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 3:01:59Griffin Newman?

  Whoa.

• 3:01:59Speaker 04

  This is really-

• 3:02:00David Sims?

  And this was worth you being delayed.

• 3:02:02Griffin Newman?

  This was worth that.

• 3:02:03Speaker 04

  This is a Mandalorian and Grogu electronic Mando mask.

• 3:02:08Griffin Newman?

  So are you saying it's a voice changer mask like the one my sister had? Is this gonna make you get Jeremy Allen White voice?

• 3:02:14Speaker 04

  It's, it does seem to have a thing that if you hold down the button on the side and speak.

• 3:02:23David Sims?

  Oh, there you go. Okay. So it says Mando stuff. So it's not like you can put it on and be like Donald Trump did nothing wrong in Mando. Like, can I ask why there are two Star Trek poster things on my desk?

• 3:02:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes, you can ask.

• 3:02:38David Sims?

  Okay. Why? I'm not mad. I'm just wondering.

• 3:02:41Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:02:41David Sims?

  They're, they're little, little pictures.

• 3:02:43Griffin Newman?

  I thought you might like them because they're interesting little like promotional paintings. I found at a vintage store, uh, I think it was when I was in Pittsburgh. Uh, action figures of, uh, the Malcolm McDowell villain from Generations.

• 3:02:55David Sims?

  Of course, Tullian Soren.

• 3:02:57Griffin Newman?

  And Alfred Woodard's character from First Contact.

• 3:03:00David Sims?

  We love her.

• 3:03:00Griffin Newman?

  And they both came with these posters and I thought you might like them.

• 3:03:02David Sims?

  I like them fine.

• 3:03:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I thought they're nice little original art.

• 3:03:05David Sims?

  I just like that they're, anything with that kind of 90s feel.

• 3:03:09Griffin Newman?

  That's what I'm saying. That's why I thought you'd like it. I thought it was your aesthetic.

• 3:03:12David Sims?

  I'm pro.

• 3:03:13Griffin Newman?

  Okay. I'm putting the ears on this popcorn bucket. I think this has been a good episode. I think we've gone on a journey. There've been ups and there've been downs.

• 3:03:19David Sims?

  Look, if we just literally like broke down, okay, Chris. Okay. Someone get a picture of this because this is pretty good. Fuck. Although it is underlining that the Mandalorian is the most quotable guy. Okay, he's just saying lasers.

• 3:03:38David Sims?

  Just not even worth.

• 3:03:40David Sims?

  What was that?

• 3:03:41Speaker 04

  I am the Mandalorian. It's a mask that literally says I am the Mandalorian. What if the next one is I am not Boba Fett?

• 3:03:52Speaker 04

  Some of these are just sounds.

• 3:03:53David Sims?

  I don't think the sound effect for a good call. I need some information.

• 3:03:58Speaker 03

  I need some information.

• 3:03:59David Sims?

  This is what he talks like.

• 3:04:01Speaker 03

  Where is Ron? Hi. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night.

• 3:04:07David Sims?

  Thank you, Ben.

• 3:04:08Griffin Newman?

  You look great.

• 3:04:08Speaker 05

  You're so welcome.

• 3:04:10Speaker 04

  Truly a kind present.

• 3:04:12Griffin Newman?

  This definitely feels like the most thematically appropriate way to sort of wind down this episode. Cause this is, this is what it's all about, folks. Yeah. Unfortunately, this movie exists to create these bags of bullshit.

• 3:04:23David Sims?

  It exists for toy.

• 3:04:25Griffin Newman?

  And for snack. Yeah. For nummies.

• 3:04:28David Sims?

  But we'll make sure to post pics of all of this stuff on social.

• 3:04:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:04:32David Sims?

  This thing is freaky.

• 3:04:34Griffin Newman?

  It is weird, right?

• 3:04:35David Sims?

  The cheek movements.

• 3:04:36Griffin Newman?

  I thought it was gonna be really funny and then you just couldn't see it from the stage, but I'm sure.

• 3:04:40David Sims?

  Kind of cute.

• 3:04:41Griffin Newman?

  It's kind of cute. The cheek movements are weird and I thought they'd be, the creepiness would play more visually. Right. So we think this is gonna end up at like a seventy four day, seventy five.

• 3:04:53David Sims?

  Oh, you think it's not gonna make a hundred four day?

• 3:04:55Griffin Newman?

  That's where people are projecting right now.

• 3:04:58David Sims?

  Let me see what the, yeah, we're doing, I guess, sort of the box office prediction game.

• 3:05:02Griffin Newman?

  Yep, yep, yep.

• 3:05:02David Sims?

  So it opened, no, it had 12 million previews. That's the exact number that Captain America Brave New World had.

• 3:05:09Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:05:09David Sims?

  That made a hundred and four.

• 3:05:11Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:05:11David Sims?

  My guess is that Mando will be slightly over that because it's more kid friendly.

• 3:05:16Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 3:05:16David Sims?

  So I would guess that it's like low hundred.

• 3:05:20Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:05:20David Sims?

  Uh, four day, but obviously the word of mouth is not great, although nor was it great for something like Captain America Brave New World.

• 3:05:29Griffin Newman?

  That's true.

• 3:05:30David Sims?

  But I just think the kind of like, dude, it's a fucking rainy Memorial Day weekend and Baby Yoda is on a screen. Like, take your kids. Like, what's good? It's the worst that could happen.

• 3:05:40Griffin Newman?

  I'm, I'm gonna say, uh, 85.

• 3:05:43David Sims?

  Obviously, the other contenders at the box office right now are, uh, Curry Barker's Obsession, which is already like a kind of a breakout hit.

• 3:05:52Griffin Newman?

  It looks like it's maybe gonna go up this weekend.

• 3:05:54David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:05:54Griffin Newman?

  It's certainly gonna, it feels like it's number two dethroning.

• 3:05:58David Sims?

  It's a horror movie.

• 3:05:58Griffin Newman?

  Devil's Prada. It's a very good film.

• 3:06:00David Sims?

  It's good.

• 3:06:00Griffin Newman?

  I liked it.

• 3:06:01David Sims?

  It's quite effective.

• 3:06:01Griffin Newman?

  I shouldn't say very good, but I liked it a lot. I had a good time.

• 3:06:03David Sims?

  It's effective.

• 3:06:04Griffin Newman?

  It's very effective. That's a good way of putting it. And you're a good film critic.

• 3:06:07David Sims?

  Oh, Jesus.

• 3:06:07Griffin Newman?

  And a dear friend.

• 3:06:08David Sims?

  Please relax.

• 3:06:09Griffin Newman?

  Sorry if sometimes the show gets annoying to do. This is the way. We kind of got a Mando Grogu relationship. Sometimes you have to tell me to kneel.

• 3:06:19David Sims?

  It's funny how Griffin's kind of trying to apologize for cutting me off.

• 3:06:22Griffin Newman?

  I mean, it's a, it's a somewhat self-aware bit.

• 3:06:24David Sims?

  It's pretty good. Devil's Prada 2 is, is doing fine. Like, it's, it's holding fine. I mean, yeah, exactly. Like, it's like, it's good. Uh, Mortal Kombat 2 is doing, you know, the kind of 60% drops one expects of a Mortal Kombat movie, but like, hey, everyone's happy. You see Mortal Kombat 2?

• 3:06:41Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 3:06:42David Sims?

  Not bad.

• 3:06:42Griffin Newman?

  It's a lot of fun.

• 3:06:43David Sims?

  Do you like the Katana?

• 3:06:45Griffin Newman?

  Uh, sure.

• 3:06:45David Sims?

  Do you like Baraka? All of our friends are here.

• 3:06:48Griffin Newman?

  This is probably the best Katana's been in a movie in a long time.

• 3:06:51Speaker 04

  Raiden's in there. Maybe I'll take flyer on it.

• 3:06:53David Sims?

  Uh, Sheep Detectives, that's holding on. Is there anything else new this week, Griff?

• 3:06:57Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 3:06:58David Sims?

  Right?

• 3:06:58Griffin Newman?

  There's no counter programming.

• 3:07:00David Sims?

  I know. Right? I mean, oh, no, there's, um, there is counter programming, right? Cause there's.

• 3:07:04Griffin Newman?

  There's what?

• 3:07:05David Sims?

  Fuck, isn't there one thing I'm gonna look up? Yeah, there's I Love Boosters.

• 3:07:08Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 3:07:09David Sims?

  But I assume that'll be a little low.

• 3:07:12Griffin Newman?

  It doesn't, right?

• 3:07:12David Sims?

  Yeah. And then there's this horror movie Passenger, which I haven't seen.

• 3:07:16Griffin Newman?

  Andre Old Iron, whose movies I kind of like.

• 3:07:18David Sims?

  What else did he make?

• 3:07:19Griffin Newman?

  He did Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and he did Autopsy of Jane Doe, I want to say.

• 3:07:22David Sims?

  Those are both kind of interesting. It's just funny, cause it's like Deadline is referring it to as like the Melissa Leo R film Passenger.

• 3:07:30Griffin Newman?

  Sure thing.

• 3:07:30David Sims?

  And I'm trying to imagine how many people are like walking up to the box office being like, I hear there's a new Melissa Leo movie. Next week, though, I think this is something Mando didn't see coming. I think Backrooms is gonna eat its lunch a little bit.

• 3:07:45Griffin Newman?

  I mean, they're saying Backrooms might open to 15 hours.

• 3:07:47David Sims?

  Yeah, like Backrooms is one of those things where it's like, you don't understand. Every 20 year old is very locked into like liminal spaces.

• 3:07:55Griffin Newman?

  This is an 824 movie directed by a 22 year old?

• 3:07:58David Sims?

  He's, he's 21. Uh, no, he's 20 years old and he will be turning 21 in a month.

• 3:08:05Griffin Newman?

  He cannot drink.

• 3:08:06David Sims?

  Interviewed him recently.

• 3:08:07Griffin Newman?

  Illegally. Uh, this movie is about to open incredibly large. It's an adaptation of a viral YouTube video. It's like a real changing of the guard moment for Hollywood.

• 3:08:17David Sims?

  It is. It rocks. It's a good movie and I liked him a lot. He was really smart. Just kid self taught during COVID how to make like visual effects shit and you know, started making YouTube shorts and it kind of rocks.

• 3:08:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:08:29David Sims?

  Uh, like he was housebound by both the pandemic and arthritis.

• 3:08:33Griffin Newman?

  Well, I can't.

• 3:08:33David Sims?

  Taught himself Blender. Yeah.

• 3:08:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, except I didn't learn Blender. Um, I got a faulty bucket. It's got two right ears.

• 3:08:41David Sims?

  Yeah, that doesn't look right.

• 3:08:42Griffin Newman?

  This Grogu bucket. So we'll post a picture of. I've been fussing with it, trying to figure out if I was thinking it wrong. It is. Yeah, it's a rare variant.

• 3:08:51David Sims?

  Chris, is there anything we haven't covered?

• 3:08:54Speaker 04

  Oh, no, I think we've been very thorough.

• 3:08:55David Sims?

  No, we did.

• 3:08:55Speaker 04

  You sure? No, we got to all my notes. I haven't watched Cora yet. It's next up on my list. Avatar is very good, though.

• 3:09:02David Sims?

  Has your son watched Cora?

• 3:09:04Speaker 04

  He started watching it. Yeah. But then we decided to watch it as a family.

• 3:09:07David Sims?

  Okay, okay. So he put it. What else is your son into?

• 3:09:10Speaker 04

  That's been the big one lately. Jurassic World has been very big for him.

• 3:09:14David Sims?

  World.

• 3:09:15Speaker 04

  The whole Jurassic World cartoon.

• 3:09:16David Sims?

  Oh.

• 3:09:17Speaker 04

  Not the, I've heard that show's kind of fun. The films are too scary for him.

• 3:09:20David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:21Speaker 04

  I can say that Jurassic World seems to be very big with kids in his age group.

• 3:09:25David Sims?

  Yeah, dinosaurs.

• 3:09:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, dinosaurs are back in a big way. Um, and what else? That's about it. He went through an Italian brain rot phase. I'm really glad that's over.

• 3:09:34David Sims?

  I don't know what that means.

• 3:09:35Griffin Newman?

  Oh. Asa Ehrlich was really into Italian brain rot. It's so funny that David Ehrlich was like, my child will never watch Western animation.

• 3:09:43Speaker 04

  It will make you feel.

• 3:09:44Griffin Newman?

  It's Phile only.

• 3:09:45Speaker 04

  It'll make you feel worried. He did get very into, um, how he got him very into like Totoro and Miyazaki stuff.

• 3:09:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:53Speaker 04

  These AI generated.

• 3:09:54Griffin Newman?

  I'm looking it up.

• 3:09:55Speaker 04

  ADHD cartoons called Italian brain rot. Tongue, tongue, tongue, tongue, seahorse, crocodile, bombardillo.

• 3:10:01Griffin Newman?

  They all have insane names and they look like nightmares.

• 3:10:03Speaker 04

  Benzini, Ben and Nini.

• 3:10:05David Sims?

  He's just on YouTube. Tube did they find it?

• 3:10:07Speaker 04

  Coffee with a hot sauce. Youtube nonsense. I don't know if it's like Russians influencing my child to betray America someday.

• 3:10:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:10:13Griffin Newman?

  It's one of those things where it's like, oh, this is just like random AI slop. And you're like, no, it feels like this was made by a human hand.

• 3:10:19Speaker 04

  They've got millions.

• 3:10:20Griffin Newman?

  For some nefarious purpose.

• 3:10:22Speaker 04

  There's also like rap songs that have 55 million views on Youtube that is AI generated rap sung by the town brain rats. But uh, I will tell you, I'm glad that phase is over. In the beginning of first grade, my son would often say to me, who's your favorite brain rot? And I would go, I don't know, man, tongue, tongue, tongue, tongue, tongue to her. And he'd go, who are your favorite seventeen? And would not stop until I named seventeen brain rats. And when I tell you this happened like three times a day, every day, it was starting to drive me into madness.

• 3:10:51Griffin Newman?

  Chris, I congratulate you on making it through that period and I hope you never have to look back.

• 3:10:56Speaker 04

  Although some of the songs are catchy, some of the AI generated raps.

• 3:10:59David Sims?

  I am sure they are.

• 3:11:02Griffin Newman?

  Beautiful Anonymous.

• 3:11:05David Sims?

  I mean, I still have the.

• 3:11:06Speaker 04

  Tra la le lo, tra la la.

• 3:11:07David Sims?

  The Pink Fong Lion song, anyone out there, get at me if you also listen to that a hundred times.

• 3:11:12Griffin Newman?

  Never gonna listen to that. I don't, I don't want it infecting my brain. Beautiful Anonymous is still one of the best podcasts.

• 3:11:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, Beautiful Anonymous just celebrated its 10 year anniversary.

• 3:11:20Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:11:20David Sims?

  Oh, shit.

• 3:11:20Griffin Newman?

  Congrats.

• 3:11:21David Sims?

  That's awesome.

• 3:11:22Speaker 04

  Yeah. I will ask to, um, all, all bits aside, I know I've been the bad boy to blank check fans, but go listen to an episode. Cause I'm trying to get that show to survive.

• 3:11:32Griffin Newman?

  Truly.

• 3:11:33Speaker 04

  We have a contract to 2028 and I'm trying to just like, get people back into it.

• 3:11:37Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's an incredible show. It's, and it's like a good thing you do, not to be self righteous about it.

• 3:11:43Speaker 04

  Thank you. Yeah, I feel good about it. And then also on June 11th, we're doing a what's in the dumpster live stage.

• 3:11:49David Sims?

  Yes, we're, we're paying homage to the, the 10 year anniversary.

• 3:11:53Speaker 04

  10 year anniversary of the, the one episode of my show, everybody universally liked. Paul, it's going to be live at UCB. Uh, Paul Shear will be there. This hasn't been announced yet, but Manzoukis arranged the schedule. He'll be coming in.

• 3:12:05Griffin Newman?

  Hell, yeah.

• 3:12:06Speaker 04

  I've reached out to spoiler person from the first dumpster. I won't say it to see if he wants to be there on stage. And uh, yeah, it's already sold out, but there will be a live stream ticket for 10 bucks. So you can watch that live.

• 3:12:18David Sims?

  And what's the date on it? Sorry?

• 3:12:19Speaker 04

  It's on Thursday, June 11th.

• 3:12:21David Sims?

  Thanks.

• 3:12:21Speaker 04

  And then, and uh, if you're in New Jersey, my beloved New Jersey, I've got tickets on sale in Red Bank, June 19th.

• 3:12:26David Sims?

  Oh, we're Chris Kevin Smith's.

• 3:12:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:12:30Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. The secret stash.

• 3:12:31David Sims?

  Places, right? We're in Jersey.

• 3:12:34Speaker 04

  You've been to Smod Castle. I've been there with you.

• 3:12:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah. We did GLTOS there and then I went to a Dogma screening there. Did I go there one other time?

• 3:12:42Speaker 04

  It's pretty great.

• 3:12:43Griffin Newman?

  I really love it.

• 3:12:44Speaker 04

  I really love him.

• 3:12:44David Sims?

  Like the Smod Castle.

• 3:12:47Speaker 04

  He owns a movie theater.

• 3:12:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he bought his childhood movie theater, the Smod Castle Cinemas in Atlantic Highlands. Is that correct?

• 3:12:54Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 3:12:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:12:55Speaker 04

  I know you know him better. You've worked with him and you know him much better.

• 3:12:58Griffin Newman?

  On the He-Man show.

• 3:12:59Speaker 04

  I know.

• 3:13:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:13:00Speaker 04

  Yeah. But I can't, I want, I do have to say, meeting Kevin Smith and you realize he's just exactly.

• 3:13:05David Sims?

  He's just like that.

• 3:13:06Speaker 04

  You hope he is exactly who you want him to be.

• 3:13:09Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 3:13:09Speaker 04

  And it's good.

• 3:13:10Griffin Newman?

  You know, I weirdly get asked about him a lot.

• 3:13:14Speaker 04

  There's something very special about him.

• 3:13:16David Sims?

  He looks so large.

• 3:13:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:13:17David Sims?

  Especially for our generation.

• 3:13:18Griffin Newman?

  But people are like, you're friendly with him, right? Like, you know him, like, what's he actually like? And I was like, he's actually everything you want him to be.

• 3:13:24Speaker 04

  He's wearing a suit jacket and denim shorts and down to tell stories and laughs a lot.

• 3:13:28Griffin Newman?

  I think the people who are the most cynical about him are completely disarmed when they meet him. When you see just like how thoroughly genuine he is and he's incredibly thoughtful and smart.

• 3:13:37Speaker 04

  He is, as you can imagine, as a DIY jersey creator, he looms very, very large in my history.

• 3:13:43Griffin Newman?

  I mean, we.

• 3:13:44Speaker 04

  And I'm the one of the biggest mall rats defenders you'll ever meet.

• 3:13:46Griffin Newman?

  Geth, we were only gonna have him be the guest for that show and I threw out the flyer and I said, I think we should ask Chris to be on. I think, I think beyond the fact that it's like a mitzvah, it's like have you two guys like engage on stage and connect as people. I was like, I think it will make for good entertainment. I think you guys are gonna get into it and you did. You started just naming locations and the audience was applauding.

• 3:14:07Speaker 04

  It was fun shit.

• 3:14:08Griffin Newman?

  It was great.

• 3:14:10Speaker 04

  Thanks again.

• 3:14:10Griffin Newman?

  No, you're the best. And I said it before, very cleanly with no cross talk. The three of us would not know each other without you. On the most fundamental level, there's no universe which the show exists without you.

• 3:14:21David Sims?

  Maybe Griff and I are acquaintances, but like, obviously these bonds were forged.

• 3:14:25Griffin Newman?

  But I'm, I'm in the basement because he's assigned to become the second producer of Talking TCGS, the podcast I do with Riley Solner.

• 3:14:32David Sims?

  Willowed by the assignment.

• 3:14:35Griffin Newman?

  No, I was.

• 3:14:35Speaker 04

  A weirdly popular show and it's time from what I remember.

• 3:14:38Griffin Newman?

  It was bizarre. And David and I only meet because Alyssa Stanoa tweets that the two of us should be friends because we're both active in the get through community.

• 3:14:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, I will say at this point in my career, which has slowed down a lot, it is very strange for me to be in rooms sometimes and realize I am just strangely a person who can sometimes walk into a room and realize, oh, most of these people know each other because of me.

• 3:15:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:15:00Speaker 04

  Which is strange to say for a guy who is generally pretty socially uncomfortable and sort of off in the corner. Uh, but it's a point of pride that I've been able to work with so many great people and smart people such as yourselves over the years.

• 3:15:11Griffin Newman?

  You're the best and we love you. And it's always a pleasure to have you on. You were never shadow banned. I need to communicate that very clearly.

• 3:15:18David Sims?

  Why did you think you was shadow banned?

• 3:15:20Griffin Newman?

  Cause you felt like there was a gap post Spider-Man two that was pointed.

• 3:15:24Speaker 04

  Because I'm mentally ill.

• 3:15:25Griffin Newman?

  Brother, I feel you big time. My brain is so bad. It's crazy.

• 3:15:30David Sims?

  A lot of people like being on the show. We're always just trying to like match guest to thing well, you know?

• 3:15:35Griffin Newman?

  Well, say like Matt Singer is about to come back on the aforementioned Matt Singer and he was like, thanks for having me on. Like, I hope I can be on again sooner than three years from now. And we were like, shut up. You were on six months ago.

• 3:15:46David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:15:46Griffin Newman?

  We checked the calendar. We're like three fucking years. The fuck are we doing? Um, and this, this has been the way.

• 3:15:53David Sims?

  Oh, God.

• 3:15:54Griffin Newman?

  Clearly. We talked about the movie a little bit.

• 3:15:57David Sims?

  A smidge.

• 3:15:58Griffin Newman?

  I, oh, the one, this was the one connection.

• 3:16:00David Sims?

  My dad.

• 3:16:01Griffin Newman?

  The one connection I was gonna make. Do you know who was the DP on this film?

• 3:16:06Griffin Newman?

  The man who shot Clerks.

• 3:16:08Speaker 04

  Is that true?

• 3:16:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:16:09David Sims?

  Is that true?

• 3:16:10Griffin Newman?

  Kevin Smith's Jersey buddy who like that was his first.

• 3:16:12David Sims?

  First. And Moritz and chasing.

• 3:16:15Speaker 04

  Moritz. Moritz underrated.

• 3:16:16Griffin Newman?

  But I'm just saying like.

• 3:16:17Speaker 04

  You guys don't like seeing the spaceship that looks like a turtle?

• 3:16:19Griffin Newman?

  I like the ship. I like the Anzelians.

• 3:16:21David Sims?

  Okay.

• 3:16:22Griffin Newman?

  Turtle. I like Steven.

• 3:16:24David Sims?

  The Anzelians had a little ship.

• 3:16:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:16:26David Sims?

  Well, what was the best part?

• 3:16:27Griffin Newman?

  Oh, Steven.

• 3:16:28David Sims?

  And the rocking hoe or chair.

• 3:16:29Griffin Newman?

  Right. And yeah, grilling some sandwiches, I guess. And then Scorsese, I guess the only two good characters are the ones who grill meat.

• 3:16:36David Sims?

  Are puppets grilling meat? I mean, I know Scorsese was a really puppet.

• 3:16:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:16:40David Sims?

  Uh, voiced by esteemed members of the artistic.

• 3:16:44Griffin Newman?

  But I'm just saying, is that what is really kind of activating, uh, Favreau the most as an artist is being able to tell the story of people making sandwiches?

• 3:16:53David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, you're, you're so right. I'm seeing here David Klein shot a bunch of the Book of Boba Fett.

• 3:16:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he's become the default Disney plus Star Wars guy. I just bring it up because like he was a guy bootstrapping it with the Kevin Smith thing, learned how to be a DP across those movies. And now is shooting Star Wars. And I know that like Kevin's been doing screenings all weekend with him talking to the audience afterwards, which is really fun at the Smod Castle Theater. Uh, so shout out that if you're in the, the area and you need to still see the movie. Sorry that we ruined it for you. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Next week is an episode. Uh, it's a movie that I kind of hoisted upon David. It's called Master and Commander, the far side of the world.

• 3:17:35David Sims?

  Right. That's next week.

• 3:17:37Griffin Newman?

  David very quickly sets the rules in place that it is his episode.

• 3:17:40David Sims?

  Yeah. You're like, you try some like, you know, Griff bit and I'm like, we're not doing that today, sir.

• 3:17:45Griffin Newman?

  Yours.

• 3:17:46David Sims?

  I was like, no, best step off, sir.

• 3:17:49Griffin Newman?

  But don't worry. It is, it is absolutely you and John Hodgman.

• 3:17:53David Sims?

  We have fucking Andrew Stanton coming up. There's plenty of Griff material in the future.

• 3:17:58Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no. I was saying, don't worry that you go off.

• 3:18:00David Sims?

  No, we, I think we had fun on that episode. John talks a lot about boats.

• 3:18:03Griffin Newman?

  Hodgman talking boats. It's a, it's a good episode. So yeah, we're finishing that up. And then yes, we've already sort of soft announced it, but Andrew Stanton is coming right after that.

• 3:18:12David Sims?

  We will be covering Disclosure Day as well.

• 3:18:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Yes. There are a couple of summer releases that will take some breaks. Odyssey obviously comes in the middle of Stanton. But we'll be doing Finding Nemo through Toy Story five.

• 3:18:24David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:18:24Griffin Newman?

  And then Scorsese, starting right after that. Martin Scorsese, I don't know if you know this, the guy who plays the flat meat dealer.

• 3:18:30David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:18:30Griffin Newman?

  In the Mandalorian and Grogu movie, he also directs movies.

• 3:18:34David Sims?

  Flarp or whatever. I'll have to look them up.

• 3:18:36Griffin Newman?

  And we're going to cover him on the podcast.

• 3:18:38David Sims?

  We also have a Patreon. Uh, we're currently, we just recently covered Mortal Kombat and we're gonna soon kick off our Robocop series on June 1st.

• 3:18:48Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 3:18:49David Sims?

  You can sign up for that at patreon.com slash blank check.

• 3:18:53Griffin Newman?

  Guys, I'm so excited to take a nap. I'm like, I'm really feeling it.

• 3:18:56David Sims?

  We have like six ads to do after we stop recording.

• 3:18:59Griffin Newman?

  A post ad nap is the sweetest nap of all.

• 3:19:02David Sims?

  I'm so excited to pee.

• 3:19:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:19:04David Sims?

  Uh, I love, uh.

• 3:19:07Griffin Newman?

  Rata. His abs, his body, his brain, his sparkling whip.

• 3:19:13David Sims?

  I love.

• 3:19:14Griffin Newman?

  His dad, you love his dad, right? His dad's a good person.

• 3:19:17David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:19:17Griffin Newman?

  And he's just like him.

• 3:19:18David Sims?

  I miss him. He had some riz.

• 3:19:20Speaker 05

  Again, I'll shout out a lot of the images we've been talking about will be posted on our social. Also sign up for our newsletter. We have a Substack called Checkbook.

• 3:19:28Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:19:28Speaker 05

  Where we also have a lot of that stuff if you don't engage with social media.

• 3:19:32Griffin Newman?

  And I'm sure Marie is gonna have a lot of Mandalorian and Grogu thoughts, a movie she has many times said she is excited to never see.

• 3:19:39Speaker 05

  Can't really argue with her.

• 3:19:41Griffin Newman?

  And as always, David, you were trying to remember things you love.

• 3:19:43David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:19:44Griffin Newman?

  And I just want to end this episode on a positive note. I love you and I want to remind you that you love

• 3:19:50Griffin Newman?

  Coaxium, which I think is best served cold.

• 3:19:56David Sims?

  Isn't it actually best served cold? I think you did it wrong.

• 3:19:59Griffin Newman?

  Fuck.

• 3:20:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, you did.

• 3:20:01David Sims?

  It has to be cold.

• 3:20:02Speaker 05

  So good job remembering that Coaxium should be cold.

• 3:20:05Griffin Newman?

  Okay, so I'm responsible.

• 3:20:06Speaker 05

  Yes, nice.

• 3:20:09Speaker 05

  I guess that's how we're gonna end it.

• 3:20:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:20:14Speaker 05

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hostly. Our creative producer is Marie Bardi Salinas and our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lain Montgomery and the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check Special Features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

• 3:20:58Speaker 05

  Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.

• 3:21:09Griffin Newman?

  Ben, are we recording? Okay, and what I'm about to say is gonna sound like it's pre-roll. But I both want you to keep it in and actually do what I ask, okay, Ben?

• 3:21:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:21:22Griffin Newman?

  It'll make sense in a second.

• 3:21:24Speaker 05

  I'll do what you ask.

• 3:21:25Griffin Newman?

  Okay. K-Fabe.

• 3:21:26Speaker 05

  Not like blanket statement.

• 3:21:28Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no, no. Okay, okay, so K-Fabe's starting now. Ben, can you put a filter on my voice?

• 3:21:36Griffin Newman?

  And post.