Pod Insights Pop Culture Happy Hour Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu and What’s Making Us Happy About this episode The Mandalorian has made the jetpack-assisted leap to the big screen with the new movie Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu. The laconic bounty hunter (Pedro Pascal) and his cute sidekick Grogu are hired by the good guys to do a job for some bad guys. You know what you’re gonna get – creatures, droids, easter eggs, and lots of fights. But, after three seasons on Disney+, will folks go out to the theaters to watch something they’ve gotten to know on their couches?
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0:20 Speaker 01 After three seasons on Disney+ Pedro Pascal and baby Yoda have made the jetpack-assisted leap to the big screen with Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu. The laconic bounty hunter and his just enervatingly cute sidekick are hired by the good guys to do a job for some bad guys. Sigourney Weaver shows up briefly, and Jeremy Allen White voices a super-jacked hut. You know what you're gonna get: creatures, droids, Easter eggs, pew pew pew. But will folks go out to the movies to watch something they've gotten to know on their couches? We'll talk about it. I'm Glen Weldon. Joining me today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is podcaster Jordan Morris. He's the co-host of Jordan Jesse Go and Free with Ads. Hey, Jordan.
1:02 Speaker 02 Hi, Glenn. This is the way I tell you I'm glad to be here.
1:06 Speaker 01 I was wondering if it was the way. Also with us is writer and host of the new Film Spotting podcast Movie Death Match, coming June 1, Chris Klimick. Hey, Chris. Congrats on the new gig.
1:15 Speaker 03 Thank you. Gentlemen, as Star Wars enters its hut-exploitation phase, there are no two guys I'd rather chop it up with.
1:21 Speaker 01 Here we go. If you have been watching The Mandalorian on Disney+, you know the basics, but here they are if you have not. It's a few years after Return of the Jedi. The evil Galactic Empire is no more, and the New Republic is attempting to assert itself. But there are still Imperial bad guys out there who need to be brought to justice. Enter the Mandalorian, a bounty hunter in badass armor and a helmet. He's played by Pedro Pascal, but also by Brendan Wayne in Latif Crowder when he's got the helmet on and he's walking around and doing stunts. Mando, as he's called, has taken a young alien named Grogu under his wing. He's cute. He can use the Force. He gurgles and coos and whatnot. The New Republic good guys ask Mando and Grogu to rescue the son of Jabba the Hutt, named Rata. He's
2:05 Speaker 01 voiced by Jeremy Allen White. That job proves more complicated than it seems. Which leads to lots and lots and lots and lots of fights. The Mandalorian and Grogu was directed by Jon Favreau, who created the Disney Plus series. It is in theaters now. Jordan, we return to that question, is this the way?
2:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, so I will say this is kind of the way, or at least it was kind of the way for me. I think this movie's biggest pro is also its biggest con in that it feels like a long episode of that TV show. The way I like that is that, you know, I think modern Star Wars movies have all felt very burdened. You know, it's like they can't just tell a fun space story. They have to introduce classic characters and sometimes kill them and set up theme park rides and video games. And all that stuff can really subtract from fun. Like because you're setting up all this stuff or paying off stuff that happened in the eighties, you're maybe not having as much fun as you can.
3:06 Speaker 02 And I think this movie just kind of dispenses with that and has a lot of fun. It's basically seven or eight action scenes strung together with a little bit of dialogue and a little bit of story. And yeah, and there's part of me that's like, hey, cool, awesome. I don't have to have read a novel and ridden a Disneyland ride to understand this. I just kind of have to know who the Mandalorian is. But also I think there's a sense of like, what are we doing here? You know, why is this not just three episodes of a TV show? I think all in all, I had a fun time in the theater and some of the cool stuff is really cool. The practical stuff really pops in this. But yeah, there, there's a little bit of a sense of it's kind of just empty calories.
3:47 Speaker 01 Okay, empty calories. What about you, Chris?
3:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, this is sort of the, the right sizing of, of Star Wars in a way. I feel like, you know, 50 years later, this is the, the dream of George Lucas realized. He just wanted to make his homage to cereals and Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. And by pushing out all of the temperamental artists, like George Lucas was certainly that. His, his quality variable certainly I think had the greatest success when he outsourced the actual screenwriting and directing to others. But definitely an idea guy. And you know, when you Rid of a guy like that and you bring in a Jon Favreau, Dave Filoni. I mean, these, these are company men. You know, these are reliable, competent, sort of uninspired guy. And that's, these are all adjectives that apply to this movie, too.
4:33 Speaker 03 I did enjoy it, but there's no sense of, of specialness. There's no sense of struggle. And there's a sense that like, here's Jon Favreau with unlimited resources, you know, shooting this in a volume in Manhattan Beach, California.
4:46 Speaker 02 Pedro Pascal recording his lines on the way to shoot another movie.
4:50 Speaker 03 Exactly. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have to feel like Robert Downey Jr. Is calling his agent to be like, hey, do I actually have to like, come to set to be the star of this movie? Like, it's fine. It is fun. I did enjoy it, but I've almost forgotten it already, you know? There's just Star Wars and the blockbusters they begat were once special by virtue of their scarcity, or at least them being sort of a seasonal thing. And this is just kind of, you know, the latest thing coming off the production line and it's fine. But it is a little disappointing that there isn't even one thing about it that I can say is, is special.
5:22 Speaker 01 Yeah. Okay. I think we're all saying the same thing. I mean, expectations met, not exceeded, not undershot either. I mean, there's a very good reason why we're all saying the same thing here because we have had three seasons to teach us exactly what to expect out of this thing and they deliver that. And it seems to me they are not interested in delivering anything different. I mean, it looks bigger, to your point, it looks more expensive. And I'm tempted to say, as I often do, nobody was clamoring, but I know that's not the case. Cause we saw this in a screening with a bunch of enthusiasts, the kind of enthusiasts that clap. When Dave Filoni shows up in a cameo, Dave Filoni has written and produced several Star Wars shows. He's now the president and CCO of Lucasfilm.
6:03 Speaker 02 And he's wearing his signature cowboy hat in his cameo, too.
6:07 Speaker 01 And he's wearing his signature cowboy hat and they were eating it up.
6:10 Speaker 02 And I, I looked up, the character that Dave Filoni plays does have a name. I forget exactly what it is, but it's something like Howdy Flyboy.
6:18 Speaker 01 Or something.
6:19 Speaker 02 The coolest Star Wars name ever.
6:21 Speaker 01 And at one point, Mando gets a new ship and it gets a series of lingering glamour shots that people cheered for because they know their kids are going to get that ship for Christmas and they're going to play with it after their kids go to bed. My question to both of you though, is if this just delivers more of the same, baby Yoda does cute things, Mando says this is the way. And that seems to be, I think we're all agreed, that's fully intentional. That is the brief. That is the mission statement here. Is that enough? Because aren't these people? Who are all in on Mando and Grogu, aren't they going to be going to the theater looking for something that merits theatricality, some big, I don't know, lore dump or character reveal or something that says to them, everything you thought you knew was wrong, because of what this movie is saying is, everything you thought you knew, you were precisely correct
7:06 Speaker 01 about, good on you on that.
7:08 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, basically, all we learn from this movie is the Mandalorian is good at fighting and Baby Yoda is cute. Those are the two big reveals, although I guess we kind of already knew both those things.
7:20 Speaker 01 Right.
7:20 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, I remember Mandalorian slash Baby Yoda mania, I was part of it. I have not seen all of the show, but I really dug the first two seasons. I think that's part of why it hit so hard is because it was kind of a no homework show. I think those, you know, Disney Star Wars movies, there's a lot of good stuff in them, but I think for the casual person who just needs to take their eight-year-old to a movie, it just felt like so much and there's so much stuff that maybe you didn't get and, and yeah, and I think, I think this hits so hard because you can just kind of be familiar with Star Wars and sit down in front of it. And I think that will make this a hit for the basic dads and eight-year-olds of the world. But yeah, if you are looking for something to chew
8:05 Speaker 02 on, if you are a, um, I'll say it, a giant nerd, like I believe the three of us are, I don't think I'm speaking out of school, you do just wish there was something more to chew on there.
8:16 Speaker 01 Look, what we get in this movie is a series of action set pieces, and I'll confess, a numbing amount of action set pieces, so much that they bleed together. This is oops all set pieces and I'm hard pressed. In any Star Wars film, you can pick out one cool bit. And because there are so many quote unquote cool bits, they're all blending together, just like you said, Chris.
8:35 Speaker 03 Yeah, no, I mean, how many times in the last, what, 27 years have you said, okay, but duel of the fates, but that fight was cool in The Phantom Menace? Can we talk about casting now?
8:45 Speaker 01 Are you gonna mention Sigourney Weaver? Who shows up here to just deliver cutscene dialogue? The scene where you get the mission in the game and you're pressing X on your controller to get past it?
8:55 Speaker 04 Do we have a deal?
8:56 Speaker 05 I only hunt down Imperial War criminals. I don't work for gangsters anymore, especially the huts.
9:02 Speaker 04 That's right, you don't. You work for us. And right now, this is what we need you to do.
9:07 Speaker 03 Look, I mean, you cannot pander to me personally any harder than putting Sigourney Weaver in a science fiction movie. And she looks so bored. I've never seen Sigourney Weaver look more bored than she does. Even when she puts on the flight suit, which kind of feels like some, you know, Dave Filoni in Midjourney is like, put Ripley in a Star Wars uniform. That's hard for me to take. But on the other end of it, we have Jeremy Allen White, prize fighting rot of the hut, who does get to say, I'm my own man, which made me chuckled. And then he says that and other like sentiments like entirely too many times. Leaving aside the fact that we have Jeremy Allen White with his voice so digitally altered as to be unrecognizable.
9:49 Speaker 01 Absolutely unrecognizable.
9:50 Speaker 03 How do you guys feel about a hut speaking, one, a lot? Two, in English or basic, as Wookiepedia tells me it is in the Star Wars universe? Other times we've seen huts, we get the, you know, oh, oh, oh, oh, and the subtitles. And it's just like watching a hut speak long paragraphs of English. I had a hard time with it.
10:10 Speaker 02 I will say, I understand the choice to make him speak English. You know, our audience probably don't want to read a ton of subtitles. I thought his vocal performance was so funny. Like, I would just describe the vibe as blase hipster. He sounds like, not a space gangster, but like the husband of a friend you get stuck talking to at a party. And you're just like listening to him and you're like, oh, you tweaked your shoulder training for a triathlon? Oh, you're brewing your own beer? Oh, cool. Like, he's that guy. It is so funny and weird and out of place. Yeah, I thought the idea of this kind of six-pack hut.
10:53 Speaker 02 That's trying to get out of the shadow of his dad is is kind of fun, but the acting is very strange.
10:59 Speaker 01 It is, it is. And, you know, it's a CJ hot. There's a big scene in a Gladiator arena that just sets up base camp in the uncanny valley and starts roasting marshmallows. It is clearly an Easter egg, right? That is meant to evoke the 3D chess that they play on the Millennium Falcon in episode four, because when you see an overhead shot of the arena, it looks like the chessboard. I get it. It didn't need to take that long. These movies still have a very contemptuous relationship to physics, because early on, we see a, they mount a walker vehicle that looks like an ATSD from Return of the Jedi, but it's got an open cockpit. So I did look it up in the Wiki. Of course, it is an ATRT, which is, of course, this hilariously lumbering unstable thing that he decides that Mando gets in
11:40 Speaker 01 the cockpit of and decides he's going to take it straight down this very steep side of a mountain that's covered in rocks and ice and snow. And he just sails effortlessly down this mountainside. And your brain looks at that and go, I have tried to walk down a steep driveway. It's not this easy.
12:00 Speaker 01 It can't be done. And, you know, I will say, Grogu's still a puppet. That's a good thing. The space mechanics we mentioned, the Wiki informs me, they're called Anzelins, the folks we've seen before. They're clearly puppets. That feels good, but everything else, oof, boy, oof, oof.
12:14 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think the practical stuff just pops so great in this movie. You know, Baby Yoda, he was everybody's favorite thing for several years. And that's because, like, the puppets awesome and the little mechanic guys, they're great and got a ton of laughs in my theater. Yes. I mean, is it the laughs and applause that a brief shot of Dave Filoni and his classic cowboy hat got? No.
12:39 Speaker 02 But almost as big. And yeah, old nerd guy complaint here, but like, can we try and integrate some more practical stuff? And the fact that this is such a hut-based story and we don't have a single practical hut is a real bummer. Jabba the Hutt is one of the coolest, practical puppet characters.
13:00 Speaker 02 Ever. And yeah, I know that these huts have to fight and wrestle and squirm around in a way that a big puppet probably couldn't. But can we mix it up? Can we have it be CGI in some shots and a big old cool puppet in other shots? You know, bring it to the premiere, let TikTokers take a picture with it. You make your money back. Yeah, more puppets, please.
13:20 Speaker 01 The other big question I think is hanging over this weekend is are folks going to come out? I'd be fascinated to see because this is going to dictate, I think, a lot for the Disney corporation. You know, what are they going to do next? I mean, if folks do not come out to the theater because they could stay at home and watch not just essentially this, they could watch this. Then-
13:41 Speaker 03 They could watch a book. They don't even have to read a book. They could watch a book of Boba Fett. It's incredible.
13:46 Speaker 01 All right. Well, you heard what we think. We're kind of mid. You may be, you may be one of those folks who cheer for the Dave Filonis of the world and more power to you. Up next, what is making us happy this week?
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15:04 Speaker 01 Now it is time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What is making us happy this week? Jordan, what's making you happy this week?
15:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, I am going to do what I often do in this segment is recommend a comic book or graphic novel. In this case, it's a fantastic new graphic novel. It is called Bury Me Already (It's Nice Down Here) Comics on Pregnancy and Parenthood by Julia Wertz. Julia Wertz is a really brilliant cartoonist who mostly does, I think, what you would call autobiocomics or diary comics. They are comics pulled from her everyday life. And yeah, she is very funny. She likes bodily humor jokes and pop culture references, but it's also like just really honest about her life. And so this book is about her being pregnant and giving birth to her son.
15:55 Speaker 02 And yeah, you get a lot of the kind of funny gross stuff that accompanies pregnancy stories. And it's all really funny because she's hilarious. But then, you know, it gets into some heavy topics. It gets into depression. It gets into loneliness. And sometimes when a thing tries to do both of those things, tries to be really funny and silly and also give you the heavy stuff, it can come off as sweaty or one thing could work a little bit better than the other one. But oh, boy, like both things are just so well done here and they support each other and they add to each other. The dramatic stuff is better because you got the light funny stuff and the light funny stuff is a nice palate cleanser for some of the more dramatic stuff. Maybe you feel a little silly saying masterpiece? I think this is a masterpiece. I think it's really great.
16:39 Speaker 02 Get this, get this, get this. It's so good. Bury Me Already: It's Nice Down Here by Julia Wertz.
16:45 Speaker 01 That's a great pick. Thank you so much, Jordan. Chris, what is making you happy this week?
16:49 Speaker 03 Glenn, what is making me happy this week is counter programming. Whether or not you go to the theater to see The Mandalorian and Grogu, I implore you to go to the theater that's playing Boots Riley's new movie, I Love Boosters. This is from the great hip hop artist and maker of the sort of surreal anti-capitalism satire, Sorry to Bother You. This is an even wilder, more- Ambitious, funnier, harder to encapsulate Fantasia centers on these women who make their living by stealing, you know, way marked up designer clothes and then, you know, selling them at more affordable prices. That's what a booster is. For anyone who saw Sorry
17:30 Speaker 03 to Bother You or his streaming series, this is just a massive upscaling in ambition and execution and everything. This is a movie that I enjoyed very much and that I look forward to arguing with people about for the rest of the year. So if you can find Boots Riley's I Love Boosters, well worth seeking out. It made me very happy.
17:49 Speaker 01 Thank you very much, Chris. Yes, we're gonna have an episode about that very movie next week. What's making me happy? Well, we can all agree that algorithms are bad. Algorithms don't make you happy. Whenever you get served something on your phone that you've just been talking to somebody about that day, that's creepy. But as the great Stephen Sondheim once said, witches can be right, giants can be good. And because the algorithm knows me so well, earlier this week, it served me up this very badly recorded clip, presumably from an audience member at a theatrical performance that somebody uploaded to TikTok.
18:30 Speaker 01 That is the Argentinian singer Vane Butera, performing Getting Married Today from Stephen Sondheim's company. How do you make something you've heard thousands and thousands of times new? How do you renew your sense of awe and respect and admiration? And I'm just gonna go back to awe, awe for an incredibly demanding patter song that is absolutely merciless in what it expects of its performer? This is how. It sounds to my ears even more difficult in Spanish than it does in English. I don't know how that's possible. And now, it's not perfect, right? Because later on in that clip, her breath control gets a little bit wonky, and I'm sure Stephen would have had some notes. But the thing about Getting
19:13 Speaker 01 Married Today is if it's too perfect, it feels canned and robotic. And you don't want something like this song to feel effortless, because that does not serve the kind of frantic desperation that the character is going through in that moment. You need some human juice, some funk to it. And I bet that's the only times the word Stephen Sondheim and funk were said in the same paragraph.
19:36 Speaker 03 I mean, I'm stuck on human juice, Glenn.
19:38 Speaker 01 OK. It's led me down a path of discovering more Vane Bautera, who is a singer-songwriter and a television actress. So that's good, because I don't have to come out and say, you know what's good, guys? What's making me happy is the algorithm. What's making me happy is Vane Bautera herself. That is what is making me happy this week. That brings us to the end of our show. Jordan Morris, Chris Klemic. I don't know if it was the way, but it was fun.
20:00 Speaker 03 Thanks, Glenn.
20:01 Speaker 02 Thank you, Glenn. I look forward to squeezing more human juice with you very soon.
20:07 Speaker 01 This episode was produced by Mike Katsev and Hafsa Pathaman, edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. And Olo Kimin provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glen Weldon, and we'll see you all next week.
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