Star Wars: The spoilers unleashed

This week on a very special Vergecast, we discuss all things Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Emily Yoshida and Ross Miller will be joined by Bryan Bishop and Tasha Robinson to have a critic's discussion of the new film. Kaitlyn Tiffany will be occupying the hypeseat and will likely interject Hamilton into the discussion. Be warned: there will be spoilers. This is an episode that should be listened to after you see the movie. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Hi, everyone. It's a special edition, de-specialized edition, Vergecast. We are talking about Star Wars, and nothing but Star Wars, for the next, I think we've got 43 minutes. So you are strapped in, ready to journey to a galaxy far, far away. Hopefully, you're listening to this after Star Wars: The Force Awakens has come out, because we are going to be getting into some spoilers here. Three of us that are on this podcast have seen the movie. Two of us have not. One could not give less of a shit. But let's do some intros. With me here, in New York, Ross Miller.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  Yes, and I'm the one who hasn't seen it, but does kind of give a shit. But also got so obsessed with spoilers that it pretty much just ruined the movie for me.

• 0:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, you really, I didn't even realize how much was out there that you could spoil yourself on until after I saw the film. And I was like, oh, this might not, none of this might have been a surprise to anybody. On Skype, we have, in L.A., Brian Bishop, senior reporter, veteran of the official premiere, the world premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a couple days ago. How changed are you?

• 1:29Speaker 02

  How changed am I?

• 1:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32Speaker 02

  It was weird. It was kind of like this moment, if there was a center of hype for this movie, it was that premiere. Because you had this one room, there's three theaters, right? Four blocks of Hollywood Boulevard blocked off for this thing. And in one room, Abrams and Bob Lager from Disney are giving a standing ovation to Lucas, who was there, acting like he was happy, and then it was taken over. And a new movie happened, and it's all not his from here on out. So it was good. I mean, we'll talk a little later about how I felt after the movie, but the premiere was definitely interesting. If you ever want to spend several hours in a super cold tent in Hollywood... Hollywood, that was the place to be.

• 2:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, it looked like you were in, you were in hyperspace, like the weird kind of purply foil tunnel.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  Right. It was more drawn than Star Wars, actually, which is a little bit strange, but they tried, so it's good.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  Nice. Also joining us on Skype is our film critic, Tasha Robinson, calling from Chicago, also somebody who has seen Star Wars and will be writing about it very, very soon, or has already written about it. You will read her writing on it very, very soon. What, tell me about seeing it in Chicago. What, is it just a bunch of critics? I mean, mine was just a bunch of critics, so.

• 2:45Speaker 03

  Just a bunch of critics? I just thought it was so diminutive. No, it was a bunch of critics.

• 2:50Speaker 00

  Oh, my God, critics!

• 2:53Speaker 03

  But, yeah, it was, George Lucas was not there. Nobody got a standing O. It was just a bunch of critics in a room, which is usually a kind of a dour affair.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  Critics-only screenings, like, everybody kind of tries to keep their reactions in because they don't want to give anything away to anybody else, because we're all kind of in competition. But there was a lot of laughter in that room.

• 3:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:14Speaker 03

  There was a sense of tension and a sense of excitement that you really don't get very often with a critic's screenings.

• 3:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, there was applause for almost any throwback, of which there were many, and we'll get into that in a second, in my screening. A lot of laughs. It was a very participatory audience, which I think, like, something like Star Wars is one of the few things that can bring that out of a roomful of critics.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, was it entirely critics, or is it like a mix of, like, PR and, like, families?

• 3:41Speaker 00

  Well, I was sitting next to a couple of college kids from Drew University. I'm not really sure where that is, but they were really into esports, so they were talking a lot about esports. And their friends, their friend's dad works for Disney, so it got them in, so, cool for them. I didn't even want to ask. I was like...

• 4:04Speaker 00

  Were you even born yet when Phantom Menace came out?

• 4:08Speaker 01

  You know the answer. It's not yet.

• 4:10Speaker 00

  They, so they would have been like sixteen or something, or sixteen, if, no, no. So if you were born when Phantom Menace came out, you'd be sixteen now. So they were probably like three. They still wouldn't remember it. They wouldn't remember the entire, the angst of the Phantom Menace, um, which, uh, I guess we can kind of get into now, just as a way to, to, to roll into the film. There was a lot riding on this film, mostly by way of bad example from the prequels. I don't know how everybody feels individually about them, but I personally just watched episode three for the first time since theaters, I think. I think I only watched it once. Um, oh God, it's so, it's just so bad, man. Like, I know you watched all of it, Brian.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Uh, you watched all three, episode one, two, and three in preparation for, for The Force Awakens. How, how did that, did that, uh, inform your experience at all?

• 5:03Speaker 02

  I mean, it, it certainly set expectations that The Force Awakens had no problem, you know, exceeding.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  Right.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  I mean, they are so painfully bad. It's, it is weird going back. Like, I think conventional wisdom was that Revenge of the Sith was the best of the prequels because it gave people what they finally wanted to see, which was Darth Vader. But you watch them again and it's kind of the worst. Like, number one, Phantom Menace is terrible, but at least you can tell, like, Lucas actually gave a shit. Where I feel like by Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, he was just like, sure, lava fight.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Like, he so didn't care. Nobody cared.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  I mean, it seemed like, also like, episode three was like, oh shit, I actually have to do the plot. I have to connect this to four in some way. And like, yeah, because I just did the whole weekend watching one through six, all the, you know, the new versions, all the altered versions. But it was still like, I ended up enjoying Attack of the Clones more than the others. They all sucked. They all completely sucked.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  Really Attack? I didn't even bother to look at Attack of the Clones.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  I mean, they're all terrible, but the first one has the expectation of being the first, and the third one has to do plot. So the second one's like, it doesn't care.

• 6:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  It just, it's okay being a bad movie.

• 6:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  But Ross, you're talking about a movie where Anakin and Natalie Portman roll around on the grass as they fall in love. Like, that's kind of indefensible.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  But don't forget, I love you. No, I love you. Oh, then Love is Blind. Oh, then... Whatever that fricking phrase was.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  I don't like sand. It's coarse. It gets everywhere.

• 6:20Speaker 00

  That's... I mean, God bless that line. That line is one of the worst movie lines of all time. I think, like, not even just if you are a Star Wars fan and you have an investment in Star Wars. It's just a plain out bad line. So, I don't know. I mean, it's interesting. I mean, it's really, really impossible to judge a movie in a vacuum, right? Like, duh. But also, even just with the prequels, I mean, that... I was saying that J.J. Abrams, for Force Awakens, actually is hugely indebted to George Lucas, not just because he invented Star Wars, but because he did it so wrong that there was a really, really clear example of what not to do. So, it's like, okay, we... Like, don't take away all the things that

• 7:04Speaker 00

  we love about Star Wars. Like, keep film. Keep this, like, warm feeling. Keep this sort of, like, romantic comedy banter with people. Like, that's the things that people liked. They actually, like, this sort of quasi-religious tone of these, and like, super slow tone of the prequels, actually had nothing to do with the original trilogy as far as, like, resembling them as films. And I think, I think that was just a really, really good bellwether, at least for him to say, "Okay, I'm gonna go the opposite direction." And for the most part, I think it pays off.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  And if everything I've heard about the movie, like, God, that sounds weird to say on the podcast about the movie, but it's like, J.J. Abrams has been very good about nostalgia. Like, Star Trek was an homage to all Star Trek. Super 8 is an homage to a bunch of other stuff. Like, it plays to, like, these certain beats. That it just, like, he knows how to get people, like, wistful about their childhood.

• 7:56Speaker 00

  Well, I feel like we're on the edge of getting into spoiler land. So before we go to our first ad, Caitlin, hype check Star Wars.

• 8:08Speaker 04

  I mean, Star Wars hype is not a number anymore. It's like a web that has entrapped everyone inside of it. Like, I don't care about Star Wars and I've still spent probably four to five hours a day dealing with Star Wars on a daily basis for two months. So like, it's not hype, it's just the ether.

• 8:27Speaker 00

  Is the web that has entrapped you, perhaps the web? The worldwide web?

• 8:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, the world wide web of brands, of people I work with and of, you know, just the Verge audience.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  It's pretty impossible to avoid if you have anything to do with online publishing. It's impossible to avoid Star Wars, especially this week. But it's almost all over, right? We're about to be done with Star Wars, right? Nope, we've got an ad. All right.

• 9:03Speaker 00

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• 9:47Speaker 00

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• 9:57Speaker 00

  All right, let's get back into it. From here on out, you've been warned, spoilers will abound. So I want to talk, I want to talk to you, Tasha, just because I've been editing your piece that is about this very thing that Ross was talking about, this nostalgia in, in The Force Awakens and how, almost carbon copy, I like to think of it as Mad Libs, because it's like, fill in the blank, there's a new person to put in each spot. The plot is of The Force Awakens, and I came out of the movie kind of being very mixed about it. I would go five minutes thinking it was great, it felt awesome, and five minutes thinking it was very cynical. But I was wondering what you actually, first of all, whether you thought it worked or not?

• 10:37Speaker 03

  Well, it, I mean, it works as an experience. It works in the moment. I like, I walked out of the theater just feeling really ebullient, like, really energized. Like, that was, it felt almost like Star Wars did when I was a kid. And there's not as much of a sense of discovery, because you're watching The New Hope again, A New Hope. But in that sense, it felt like watching A New Hope again, when I was a kid. Like, I was cynical by the time of Return of the Jedi. Like, I was a little kid when the first one came out. And by the time of Return of the Jedi, I was like, this is all digital. Like, there are all of these weird effects, and the puppets are starting to go away, and it's like, all action beats, and it doesn't feel dignified anymore. It doesn't feel serious. It doesn't have that, that weight that made the first Star Wars, like, so creepy for a little kid.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  And a lot of that is back here, but there's also just, you know, seeing Han and Leia and Chewie again, seeing the Millennium Falcon again. There are all of these elements that keep getting brought up over and over, that's like, remember everything you loved about Star Wars? Here it is again. And we've kind of dusted it off and given it a new surface, but we actually cared about making that surface real this time. It's not just, here's a digital version. It's not like when they replaced the Yoda puppet with a CGI Yoda.

• 11:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:49Speaker 03

  It's more like they went back and dug out the, the puppet Yoda, and like, cleaned it up, and brought Frank Oz back, and paid him a billion dollars to do the voice. It's like, everything you loved about this, we want to do it right again.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. I think, I think, I mean, there was a lot of, there was a lot made of Abrams shooting on film, using practical effects. There are still some digital effects. There's one or two characters where I feel like, they could have done practical, maybe.

• 12:21Speaker 00

  Not characters. I'm, I'm talking about those dumb monsters in the corridor and like the one scene where I was like, you guys could have lost this. Like, they could have lost fifteen minutes, I feel like, when, in the whole action sequence around, um, around Han, like, when we first meet Han. Um, I feel like I haven't talked about this specifically with either, either Brian or Tasha, but like, that scene, that was like the one-

• 12:46Speaker 03

  I feel like it was from a different movie.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. It felt like it was, that felt, was the only thing that felt like it was studio mandated. Like, we need another action beat here. Cause you could have taken it out and it wouldn't have affected the plot at all. Um, but, I mean, and it also stuck out because of the, the look of it, too. I mean, up until that point, all the stuff on Jaku, um, which, why isn't it Tatooine? Like, why can't it just be Tatooine?

• 13:10Speaker 03

  It is Tatooine. It's just Tatooine with, like, they literally could have gone through with a, a copy of the script for New Hope and just crossed out Tatooine right in Jaku, crossed out Obi-Wan Kenobi and wrote in Luke Skywalker, you know, crossed out Luke Skywalker and wrote in Rey. I mean, all of the elements are there. Like, all of them, piece by piece. And, like, the, the piece that I wrote is about, like, some of that works and some of it doesn't. And for me, it mostly worked until we got to Yet Another Death Star. Cause this is the third time we've done that, rather than the second.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:40Speaker 03

  And I was like, really, we're going to that exact same well, in the exact same way?

• 13:45Speaker 00

  But it's bigger.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  I know, we had a character who was like, we've done this before, and they're like, no, no, no, you don't understand, it's bigger.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  They actually do the, you know, they have the hologram, or holographic, like, display, like, you know, that they've always had in these, uh, the Rebel boardrooms, uh, where it's like, here's, here's the Death Star, and here's the Starkiller base, or, Starkiller base, that's what it's called, right?

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:09Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it's like the Resistance guy saying, wait, we, we couldn't do better? And they were like, hush. He's like, I understand how sequels work, you made it bigger, but I don't, I don't see that, and they're like, shut up, we're sticking you in the closet, we're doing it again.

• 14:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  So, I have a question. How, how self-aware is it that it's like, almost like a circuitous thing? Like, that, like, we, like, these are like, Empire fanboys who've just tried to make a better version of that, or?

• 14:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. I, uh, I don't know, Brian, what do you think? Like-

• 14:35Speaker 02

  I mean, it's weird looking after having seen the movie. It's interesting to look back at the whole campaign because while they were selling the movie, we were all talking about the nostalgia thing and you know, the practical effects thing and like clearly they were trying to go and you know, erase people's memories about the prequels, but I think they actually have been selling this movie the entire time. It's a movie that they said, hey, you know, the other stuff was terrible. We're going to make something that has all those elements that you liked before. And the way it ends, which you can get to in a second, that that's what it feels like when the real story begins, right? This movie feels like strictly a transitional piece. It's an extraordinarily entertaining transitional piece and checks off all the boxes Star Wars fans want, right? Nobody's going to walk out of this and not say it doesn't feel like Star Wars, which was like the key thing I think they needed to accomplish. So in that sense, like they did what they needed

• 15:18Speaker 02

  to do. And it's fun, but it doesn't it never I don't think it was ever trying to actually be a great movie on its own, which is kind of weird.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, because it does feel like, I mean, it's so, it just feels a very great quality that I don't know why they wouldn't try to add in some more original beats. I mean, that last scene that you're talking about, that feels so dramatically different from the rest of the film. It feels like genuine new territory.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:44Speaker 00

  Um, and since I, since we're assuming that you watched the movie at this point, if you're listening to this, I'll say it is when we find Luke again, when Ray goes to see Luke, yo, you okay over there?

• 15:57Speaker 04

  I know those names.

• 15:57Speaker 00

  Don't care about Star Wars?

• 15:59Speaker 04

  I just got on a date with my boyfriend on Facebook Messenger because he found out I was going to hear the spoiler.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  Oh, my God. Oh, the Verge cast ruining relationships, one relationship at a time.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  No, I mean, yeah, that happens at the end, but it's on this very, uh, it's in an unusual location. It just feels visually different. Um, there's no dialogue, uh, which a lot of the film has been very chatty up until then in a way that's very, very reminiscent of like Han and Leia bantering and stuff. I mean, that's very much how like Rey and, um, and Finn sort of interact with each other. Um, and then it gets very quiet and it gets very like ominous. And part of me now is like, is that really what I want now, even though it was exciting in the context of a movie? Because I feel like that's too much of what the prequels was, was like overly uh, precious about like how serious we had to be about this space story.

• 16:58Speaker 00

  That I don't know. I I'm I'm excited to see. Well, we can talk more. Let's save moving forward for the end. Let's just talk about characters. I mean, for me, the the leads, the three new leads, I guess, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, and Daisy Ridley, they were all three really, really strong. And I left thinking, oh, maybe also one of the biggest differences between this and the prequels is just that actors feel like real people and they're allowed to feel like humans. That felt like such a huge change. But did anybody have a a particular standout, or?

• 17:40Speaker 03

  For me, it's Finn, because like, as much as I love Rey, and as much as I love the fact that the whole movie kind of teases you about, is she going to stay a character in her own right, or is she going to become another, like, made in distress? And the film keeps teasing, oh, somebody's going to have to rescue her. Oh, no, no, she's she's got this, over and over and over. And I loved that. I loved the character. But for me, she's kind of a Luke Skywalker remix. Like, she's she starts off as the hayseed on this desert planet, and she wants to escape, and she gets out of the world, and soon she's got a lightsaber and the force and all this stuff. So she's a character that we haven't seen done before by a woman, but she's a character we've seen done before. And then Poe, I thought was a lot of fun, but he's new Han Solo. He's just, you know,

• 18:25Speaker 03

  The Adventures of Young Han Solo. For me, Finn, not just because he's an actor of color, but because of what he represents in the story, he's like a completely new thing.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:35Speaker 03

  And he's one of the very few completely new things we get. This idea of the stormtrooper breaking ranks, this idea of him wanting to escape and be part of something else, the little hero's journey that he goes on. I ended up with a lot of questions about him.

• 18:48Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  I want to see a lot more explaining who he is. But for me, he stood out just because he was the most, he was the strongest different element that we saw in this film. That's that was something we hadn't seen before at all.

• 19:01Speaker 00

  I want to clarify, because it's sort of struck me as familiar, but some people are saying that it's new information, that stormtroopers are child soldiers.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  So I mean, so people get confused because like you see the clones, you see like the Jingle Fett clones in episode two, but like since then, like they did start recruiting real human beings.

• 19:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it seemed like the way that Finn talks about his origin and the small way that he does is like, you know, I was like any other stormtrooper. I was like, they murdered everybody in my village and stole all the children and made us stormtroopers. I was like, that's, that's very, that's very dramatic. I mean, it's very interesting how we're also very conditioned to see for so much more intense imagery and violence and I don't know, edginess in stories like this or like any franchise stuff, even Marvel stuff. And how Star Wars has like these horrific things in it, like entire villages being burned

• 20:00Speaker 00

  down and children being lightsabered and stuff. And it's so gentle and delicate about all of it. Like, I can't believe how they treated that in, in episode three when I rewatched it last night.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  I also like, I was watching the original Star Wars last night. I, for some reason, in the years and years I've watched that movie, I've never noticed like that one scene when Luke comes back to his home, like sees his family and they're just two charred corpses.

• 20:22Speaker 00

  Oh, they're two, yeah. No, that freaked me out when I was a kid.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  I didn't, I never noticed until last night. I just like, I just like,

• 20:27Speaker 00

  You never noticed?

• 20:28Speaker 01

  I was like, oh, it's, it's, it's like a burning bush and some like furniture. And then I was like, oh, no, that's,

• 20:32Speaker 00

  No, it's Aunt Beru.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  That's a fucking head. Oh, God.

• 20:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. No, that's, I mean, the way, yeah, the way Star Wars deals with violence, I mean, it's very, very deliberate. You know, it's trying to, Star Wars is not there to do any really heavy commentary on the nature of violence or the nature of war or anything like that. I mean, they tried to, to a degree in the, the prequels, especially like around the Bush administration, but that's, that all seemed really heavy handed. I mean, it's above all of an adventure story. So when it gets to like actually gnarly stuff, it, it sometimes feels ill-equipped to deal with it. But then I don't, I don't know how much I want it to deal with it also. Maybe I just want a space story. Um.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  Did he really say that his whole village was killed, though? I mean, I remember that as he was stolen. He said he was stolen from his family.

• 21:20Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 21:21Speaker 03

  And it left me believing that he still maybe had family out there somewhere to to return to, which is not mentioned. Like, I'd have to go back and watch it again for that. But I definitely didn't walk away from that. I I did walk away with the the child soldier feel, but I thought he just said he was kidnapped, not like everyone was murdered.

• 21:38Speaker 00

  Right. And you brought up.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  That was my take, too.

• 21:40Speaker 00

  You brought up an interesting thing, Tasha, about how, I mean, he turns, he kind of has this crisis on and on the battlefield or like while they're doing a raid. Uh, but then, uh, because of the brought on by a stormtrooper and one of his fellow stormtroopers getting killed. And then he turns around and kills a bunch of stormtroopers.

• 22:03Speaker 03

  Like, like a ton of stormtroopers. I don't want to get too deep into that, because that's still something I want to write about.

• 22:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:11Speaker 03

  But I'm very curious if he has any fellow feeling at all for all these people behind the masks who, like, that's basically who he was like five minutes ago. And I, like, I talked about this with Brian, and Brian was the one that pointed out to me that it all of this is triggered by seeing one of his fellow stormtroopers die. So is that somebody he knew? Is that somebody he cared about? Or was he just like, oh, crap, this armor is useless. This could be me the second. I'm out of here. Because like his original fleeing seems to be driven by fear as much as by like any sense of like empathy or right or wrong. He doesn't like seeing people slaughtered. But, you know, he really seems pretty heavily motivated by saving his own skin for a while there. And then out of the blue, he's like, I kind of love this girl, so now I'm brave.

• 22:55Speaker 03

  And it's it's a great arc. It's just an arc that feels like it's missing a few pieces.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  So wait, was this his was this his first outing as a stormtrooper? Like, is this his first time seeing?

• 23:04Speaker 00

  He's supposed to be new, but you know what's funny is that then he says he worked as a janitor. So what was he doing raiding a village? Why did they send a janitor out to?

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Promotion.

• 23:15Speaker 03

  He got promoted.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  He got promoted.

• 23:17Speaker 03

  All right. In real world, come on, in the real world, people get promoted from janitors to like frontline infantry men slash executors of villages like.

• 23:26Speaker 00

  I just realized that.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  They want to get more people. Further to Tasha's point that I thought was really funny, when he rescues Poe, by the way, he rescues Poe later, guys. He says, I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do. And it's like, so is killing a bunch of your friends you were hanging out with and working with like.

• 23:41Speaker 00

  He was joking though.

• 23:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, but to be fair, like Poe calls him on that instantly.

• 23:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 23:46Speaker 03

  He's like, you just need a pilot. And he's like, yeah, I just need a pilot. He really just wants to get the hell out of there. And he's pretty clear about it, that he's just trying to save himself at first.

• 23:54Speaker 00

  It's really.

• 23:54Speaker 03

  But then, when he gets inspired, he like, he just turns into like a one man stormtrooper slaughtering machine.

• 24:00Speaker 00

  Also, like, part time Jedi, just like picks up a lightsaber and is actually pretty good with it, like. I think it's interesting what the humanity of, how the humanity of stormtroopers has changed and been a subject of fascination and preoccupation, like as a side story through all Star Wars movies or the clones. Like, I think it very much varies depending on like the current geopolitical climate, not to go too deep here.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  I just think, like, I mean, you know, that's obviously like the big conversation in Clerks, but like, this, this is, this almost feels like it's playing into that whole discussion, like a Kevin Smith discussion of like, okay, let's go deep on one of these guys and like his relationship with his buddies and everything. Like, let's actually humanize the stormtroopers or a stormtrooper, which is very interesting. I mean, not all of them are because now, then whenever he goes back and encounters any of them, they all just yell traitor at him like a bunch of robots. So, I don't know.

• 24:58Speaker 03

  I mean, I can't help but wonder if that's not partially a fan thing, because fans figured out how to make those armor like suits pretty early on. And I don't think I've been to like a major convention since the mid 80s where there was a battalion of stormtroopers walking around. Because as soon as people figured out how to make the suits, it was like, me and all my friends are going as like an entire troop of, of stormtroopers.

• 25:21Speaker 00

  We want to be a faceless herd.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  A cool thing to do.

• 25:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, are we good for time? Do we need to do another ad? The funny thing is, behind the scenes tech note on this podcast, the entire crew has walked out of the booth because they don't want to hear spoilers. So we can do whatever we want right now. In case anybody wants to switch topics, but I don't think we do. This week's episode of The Vergecast is brought to you by Earth Class Mail. Earth Class Mail moves your snail mail to the cloud, giving you instant access 24/7 and integrates with the tools and services you use every day. It's crazy that we've moved everything we do for business over to the digital world,

• 26:06Speaker 00

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• 26:48Speaker 00

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• 26:58Speaker 00

  All right. I'm going to do some quick roundtable questions. These are mostly going to be geared at people who have seen the movie, but if you have not, feel free to just like do a wild guess, like a prediction. Okay. So, okay, did J.J. Abrams do a good job? Yes or no? Brian?

• 27:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:28Speaker 00

  Tasha.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  We're still in, did he do a good job at what? Did he do a good job at imitating A New Hope? Yes. Did he do a good job at making an entertaining movie? Yes. Did he do a good job at creating something entirely new? No. There are a lot of jobs here. He succeeded at some, like Finn succeeded at his janitorial duties. He failed at others.

• 27:49Speaker 00

  Oh, I love the shade so much. J.J. Abrams, if you need a really expensive brand ambassador, he's your guy.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  Caitlin, did J.J. Abrams do a good job?

• 28:03Speaker 04

  Seems like it. I don't know. He seems all right.

• 28:07Speaker 00

  He seems all right.

• 28:08Speaker 04

  He seems better than Colin. What's his face is definitely not gonna be.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Trevorrow?

• 28:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:13Speaker 04

  Can't wait for that.

• 28:15Speaker 00

  I wonder if Phil will ever rethink that situation. I mean, undoubtedly Trevorrow will have another, is he gonna do the next Jurassic Park movie?

• 28:22Speaker 01

  I would think so. Not directing. Oh, no?

• 28:24Speaker 00

  He's not directing it, but he's gonna have another blockbuster that's not Star Wars in between now and episode nine. Like, I don't know why I have it in for him so much. I just do.

• 28:34Speaker 04

  Because Jurassic World's like offensively bad to the point where it's mean. Like, if you know you're gonna make a billion dollars on something, like, you can't just try just to be polite? Like.

• 28:44Speaker 00

  I mean, I'm not very polite right now because I haven't even seen it and I'm like, just throwing all the shade.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  I haven't seen it either, so.

• 28:51Speaker 00

  It's, wow, you haven't seen it either?

• 28:52Speaker 01

  I never got around to it.

• 28:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, me neither.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:54Speaker 00

  I was like, okay, I'll see this this weekend. I didn't. And then I heard everybody thought it sucked and then I was like, okay, maybe I don't need to add to its profits.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  I'm a conscious consumer. All right, did J.J. Abrams do a good job, Russ?

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Yes, in the sense that I've had a lot of fun with the marketing campaign and he's definitely the builder of the hype around that.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  We didn't even really talk about that. I mean, the amount, now that we're spoiling everything, it's like the idea of spoilers and secrecy is not really an issue anymore. But like, that is a huge part of what makes it enjoyable to watch for the first time. But then, at the same time, like we're saying, if you've seen the original trilogy, you're already spoiled for it. Like, you can make a very, very decent guess at what's gonna happen just like by filling in blanks from the original, so. Like, I guess, I guess that's sort of a surprise in and of itself, but. Okay, next question. Who's the best character, the best new character? And you can choose a main character, like, one of the people that is in every scene, or almost every scene.

• 29:54Speaker 00

  Or, and, and, and then one side character, one, one fun grab-bag character. Uh, Brian?

• 30:00Speaker 02

  Uh, for me, my favorite character was, uh, was Ray. Uh, and I definitely agree with what Tasha said, in that she's definitely like a remix on Luke. What I liked about her is that she has her shit together so much more than Luke ever did. Like, Luke was whining about not getting to go pick up power converters at the store. And like, you know, Ray would just fucking like build a power converter out of scratch.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Ray would go to-

• 30:20Speaker 02

  She's going on solo.

• 30:21Speaker 00

  Ray would go like, source one from a downed Star Destroyer, like, she's, yeah.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  Right. And she's like so self-assured and has her shit together, even though she kind of like hasn't really accepted her role. Um, and Daisy really, I thought, just like, killed it. And there's that moment at the end when she, sorry Ross, when she finally gets the lightsaber. It's cool, bro. It was like, was such a great, great crescendo moment. And everybody, I mean, obviously in the theater, Ray loved it, because it was the premiere and yay.

• 30:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 02

  Um, but it's a great moment. I mean, that moment like delivers, and it's so satisfying.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. No, that's a, that's a stand-up and cheer. And then it's like, it's funny, because, I don't know. It, the, the part where she kind of uses the Force for the first time to, to escape is also another one where it's like, it's funny. It's like, um, I just spoiled that she has the Force. Uh, she, it's funny. I mean, they're, they're lighthearted about it and, and. But it's also like you're, you're rooting for it at the same time. It's not a total joke, which is nice. Um, who's your minor character? You like?

• 31:15Speaker 02

  Uh, minor character, uh, can it be like any character, or just like the character I like second best?

• 31:21Speaker 00

  Any.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  Like, minor character probably, like, probably BBA, because robot ball droids. You know, I mean, it's hard to argue.

• 31:29Speaker 00

  Totally. That's my favorite. The major character in, in almost everything. Huge, huge part of the film. Love him.

• 31:37Speaker 00

  Uh, Tasha, what, who is your favorite major character, new character?

• 31:41Speaker 03

  Finn, for, for reasons I think I've covered. Uh, but you know, even outside the dynamic of him being new, I just, I really liked seeing this world through his eyes. Like Ray does have her shit together and it's awesome. It's just, it's terrific to see that. But it's also fun to watch Finn go through the process of getting his shit together.

• 31:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:59Speaker 03

  Like, he makes some hard decisions early on, but watching him kind of become a person instead of just like this, this fleeing ball of terror is just so exciting.

• 32:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:10Speaker 03

  And he has so much excitement for what he does. Like Ray just kind of proceeds in this like, all right, we gotta get it done. We gotta, I'm, I'm pulling this thing out and repairing it with my teeth and sticking it back in and it's all gonna work. She's so confident. Whereas he's the one that's like, I blew up a ship, I blew up a ship. He gets so excited and it's so adorable.

• 32:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's definitely the audience surrogate in that way. I mean, that's maybe why it's useful for him to feel like the most like whole cloth new characters. Because he is the audience in a lot of ways, which is cool. Um, uh, oh, a minor character.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  Maz, Maz Kattana.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:46Speaker 03

  I think she's really pretty cool. And my big regret is that she's one of these action movie characters, like, like Marion in, uh, the first Indiana Jones movie essentially where the story moves to her and then just destroys everything she's built. Uh, she's been running that place for a thousand years, Han Solo says. And like, within three minutes of the story showing up, the whole place is in rubble. And it's really depressing. But she just, she seems like a little, maybe a little too much Yoda surrogate, but she also seems like a really pretty cool person who kind of knows like who she is and what she wants and how to work with other people. I would like to see more of her. I, I would like her to, to develop a little more character and a little less like story

• 33:29Speaker 03

  point. Like she's kind of the exposition deliverer, but she's, she's too cool to waste. I think we'll see more of her.

• 33:35Speaker 00

  I was saying she seemed like a cross between Yoda and Edna Mode from The Incredibles.

• 33:43Speaker 00

  Which is just like, that's perfect. That's a great character. Sign me up. I mean, I also can't wait to read the fanfic about her and Chewbacca.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  That was not spoiled for me, what?

• 33:56Speaker 00

  It's just like one line.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  Kaitlyn, who's your favorite character in Star Wars?

• 34:03Speaker 04

  Lou and Davis, obviously. He's gonna be the best heart, I can already tell.

• 34:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:10Speaker 04

  He's such a dreamboat.

• 34:11Speaker 00

  He, this movie really, really solidified my Oscar Isaac crush, which is just like, kind of there, but not anything, I felt, I was just like, oh yeah, I like, I like Oscar Isaac in pretty much anything. He's great. And now I'm like, whoa, Oscar Isaac, hello.

• 34:27Speaker 04

  Even that terrible movie with Jessica Chastain, where she was constantly putting out cigarettes in the snow. Wait, you know the one where he's like a gangster?

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Oh, right.

• 34:35Speaker 04

  Whatever it's called.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Something months or seasons.

• 34:37Speaker 04

  And he's always wearing his turtleneck.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, he wears a turtleneck and a camel coat. Uh, great look. I mean, he's also, the other thing that's interesting about him, and like, this is what I thought when he first got cast, is like, he looks like an actor from the seventies. So he just, like, it helps with that whole, like, he looks like anybody else who could have been in the, the, the climactic battle in A New Hope, like, just a seventies actor with sideburns, piloting a ship. Um, yeah.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  Emily Otasha, did either of you think after this movie that Oscar Isaac should be the guy that, uh, plays the new Indiana Jones? Cause I felt like he was vibing like old Harrison Ford pretty hard.

• 35:10Speaker 00

  Oh my God. He really was. I don't know, let's see how he can handle a bullwhip and then I'll tell you. Stop. Uh, yeah, he's, I, the other, I mean, the only thing would be like, I like him in stuff like Show Me a Hero, and I like him in smaller stuff like Ex Machina. And I like that he has a smaller role in this. I mean, he's not, he's out of the film for a lot, a lot of it. And I'm okay with that. Like, the, the times where he is there, it, he's used well. He makes a good impact. A little of him goes a long way and I wouldn't want it to be like, oh, like Oscar Isaac is the star of Star Wars or Indiana Jones or any franchise. Like I want him, I like his

• 35:53Speaker 00

  whole separate life. I wouldn't like it to all get eaten up by a franchise.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Well, he's also doing X-Men now also.

• 35:58Speaker 00

  Oh, God, wait, who is he in X-Men now?

• 36:00Speaker 01

  He's Apocalypse. He's like the main bad guy.

• 36:02Speaker 03

  Oh, boy.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sorry.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  It's all over.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:05Speaker 00

  Why doesn't...

• 36:08Speaker 00

  I mean, also like the guy who directed Creed, um, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan Coogler.

• 36:14Speaker 02

  Ryan Coogan?

• 36:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, Ryan Coogler or Coogan? I can't remember. Coogler, yeah. I mean, him in talks to do Black Panther. It's like, cool, everybody's getting paid. Like, everybody's gonna get a great job and like be rewarded for their talent. These are all talented people who are good at their jobs. It's like, I kind of felt this way when Ryan Johnson got the Episode Eight job. I was like, I was like, I love his movies. I want another Ryan Johnson movie. Like, I also want Episode Eight and I want to see his Episode Eight. But it's like, yeah, everything's gonna live in Disney 48, man. 2048, 2048.

• 36:48Speaker 00

  Who's the best character, Ross?

• 36:49Speaker 01

  BB-8, without question. I think only based on marketing materials and toys, like, that is the most adorable robot soccer ball. And I just want to hug it. And I had the little robot toy for a while. I would literally just watch it and like I felt empathy for something I know was just an algorithm. And it just, like, I'm so excited to see it.

• 37:06Speaker 00

  When you have empathy for the algorithm, that's when they've really got you. Yeah, I, I still, oh, God, I was supposed to bring it in today. I've had it at my house, our, our, our BB-8. And it's not, I wasn't actually trying to steal it. I kept meaning to bring it back, but then I was like, I just love looking at it. And I, I don't know, what are they gonna do with it in the office? Like, not love it?

• 37:31Speaker 01

  I think we do have a spare one, too.

• 37:33Speaker 00

  Okay, oh, I'm gonna bring it back.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:34Speaker 00

  I am. Maybe.

• 37:36Speaker 03

  I'm trying to figure out what the Rolling Stones' empathy for the algorithm would sound like.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  That's just, that's their like the 8-bit remix, you know, that's their update.

• 37:45Speaker 00

  Oh my god. Can we just title this podcast "Empathy for Star Wars: Empathy for the Algorithm"? Episode, whatever episode of The Vergecast this is.

• 37:59Speaker 00

  In case anybody cares, my favorite characters are, well, I mean, yeah, I mean Rey and BB-8. I mean, like, it's such a, it is such a fantasy fulfillment to have, to watch a Star Wars movie with like this plucky, scrappy girl character, like, yeah, she's kind of flawless, she's not that complex maybe because she's just too perfect, but like she is every fanfic character that was written by a female Star Wars fan in the late 90s when there were really no female characters in Star Wars at all, other than Princess Leia and I guess Marjade if you've read the books, which I did not, I just know that name.

• 38:40Speaker 00

  And, and so, I mean, there was this, always this character that was like the Mary Jane character, which is fanfic for the, the audience surrogate character, who's new, like a creation of the author, and it was always this character that like, kind of looks like Rey, and this idea of like, living in the Star Wars universe, being kind of kick-ass and independent, having an adorable little orb following you around is like, my fantasy, like, for life. I would, I would live in that world for the rest of my life. So, so, I mean, I kind of have to, I have to, but I mean, I liked, I liked all the new characters. We haven't even talked about Han and Luke and Leia that much, which Han

• 39:23Speaker 00

  I thought was like, surprisingly not as, like, wedged in as, as I thought that the older characters were gonna be.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  I don't know. I don't know what you guys thought.

• 39:36Speaker 03

  I thought it was really interesting how Leia's grown up and she's like repl- like replaced Mon Mothma in a way like she's become this elder statesman. And Luke's grown up and he became Obi-Wan and he trained a bunch of people and then he was betrayed and he like has recapitulated all that stuff that happened before and he went into exile. And Han Solo, it was like, we just can't think of anything cooler for him to do than be Han Solo. So he has just reverted to where he was at the very beginning of New Hope.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  He's having like a three-quarter life crisis.

• 40:08Speaker 03

  He's just like, he's doing exactly what he was doing and he seems to be in exactly as much trouble. He has no money, like, maybe he went out and blew it all in like a shiny new red coupe and it got blown up. I don't know. But I, I just think it's really interesting that the entire rest of the world has moved on and he's still Han Solo.

• 40:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  He's the, he's the, the uncle who still goes to like foreigner concerts that lives in the basement. I mean, although, I will say, basically, he still, he does, the one difference is it seems like he does believe in the Force at least now, like it's not the hooky religion thing. He is like the guy that convinces like everyone, you know, this is kind of a real thing guy.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  He's seen some shit. He's like, he's like.

• 40:43Speaker 01

  He's seen some shit.

• 40:45Speaker 02

  It just seemed like a believable arc though to me, because like at the end of Jedi, he becomes like this like really, really nice guy who's like joking and never felt true to the characters. So it always seems like that guy who did shoot first, right? Cause we're not pretending the special editions happened. It seems, it makes sense that he, even if he had a great thing with, you know, General Princess Leia, he would fuck it up in some capacity. And like, he doesn't necessarily fuck it up the way they, you know, tell us it in this big like single scene of exposition. Um, but it actually seems strangely true that he would just end up doing that same thing because he's just not capable of growing.

• 41:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:19Speaker 03

  He gets that little line that he throws to, to Finn where he's like, he basically says, you know, that Finn should stop keeping secrets from Rey because women always figure out the truth. Which like puts my hackles up a little because it's very like men are from Mars, women are from Venus, stupid generalization kind of stuff. But to me, it really speaks to like, he, he fucked up. He did something.

• 41:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:41Speaker 03

  And we don't know what it is, but she figured. ...it out and they had to go their separate ways.

• 41:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:46Speaker 03

  And the sheepishness that hangs over him whenever he's around her is just like, I like, I know I messed up. I wish we could get back together. I know we can't. Like, you can read all of that in his face. I think it's really interesting.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's such a like exes, like trading off the kids feel when they first meet, like, like an ex-wife and husband, like, okay, well, have a good weekend. Bye. Good to see you. You did something different with your hair. Like, uh, it was very, I mean, that, that, I think that that's actually very interesting because it is, it is bold in a way to revert the whole, like, they fell in love and everything was cool after that. Um, which is like, just the, all we've known of those characters forever is that, like, they ended up together. They probably got married and had a kid and that was it. And everything was awesome in the universe. And like, I mean, that is just like, the rest of the, the film is like that in a way, too. It's just like, okay, they, like, the rebels won, but like, it wasn't that easy.

• 42:40Speaker 00

  And like, Han and Leia got together, but it wasn't that easy. And that's actually kind of like, if there's one kind of grim, dark aspect of the entire movie, which there's really not that much that's grim or dark about this movie. Uh, I, I think, like, at least compared to a lot of other things, uh, it would be that, just that, that kind of existential, like, it's never, there's no such thing as an ending. It's like Into the Woods or something, to bring it back to, to some territory that Caitlin's like, happy with.

• 43:08Speaker 04

  I understand it now that we're talking about musicals.

• 43:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. Okay. So who's who from Into the Woods and Star Wars?

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Oh, no, don't spoil Into the Woods for me.

• 43:18Speaker 00

  I don't even know, actually. Um, I, I, I made up that question without knowing if there was actually a clear cut answer. Um, well, I'm trying to think if there's anything else we need to get to. Um.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  We're gonna do the, uh, the which callbacks work. I'm really curious to hear that.

• 43:36Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Real quick, because we don't have too much time left, but let's, so this, as we've been saying over and over again, this, uh, this movie has a ton of callbacks. And, uh, I think, I think it's a diminishing returns thing. I think a lot more earlier in the film worked than later in the film, but I'm curious to see what you guys think. Uh, I'll, I'll just ask guys who've seen the movie, what do you think, uh, what do you think Brian, which was your favorite?

• 44:00Speaker 02

  Good question. It's, I mean, literally in the film starts, it feels like every third shot is some sort of callback or like reference. I think the one that I found just most, you know, on a gut level entertaining was there's a joke made about parsecs, which has been a thing because, you know, parsecs being distance versus time, like, you know, that line ever made sense and they actually kind of like joke about it. And it's the first time they undercut the originals or they undercut themselves and it actually plays. They do it again later with the Death Star and other times and it just is like, "Okay, we get it. It's a cop out. Good job, guys." But that one for me just played, but I could have been just been basking in the moment of like, "Hey, Han Solo's back for the first time in like 30 years."

• 44:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. What was your, what was the thing that you were less thrilled with?

• 44:45Speaker 02

  There's a moment where you're following Poe's X-Wing as it goes through, and I forget what the actual term was. They're blowing up something that will make something unstable, that will make Starkiller base blow up. And it was just like the same kind of approach shot. I'm like, "Oh, yeah, I know the shot, seen the shot."

• 45:02Speaker 00

  I fell off in the same point too. Yeah. And you could kind of feel it in the theater, I think, too. There was a lot of applause for a lot of callbacks in my theater. And that one, I don't know. It was, I think it just, at that point, it was just like, just hitting that same part of your brain over and over and over again. Tasha, what worked for you as far as callbacks?

• 45:23Speaker 03

  I was so happy when the first Wilhelm scream came up.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  I just, I geeked out super hard. I'm like, "It's a really obvious one, but I'm glad they did it."

• 45:34Speaker 03

  You know, I laughed every time Finn ran across some piece of history, like in the Millennium Falcon, when he comes up with like the little flying target thing, or like the hologram game, or the fact that they climb into the same smuggler pods that Han Solo built. Like, all of that stuff worked for me. The only one that really didn't for me is when Kylo Ren is like, "You know, I'm not that person anymore because I killed him." And it's like they're calling back to when Obi-Wan Kenobi told Luke Darth Vader killed your father.

• 46:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 46:08Speaker 03

  And then later we'll find out that's not true. And he's like, "Oh, it sort of, kinda is, I guess-ish." And it's like, it's been a huge, like, fan sticking point forever. So when Kylo Ren is like, "When I stopped being that person, I killed him," it's like they're still trying to make fetch happen.

• 46:26Speaker 03

  And that fetch is not happening. Like, let it go.

• 46:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And it's like, and it stands out as clunky too. It's just like, not very poetic, or like, trying to be poetic, but not really. I don't know. I, I have to say, and I'm gonna spoil one other big thing, but the Kylo Ren and Han confrontation did not work for me at all. I was, I could see it coming from, like, I mean, obviously, they're telegraphing it. And I think, I mean, I think they want you to think that, oh, maybe it'll go another direction because there's such a long pause. There's like, an incredible fake out. They last like, it feels like an hour. But you just know, it's not, this is Star Wars. There's like, a, there's

• 47:12Speaker 00

  a certain grammar that it has to follow. And, and somebody's gonna die, and it's gonna be the older person, because that's how heroes are born, or, or, I don't know.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  It also feel like, we all know, like, Harrison Ford's not gonna do another, like,

• 47:28Speaker 00

  Exactly. That too.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  He just came to like, finish, like, to scrap off a little bit. It's like, okay, you're gonna kill me? Cool, I'm done.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  He's been way too happy during the promotional tour to have actually lived through the movie.

• 47:40Speaker 00

  It's like, I'm done. One last lap. The one thing I, I think probably the part where I actually did, despite myself clap, is the first reveal of the Millennium Falcon. Like, because it's done in such a, it's done during it in the middle of an action sequence. Everything is moving at a really, really lightning fast clip. And it's just a total swish pan side gag to reveal the Millennium Falcon. And it works so well. It's like, so, it's just a callback to the Millennium Falcon being a piece of shit, and like, that nobody would wanna fly it. And, and they're talking about the shift that's off, off screen. And then, and then you zoom over, and there, there it is. There's the Millennium Falcon. And I, I don't know. It was just that whole scene, that whole action sequence, that, that

• 48:22Speaker 00

  got applause in our theater, just at the end of it, because it's so, there's a lot of character information in it as well, and as these callbacks that make you feel great. And it's also just like, a really well shot scene. And in a way, in a more dynamic way than they were ever able to do in the originals, and that they opted not to do in the, the prequels. So. And I mean, we could talk like, I feel like another half hour about cinematography because and editing because that's another thing I noticed in watching episode three last night is the like how staid all that stuff is in those prequels, how it feels so stagey and unimaginative. You never get up close to characters. They're always kind of like these cut out dolls on in the screen. And and this film, you really, really get

• 49:06Speaker 00

  in characters' faces and you you move with them and you move behind them and alongside them and it's a it makes it feel a lot more real and like immersive, I think. But yeah, I we're bad. We're bad out of time, you guys. I need to if if there are no more further, further comments, maybe everybody but everybody can just sign off with the the one thing that they the biggest question you have after watching the film, the the biggest unsolved mystery that may or may not be solved in a future movie slash comic book slash video game slash Snapchat feed slash any other platform.

• 49:48Speaker 02

  The one that when I walked out of the theater, the first thing we were talking about was so are Ray and Kylo Ren brother and sister or not. But after thinking about the film, I realized pretty much every question I walked into the theater with didn't get answered. Like, they don't talk about Jakku really in the movie. They don't talk about how Luke's like lightsabers showed up. Like, there are all these things people have been like theorizing and teasing and like deconstructing trailers about. And the movie actually answers next to none of it, which I thought was really interesting and kind of disappointing. But it leaves a lot of like fertile ground for comic books and books and hopefully future movies.

• 50:21Speaker 00

  Hot take, The Force Awakens is just another trailer.

• 50:27Speaker 00

  Ah, guitar.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  You can't grab your mic. Your mic is fixed to your table.

• 50:35Speaker 00

  Um, uh, Tasha, what was your, your, your biggest question?

• 50:40Speaker 03

  You know, my biggest question, my biggest question was Emily, can I write a piece about all these mysteries?

• 50:44Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 50:45Speaker 03

  That are not being dealt with?

• 50:46Speaker 00

  Oh, we're going to address all of it. Uh, look for that sometime after the weekend, after everybody's had a chance to digest all this stuff. And, and we will immediately start to pick it apart, to shred, to tiny little shreds.

• 50:59Speaker 03

  A lot of questions, but most of those questions were intended by the movie, and I think most of them will be answered either in the answer learning materials or in the next film. The only one that I think bugged me, just in a why, why the hell are you doing this one, was C3PO's red arm? Which we know, like, it, it was never intended to be, like, answered in the film. It's the province of a comic book that hasn't even come out yet, and now isn't going to come out until February. Like, that's all going to be dealt with off screen. What, my big question was, why did we make a big deal out of it in the film? Like, why is it there? It adds nothing to the movie. It's just a distraction. But it's a distraction that they make a point of calling your attention to.

• 51:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:36Speaker 03

  And they make a point of saying, and we're not going to deal with this right now because it's not important. It's like,

• 51:40Speaker 00

  Don't worry about my red arm. Yeah, it was weird. I, um, yeah, and that's one of those things that like, I, I remember watching, when I was obsessed with the original trilogy, there are so many things that like, catch your attention. You're like, oh, I'm going to go look up, find out what this is about, or find, like, read more on, you know, somebody's GeoCities homepage. Uh, and I don't know if I would feel away about some of these things, some of these little loose ends, like how intriguing they actually are. Um, I would say my biggest question, and also one of the things that we didn't even talk about that really doesn't work for me, uh, is, is Snoke. Uh, I don't understand why, who, uh, why does he look like that?

• 52:23Speaker 00

  Um, where did he come from? Uh, I don't know. I just don't, I, I, that was one of the weakest links of the, the movie to me.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Is this something you, you care about, like, in the moment, or is it like, it just doesn't matter?

• 52:37Speaker 00

  It's just like, I don't know if he needed a master, honestly. Like, I could see Kylo Ren just being bad on his own. Like, it just feels like that's another indebted, like, echo of the old films, like Darth Vader kneeling down before the hologram of the emperor. Like, I don't know what role he plays in the story beyond being that guy that he can talk to.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 52:59Speaker 00

  So, I don't know. Didn't work for me. And sort of a waste of Andy Serkis, because he didn't, like, move, he was just like a really static character. I guess the voice was cool, but it was, it was a really, it was an odd thing for me.

• 53:12Speaker 02

  Yeah. It was a case of the effects didn't work either, I thought. The one thing I think it did add was that all the people in that organization are super young, like General Hux and like, you know, and Kylo Ren, they're all relatively young. So, it made sense to be some sort of like, older person, maybe some sort of leftover, or somebody with storied knowledge that could be kind of like, leading the whole thing from behind the scenes. But I did not love the, the character work.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  Maybe it's like, maybe it's like Google, where like, Larry and Serkis weren't that old, so they brought Eric Schmidt along. He's their Eric Schmidt.

• 53:40Speaker 02

  You know, I think Eric Schmidt, he kind of looks like Eric Schmidt a little bit. I should never think of it.

• 53:44Speaker 00

  He's like, um, no, I was gonna make a Hall and Catch Fire reference that two people would get. Um, all right. Well, we're gonna wrap it up, because we've already gone a little bit over. Thanks, everybody, for listening. And let me tell you something about Braintree real quick. Thanks for Braintree for sponsoring today's episode of The Vergecast. Braintree gives you, not brains on a tree, but a full stack payment solution. Support for all your payment, for all payment types your customers might want. Start accepting Android Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, Bitcoin, Venmo, cards, and whatever's next, all with a single integration. Now you can take them all in over 130 currencies. As your company grows, Braintree will stay

• 54:25Speaker 00

  by your side from your first dollar to your billion, your billionth. And all it takes is a couple lines of code to get started. To learn more, visit braintreepayments.com/vergecast. And, um, real quick Twitter roll call. You can follow The Verge on Twitter, at Verge, and Snapchat is TheRealVerge.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  Actually, no, Snapchat is not. Not just Verge.

• 54:47Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:50Speaker 00

  All right. Verge, we got it. We got that.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  Finally.

• 54:54Speaker 00

  We got that rare name. I am Emily Yoshida on Twitter. Ross is Ono Roscoe on Twitter. Brian is Brian Bishop on Twitter. And Tasha, what?

• 55:08Speaker 02

  BC Bishop.

• 55:08Speaker 00

  BC Bishop. I knew I was gonna miss one. This is like, I was just testing myself.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Who is Brian Bishop on Twitter?

• 55:14Speaker 00

  And Tasha is Tasha Robinson. Just Tasha Robinson, right?

• 55:18Speaker 03

  Just Tasha Robinson.

• 55:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. And Caitlin is?

• 55:23Speaker 04

  K A I T underscore Tiffany. My name was taken, I'm sorry.

• 55:29Speaker 00

  And we are all going to be talking about Star Wars probably all weekend, so, yeah.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  This is fun.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  This is great.

• 55:39Speaker 00

  Sorry to ruin it for everybody in the nearby vicinity who hasn't.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  I'm literally leaving this now to go wait in line to go see my screening of Star Wars.

• 55:47Speaker 00

  Oh, man, okay, all right. Well, we better get out of here then. Thanks all. We'll see you later.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 55:53Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  Bye.