Swords, Sorcery, and Socialism - *UNLOCKED* Bonus Episode 1: Star Wars

Episode Date: March 13, 2022

To tide everyone over until our next series, we decided to unlock our first bonus episode. This one's about why the new Star Wars properties feel soulless, why copyright laws are bullshit, and how every fantasy story can be solved with a gun. If you enjoy these non-book episodes, you can subscribe to our patreon for $3 and get 1 to 2 bonus episodes a month. Thanks for listening!patreon.com/swordsandsocialismFollow the show @SwordsNSocPodEmail us at [e-mail]: @Himbo_AnarchistKetho: @StupidPuma69 patreon.com/swordsandsocialismEmail: [e-mail] The Show: @SwordsNSocPodAsha: @Herbo_AnarchistKetho: @MusicalPuma69

🎵 Bro. Are you fucking real, man? Come on. Welcome, everyone, to the first bonus episode of Sword, Sorcery, and Socialism. Today, generally, I want to talk about a star wars because i'm a huge fucking star wars nerd uh and i mean that in the most pedantic sense in the fact that what star wars is to me aside from like the original trilogy is all the stuff that's no longer canon anymore all the like like the star wars like you know legendarium type stuff which is sort of canon and sort of not yeah but here's the thing with this remake of kotor coming out does it is it becoming canon that's that's all I care about.

They're remaking KOTOR 1 so is KOTOR 1 now canon? If it is, I'm happy. They need to remake KOTOR 1 and 2 and then forget that the old Republic game existed and just shove the MMO off a cliff and then just keep 1 and 2.

Look, I'm going to tell you one right now. I love the original trilogy i can sometimes enjoy parts of the prequels it's almost i think kotor one and two are the two single best star wars properties ever made i think they get more to the heart of what Star Wars is than anything else. They do as janky fucked up messes. Yeah, but they're janky messes because they were like made by Obsidian. Did Obsidian make KOTOR 1? Bioware made KOTOR 1. That was Bioware's first 3D game.

Okay, and it was Obsidian that made KOTOR 2, right? Yeah, was bioware's first 3d game okay and it was obsidian that made kotor 2 right yeah and and bioware the reason that they passed it off onto obsidian is because they took the ideas they were doing for a kotor 2 and were like uh let's not do that let's make our own property and they made mass effect yeah that's when they made mass effect um so this is this is the for our first this episode is going to be about star Wars. Cause I've got a lot of things to say about star Wars. The thing that got me started on this though, was the episode we just had, uh, on fairy stories and talk about defining things.

And then like the new Boba Fett show is out and people are talking about star Wars. And also I listened to, there's a film podcast I listened to called beyond the screenplay where they like, they sort of do for movies what you and I do for like books. And they actually had a real long episode called what is Star Wars where they all talked about sort of like what it has been and what it means to them. And that got me thinking about what it is.

And I tweeted about this is that I assert that Star Wars is not, and nor has ever been sci-fi, despite the fact that people like to put it up against Star Trek, right? Like they like to compare the two. Star Wars has never been sci-fi. It is by at least closest definition, a fantasy story. And that's where I think you end up with star Wars properties that everybody doesn't like and feel hollow is because they've gotten away from writing fantasy stories. And I think that's when star Wars gets bad. Yeah.

It, they turn it into, I mean, it's easy for us to, want to make sure that the the audience knows that yes we dislike the sequel trilogy this is uh oh yeah i want to get that out there i actually i actually don't actually largely just refuse to acknowledge that the sequel trilogy exists but no i don't want you i don't want you to think it's because i'm one of those weird people that hates the last jedi for those reasons i actually think the last the middle one that's the last jedi the last jedi is the best one of those is the best one of the three because it

is also the most close to telling you a fantasy tale it's the only one with a decent director too yeah oh god we don't even have time to talk about how much i hate jj abrams jj abrams and he goes and you know what's really uh we'll get into that later this will probably be a second bonus episode but do you know who the writers for this new lord of the rings show yeah they're people that used to work for jj abrams for jj abrams which is why they got boosted for this role by jj yeah because that's why it's going to be terrible. And Amazon took them not because they're good writers, but because they can tell them to do whatever the fuck they want them to do.

That will be a separate bonus episode is going to be the episode which I would probably be our next one because I'm so passionate about it is can you actually do a good adaption? That's a whole different problem, but I hate JJ Abrams. I don't like the sequel trilogy

last jedi is fine it's it's it's whatever at its best it is it's it's it's good um so we don't want to go there but generally the sequel trilogy is bad yeah so but i also don't want the people at home to think that we are one of those weird uh r slash prequel memes people who now unironically love the prequels okay the prequels are also bad for different reasons different reasons i will say i like the prequels more than the sequels but that is also clearing the world's lowest bar so so if i say if i say that i like the prequels more than the sequels the only reason it's 98 pure nostalgia as a child having watched it and it's two percent the clone wars like lots of people have gotten into this this specific debate like i do genuinely believe the prequels have good general concepts going on and like if you gave me the story beats in a quick rundown you have the outline of a very

very good story the novelizations of those movies are unironically better than the movies the novelizations are fine but george lucas himself it said in an interview that he didn't bother to get anyone to punch up his the dialogue because he didn't he didn't think it was worth it like i mean lucas himself said he can't write dialogue he says i'm not good at it but for the prequels i didn't i just didn't buy i didn't care enough to have anyone come in and punch it up. Lucas is actually kind of a marketing genius. Oh, absolutely. He's a cynical bastard, but he's a marketing genius.

He made the prequels to crank out some movies. I do think he also wanted to tell the story. Well, yeah, he wanted to tell the story, but he also wanted to shove as much shit that he could sell as merch in there as possible. Well, that's because he managed to get merchandising rights. Yeah. So like the man was half cynical, half genuinely making these films where it was like these are genuine like attempts at putting my old notes into film, but also I have a paycheck that I would like to get. Also, I want to get fat paid. And I also just want to go home.

It's like Peter Jackson with the Hobbit trilogy, only less forced at gunpoint. Yeah, because Peter Jackson was essentially forced at gunpoint to do the Hobbit. And you can tell and yeah and we'll get around to that i'm sure with the adaptations episode but i will forever i will forever forever be pissed that we are not going to get a guillermo del toro hobbit movie like i'm sorry that would have that like his aesthetic his aesthetic would have been fucking perfect well that's where you get those weird like trolls with hooks in their eyes or hooks for hands or whatever that you have in the Battle of the Five Armies. It's very weird.

It's just like if you're going to do an adaptation like that, just do something fucking insane. I mean I don't personally – don't think a Guillermo del Toro Hobbit would have been that good either personally, but that's something we'll get into later. We're talking about Star Wars. but that's something we'll get into later. We're talking about Star Wars. So my main assertion here is that it's a fantasy story and that it does best when it's doing fantasy story things. It's a fantasy story by Tolkien's definition of a fantasy story. Yeah, it is.

Clearly by a definition of a fantasy story. It's in a different world, number one. When he talks about the things that take you to you to going to ferry part of the abstractions are distance and time this literally the first lines of this franchise ever are a long time ago and far far away okay like it's the first thing you ever know about star wars so you all immediately have that abstraction from the world that we are accustomed to. Right. But even in his like rundown of the specific elements that are necessary in a story for it to be considered fantasy or fairy are all just present.

They're just all present. All of them are here. You've got, you've got the beats of like, of, of recovery, of rec, of,

of, of escapism, a fairy. All these things exist within Star Wars. It has- There's eucatastrophe. Han Solo returning is just the ultimate eucatastrophe. That is the ultimate eucatastrophe. Han Solo coming back at the end of A New Hope

is eucatastrophe, like writ large. You couldn't have a better example. is you catastrophe, like writ large, like you couldn't have a better example. You could, you could, that,

uh, that's one, uh, Darth Vader throwing the emperor off the ledge. That's you ultimate you catastrophe. It's like, these are, these are, you could,

you catastrophic in the first movie. Every time they're on, they, they leave somewhere and they're on the millennium Falcon. It's a recovery. It's recovery. It's travel. It's,

it's rest. rest um like all every single beat from what tolkien considers what makes a fairy story what makes fantasy is the original trilogy of star wars it also has the other more esoteric things like messages of there's religious overtones there's messages of hope hope is it's literally called a new hope well it later yeah i mean it wasn't the original title but we're talking also i also personally think that the horseshit title uh it is but like again it it all of its beats are fantasy beats all of it all of it there's no thought experiment going on here. No.

This is not sci-fi. There's nothing about the real world in terms of something directly being commented on. Well, I mean, there is, when you're talking about the politics of examining the empire. Or the rebels of the vietcong yeah yeah there's that which is which is there but like you can also do that in any fantasy story

we just did it for watership down we talked we talked about we talked about north korean effrafa right we talked about his his glorious supreme, General Woonward. So like you can obviously make those if you want to. But like at its heart, there's no thought experiment going on here. This is not a sci-fi story. This is not an examination of contemporary politics. And even if you think about it, it really is if you just – if you take the setting away as far as space yeah and stick it on a single planet with regular swords very little would change in the grand scheme of things very little would

change other than the technology that's all that would change it's like this is a story with wizards and swords and magic and yeah they're just they're just wizards who fight with swords and like have a hokey ancient religion as one of the empire and it's funny that you mentioned that that comparison to star trek because if you ask the question is star trek a thought experiment yes that's that's the it at its foundation is a thought experiment it is we live in a world where all the humanity's material needs have been met it is a all of humanity it is an off-left paradise you kind of yeah it's fully auger it's fully automated luxury spaceury, gay, space communism. Space communism, right?

Minus the gay because I guess it wasn't that progressive. Not all the time. And it wasn't completely luxury because they still have jobs and do things. But they don't have to. Not so much. So that's the world they live in. Is this like humanities? That's the basis of the thought experiment for Star Trek.

Humanity's needs have been met. All of their material needs have been met. And they're all living harmoniously under the Federation, right? So they all live harmoniously together. And so everything that happens in Star Trek proceeds off this basis, right? The thought experiment that if all of our needs have been met and we therefore have the freedom to go to other planets, what will it be like when we encounter those other races? Yeah. It's like, they're all what if scenarios. Every encounter of the Enterprise is a what if scenario. What if Captain Kirk meets a really strong lizard?

Or what if something gave everyone on board the Enterprise extremely exaggerated emotions? Even the guy with no emotions. What if everyone on the Enterprise does this? What if they encounter that?

What if you encounter a being that cannot understand language but can control but communicates through air currents or some shit i don't know it's like there's so many episodes of star trek it absolutely is an episode what if captain kirk was just really horny okay that's every episode that's all of them but like whatever you know i'm talking about star trek at its core what if sir patrick stewart is too good of an actor for this show it's far too good to be on this show for any reason like i don't even mean that derogatory to star trek fans it's great that you got patrick stewart to be on your

show yes it's so funny compared to the the compared to the production quality of the rest of the show this man the shakespearean actor just absolutely sir patrick stewart sir patrick stewart being too good for everyone around i don't even mean that derogatorily to the other people on the show he just elevates the show by being there yeah um so this again stands in contrast to star wars which is a wizard sword morality play. It has the trappings, the like, what do you call it? Like the flavor of it.

Wrinkling shit on my microphone. Listen, listen, I'm just here. New co-host. I'm getting an oatmeal cream pie. No new co-host right now. I'm eating some Big deborah okay some little

debbie instantly fired so like the the flavor of star wars is is like buck rogers space cereals right like flash gordon yeah like, the flavor of it is Flash Gordon. None of the story structure is Flash Gordon. No, absolutely not. Flash Gordon is Star Trek. Like he just took Flash Gordon aesthetics and laid it on top of like a, a wizard samurai movie. And obviously everyone knows he took influences from Akira Kurosawa's The Fortress and a bunch of other things. We that's. Yeah.

You know, you know, you've got, you got samurai Jedi man and you have. You've got Ronan and he's basically. And you have a desert planet from Dune. Desert planet. Yeah.

Welcome to every sci-fi movie. We have desert planet. We have to have a desert planet. Yeah. Welcome to every sci-fi movie. We have desert planet. We have to have a desert planet. He was actually like, he was actually apparently inspired by literally the same bit of like, was it Oregon coast that has dunes on it? That dune was inspired by. It's like the same stretch of Pacific Northwest.

That strikes me as improbable at best. And I think he just, I think he just read dune i think he just read goddamn dude who what's what what fantasy sci-fi nerd in the late 90s i mean i mean star wars also has a giant worm thing in the desert that eats people it's called it's called the sarlacc it's just not a god anymore and and the thing that i'm gonna be honest this is a total tangent but but john williams you are probably the most important film composer whoever lived a yes blah blah blah but also he also steals a bunch of his music like well you know the best artists

do steal so i don't necessarily have a problem with it because whatever copyrights a fuck but yeah um at least change the notes no um instead of instead of just just pulling just for anyone listening if you've never listened to um stravinsky's the rites of spring um movement two specifically of the rites of spring is just tatooine if you listen to any of the music he uses that that i can't even do it because it's more textural and tonal than it is melodic so i can't like make melody with it but like when you're picturing luke stare like people on tatooine or luke staring in the sunset or whatever any of the moments like with like like c-3po and r2d2 walking alone in the desert and it's like playing set like very like like very like little just like yeah creepy low it's like that's just right spring that's just

right so spring yeah what have you what have you done i mean this i don't have a problem with that creepy, low. That's just Rites of Spring. That's just Rites of Spring, yeah. What have you done? I don't have a problem with that because, again, I love Rites of Spring. Everything is Rites of Spring. Rites of Spring is my ultimate. Rites of Spring is kind of like the musical version of the Brothers Karamazov. I was going to say, it's a musical version of the Brothers Karamazov where

everything comes from it. But the Rites of Spring... Are we saying everything flows through Russia at some point or another? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. But here's the thing. Everything flows through Russia when Russia is trying to, like, modernize. No, but Stravinsky was Russian as well. And the one thing I want to point out for anyone who thinks that copyright law in the United States or Europe

is defensible under any circumstance, I want to explain to everybody that The Rite of Spring was made in 1913. It is probably the most important piece of musical history of the 20th century in terms of especially film music as it stands today. Yeah, the way you imagine film scores. And that's mostly because of John Williams too. Yes. But, but I mean,

his stuff also had a huge influence on like the, like, like the psycho soundtrack, things like that. The guy that did all the music for, for Hitchcock was like Bernard Shaw. I think. Let me look it up real quick because I've,

I've listened to like three or four of his soundtracks just on its. George. Yeah. George Bernard Shaw. Yes. Like, no, no, not, not, not, not George Bernard Shaw. That's a playwright. There was shit. Hold on. Let me, let me pull it up. I got it right here. Music by Bernard Herman. is shit hold on let me let me pull it up i got it right here uh music by bernard herman sorry it was i had bernard right it was bernard herman but most of alfred hitchcock stuff uh a decent amount of it not all of it but it was done by bernard herman and he took a lot from stravinsky no Note, 1913 was when it debuted.

Stravinsky died in the 70s, so it's still not out of copyright. Yeah, copyright is a fuck, but it's also not out of copyright. Also, John Williams was like, I don't give a shit. I'm just ripping it. You're still allowed to do that.

It was transformative enough, but at the same time, it's ridiculous. This is being this important. and it's not out of copyright a a small concert hall could not perform rights of spring it is just not possible because it's prohibitively expensive to do so if anyone ever comes up to you ever to anyone listening and is like man i wonder why are there so many sequels and no new content, no new this, no new copyright. Copyright. They want to keep the copyright active.

Thank you, Disney specifically. Coming back to Star Wars. Thank you, Disney specifically, for making copyright such an unbelievable, endless fuck. Yes, Disney is the, it's not just here. They did it in Europe too. I don't know what the law is in America is in terms of the limit on what copyright is, if there even is one anymore. But the limit on copyright in the EU is 70 years following the death of the last collaborator on the project, which is horseshit. Horseshit that means that george gershwin's music yeah you know penultimate americana of what would be considered american classical music

is not like rhapsody in blue is not public domain and a decent chunk of the rest of anything that Ira Gershwin helped George Gershwin write. Because George died in like the 30s. He died a long time ago. He died young. Ira died in the 70s. So you got 70 years after that. So 70 years after that. So we have until 2040-something.

Until the right of fucking spring is public domain it's nonsense so yeah thank you uh sorry thank you thank you disney but that brings us back around to star i mean this is a bonus who gives a shit but like that brings us back around to i'm talking about to star wars though is first off that's part of the reason that lucas made the prequels when he did is because he wanted to re-up some of his copyright claims and um his uh his merchandise uh rights that's why the prequels got made the years they did is partly because of him wanting to keep certain rights that he had collected for like copyright and merchandising active.

And then he fucking sold it later anyways. Yeah. For like $4 billion. Yeah. And I, I just think that, that Lucas probably doesn't have much ground to stand on when he complains about what Disney has done with his property.

Cause he can. I mean, he can complain all you want. He can, but I'm like, I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it right now.

I'm like, bro, Lucas, you sold it to them. Yeah. It's like, no one is to blame for this but you at this point. And Disney for being a fuck. But that's implicit. Yeah, but like, whatever. Who cares? He can complain.

He can live on Skywalker. Skywalker region. This sort of stuff is the reason why I can't. Like, I know too many Disney adults, and I'm just like stuff is the reason why i can't like i knew too i know too many disney adults and i'm just i can't i can't but it's like this company is just trying to trick you into caring into thinking it cares about you like just shut up yeah it is merciless it is awful and it is the reason one of the big reasons that current world like media culture is so fucking dead it's been that way since it

started because disney himself was a fuck walt himself was a piece of shit absolutely piece of shit so um bring it back i want to talk about why this this my assertion here that star wars is fantasy explains i think why a lot of the the Disney iterations of Star Wars don't feel right. Obviously, some of them are just made bad. Like they're just terribly what like the sequel trilogy is just poorly executed. Generally, I mean, when when when when the director admits that they didn't know where the story was going, it's going to be bad.

But I'm even talking about the ones that have been somewhat more cohesive or standalone projects or whatever. They fail in my mind because they don't have fantasy story beats anymore. And that's, then they, they feel hollow because that's what they, the, what they were meant to be.

I don't know. If you're talking about something like Rogue One or Solo. Well, those are very different movies. I was about to say. Rogue One. Those I still personally, I'm just going to explain to everybody here. I don't like either one of them really. But both of them, I still think at least with solo it's almost like no see solo to me

commits the cardinal sin oh it's it's self-aware is that it's annoyingly self-aware it's it's like every five seconds there's a joke the reference is a different part of Star Wars canon. Solo, I actually think if they had been given the full time, because they had to chunk something out in six months because they were yelled at into doing it in six months instead of waiting a year. Is it...

If I could examine this from an outside perspective, is Solo an okay movie? I don't't know i can't examine it from that way yeah my own brain is i look at solo and it's commits everything i complained about in the fairy stories episode joss whedon effect it's it's self-referential it's knowing it's oh i hate it i hate it i hate it and that's why i like rogue one significantly more because rogue one at least takes itself seriously oh rogue one plays the serious card the whole time which i i personally i respect that i think that's good it also rogue one also stuck more to the original trilogy playbook.

Yes. Rogue One, the only, the thing about Rogue One that, there are two things. One is entirely personal. It's entirely personal. They wrote out my boy Kyle Katarn. He's kind of, he's not that good of a character, honestly. He's just one that you like, so fuck it. I just like the Jedi Knight games, the Dark Forces games a lot.

So it's like, even the old ones, even the first one is still a lot of fun for being a really shitty, hard to control, like, Joshbox game. But like, Jedi Academy is just like a top five star wars games game for me so it's like like and and uh they brought out your boy they brought up my boy uh that being said that's entirely personal has nothing to do with the film um my my issue with the film is more like a who the fuck are these people situation not because i want them to be like connected to anyone within the franchise i'm glad they weren't uh i mean we learn like nothing about any of them yeah within the within the framing of the film yeah it's like it's like you don't know anything about it's like who, who are these two guys from the planet?

The one that's blind and one that's got big gun. You don't they don't tell you anything about them. They're just like the gun man, force man. That's just it's a problem of characterization, like within the film itself, within the storytelling. Like it actually, again, like a lot of Star Wars stuff is better if you read all the novelizations. I'm I'm. Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, because then you get background. actually again like a lot of star wars stuff is better if you read all the novelizations uh i'm i'm yeah i mean well i mean because then you at least get background on what's her name jen or whatever jen like yeah you get more background on her if you have the time to do

things like yeah need star wars backgrounds like rogue one catalyst or whatever and and saw guerrera is really weird um yeah i mean we're not gonna talk about disney trying to depict a like a gorilla leader the morality of that but like i'm just i'm saying i think rogue One is like Rogue One and Solo to me are like at the opposite ends of the spectrum. And it's for those sort of what is a fantasy story reasons. Yeah. And with Solo, they try and cram every single little thing that you ever knew happened in han solo's past into one movie where they're like where did he get his name where did he get his shit where did he get where like where did he find chewbacca where did he find chewbacca and then this this one the the kessel run and the this and the kessel run is great because the kessel run is great because they don't explain it it's fine it that

that's the best part about you don't even know. It's fine. That's the best part about it. We don't even know if it's fucking true. He's probably lying. He's probably fucking lying. And it doesn't matter. What matters, the Kessel... It's more like scrubbing of Han's morally ambiguous early character. Okay.

Also, I'm going to keep making these references when I talk about fantasy stories and Tolkien. Throughout Lord of the Rings, he'll just reference a thing, and you have no fucking idea what that thing is because he doesn't explain it. When Theoden charges at the Battle of Pelennor

Fields, he says, Theoden charged like a Rome at the head of the host of the Valar. You're like, I don't know what any of those words mean, but they're impactful, but they seem important, right? Or like, Aragorn will reference something, like the story of Beren and Luthien, and you're

like, I don't know what that means, but it seems important. In Star Wars, when Han Solo says, oh yeah, I did the Kessel Run in less than four parsecs, you're like, I don't know what the fuck that means. But it clearly means... It's supposed to sound impressive. But it means something to the people in the story.

And it's a textual ruin. It is a thing in the story that is not meant to be explained. It is simply meant to add flavor to the story and to the world you're existing in to make the world seem more real. Like, that's what it's there for i hate the urge to over explain everything i don't need to know all of that like it's just supposed to add flavor so when you make solo and like we have to

explain every little detail like why is it called han solo? Who knows? Who gives a shit? Why did they do that? That was unnecessary. It is the most like fan service-y movie to ever exist. And fan service, I don't mean all fans. I mean the kind of fans that like need to know every single detail. And that's like a problem I have. As much as I love the Clone Wars, that's why I've never been able to like anything after the Clone Wars that Dave Filoni has worked on as much as the Clone Wars.

Because it explains every single detail. Because it keeps referencing the Clone Wars again and again and again. A situation like the Book of Boba Fett, where there's one episode that has Luke and Cad Bane and like six other people in it. It's got this, it's got that, and you're like, what the shit? I haven't watched a single episode of the book of Boba Fett and I'm not going to uh because there's you're gonna hear me say this again when we talk about adaptions and Lord of the Rings there's not a way you could do it that I would enjoy well there is probably. There is. But it won't. I was excited with stuff like The Mandalorian when it first came out. To be distinctly separate from anything else happening within the setting. The first season, maybe, of The Mandalorian?

Pretty good. Pretty good. It's doing its own thing. I think with The Mandalorian, both seasons have good episodes. Yeah. So we'll just leave it at that. But where does The Mandalorian really start to fail? As soon as it's being forced to tie in with all the other existing properties.

You don't need it to tie in. Dave, I know that your imagination is wide and spanning, and I know you're a cool dude who has big plans but calm down I agree with I think with some of the people from that podcast I referenced, some from a screenplay talked about the best thing that Star Wars could do would be to

never ever ever reference the Skywalker family ever again that was the confoundingly most stupid part of the last movie was that like like was raised like origin story ridiculous that was and here's the thing i don't understand why that should have been that should have been something that they were perfectly okay with keeping from the last jedi I didn't see anybody like,

I'm sure there was some jackasses complaining about, Oh, Ray didn't have a past. I don't care. That's, that's kind of the point. I mean, even in,

even in, um, even in the prequels, Anakin doesn't have a past. Yeah. He's just a kid. And then they even they retconned that by making him a weird forced baby from palpatine well the forced baby from palpatine thing was part of legends canon too

yeah which is very stupid so the forced baby from palpatine and plague he is fucking with the universe but like um it's like but that effectively means that the only family in this entire galaxy that matters is palpatine yes because he because he would the president the progenitor of the skywalker family so he's the progenitor of the skywalker family and he's ray's grandfather yes who the fuck is sheave boinkin Sheev Boinkin. Sheev Boinkin. Who's going to fuck Sheev?

Come on. His name is Sheev. Sheev. Okay. So again. I don't actually think that's canon in the new canon. I think it's only Legends canon that his name is Sheev. It's true, but whatever.

Like, again, these new ones feel empty and soulless. And it's because they stopped making fantasy stories. They just started making self-referential nonsense. The first three films, they kind of struck accidental gold. You know? It's like they didn't expect that the first Star Wars was going to be a success. I mean, Lucas was like, I made a film for babies. And he was like upset about it. And then it made him a millionaire.

Now billionaire. But like, you know, it's like before that, George Lucas, let me explain to you. I have seen some of his older movies. I mean, American Graffiti is fine. Yeah, American Graffiti is good. Yeah. Actually, I don't actually dislike any of the old movies of his I've seen. But they are not kids' movies.

No. They are not family movies. My favorite of his old properties, because it's so fucking weird, is THX 1138. That movie is so fucking weird is thx 1138 that movie is weird so fucking weird but here's the thing you can you can see lucas's creative chops yeah that you would see later in the prequels in thx you see it present the pretty shitty dialogue but it works in thx because the whole world is stunted so it's like i mean again he's admitted that he cannot write dialogue but it's like in that movie it didn't matter it's like wait if i can't write dialogue i'm gonna that's like i'm gonna make the entire world that they're in like literally like like drugged stiff people that's like me when i started writing

one of my like one of my like fantasy stories where i was like i'm not good at writing dialogue so i'm going to see how many chapters i can write that don't involve dialogue at all well there are some authors who just don't even touch it um it's like it's like it's like how there are some authors who just don't even touch it. It's like how there are some DMs who never go into character. Like that's just a thing. But like with THX 1138, there were scenes that in the 2000s, he went back and did the whole prequels and like re-release trilogy thing he did where he added CG scenes that do nothing for the purpose of the film i just want to i want to i want to i want to make it to be known my mother still owns

three original vhs copies of that like box set of the original trilogy before they added in the weird CG. Well. So I have them. Yeah. I mean, I have. Before he added in the weird lizards on Tatooine or whatever. I have the DVDs from the early 2000s that had both the theatrical, in quotation marks, because the theatrical edition has never been placed on any recorded device. It's been edited since day one with small little edits here and there like there's there's actually like a big project online of people trying to piece together the old theatrical recording um because it's just almost impossible to find anything even

remotely accurate but i have the so-called theatrical dvd releases so han still shoots first somewhere in there like my cds job of the hut doesn't like meet him to talk to him at his ship or anything and here's and here's the funny thing the only movie of the three originals that i think didn't get damaged at all by adding the CG was Empire Strikes Back. The only thing that I distinctly remember changing is that they changed the Emperor's model. Like when he was being projected to talk to Vader. In the original theatrical release, he does not look like Palpatine in the sixth movie. No.

He looks weird almost like you could if you squinted you could see it becoming the one from the next movie but not the same and they just re-recorded it with ian mcdarmand later yeah um appropriate makeup actual underrated hero of the entire franchise oh yeah because here's the thing anytime palpatine shows up on screen even if it's the dumbest fucking scene in the universe, you're going to have a good time. His cackle is just, it's like, it's so much fun.

I hate like a lot of the things they did with his character, but I give him props for playing. It's like, cause I'm, I'm a particular stickler. Like I, I think that the only great star Wars films are the first and second and then the third is fine um like i think that you know return of the jedi is fine like i like i like the movie

but it's like half of it i find pretty boring and then the other half i'm like this is the movie that i'm here for um but like four and five are like perfect they're great if you're if you're looking for a blockbuster you don't make empire strikes back is just you you do not make better blockbusters than those films and they are like template films that you can use for like a screenwriting class. Like you can piece those stories together bit by bit. So that's because Lucas, while he was writing specifically the first one, he was actively talking to and running the script by Joseph Campbell, AKA the hero's journey guy.

Was that hero with a thousand faces or what i'm talking about the hero's journey he was actively running the script by joseph campbell and being like how do i make this more hero's journey and then and then with empire with empire strikes back he very specifically wasn't the director he didn't direct that one or return of the jed. Or Return of the Jedi. No. And that's why those, I mean, it's like the original trilogy just, they let, they pulled Lucas back. They reeled him in. Yeah, and people around him. Again, so I do also think though that re-re-re-re-re-returning to my original point, even though the prequels are bad and badly executed,

I don't have as much visceral hatred for them because I do think that at the base, the heart is still in them, even though it's weird and not done well. I think the heart is still in them. It's just bad. It's whereas the sequel trilogy are that are like technically executed fine but have a rotten core but yeah i also i also just fundamentally think that at least in the case of the prequels they at least had someone come along and say okay this is this happened

we will accept it and we'll continue and that's when you get stuff like the clone wars where clone wars did not try and retcon something that happened because the fans were upset like clone wars accepted the reality that was given to them and ran with it it's like they did what they could inside of a flawed setup and they made something good and then you go and you you bonk over to the sequel trilogy and all of the films and and the films are just reactions to something else like the like jj abrams and disney were still stuck on people disliking the prequels so much that they made The Force Awakens. Which is just a new hope.

Like that film. A new hope 2.0. That film is a new hope 2.0. Because it's reacting to the prequel trilogies and trying to remind people, look, we can do Star Wars, right? But the problem is it's new hope 2.0. the problem is it's New Hope 2.0, but after like halfway through the movie, you realize it doesn't have the heart and soul of the, of a fantasy story like the original did because it immediately becomes

self-referential. Like even by them finding the Millennium Falcon is ridiculous. It's silly. You're immediately becoming self-referential, but all the story beats are just a new hope again and then the last jedi was a and this is something that no one had ever attempted up to this point which is why it came out better than the other two um was a reaction to but it was still a reaction it was a reaction to the original trilogy like yeah it was a dissection of the themes of the original trilogy i mean

that's why luke behaves the way he does because he's responding it's luke reacting to the things that happened to him in the past yeah like and and like it's it's rejecting things like like this the skywalker lineage being a necessary thing but it's rejecting things like infallibility. Yeah. Like that the Jedi are even like always good. Right. Which is explored much better in the Knights of the Old Republic. There we go. What do you, what do you know?

What the last Jedi really suffers from is Benicio del Toro and Cenobite. Like you just don't need any of that. The, the, the, the, the, the stupid like Vegas scene. Oh yeah. That stuff is, you don't need, you don't need any of that. The stupid Vegas scene.

Oh yeah, that stuff is just kind of dumb. You don't need any of that. Finn got... John Boyega got done so dirty. He got done so dirty and he knows it. He did. He said so. His character just got completely cut off at the knees.

Yeah. And there was less of him in every single film um and then the obviously the you know the rise of skywalker is literally just how can we undo everything that the last jedi did because the reaction was so negative because instead of instead of just finding a way to adapt and go they're like let's retcon everything and it's like just you have to adapt and go you can't it's it it became much like disney an empty corporate shell an empty shell that contains no message there's no message and i i think this is something i've definitely gotten across is that fantasy stories

have to have a message in them. Like there's something at the heart of it that it's trying to tell you. And the sequel trilogy just doesn't have any of it. There's no heart in it. There's no message in any of it. It's all just what do you, it's all just someone at a blackboard screaming, what do you like? Oh, you didn't like that. I'll draw something else. Oh, you didn't like that. I'll draw something else. There's you didn't like that? I'll draw something else. There's no heart in any of it. There's no message to be had. I literally at one point temporarily walked out of the theater

while watching The Rise of Skywalker, the last one. That's right, right? I honestly have not watched the whole thing. Yeah. I at least once, maybe twice, literally got up out of my seat and had to walk out of the theater temporarily is that a big man baby thing to do maybe you can judge me for it for being really mad over a children's movie or something it's like but like

at the very least it's like there's just with the prequels you know it's either been long enough or just been the at least the very concept can be abstracted enough that you don't i hate to like like this seems like a really stupid thing but like so i have the edge of the empire pdfs for all of the other modules that come with it of course um you know i don't know if i'm just a curmudgeon or if there's some like there's something seriously wrong here but there's a prequel setting stuff that I'm perfectly okay with. The setting of the prequels is great. But then there's also a sequel setting content pack that I've taken a look at and was like, I have no interest in doing this. there's something about the kind of creative bankruptcy of just having the empire again but not as interesting as the empire again because boring because there's no there's no

the mad there's there's like like with the empire it was very clear the empire is huge the empire is powerful like the very first shot of the very first movie is a tiny little rebel ship running away and everyone's going whoa crazy big ship and then a fucking star destroyer that's 55 times bigger than this thing shows up you immediately know that the scale of the rebellion is significantly smaller than that of the empire and they are the underdogs here in this next it in in the sequels it's like the first order happened i guess it's a thing and the uh new republic is uh just not doing anything about it doing anything they they don't have um but they're a republic that spans most of the galaxy right but they just fail to act at all against um i'm like

is the remnants of the fascist government that i'm like what's the scale here i'm like you're telling me there's no army there's no military are you telling me there's no it does the new republic just not have a military like this is the UN? Like, what the fuck? What is happening? You just overthrew a fascist dictatorship and you don't have a military. Yeah, like all the – I kind of get it. Maybe, you know, oh, they didn't want to raise a military because that's what caused the rise of the first fascist dictatorship.

But they already had a military. It was the one that just overthrew the last government military is the one that just overthrew the last government the rebel alliance literally just overthrew the last government it's like why didn't you just keep and maintain that with like mon mothma is the chancellor i don't just still there she's still there she's still alive um she dies in that movie technically in when the planet gets like incinerated by the big space laser. It's like, wait a second. This doesn't make any sense. No, it's very silly.

It's like there's no looming threat. And it's like you just don't think that seriously of the First Order. It's like a facsimile, a weird caricature of the Empire that means nothing. Yeah, then just suddenly it's big and strong. Yeah. It's like what is it? It's like with the prequel trilogy. You can tell what the tension is supposed to be.

At least on paper. What the tension is. Is something difficult to put into. A children's fantasy story. For the most part. But like a family fantasy film. But it's supposed to be this sort of tension between the corrupt ruling body of this republic and systems that are fed up

with the whole like it's it's obviously it's it's palpatine and and dooku actually like seeding all this shit but like for the most part like there's a civil war between a a group of systems that don't want to be part of the republic anymore a group of systems that want everyone to stay in the republic and again a series a series of events demonstrated better by the knights of the old republic one and two but it's like it's on the you're you're like 30 minutes on onderon are a better exploration of the tension of wanting to be in the republic and not wanting to be in a republic than anything any of the movies ever do well yeah but at this it's like at the very least there is a tangible understandable conflict between two realistically portrayed sides even if they were written very loosely and lucas didn't know how to give you the information that made sense

um it's like when you look at the lore abstracted from it at the very least you have an interesting setting where something is happening yeah it's like with the you don't even know what the setting of the galaxy looks like in the sequels. It's like – it's a blob. And in the original trilogy, you don't need to know because you know from the beginning that absent anything else, the Empire controls it. Yeah. That's all you need to know. It controls everything. Everything minus a few little secreted bases. Like that's it. That's all you need to know.

On mostly entirely unpopulated systems. Yes. Like Hoth. Or Yavin. Hoth or Yavin. No one lives there. In the original trilogy, you imagine that there's a wider galaxy, but you don't need to know anything about it because you don't need to go there. And also, it's pretty much told to you that it's just more empire. organizations of systems that do and don't work together that have different sorts of tensions that lead to a rise that is a civil war that was all just a screen for the rise of this other thing okay sequel trilogy i don't who are the factions where are their bases of operation do they have who who's powered where what are their origins where the fuck did these things come from

you don't know anything about it and the thing is unlike the unlike the original trilogy where you don't need to know those things because it's not within the scope of the story it's clearly within the scope of the story in the sequel trilogy they just don't tell you so like it's it's not that like well they constantly bring up weird little shit and then just never do again it's a question of scope like the original trilogy despite its epicness is actually fairly limited in scope well yeah but it doesn't need to be that broad yeah it doesn't need to be but again it's like it doesn't honestly it does a good enough job portraying that the galaxy is big when you walk into the cantina yeah because you see all

sorts of aliens it's like it's like you know that this galaxy is huge. But also, you see the fucking Empire. It's like, what else would the Empire need these giant fucking ships if there weren't that many planets? These big fuck-off ships. Why would they need a planet killer if there wasn't a lot of planets to blow up? Yeah, like why would you be killing planets if planets weren't expendable? Which, by the way, no one want to talk about like it wasn't thought out very like that is the most single destructive thing humanity would have

ever done humanity would have ever done just grandma grandma tarkin is just worse than oh yeah by eliminating an entire planet. An entire planet. And here's the thing. This wasn't planned at the time, but it's retcon now. It's like canon now. Alderaan is like Imperial core. It's one of the core planets.

It's like one hop away from Coruscant. It's one of the most populated planets in the galaxy. It's like somebody just like, just nuking mars if mars was like heavily populated like it's like if you took it's like if you took the planet as it stands today yeah and you just took like i don't know canada and just made it disappear it's like population like your adjacency to the imperial core is right there you are you are at least on the world stage if not actually seen as a pretty decent sized player yeah a pretty but a decent sized player but you're also

kind of seen as a like a quiet um mostly uh unobtrusive planet yeah place that's sort of the the image they project anyway yes again yeah take the world right now just nuke canada oh just canada completely get rid of canada and everyone's just like okay like if america just got rid of canada yeah basically for no reason just because just because one person from canada wouldn't tell them information on their rebellion against because we suspected that canada was harboring terrorists yeah it's like if we thought that there were some terrorists in canada we're like sorry canada we have to get rid of all of you because this other terrorist that we're torturing won't tell us the truth with no warning we are going to nuke you but even better but even

better it was like she told what tarkin thought was the truth and they did it anyway as a show of force what the fuck like there's no statistical logic like you just ruined a decent chunk of the galactic economy by blowing up that place it's literally the the the uh t-rex is on the ground seeing the the meteor coming Oh, no, the economy. Yeah, they just destroyed part of the galactic economy. Well, there's some really funny theories about how if you blew up the Death Star, the amount of resources required to build that thing. If the economy was anything similar to ours, you would quite literally send the economy into a death spiral

to the point where we'd never be able to recover. Yeah, because of how many resources it would take to build it. And how many people would man it. Millions. Millions of people. Luke is also... No, no, no. He's not... He's defending people, but it's easy to see how the Empire

could brand him as a terrorist. Yeah. A religious zealot yeah maybe a doctrine indoctrinated into uh hokey religion let's let's let's because they have hid the fact that that the emperor and that the only people that the only people that know that the emperor and vader are like that are like the dudes at the top of the empire yeah and even them not all of them are super into it and they don't really understand it it. It's like Tarkin is the only one who kind of understood it to an extent. Because he knew Anakin when he was a Jedi.

Yeah, because he'd been there the whole time. He was a general in the Republic. Yeah, he actually knew. He was around and remembered the Jedi Council. I think he might be the only member of the upper circle that knows who Darth Vader was. There might. I mean,

if there are, they're not named characters, you know? Oh yeah. But I think, I think in the extended canon and like the Darth Vader comics, he actually knows. Yeah.

Of course. He's the only one who does. Well, I mean, he's described, which is literally being Vader's handler. Yeah. Which is part of the reason why Vader is.

Hates him. Hates him so fucking much. You. Yeah. He's the old. He's the dude who knew him in high school. And he's like, you remember who I used to be. And I hate you.

And Tarkin is like, listen, if you kill me, Palpatine. Palpatine gave me this. You have to listen to me. The boss man said so. Yeah. Boss man said I'm actually second in command so again if you want star wars to be good again uh never go back to tattooing never mention the skywalker family at all ever again and for the love of god make them fantasy stories again

make reven canon again make reven canon again. Make Revan canon again. Yeah, as always, make Revan and the Exile canon, please. Make the Mandalorian Wars canon, please. There's like weird little hints and shit that make me think that the Mandalorian Wars are still technically canon. Well, I mean, we have Mandalorians, so. I know. Well, Mandalorians were a thing regardless it's like i mean yes and no i mean baba fett wore mandalorian armor but that was that was post hoc

like that wasn't like baba fett just had that armor and then later they just later the games and other things decided that baba fett was a Mandalorian. Like that was, that was afterwards. When did, when did KOTOR come out initially? The first one? Yeah. I want to see when that. Old Republic. Was 2003. Let me see when, what's the name of the attack of the clones oh part two it's 2002

so right so it's like just before so yeah i think i think you might be right i i need to i would need to look up when the first reference to the word mandalorian as a culture would have been it might have been kotor i think kotor was the first one that called the mandalorians a like a thing i mean it might have existed in some of the books i don't know i don't know all the books there's like yeah that's what i mean it's like there's a bunch of extended canon stuff from legends that i don't know um i want to like the fucking like the fucking the renata and like the endless the endless empire and a bunch of really ancient stuff. The first conceptualized for the empire strikes back as a group of white

armored super commandos. The idea developed into a single bounty hunter character, Boba Fett. So he was written down as a Mandalorian. As like initially Mandalorians were going to be a group of super commandos made by the Empire. And then turned into a single bounty hunter character wearing Mandalorian armor and then eventually became Mandalorian as a culture. Because Mandalorians are technically just people. They're just humans.

Mostly, yeah. Actually, I think they have to be human. Humans and various aliens from Mandalore and nearby worlds united by a common creed of the stoic Spartan warrior tradition. But you could also be child soldier recruited

into the Mandalorians. You could be recruited in because that's throughout the KOTOR games. You have people that join the Mandalorians, become Mandalorian. The production for the Empire Strikes Back, Ralph McQuarrie and Joe Johnson, designed armor intended to be worn by soldiers described as super commandos from the Mandalore system, armed with weapons built into white suits known for battling the Jedi. Boba Fett in the costume is reworked. According to legends,

Boba Fett at some point becomes Mandalore. I'm pretty sure. Wait, what? I'm pretty sure according to some of the extended legend stuff that's now no longer canon, Boba Fett was the new mandalore for a while really yeah like after the events of the movies i think after the events of the original trilogy because he becomes mandalore and he like at one point goes and rescues princess leia from some situations he like helps luke do some he has his own stuff i'm pretty sure that after the events of the original trilogy

Boba Fett essentially does what Canderous is trying to do in KOTOR 2 and like gets the Mandalorians back together and becomes Mandalore I'm pretty sure that was canon at one point doesn't Canderous in 2

isn't he? he's the Mandalore, yeah. Yeah, but he's literally Mandalore at that point. I mean, Mandalore is a title. Yeah, I know. He's the Mandalore. Because that's something that Dave Filoni obviously knows. Because Dave Filoni was pulling that shit with the Mandalorian and the Darksaber. The Darksaber is supposed to be a weapon from the old republic wars with the jedi

so did you see that did you think did you see the thing i responded to you on was it to you on twitter about like that according to i don't remember if it was kotor or one of the extended things that i read at one point that the mandalorians literally reverted to using normal guns during their wars with the Republic. Yeah, because it would just shrapnelize the battle. Yeah, because the Jedi could deflect laser bolts with their things. And they're like, well, what else do we do? So they went to what they called slug throwers, which are just old school guns.

Because even if they deflected it with the lightsaber, it would just turn into shrapnel and kill them anyway. So the Mandalorians were just using guns. That's funny. That's really, that's really funny. To specialize in killing Jedi. They're like, Oh,

shoot them with a shoot. Imagine just blowing away a Jedi with a shotgun, with a trench gun. Some of the, some of the stuff. I'm sorry. Just think of it. This Jedi drops down and does a bunch of stuff.

And you just hit him with like a World War I like trench shotgun. Blah. Goodbye. Bye. That's the thing about most of like – You drop down like Trinity from the Matrix. Dodge this. It's like uh it's like um any if you take any like nominally fantasy or sci-fi universe

that doesn't have guns in it and stick guns in it it's like if you took harry potter and it just solves every problem you just give harry a gun it's like voldemort is dead now just every gun is every fantasy plot is solved by giving what's protagonist a gun like if and that's something i think that rowling actually tried to address in a really shitty way in the crime like she addresses like she addresses everything in a shit where yeah where grindelwald like wants to subjugate muggles to human to wizards because he's terror he had a premonition of World War II and the nuclear bomb and the Holocaust and he wants to essentially

take over so that it doesn't happen. Uh-huh. Yeah. And I'm like, wait a second. Why didn't someone just go drop a nuke on fucking Hogwarts? Also, like, the wizards didn't prevent the Holocaust. They didn't prevent the Holocaust because they're didn't prevent the holocaust

because they're all nazis because they're all nazis okay but regardless it's like it's funny you just stick a gun in somebody's hands but i just think it's funny that at least at one point in star wars it was canon that the mandalorians started using regular guns again because it was the easiest way to kill jedi which with the current with the current canon i think the mandalorian wars are not quite as far back as knights of the old republic which yeah it's like uh it's like with they fought with the early republic jedi like of the republic that we see in yeah yeah uh the prequels so it's like okay whatever but it's not even gonna get into the ricotta the was it the ricotta and the endless empire and the first

hyperspace war yeah and then the first the first actual sith war listen you always need a fallen empire don't you dude gotta have a fallen empire You've got to have a father, man. First of all, this empire, baby. And then whoever made the Star Forge. Who we don't fucking know. The original Guardians, baby. The original spacefaring race. Talking about lore. I could do this all day. The funny thing is, is that in, I don't know how much of the Clone Wars you've seen,

but there's an episode set in a place called mortis it's a pretty good episode and there's like personifications of the light side and the dark side and this sort of gray father figure it's like the father the sister the brother it all it ties into some deep legends canon shit yeah of like some crazy mother or something that fucking like the most powerful thing in the universe that luke defeated at some point in legends canon sure um i don't know some dumb stuff but like there's a scene where anakin goes to find the brother who's the the dark side and he experiences a vision that shows it was going to to show a bunch of Sith from the past that were going to talk to him briefly. Included were Darth Bane.

Included was, I don't know, like, Raktos or whatever. The other ones that have tombs on Korriban. Yeah. And then Darth Revan was going to speak to him. Hell yeah, baby. And they cut the scene. And it's like, you were this close to Revan being canon because the Clone Wars is still canon.

So if that had been in there, they wouldn't have been able to avoid it. Revan would have been forced into canon. All right. I think that about wraps it up. i think that's the end of this first bonus episode my conclusions for this episode are again if you want star wars to be good no more skywalkers no more tatooine uh re-canonize the knights of the old republic make star wars fairy again yes make star wars fairy again like make it make them fantasy stories

again that's where people feel at home. That's what the original trilogy did for them. And I think that's also why people react, myself included, react emotionally to bad Star Wars movies as opposed to rationally. You react to them emotionally because the original movies were emotion like were emotion based because they were fantasy they weren't you don't see people having an absolute nightmare conniption over blade runner 2049 just because they don't like it very much yeah or even or even even bad star trek you're just like that sucked yeah yeah bad star trek people like yeah it's star trek yeah well like i think it's i i do really think, believe it because at the heart, Star Wars was a fantasy story with a morality tale embedded into it. That when it goes bad,

people have emotional reactions to it being bad. Yeah. Because it's such a departure from what it, what like the, the, you know, the hero's journey and the stuff that they were, that they had come for,

which I mean, again, it's literally based off the hero's journey, which is the thing about the way cultures tell myths so like what yeah i i agree i think i think that if you're getting mad about the sequel to blade runner um you'll probably just walk out and go i guess i just didn't get it yeah uh because it's like it's like this is a film trying to ask philosophical questions about AI and shit like that. It's like, it's not a hero's journey that you get emotionally super invested in. Yeah.

Like, even Blade Runner is not a film you get emotionally super invested in. It's more of a detached dread, almost, with that movie. Yeah. So it's like like these films aren't Yeah, but that's my answer. That's why people react so emotionally to Star Wars. And that's why the new ones feel so bad.

And why this just sort of spewing out of an endless different amount of them and TV shows and stuff from Disney all ring so hollow a lot of the time is because they just don't have in them what people expect from them.

But I think that's the end of our first bonus episode. I think that's good. We ranted enough about Star Wars lore. Yeah, we'll keep going if we don't stop now. Yeah, I could go forever. Let's stop now. But thank you to our patrons for paying money to listen to this. i hope it was worth

it you tell me oh we should have another one out in a little bit uh thanks for being patrons and we'll see you again soon goodbye bro Bro Are you fucking real man Come on.