Future of the Star Wars Franchise

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To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a sleep number store or go to sleepnumber.com. Sleep number to a good life sleep . Hello everyone and welcome to the Filmcast, a podcast about movies. I'm David Chen, and somehow The Mandalorian returned. Joining me today is Davindre Hardowar. The Mandalorian and Grove Group will return to your TV screens where they belong. And Jeff Can ada . Is this the way ? Good question, Jeff. We're of course going to discuss that because those are all vague and oblique references to the fact that today on the podcast, we're going to be reviewing The Mandalorian and Grogu . By the way, if you're a patron at Patreon.com/slash film podcast, you get that review early. So hope you enjoyed that over the Memorial Day weekend. You can find more episodes of the show at the filmcast.com. Email us at slash filmcast mail dot com. We got some what we've been watching for you. We got some uh film news for you and then uh email we're gonna read and discuss slash foomcast at gmail.com. First I wanted to mention guys, uh check out the summer movie wager. Obsess ion is one of the big hits of the summer. It is uh going to make a lot of money in its second weekend. Uh like really fairly unprecedented amount of money in its second weekend compared to the first. Nice. And uh 1$00 million dollars is in sight. Is in sight. So that means it could make the top 10. You know what movie is almost definitely not going to make the top 10 though? Mortal Kombat 2. I remember uh talking to my wife about the opening weekend of that film and I think it opened to like what 35 million something like that and I was like oh man yeah everything is proceeding as I have foreseen it and then she said what are you talking about Dave that number is gonna collapse right away. Like Mortal Kombat 2 is super front loaded. And in fact, she was correct. This Mortal Kombat 2 is gonna struggle to even get to like 90 million at this point. I think that's a shame. Uh yeah, and uh you know, I think pretty much everyone put Mortal Kombat 2 on their top ten right like if I at the very end towards the end yeah yeah yeah but uh I put it bang on at number 10. So did I and uh I don't make number 10 Jeff I don't think so either. I don't make number ten. Jermaine only had it as a dark horse, so he is smarter. Oh, and uh Peter also only had it as a dark horse. Yeah. Well, we're fucked, basically. It was kind of uh already. It's I had it number nine. Oh boy. But uh yeah, not uh not great. And also obsession gonna be on there. Divindra had that as a dark horse as did Jermaine and BJ. So maybe horror is going to be the thing that uh ends up winning the day. We'll find out. I'm surprised they didn't higher because they saw that movie. They both I believe they both had seen it and know how good it is. So that's funny. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, there's other other, you know, I mean, it's hard to predict that a movie that costs one million dollars is gonna make a hundred million dollars, but uh and we'll see, we'll see. We we don't even know where it's gonna end up. Also, uh, if it doesn't hit a hundred million dollars, it's very possible another movie will will take its place in the top ten, you know. So we'll find out. Either way, I I have a very, very, very, very, very, very bad feeling about my summer movie wager already. And that sucks that sucks guys and and to think that it's mortal combat too that's gonna do it in for me uh that's just um wow yeah it's pretty pretty early for a fatality yeah yeah I'm not not happy Not happy about that. Long summer to go, Dave. Long summer to go. Like Warner Brothers, like Warner Brothers marketing department, I too had too much faith in Mortal Kombat 2. Yeah. And that is a shame. Okay . Uh, I'm gonna read this email. This email was submitted as a film court. I don't actually think it's a film court, so I'm just gonna read it because I think uh it's a good email to discuss. But this email comes from in Magnus writing into slash filmcast gmail.com. Subject line: Am I a deviant for not seeing the point of listening to film scores? Magnus writes into slash filmcast gmail.com. I need a ruling uh after a lunge incident at work. I accidentally revealed too much of my private thoughts. It is my honest opinion that listening to a film score without watching the moving pictures it was made to accompany is equally bizarre as watching a film without the sound because you like the photography so much. It might not be entirely parallel, but it's not far off. And as a consequence, I do think a bit less of people who spend hours listening to film scores. As soon as that opinion left my head, I got some raised eyebrows from across the table as the topic was passed over in silence, so as to not bring unpleasantness to the communal lunch. My question is twofold. Is my perfectly reasonable opinion wrong? Is it even rude to hold such an opinion? And also, secondarily, should I have known that even the act of bringing up this dilemma might hurt the feelings of the court itself? Thank you for keeping me entertained since the Quigley days, Magnus from Oslo, end quote. Writing into slash filmcast at gmail.com . Is Magnus a deviant for not seeing the point of listening to film scores? What do you guys think? Let's start with Davindra I , you and, you know, we we we came up together through our love we we we connected through our love of film scores. What do you think of Magnus' question? Yes. Spoken like somebody, I mean they would never see the point of going to like a concert where they play film scores. But yeah, do one of those things. Like uh there is value to this uh to the music outside of the movies. In some cases, the music is even better than the movies. So yeah, there's totally value in listening to it outside. Also, I'm gonna put this out there. Magnus says that it would just be as weird as watching film without the sound. Now, I don't think that is a common activity. I think most people don't do that, but I don't think that's out of the question as a thing to do. I think it's more akin to putting a single frame of a movie framed on your wall. Yeah. Right? It is completely disassociated from its intended purpose. Right. But you're appreciating it on a different level. Yeah. Yeah. Right? So if you if I if I love the special effects of something and I buy the special effects book, that's not how the special effects were intended to be viewed. They were intended to be viewed in the context of the film. But I'm super fan of uh the special effects and I love the special effect, but the art book, the the matte paintings from Empire Striped Back, I think are beautiful art. Right. They were not ex intended to be hung in a gallery, but I'll go see the touring museum show of George Lucas's prop department because I can appreciate it on a different level. You Philistine ! I will say that Magnus is pointing out something interesting to me, which is that we as a society or a species have evolved such that listening to music like on the go is a thing that exists, right? Like the thing is you can listen to music and do other things. You can uh do your homework, you can uh clean your house, you can like there's a you can drive a car. There's like many things you can do while listening to music. Hard to do other things while watching a movie, even without the sound on, right? You know, I think Netflix has built an entire business model on stuff you can half watch while building the laundry. Brutal, yeah. But uh so I think part of it is just like we we've evolved as a society to to be able to listen to things divorced from their original uh intention, I guess, in the case of movie scores. Are you the sort of person who like doesn't like certain textures of food or certain things like separated? People are weird. Brains are weird. Our brains can tell us to do different things. So that if that's the thing, then it's tough. Yeah. That does seem like it seems like um a person who just t tends not to enjoy film scores as music and is trying to back their way into an explanation uh for that. That it's it's just a weird it's a weird notion to say I can't pluck this one thing out of its intended purpose and look at it in the abstract, look at it isolated from its intended purpose and appreciated on a different level. It's like you can't look at the costumes from a movie in a display case and appreciate the artistry that went into making the like they were intended to be in that movie and they were intended to be seen in only those scenes, but you can appreciate the artistry of a thing you know and and you'll probably appreciate different things about the artistry of that thing than were in the context of their intended delivery. I also think we kind of we have lost intentional music listening to a certain degree, right? It used to be if you want to like listen to records or whatever, you had headphones connected to your record player, your amplifier, and you were sitting right next to it, or even Walkman , or something. But then, like, the more portable, the more convenient music got, like, we were just doing other things. Take some time to sit down and listen to like John Williams scores of the Star Wars franchise and just like reflect on the emotion of that music. Don't do anything else. Close your eyes, put on good headphones or speakers and listen to the music. And I think you learn to appreciate it. You know, I saw a thread going around saying like uh his scores for the Star Wars prequels are in many ways better than the prequels themselves and are also like incredible works of art and should be appreciated as such. You have to you have to like take time to learn to appreciate those things if we're just I I think like some people just don't listen to instrumental music or music on their own very much. Like that's the big thing. Jeff I think you made you made a great point about like other things like being able to appreciate the artist artistry separate from the original context. I think that's a great point. I think also um the the thing is music is such an expansive category, right? It's there there can be all kinds of music. It's not like music is songs that are written in the three-minute segment by like you play on a guitar and someone sings to it. It's like music, it can be trance music and electronic music, and there can be uh m music songs that go on for 12 hours and some that last five seconds, right? Like there's all kinds of music. And so the idea that uh you you like somehow listening to this specific type of music, separated from its original context, makes you a lesser person in some way. I think is farcical. And uh also, by the way , you know, Magnus is asking, like, should I have not brought this up at lunch? I mean, the thing is , movie music is in such a more popularized category than it was when we were growing up, right? Like, I remember going to Circuit City and needing to spend $15 on CDs for these like movie scores, and you couldn't get all of them, and uh and they were expensive, and no one visited that section of the store of like Tower Records or Circuit City. Um and you know i i i'm i'm the only one everyone's listening to pop music i'm the only one with my disc man listening to han zimmer's crimson tide score and uh now it's like some of the biggest playlists on Spotify are movie music, right? Some of the people thousands, hundreds of thousands of people go to watch things like Lord of the Rings performed live and so on and so forth. Like basically sharing that you look down on people who write who love movie music alone is like saying, like, I look down on people who like, you know, electronic music or some other major category of music, you should expect that you will get blowback from that. You know, it is not to be punched. It is not some small tiny niche niche thing. It is like it is now close to popular culture pretty much. I mean uh I I had to pay like two hundred dollars to go see Hans Zimmer live in a packed arena. You know, and it's like with those things. Right. I'm just saying I'm just saying like and and and I got like a last minute ticket that was like suit I got my seat was cheaper than everyone else around me because everyone else was paying like five hundred dollars. And so like the idea that oh, there's this whole cat, you know, it's like such a massive category. So many people are doing this. Anyway, uh it's it's also like I just want to point out like you will hear people do this in other ways. Like I appreciate cinematography, I appreciate the aesthetic, I appreciate the lighting. I don't think it's ever worth saying an aspect of an art of a work of art should not be appreci ated. I think you will always learn something if you start to go down those niche paths and be like, yes, it is really interesting how movie lighting has changed over the decades. And maybe we should interrogate that because you learn something more about the art form. And that helps you grow as a person, helps you appreciate art better. Like in any in every case, it's always worth unless it's Super Mario Galaxy movie and then forget about that one. Sometimes , like I say, there's a black hole. Right? Sometimes when you stare into the black hole, you lose a part of yourself and you don't want to do that. When you stare into the Super Mario Galaxy movie, sometimes it stares back at you. Yeah . Thank you for the question. You can always write into us at slash filmcast at gmail.com. Let's take a break for a sponsor. We'll be back with more and what we've been watching right after this. This episode of the filmcast is brought to you by Story Worth . Ah, my dad is great. He's awesome. I love my dad. He is such a big part of who I turned out to be. He was the Cinephile before I was the Cinephile. He had the awesome collection of VHS tapes. He introduced me to so many incredible movies growing up. He's the reason I fell in love with movies, frankly. I'll always be grateful for that, and I will always love him. 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That's storyw orth s t o r y w o r t dot com slash f I L M C A S T Guys I had a chance to watch Mother Mary the new David Lower movy ie. I did a double header this week. I I saw Mandalorian and Grogu and then right after I saw Mother Mary. You're like, uh too much excitement. Too much excitement. Let's slow down for two hours. Just as the filmmakers intended. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I had watched Mandalorian and Grogu and I was gonna go home, but then Mother Mary started in 20 minutes, and you can actually get Mother Mary on VOD, uh, but it costs twenty-five dollars. Whereas it Sneaking into the movie is free, baby. I paid seven euros to go see Mother Mary. He walked over with the slip right into theater three. Did you bring your Grogu popcorn bucket? That's all I want to know. No, I I thought about it. I I I you know, I will tell you that I have a an aversion to doing things in the wrong way here in Portugal. I will tell you that like as an example. Oh, Europeans will let you know. No, yeah, you do something the wrong way. So like this is all these these events I'm discussing happen in like the first week or two. I go into the grocery store, right? And I don't I don't know if you guys have been to a grocery store in the United States. You just go in and caveat clear . You didn't want to offend us if by chance we've reached our mid forties and have never been inside a grocery store in the United States. Well, Jeff, you you strike me as maybe a DoorDash guy. Anyway, point being , uh you just usually just go into the grocery store and then you go to the shelf that you want and you pick it and you take any sometimes, like if there's a if there's like a crowd or whatever, you maybe just walk through with like an empty cash register . Right. Like and go through. Anyway, go go to the grocery store, walk through an empty cash register. Literally someone comes up to me and says, Please don't do that. Please go in. There's like a one entrance that everyone's supposed to go into, you go into. I went to a gas station. And you know how like if have you guys ever been to a gas station? You know how if there's a pump that's like not on your side, sometimes you like reverse your car into the right? You like turn the car around and reverse it in. Literally, a man, the man who worked at the gas station came up to me screaming in Portuguese. I didn't even understand what he was saying, but he was very unhappy. Now I would understand I understand now I would understand what he's saying. But back then I was like , wow, this is very bad. What's happening right now? So he shouldn't be backing in. I'm pretty sure he was mad about the backing in. Anyway, point being point being I have a very strong aversion to like not doing anything in the like proper way. And so therefore, I did not sneak into Mother Mary. I went back out, I bought a ticket, and then went back in. Um, and I will say that this is a movie that went from oh my gosh, I love this movie, it's gonna be in the top ten movie uh movies of 2026 for David Chen almost certainly, to it's pretty good, and and I um I'm not a fan of the second half of the film. But basically Anne Hathaway plays a Lady Gaga-esque character who is looking for Michaela Cole to make a an outfit for her, but Ann Hathaway's character, Michaela Cole's character have a very mixed history, and you kind of find out about that throughout the course of the movie. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, she she is referenced as playing a character that once wore a quote unquote dress made out of honey. I don't even know how that works. Anyway, point being um what were you gonna say? Yeah, Mikhail Cole is like kind of like this is like the version of her character from the Christopher's, but like 10 years in the future. You know, and also like Michaela Cole has a very specific skill set, specific niche. Yes. Drama centered around that as a mysterious character. Yeah, well, it's love her. That's right, that's right. First of all, she spends a lot of time in the in the movie drawing, just like she did in the Christopher's. Uh and also yeah, spending time in like artistic rooms talking with someone, uh one other person, that's like a lot of this movie as it was with the Christopher's. Do go out and check out that review that we had of Steven Soderbergh's movie. She has a very austere presence. Totally. And I totally think that that is conducive to the artiste, you know, casting her as the Yeah. It's's it just funny. I may destroy you, Jeff. I have not. It is you should see incredibly good. I think it's one of the greatest TV works of the 20 whenever it came out. 2010s? Like w whenever it came out, it it's incredible work, like you know, what one of the all-time greatest. Uh so I would recommend you check out I May Destroy. And what's funny is like I started watching her doing Chewing Gum, which was like a bubbly sitcom she did uh uh that was on Netflix at one point too. She contains multitudes. It's like people saying Christoph Waltz, that dramatic actor, he used to be comedian. People knew knew him as like a comedic guy. Yeah, yeah. This movie basically bombed at the box office. Uh it made like three million dollars. Uh it was not particularly critically acclaimed either, and I understand why. It's it's a weird movie. I've heard people call it a bad movie. Yeah, I mean David Lower. This is bad. This is a bad movie. Uh there's just a bunch of half-baked ideas in here that don't really come together. For me , the idea of these you're you're watching two great artists play two great artists, right? And clash against each other, and for me, that alone was worth it. And then the movie takes a significant turn that I'm not gonna get into, but I'll just say was not as much of a fan to me. When the movie was like super grounded and just about like two people with ideas duking it out, I was like, this movie is wonderful. And I feel so much more stakes than I did during Mandalorian, which I just saw an hour ago, and you know , uh and then it kind of like veers off into something more fantastical and and something else entirely, and I was not a fan of where it went. But at the end of the day, I still was a fan of this one. I still like liked it. It just is like probably not gonna make it into the top ten for me, uh, because of the second half of the film. Also, you know, Jeff, last week on the podcast you complained about wandering into obsession a little bit late. Wandering? I wasn't wandering. But yes. Well, I had a similar experience this week when I watched this movie. Because I don't know about you guys, but I don't sometimes I don't lock in until the movie logos are over. What does that mean ? Like I'm not like fully engaged in paying attention to the movie until like the logos are over. This could be like a m this could be like 90 seconds of movie logos. I'm gonna just like think about something else, or you know, whatever. Just disassociate for a couple seconds, you know. Remove this plate, like leave this plane of existence. And and literally there is a piece of Sir are you okay ? Okay, the movie logos are just fine. There is drooling, sir . There is a piece of footage that plays during the movie logos of Mother Mary that is relevant to the film. It's like you see like a maybe one second clip of footage, like half a second clip of footage. That's like and obviously they like explain and go more into it later on in the film, but I'm like I I I was like, holy shit, I feel like I miss I missed something. Like I I wasn't locked in during the logos and now I've missed something. Were you were you seated looking at the seated? Was seated and just kind of like what was going through your mind? What were you actually doing? Just wondering if people have ever been to grocery stores in their lives. I'm gonna say that uh sometimes I don't like the movie logos because you they trick you into believing sometimes that the movie has started, right? And it's like so so I kind of like don't really like to start truly paying attention until I know that the movie has started. Dave has a finite attention span . Any deviation, two or three minutes in either direction, he might not be able to handle Precious milliseconds are of his of his Emerson mind. You think that just 'cause you have a movie logo it allows you to plow through riches by Emerson.y attention. Sometimes they do the audio will start of the movie before the logos. But then I know when that happens, I'm like, oh I know this . You're cute. That's why I cue to pay attention now. Like But the but I'm literally watching the A twenty four logo come on screen and it's like bloop it just like boop like without super quick and then there's like oh shit, I I missed I missed a thing, you know? Missed relevant material. I did. And it really upset me. So anyway, I thought you'd appreciate that. I like a good movie production studio logo uh animation. I like I like when they I I find myself wondering what the pitch session was right yes dude for this you know like our name is uh sky dance you know our name is uh so think about like fires in the sky, you know, like that's our name is four hundred clowns. You know, and it's like that's interesting, like they didn't show four hundred clowns. Right. It's just like the reflection of a balloon. Like, oh what a cool idea. Like how did they come up with that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I I'm not saying I'm uh uh immune to that appeal, Jeff. Sometimes I do think that. But you know, sometimes I also just need some Dave time during the logos. And uh in this case it did not go well. So save time. Uh so I I liked it a lot. It's very contra I do not it's not a movie I'd recommend to everyone, but if you're into some uh really weird closed room one one on one drama with some healthy amount of homoerotic tension. Uh I would recommend David Lowry's Mother Mary, which is available right now on video on demand. David Lowry made a thing. So yes, I will watch it eventually because I love him. Yeah. I I think I just came upon a really kick ass production company name. 400 clowns. That's pretty good. That's good, right? That's pretty good. Don't don't lose the juice. Don't let's say publicly, Jeff. Keep it secret. It it kind of is reminiscent of the four hundred blows, right? And so it's like, but instead of blows, it's clowns. There you go. Change one letter. You made it worse. All right, folks. Uh Dav indra, you and I had now I just want to point this out. I had originally put this on my calendar for last week, right? Um, my uh what we've been watching for last week, but you said, Wait, David Chen , let me watch this as well so we can talk about it together. And so we I've been meaning to watch it for a while. Yeah, we both had a chance to watch Riz Ahmed's new film Hamlet , which is uh his take on the classic William Shakespeare play, set in the modern day. Set in modern day. Modern day South Asian community, but with the language of Shakespeare. That's right. That's interesting. That's right. And we should point out this is directed by Anil Karia And Riz Ahmed has been wanting to put this together for a long time. So Devindra Hardwar, what did you think of Hamlet? This new version? Well, it's it's definitely Hamlet. It does the Hamlet things, right? But uh it's uh it is I think what's fascinating about this is just how it's made, because there are really no surprises to the story here, but I think the production is really interesting. Like you can clearly tell Rizamet seeing the parallels between like the story of Hamlet and the world that Shakespeare was living in and also the South Asian community in London. So to see those parallels like actually be filmed and to hear the Shakespearean language being used with Indian actors and South Asian actors and like doing things like a funeral ceremony or a wedding. Um there is something interesting there. Like I think there's some beautiful scenes and some beautiful portrayals and also the way they convey some of the you know some of the famous scenes from Hamlet, right? The I think the to be or not to be soliloquy is really done in a way I've never seen before because it's done very interestingly and they've talked about that. We can we can mention it specifically here. I don't know if I like that, but I will say in in the play Hamlet, Hamlet puts on a play within the play, right? To try and catch his uh uncle. And the way that that play is executed in this film is probably the highlight of the film for me. It is really, really well done and very creative. And it's like, wow, that took me to new emotional heights that I have not felt uh when I've witnessed that in the past. So anyway, go go ahead Dimitri. I know I agree. Like I think that scene, that specific scene, like it's how the how are you doing Hamlet? How are you doing Hamlet today within this community? How are you visualizing it? Like the production is beautiful. Um the way they I don't know, interpret Hamlet through modern day characters is kind of fascinating too. Uh I thought it was well worth watching. This is not my favorite version of Hamlet. I think the the 90s one with Ethan Hawk is like the really a really interesting modern reinterpretation of it. And I don't I don't see people talk about that too much, but I keep I recall scenes and frames from that one. This is just a cool one because Rizemed clearly had this idea to like let's do South Asian Hamlet essentially, and that's what they did, and it looks beautiful. It's just not my favorite interpretation of the play. I will say my favorite is probably Kenneth Brana, just because it's the full thing. You know, he d he does f four hours of Hamlet and if you want the full the the greatness of the the full dose, um you know, that is what you should do. Now, it's even worse to say, I I think my favorite is Mel Gibson . Wow. Yeah. Tell tell me about that, Jeff. Why is that? Just as a film, like I I would rather watch it on stage. Um but uh as a film, I mean it it it uh it's pretty I haven't seen it so I'd have to revisit it. But I remember liking it. I I remember being very excited about the Kenneth Branner version. I I I love um many of his uh adaptations. Uh Muchado is still one of my favorite just movies. It's just a delightful interpretation of Much Ado about nothing. Um very excited in college. Went to see uh I remember exactly the theater. I remember exactly the moment going to see the four-hour Hamlet on the big screen. And I remember walking out going, I think Mel Gibson did it better. Wow. You know, I can't. It's hard to compliment Mel Gibson these days, but um he's got he's got two movies coming up, two sequels to The Passion of the Christ. Right. Yeah . Yeah, but um it it's a t it's a tight movie. There's a lot of cuts to to his version. Yeah. And it leans in hard on the um the um um what's the uh what's the word the uh uh edipal complex interpretation. You know, it it goes hard that direction, you know. He clearly wants to bang mommy. But um but I I think it's uh I think it's a really tight, interesting take uh or at least I did when I saw it back in the day. Um a couple of addition yeah, and I think you're right that like some of the way that ways that Brana stages some of the key things, like the to be or not to be speech, you know, I wasn't like the biggest fan of that in the Brana version and he goes hard on the side of it's Danish. We're it's Danish baby. We're Danish. And and and uh yeah, I don't know. There's great things about his version for sure. Right, right, right. And I and I just like I just like that it is complete. I like that it is the complete story. And there's very few of those uh that that are easily accessible. There there are attempts to like do it as as like the play in dramatic form, but also there are like avant-garde attempts. And I think this is more on the avant-garde side. This is more the Ethan Hawke side, which is that's a really interesting interpretation, I think. Just modern day New York, 90s New York, essentially. Uh so I think that Riz Ahmed's version of Hamlet is worth watching for Riz Ahmed alone. Like he 's amazing. He's just so committed to this role and does an amazing job. Um, I just want to let people know though that it is a very, very compromised version of Hamlet. Like you know, the the Kenneth Branner version is is four hours long. This movie is about two hours long, and even then, vast stretches of this film go by with no dialogue at all. Like they they really chose uh like I would describe it as literally like a handful of critical scenes from Hamlet and pieced it together in the modern day. It is a little strange that it's it's taking place in the modern day, but most of the language is the original language. So it it it's just you know, there is this Or a new dialogue written in the style of Shakespeare, it seems like, yeah. There's a couple of tweaks that they made, but like overall it's the original dialogue. The they they picked and chose which ones they would use like which parts they would use. And they and they recontextualized the language so that it like meant something different than it did in the original, you know, which kind of cool. Kind of cool to see that. Uh Elsinore by the is not a is uh is a company in this one, right? As opposed to a a location in the original. Um but cast by the way too, Morphid Clark from uh from Rings of Power, yeah, like Joe Joe Alwyn has the distinction of being in both Hamlet and Hamnet over the course of last year. Big, big on Joe Waldwood. I think um and so I think it's fun to see like how the decisions they made and how they decided to do it. I will just say that in general, Hamlet's language is still sometimes a little hard to understand for modern-day audiences. And you will have a great time with this if you understand Hamlet the play, right? But if you don't understand Hamlet the play, they did their best to try to make it understandable and choose like really obvious passages where it's very close to what it would be like in the modern day. But some of it still doesn't quite make sense unless you've like duh dove into the language before or have subtitles turned on that really helps a lot, I think, for these Shakespeare things. Uh I think it's an interesting experiment. I think Riz Ahmed is amazing. And I think some some moments from the film are incredible. But yeah, I don't know that this is my favorite adaptation of Hamlet. Uh it's just it's really like you should point out it is my favorite Shakespeare, like favorite book of all time, however you want to call it. Like I I love Hamlet, so uh I have strong feelings about it. But yeah, it it's worth checking out if you're a big fan of Hamlet. I don't know if you're like not a fan of Hamlet if this is a if this is the entry way out of the thing. This would be excruciating if you're a fan of Hamlet . I think it would not be a great way to experience the first time. So yeah. Um but Devinger and I both liked it and and would recommend it. It's Hamlet, 2025, starring Riz Ahmed. Yeah. Jeff Canada, hit us up with something you watched this week. Uh I had a chance to watch the new film tuner . Tuner. I really I want to see that because it's by the director of uh the AI documentary that I just talked about. Yeah, Daniel Rower. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly. R-O-H-E-R. Bleach. Writer director uh this is starring uh this guy man i love this guy leo woodall um i uh he became on my radar i talked to a couple years a go about um the uh that show One Day which was a a remake of uh well uh based on the same novel uh that there was a there was a film called One Day this is this was a series where it kind of took the novel and expanded what they you know showed instead of compressing into a movie it was a I don't know six or eight episode I guess it was 14 episodes I'm seeing here 14 episode series uh TV mini series anyway, Leo Woodall was great in that. He's one of those guys where it's like you you you're too handsome to be this talented. Like that's not it's not fair. Can't you can't be all that incredibly handsome and also that excellent an actor, but he he is. Uh, and I think I think this this kid is gonna be a massive movie star. I think he's gonna have a long career. Uh, he he picks interesting projects, and this one is interesting as well. And it co -stars uh an actor that I also think is phenomenal in this. Her name is Havana Roseliu . And the only thing I've ever seen her in before, you guys remember when we reviewed bottoms ? The like the Ron Shepherd's incredible. She's incredible. Yeah. She was the like the the dream girl, the the hot girl that uh what's her n ame uh was you know obsessed with. Um so real minor character in that movie uh and very different than what she is here. But man, this is like I I don't think this movie's gonna be a hit, but I think uh it's the kind of thing that it's gonna make her star rise. I think not enough for audiences, but I think other filmmakers are gonna see her in this and be like, I'm gonna put her in more stuff she's funny. You haven't seen Lurker yet, Jeff, have you? I have not. Because I think you would really like Lurker. She's also very good in Lurker. Another Ur movie. Lurker, not tuner. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, she's great in this. And they sort of have a romance in this. This is a movie. It's called tuner. It's a movie about a piano tun er. Uh it also star s um Dustin Hoffman is in this. Yeah. Uh and uh Leo Fresh off Megalopoulos. What's that? I said fresh off megalopolis. I don't know how f I I think he probably shot his megalopolis stuff like decades ago, I'm guessing. I don't know how fresh off of it he is. But um yes, Dustin Hoffman uh is just it's just awesome to see Dustin Hoffman in a thing. And he plays a crotchety old cantank erous just you know one of those old guys who's mad about being old, you know. You know, I l and and I guess that's where he is in his career. Um, but he's great. He's just great to see him work. Uh, and he plays this guy who owns a piano tuning business and employs his only employee is Leo Woodall. And Leo Woodall has, you know, I've I've often said guys , the the closest thing there is in real life to a true superpower is perfect pitch. It feels like magic. When someone has perfect, I just watched a thing as a famous musician whose name I'm not going to be able to come up with right now, but I just saw him on um one of the late night shows , like doing the thing that actually happens that Leo Woodall does in this movie where they like just play a note and he's like E minor seventh, you know, and it's like just like you just you just do it. It's it's it feels impossible, but it's a true thing that humans have. You just have it or don't, like a mutant gene. Um anyway. Uh he also is afflicted with uh the Leo Woodall's character in this movie is afflicted with a condition where he's hypersensitive, his hearing is hypersensitive. So he's like basically always wearing some form of hearing protection throughout the you know, throughout his whole life. His tuning is too good. Oh, all you hear is his tuning is too good. Well, you know what you do with a guy whose ears are that sensitive and his tuning, he has perfect pitch and his tuning is is perfect. Why you get him to start hacking some uh safes, get him to start safe crackins. Cracking some locks , baby. Um and uh so that's what the the premise of this movie is he gets kind of tied up in in the with some nefarious fellows who want him to uh crack safes for him. It's a cool premise. It's a it and I think the movie is even better than its premise. Like the premise could have been just a you know kind of silly uh gimmick. And it in a lot of ways it is, but I think the movie is is quite good. I really liked tuner a lot. Most of it on the strength of the of the performances. Um the two leads of Anna Rose Dew and Leah Woodall are both excellent. You I really care about them. I I'm invested in their relationship and their personality and how they meet. It's kind of a love story, but it's also, you know, it's got this thriller kind of, you know, it's a heist movie too. It's like you're doing these heists. Um, all things I enjoy, and I think the movie is really fun . I um I don't think most people have this on their radar, and more people should. It's i I had a had a blast with it. I it's also kind of a celebration of music, uh, because if Hannah Rose Lew plays a um like a concert pianist, and uh that's how they meet. Of course, he has to tune her piano . Um, and uh so it's it's it's about sort of this obsession and and passion for music and specifically classical music. Um and uh one of the funny things uh that I want to point out in this movie is that uh uh Dustin Hoffman's character has this, you know, this piano tuning van. That's the the business they're kind of down and out, they're not you know super successful. But his his piano tuning van on the dashboard has a bobblehead doll of young Dustin Hoffman. From which movie? And like there's no explanation in the movie as to why he would have a bobblehead of himself at a young age. And it's like why why is there a rain man bobblehead on your dashboard? Exactly. And that's I mean it's clearly, I feel like that's not something that was in the script. That was like the prop department was like, look, we found a Dustin Hoffman bobblehead, like let's use it. And I and it it's it's very heavily featured and every time they're in the van, they like have a close-up on the and this guy have gotten not of him now, like not of him in the era when there would have been like , I don't know, uh um custom bobblehead makers? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You may somebody might gift you a three D printed bobblehead of yourself. Like theoretically, I could imagine, but they wouldn't have done like you from Rain Man era. You know, they would have probably done you now. It's just a very uh it tickled me because of how it it just's just there because we know it's Dustin Hoffman and everybody's fine with it. I think you're just missing the symbolism, Jeff. Like it's your younger time, it's just shaking away. You're just leaving it, right? And you look back on it as you're driving, as you're old and crotchy, it's like look back at your younger self. I mean appreciate having like a flexible neck, you know, stuff like that. That's very good. That's very good. And he the bubblehead keeps going, hey, I'm walking here. I'm walking. No. All right. Well the movie's tuner. Jeff is a fan, and it is in uh in the United States in theaters. It's a gr it's a really it's a movie I hope more people go see because I really think this movie's excellent. It has a really um, I think wonderful economy of information. There's a lot of things like on the edges of this movie that they just don't explain because you don't need to. Like it doesn't belabor anything. It really gets to what it gets to. It it it's it's very uh it's very well made movie and uh I hope more people watch it. Uh he's I I know like because I just talked to him for the AI doc. He's working on a Matthew McConaughey movie next. Yeah, for sure. Very cool. Uh and yeah, as I've said, the movie is tuner. Dave, I think you would really like this. I mean, you like heist movies, you like classical music. Well, I uh you know, I think I'm the only person here that's actually had a tuner come to their house, probably. You know? Wow. What a flex. I've had a safe cracker come to my house. Is that mom you know, we had a my mom played piano all the time and you know, we'd have to have a tuner every now and then because uh the the piano would uh go out of tune. That's one of the things that I learned watching this movie is that you don't even have to play a piano for it to go out of tune. Correct. It'll just sit there the weather go out of tune. Weather changing, you know the wood metal and all that stuff yeah. The enormous amount of money you pay for a piano is you know just a down payment for more money that you have to pay for the piano. Also a car, you know, kind of what you gotta some some pianos that I grew up with uh or not grew up with like grew up around cost as much as scars, you know. Tens of thousands of dollars. So uh we d we were not rich enough for that. I'm just saying like I I would see and be around those kinds of pianos, and that was always uh very Yeah, really. Look at these listings from dealers. Wow. Your search can really get that specific. Really? And you just put in your info and boom. Cars in your budget. Mom needs a second, honey. You can really have it delivered? Really? Or I can pick it up at the dealership. One sec, sweetie. Mommy's buying a car. Mommy's- Uh, I think your kid is walking up the slot. Kyle, again, really? Auto trader. Buy your car online. Really? I drive my bus in a busy city . That's why road safety is so important to me. I know that I must slow down and be extra careful when I make a wide turn. Buses need more room than cars. Everyone can help keep our roads safe. Next time you're driving, remember to give buses plenty of time and space to finish turning before driving ahead. Let's all plan to share the road safely. Learn how at www.share the road saf ely.gov . Let's just keep going back to Davindra for his next what we've been watching item. Divindra, hit us up with something else you've been watching. Well uh speaking of heist stuff, I think we all we all like a good heist flick, a good heist action movie. Maybe something with uh thieves versus a cop that is really dogged to find them. I've been watching Nemesis on Netflix, which is very much a heat alike, very much a heat prototype. This is a series about um a gang of uh thieves who do all sorts of things. They like steal jewelry or like um they they go on very specific heists to stuff seal stuff like you know unlisted diamonds and things like that. And the cops. It's also about the cops that are following them and their family lives because they have families. Very much heat. This is a series co-created by Courtney K emp, who uh created the TV series Power, which was really, really popular in stars. And I have to say I'm really digging this, but mainly just like on a base level, because sometimes you just want to watch beautiful people do cool things on TV. That's pretty much it. That's pretty that's that's all I want sometimes. So like you've got the high screw and they've got their whole thing going on, and it's led by a very smart thief who's smarter than everybody else. And then you've got the cop who's like onto them um everybody's hot everybody's hot all the time cool stuff is happening um this is very much like a den of thieves but less gritty i'd say to you like there are many many levels of a heat alike, but I think this is compelling. The character work is pretty great. And basically everybody's hot. So it's like sometimes you just want like a good show like that. I think some of the heists are a lot of fun. It is one of those things though where like the police chief is always yelling at the cop. Just like why are you doing this? Why are you still on this case? Because clearly there's still a case, man. You're not you're not actually helping the cop by by being on him all the time. It is very much one of those like prototypical the chief is always yelling at you shows. But it's a lot of fun. It's really well made. Um I can see why people like power as well. Like just because the style of it is really cool. Like this is a series with mostly black actors and like um other people of color as well. So like musically, culturally, visually, it is so different than a lot of other like heist series as well these days. So also Mario Van Peebles directing the first couple episodes. Always cool to see. I'm big new Jack City fan. So I always love seeing his work back on TV. You know, as you're describing Nemesis on Netflix, right? I believe it is. I also just want to throw a shout out for Crime 101. I talked about it a few months ago on what we've been watching. But that is now available on Prime Video. And that is another heat knockoff with very attractive people, specifically Chris Semsworth and Halle Berry. So got me. You got me. Yeah. And also has, I think, the same dynamic with the police or something along those lines as well. So like, yeah, it's um it's a good time for heat knockoffs, basically. But DeVindros, what we've been watching is Nemesis. Check it out on Netflix. Jeff Canada, something else you've been watching this week. Well, I checked out the new uh Apple TV show called Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed . Uh the first two episodes have premiered. I've watched both. I am into this show, man. This show is good. Apple TV's cooking right now, guys. With Widows' Bay and Margot. What is that? Margot, something or other? Margo. Margot's got Money Troubles also. We got Cape Fear coming up in a couple weeks. Uh Dark Matter Season 2 later this year. Oh, I can't wait for that. Dark Matter season one was so good. Key thing about all these series. All hot people. All hot people all the way down. I was about to do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Specifically. Anyway. Jeff, go ahead. Maximum pleasure guaranteed stars, Tatiana Maslane, uh I don't know. Maslani. Maslani. Maslani. All right. We all have a different interpretation. Let's all try one. Um anyway, she was She Hulk. I knew her as She-Hulk. And you know, it's sad that we lost She-Hulk. She-Hulk was I had a really a lot, I had a lot of fun with this one. You missed the whole Orphan Black era, Jeff? Because she was huge for Orphan Black. Oh, I did not watch Orphan Black. Yeah. She that was a show where she had to herself play like many, many different characters, and like just the range she showed in that show was incredible. So she's been on a lot of people's radar since then. But yeah, how was this one? Not mine. I I only knew her on uh from from She-Hulk, but uh she is fantastic in this maximum pleasure guaranteed. Uh I'm gonna reveal the premise uh of this show, but I did not know it going in, and I think uh it's really delicious premise. So if you don't want to know the premise, uh skip forward. But um the idea here is that she is a divorced mom. Oh, by the way, her husband, uh or excuse me, ex-husband is played by Jick Johnson, who I always love seeing pop up and things. He's always great. Yay! Yeah. Um, and uh she , you know, uh divorced mom, she starts visiting a cam site, uh, talking to a little cam boy who um she has a more than just uh sexual relations with you know it's only over video over uh video chat, but she pays to talk to this camboy and she sort of uses it as part um you know sexual uh relief I, guess, uh, and part uh therapy. Well, come to find out, uh some some stuff goes down. Uh and the fact that she had revealed some stuff to this character, uh to this cam boy, uh is not so good. And this is the perfect example, the show of what they talk about with screenwriting or really any fiction writing, where it's like turn the screws on your character . Make them suffer, right? We will, we as the audience will feel so much more connection to a character when we watch, when we see the things get bad and they get worse, and then oh my gosh, get even worse . So delicious how this show does that, at least in the first two episodes. Uh it is stylistic, it's it's sexy, it's funny. Uh there's you know, there's like comic relief characters that she she works as a um as a as a fact checker for a news organization, which is like already a kind of it's the nineties Well done. Yeah. Well I think iPhones very intentionally um I think the show is very intentionally pointing out like, hey, a human being should probably do this. World. Like I think that's part of what the show is is dramatizing, is like this is a job that needs to be done. I I honestly I would settle for robots doing it. But the idea that we need to do it at all. No, we do not have robots the robots doing what we have, Dave. Yeah. I guess. Actually, no, uh my I submit to you that's not the case. Like Facebook has basically said we don't care about fact checking anymore. That's basically what they've said. You know, for media organizations, AI is a thing. People are leaving. on it. Yeah That's not good. I mean, the movie the show explicitly makes the case for a human being doing it and actually having scruples and some attention to uh detail. Anyway, uh that's a very side ancillary part of this show. But it's there and it's fun. Anyway, she has a couple of co-workers that are very much the comic relief characters and they're very funny. So the show is is that wonderful mix of you know real thrillery stuff , real real fun, um twisty, uh you know, where's it going next? What's she gonna do? All the stuff that I love, you know, what's what's really going on here, who's doing what to whom, you know, but also very funny and very uh tongue in cheek at times. Uh and it's just a delight to watch uh Tati ana Maslani. Maslani. Work. She's she's great. And um , you know, it's kind of about a type of character we rarely see the center of stories. Uh, you know, we talk about beautiful people. She is a beautiful person, but she's also uh a woman of a certain age, and you know, unfortunately, we don't get a lot of stories of of women in her you know period of life. Uh and I love I love that, you know, it's really a show about trying to juggle being a mom and being in a thriller story at the same time, you know? And it's uh it's excellent. I really am in a hundred percent on the show. Two episodes in, maximum pleasure guaranteed. Awesome. I've heard great things. I'm looking forward to checking this one out on Apple TV as well. Uh and that is something Jeff Canada's been watching this week. Devindra, bring us some with one phone. And by the way, I just want to say uh put a pin in that comment about uh it being compelling to watch protagonists experience obstacles and overcome them. Uh that might be relevant for our review later on. Devindra Hardawar, your uh something else you've been watching this week. Yeah, keeping the Star Wars theme going this episode. I've checked out the first couple episodes of Star Wars Maul- Shadow Lord. It's about it's about Darth Maul. I think I think you mean to say Star Wars colon mall. Yeah, I missed the colon. I went to the Star Wars Mall one time. It was a Disneyland. It's it's very much like one of those. Um, here's the thing that I've got Galaxy's Edge. Anyway, go ahead. Not anymore. Not anymore. Yeah, I don't know anyway. They just learned about the show, guys. I do not give a shit about Darth Maul. I don't they brought him back in the cartoon series. I heard about this. And he had like spider legs or some shit, like mechanical spider legs. Now he's back with like normal legs and he's trying to like do crime shit. And I stu between this and what we've se onen the Mandalorian and Boba Fett and Ahsoka, because I've watched these shows. I don't know what you guys have actually watched. He's been in the Star Wars trenches, guys. I've been in the trenches. I know what's up. You did that hard labor. I did it. I don't think Dave Filoni knows how to tell good stories. Well, is the thing. The guy now in charge of Star Wars. No doubt. Keys to the kingdom, Devindry. Jeff. For for years, for over a decade, people were like, this guy is a genius because Clone Wars, the TV show, was this like deep and thralling narrative uh about the Star Wars universe. Like it he was for the longest time the chosen one to take over from George Lucas, right? Uh everybody loves him. Um unfortunately, the way he tells stories is very much let's do a fetch quest, everybody. Let's let's go find the thing, let's progress the plot along. Um, or it's all very internally uh internally threaded to other things that you may have not seen therefore if you're just jumping into watching uh Star Wars colon mall dash shadow lord um they don't really take time to explain much of anything, which by the way also happens in the Mandalorian Grogu. Also happens in the Mandalorian in every one of his shows. This is a I think it's like a compelling.'s so i It it is sort of like Star Wars as heat because it's very much Darth Mollis the guy stealing stuff and doing crime shit. There is a set of cops trying to stop him. Um visu ally, I will say, this show is beautiful. Um, even if I don't care about what's actually happening, the representation uh it's set on like another world that's like a city side, you know, to city planet, basically, but it's not uh it's not Corusant, I believe. Um but it's beautiful in the way that the Star Wars CG shows, I don't know if you guys have seen any Clone Wars or Rebels or any of those. They look like garbage. The thing everyone's telling me this is some great Star Wars, you're some great characters, some great writing here, everything. The thing about me is that if you give me bad animation, that that is my nails on the chalkboard. That's where I'm like, I cannot I cannot sit through this. So as good as Clone Wars was, it it was a really cheap-looking show in an era where there were a lot of CG shows were just like not really well made. Rebels is even kind of worse and cheaper looking. This is a beautifully animated show with lighting and shadows and cinematography. So I I give it that. Like it's it's at least an entertaining thing to watch. There are some really cool action. There's really some cool spectacle here. Um, it also feels more mature than any of those other shows because it's about it's about Darth Maul like killing a lot of people too. Uh I don't think he really works as sort of a lead of a show because again, this man killed Qui-Gon Jin . What are we doing here? Like, why are we celebrating him as an anti-hero character? He he killed Qui-Gonjin, uh Qui-Gon Jin. Like uh he he's notorious villain. The sort of like uh I don't know, uh mythology to sort of uh I don't they're not turning him into a hero, but he is becoming like a main character in a way, in the way that like Darth Vader is one. I just don't think he's that interesting. Like that's the ultimate thing. So tell me if I'm wrong, folks, if you're a Star Wars fan, you're really enjoying the show. Uh I would not recommend it to you guys, as beautiful as it is, because you don't give a shit about the extended Star Wars stuff. And yeah, I uh I'm I'm worried about the future of Star Wars not just based on the Mandalorian Grogu, but more like stuff like this. Because between this and the other shows, like Dave Fil oni loves to play in his sandbox, but I don't know if he knows how to let other people in It is uh it is in a terrible state, in my opinion. Like uh I I am curious to see whether Star Wars uh Starfighter is gonna bring people back into fold. Like that that could be like a four quadrant huge hit when it comes out next year and uh and reignite interest in Star Wars. But I I think the franchise is in terrible state right now. Anyway. By the way, Devindro, you say, like, hey, I can't believe they made a whole show based on Qui-Gon or sorry, um that we're actually like rooting for Darth Maul. Yeah. I mean, look no further than Sony's Spider-Verse. Like they made a trilogy of movies on V enom. There was a Craven movie, guys. A Craven movie. We even dismissed it here on the podcast . There is Desperation, and then there is Lucas film. The people who should not be desperate. You have Star Wars. You should not be desperate. You're not Sony out here scraping the barrel for like third-tier Spider-Man characters to make movies out of. You're Lucasville. Do better. That's Star Wars colon mall- Shadow Lord. How'd you watch this one, Davindra? It's on Disney Plus. On Disney Plus. Check it out there. It's something else DeVindra Horror has been watching this week. All new drinks are now at McDonald's. Like the strawberry watermelon refres her and the mango pineapple refresher with popping boba. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire? Refreshers contain caffeine. The new strawberry watermelonres Refher is now at McDonald's. It's made with strawberries and a whole lot of whimsy. It's one of many new drinks now at McDonald's. Refreshers contain caffeine . All right folks, let's get to weekly plugs. We're gonna do weekly plugs . Weekly plugs . Weekly plus weekly twice Let's do weekly plugs, plugs, plugs, plugs, plugs. Weekly plugs a part of the show each week where we plug something else we've been making. I want to throw a shout out to my free newsletter, decoding everything.com. Subscribe for free at decoding everything.com. Stephen David Miller, our film festival correspondent, is over at the Cannes Film Festival. He is reviewing really buzzy movies like the new uh Hirokazu Koreata movie, the new Pavel Pavlikowski film, uh, the new Jane Shumbrum movie, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. Uh so he is one of the first people in the world to see these movies and he's writing about them and reviewing them over at decoding everything.com. Subscribe to make sure you get all of those updates from Stephen David Miller. Uh check it out at decoding everything.com. Divendro Hardware, your weekly plug. Yeah, check out the Engagement Podcast this week. I keep getting a lot of questions about what kind of TV to buy. And uh there are a lot of Memorial Day sales happening right now. So I brought in uh Dippin Sade v, uh the founder of C E Critic, which is a new kind of like consumer electronics site. He also works together with uh Caleb Dennison. And Caleb is the guy who is like one of the best TV reviewers on YouTube. He does Caleb Rated. He used to be a digital trend. We had a good discussion about the latest TV technology, like what the hell is RGB uh LED TVs? Like how do they compare to OLEDs, which we know and love? And we had a good discussion about what to look out for, finding the good size TV for a space. I finally after, like months of like looking at deals, I picked up the seventy seven inch LP. I saw congrats, Davindra. Thank you. So we'll see what happens there. At a good at a really good price. Like at a it is wild how much uh big screen OLED prices have come down. So if you're in the market for something, folks, keep an eye out, like not just Best Buy, but look at slick deals, like see what the latest deals are. Cause 77 inch OLEDs for fifteen hundred dollars, sixty-five inches for like a thousand. Like this is these are great deals for excellent screen tech . Jeff Canada, your weekly plug . Limericks. I make uh limericks uh on demand and to your specifications uh at cameo.com slash Jeff Canada. It is something that brings delight to both the people that receive them and me. I really enjoy making them. And um they're great for any occasion. You know, we got Father's Day coming up. Think about it. Think about it. Get them in early because I probably will have uh a rush of of orders around uh June. So you know head over to cameo.com slash Jeff Canada, see what everyone's saying. There's like over 200 five-star reviews. Uh, and get your can't get your uh limericks while they're hot or you know not . You know, guys, I heard one day the Mandalorian decided to retire and become a dairy farmer. One day he was giving a tour to a fellow farmer and he happened upon some leftover liquid in a tank that remained after milk had been curdled and strained. Wow. And he had a strong reaction to it. Maybe we'll hear about that momentarily. Anyway, Patreon.com slash it's a cheesy joke, David. Patreon.com slash food podcast where you can subscribe to get ad-free episodes, uh, bonus after arc episodes and uh early access episodes like this one uh patrons received our Mandalorian and Grogu review early hope people like that one um but yes patreon.com slash film podcast. Of course, we never want you to donate. I itf in any way caused you financial hardship, you can always support us for free by leaving a star rating for us wherever you get your podcasts or uh lik ing us uh on wherever platforms you see us, including YouTube.com slash at the film Let's get to our review of the Mandalorian and Grogu . Hey, never touch the buttons. I can use some information. Whoa, for this price, I'll tell you whatever you want. I'm looking for a hut. Close for the night. Thank you . Gangsters, war criminals. Long live the Empire. We'll take out every bad guy in your deck of cards . So then the Mandalorian says to the guy, this is the way. Who could have seen it coming? Wow. Nailed it. Nailed it . Welcome to the filmcast review of the Mandalorian and Grogu, or technically, I believe the title is Star Wars Colon, The Mandalorian and Grogu. I'm gonna read the plot summary of this movie from IMDB. Once a lone bounty hunter , Mandalorian Din Dejarin and his apprentice Grogu embark on an exciting new Star Wars adventure. End quote. DeVind your hardware, you have watched much of the Mandalorian TV series. I will say all of it. All of it. I'll say Jeff and I watched like a few episodes and then we pieced out of it pretty, pretty much at the same time, I think. Uh but yeah, n having seen the show, right? This is the first Star Wars film in theaters in seven years. What did you think of Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu? I think it's fine. It's perfectly fine, but not great. Like the thing about the show, the thing that made the Mandalorian so interesting was that, hey guys, you know what's great about Star Wars? Big battles, uh, shooter fights, spaceship chases, all that fun stuff. The Mandalorian brought that to your TV screen on Disney Plus, and it was kind of kind of amazing for a while, like to have that like weekly Star Wars adventure, which is not really something we had before. There were the animated shows, but I I was just never really into them. And they didn't have the scale of like big live-action Star Wars. So that's The Mandalorian did. Well, it also gave us Baby Grogu , which felt like I think at first a very uh cloying attempt at just being like, hey, love us. It's a cute baby Yoda. What more do you want from us? How could you hate baby Yoda? Look at that face. So it felt really uh uh manipulative I think early on but the show itself was like fine and like delivered like Star Wars adventures every week. This movie is is just more of the show and it's just it's kind of baffling to me. Like the you have to look at the history of what happened here, so that um you know, John Favreau had written the fourth season of The Mandalorian, it was ready to go, the writer's strike happened. And Lucasfilm was like um, maybe let's maybe it's put a pin on pin on that. Maybe we need a movie for him. So he had to go back and write a whole new story to continue the adventures of the Mandalorian. And this is what we got. And it feels like a compressed, you know, two or three episode arc of the series that doesn't do anything special for the big screen. Like there are some more they they shoot on location for some more things. There's a bigger budget. Um, but it's still John Favreau has said that this is the first Star Wars movie that was made in Los Angeles. So I just want to be clear about that. Okay. Yeah. Suck it . That's where they make the TV show. That's why it's in the Los Angeles. Right? I'm just saying . Yeah. I mean I'm just saying you said they shot things on location. It's like they did not go to like exactly the case. There are beach there are beaches. There are beaches in the show. Yeah. You cut You guys clearly don't remember when Luke Skywalker went to the man's Chinese theater in that one movie. In that one movie, yeah. But no, it feels like you're outdoors more like there it just feels like they they like attempted to do a little more location wise and button. It's a little more ambitious than an episode of than a than a couple of episodes of the TV show. A little more, but like story wise, I don't it's fun. It's a perfectly fine adventure of the Mandalorian and Grogu. I love Grogu . I would die for Grogu. He's a cute little creature. Um, this movie, if you have not watched the show or if you've tapped out like within two episodes like you guys, you probably have no idea what the fuck is going on. Because it's just like, well, why is the it used to be Grogu was just like a thing he was carrying, but now Grogu is kind of like his son, kind of is his son now in the lore of the series. Uh why are they working for the the new republic? Because he was like, they do explain this in the opening text, not crawl, but just opening text, and to be even more fair, none of it fucking matters. Doesn't really it doesn't really matter. Um everything in the show in this just feels like here is character template of Guy with the with the rockets and the guns, and he's gonna go on this fetch quest. Baby Grogu is very cute. He gets another fetch quest um to do in the series, which somehow involves the family of Boba F ett, okay, because you get to tie back into the original stuff. But no, it doesn't feel like anything really matters that much. Like it it feels like TV level stakes because characters are not changing that much. They're occasionally like there there is a showpiece time for Grogu, but it just feels really, really low stakes. Uh there are some cool set pieces, but also for a thing like this, I can't just have our guys fighting CG monsters the whole time. Like, you got to give me something more than a CG monster or a CG assassin counterpart or something. John Favreau knows how to make good action. It's very clean. I think this movie is more fun than something like a solo.tain Clyer not as disappointing as Rise of the Skywalker, but it is disappointing because just like I feel like they had an opportunity to do more here by bringing the Mandalorian to the big screen and they just didn't really take it . Jeff Canada , your thoughts on Star Wars, The Mandalorian and Grogu. Well, Dave, I guess you could say my thoughts on Mandalorian and Grogu are best summed up in the form of a limerick. Let's hear it, Jeff. As a first ever big screen star war , there's still nothing you ain't seen before. If you're only nine, the action's just fine. But I found myself hoping for more. I basically took your kid to see this one, right, Doug? I took my kid to see it and and I I watched it through his eyes uh to a large extent. First movie, uh first Star Wars movie he'd ever seen on the big screen in a movie theater.. Special He was he was excited. It was special. He was excited. We he requested to come with me. Yeah. Um, we went, we saw it in IMAX uh at a press screening, and um he we were walking out of the movie and they were giving away little little posters, little Mandalorian and Grogu posters, and he's like, oh, oh, and he ran back and grabbed the poster after seeing the movie. Right. Big deal. I think he said, uh, Dad, Dad, when does this come out on uh Disney Plus? And I was like, I don't know, probably like three days from now. And um I can't wait to watch it a hundred times, Dad. That's what he said. He's like, I can't wait to watch it again. Well, you know, you've got three whole seasons of TV shows to watch, too. So yeah. It did it did the job, right? It did the job. And so I can't hate it as much as I might otherwise, simply for that fact alone. Um But if you'd seen it with like me instead of your sons. joy anymore, you'd have a very different opinion of it. Yeah . So yeah, then then what would your reaction be, Jeff? It would be like I need to take a shower. Uh but I I basically agree with DeVinger r right down the line. I the the the tragedy of this movie, like I didn't dislike it as much as I thought I was going to. It is pretty much non-stop action. Yeah. And the action is not bad. Uh if you're you know, especially if you're super into C G visual effects, but um but it it just does not aspire to do anything. It doesn't intend to do anything. It is not essential in any way, shape, or form. And it doesn't want to be. It it is it is as close, you know George Lucas has been very upfront that a lot of his inspiration for the original Star Wars movie, New Hope, was the old Flash Gordon serials. And I think you know, this concept is closer to that template uh than Star Wars has ever been, right? And it is, it's a Western, it's you know, it's lone wolf and cub, it it wears its its references on its sleeve, Mandalorian and Glow Grogu, as a show and as a film. And you know, it is basically , you know, as classic a television series premise as you get. It's gun smoke. It's you know, it's it is these old Western adventure TV shows where you could watch an episode and that's and he's gonna be fighting somebody else next week. Yeah, he's gonna be doing something else fun. And you're gonna get him see him do his fun thing that you like to see him do. And he's gonna get the bad guys, you know, hunting down the bad guys. And this movie is just more of that. Like, hey, is it fun seeing him shoot flame from his flamethrower wristband? Hell yeah. Is it fun seeing a jetpack shoot around? Let's do it. Uh is the uh you know, are the the humorous moments cute and funny, and you know, we walked out, and my son goes, Dad, well, I'm gonna tell you my top three favorite moments of the movie. All of them were the the little babu fricks, you know. I know they have a species. I don't care what their names are, where they're babu fricks. Yeah, the Babu Fricks. It's the Babu Fricks. And uh, you know, it's the Babu Fricks, it's you know, it's all the cute, funny moments is the ones that he was buzzing about. Not even the big explosions. There's a lot of big explosions. Um , so you know, like it's doing what it needs to do on a certain level. It just doesn't aspire to do anything else. It is not pushing the universe of Star Wars forward in any way. It is not , it is treading on nostalgia. I mean, we'll get to it in spoilers, but I lo athe, loathe every single thing about the huts in this movie. It is so dumb on the face of it, in my opinion. And did you really need Jeremy Allen White for that too? Because he doesn't even sound like Jeremy. It could have been anybody. It could have been anybody. I mean, there is unfortunately if you watch uh a new hope on Disney Plus right now, you will see the special edition. Yeah. Which we did, which includes the the deleted scene of Han Solo encountering Job of the Hutt before he gets on the Millennium Falcon and Tatooine. And it looks like a butt hole. It is so , so bad. Yeah. That is exactly how the huts look in this movie. They don't they look like 199 9 's special edition uh Star Wars, whatever year that was. I don't know. Just pulled out of my late 90s, yeah. Yeah. Uh, and if you watch Return of the Jedi and you see Luke Skywalker walk into Jabba's palace and then the the the shot pans to Jabba the friggin' hut . It is moody and scary and interesting and textured , and it's real, and he's there, and he's slimy, and it it's like it is affecting like this creature is something, man. And as a kid, it's just like what is that slug thing having Jeremy Allen White just like talking just talking in English as it it is it's it's Pizza the Hut, dude. Do you everybody remember Pizza the Hut? It's it is a parody of Job of the Hut. It's a parody of these characters. There's there's they have completely divorced anything from that return of the Jedi version of Job of the Hut. Anyway, I said I wasn't gonna go on that rant. But that is that offends me too late so deeply how what they've done to Jabba the Hutt and the notion of that like scary ominous gangster you know space creature alien thing that is so special. Special. I think beyond that too, Jeff, it's also the uh aesthetics of the movie, right? Like when you're watching Return of the Jedi, you believe that is a physical creature in that space. Cause it is. And I mean not creature, but you know, it's a physical object. At no point watching this movie did I believe those things are actually there. Like it's sort of and and this movie throws so many digital creatures at you. So many. I mean, there's scene after scene after scene of like, here's five new ones and here's six more new ones and they're all just CG animated, you know, like whatever. You know, some of them look really good. There are scenes in this movie I think that look, I have to say, look really good. And there are others that look not so good. I think every moment of a hut in this movie is really terrible. Hutt is butth. Hutt is but ole. And so anyway, so I am I am very conflicted about this movie because like it it's just not important enough to even get that riled up over. And it made my son have a good time and sort of enjoy Star Wars and it hits those beats. But like even in the even in the fun action sequences, there's a lot of like, why? Why would they even do that? Who why do they what's that? It 's all just like don't think about this too much. We're just having a good time here, buddy. Look, we had there was some ad-ats lying around. Why don't we throw them in that scene? Like it doesn't make sense that they would be here, but okay, we like ad ads. Don't doesn't everybody love an ad ? Let's do it. You know, like that's kind of the mentality of Star Wars now, it feels like with the creators of like, well, we got these things lying around. Let's put them in here because people love seeing that. People love Sigourney Weaver. We've never seen Segourney Weaver in Star Wars before. Let's bring her in. Is she bored? Is she half asleep? Doesn't matter. Keep her in. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, you it's a hard movie to fall asleep to because something exp is explodes every 15 seconds. But it it it is it is a sleepwalk through Star Wars, in my opinion. Uh and it's a bummer. Do you ever live in fear that your son will discover your very public movie reviews of things that you guys have watched together, Jeff? I'm just curious. Yeah. My father's been lying to me the whole time. Do you uh seek out things your dad has done? I don't know I don't think I don't know . If there was a history of my dad actually had eight hundred fifty podcast episodes, I'd be listening to this. Really? I would in fact we do that. Absolutely. But yeah. Maybe you will. This is like your equivalent . This is like your equivalent of an OnlyFans account. It's like don't let the son, don't let my child see this. Well, but what I'm saying is I love the experience. Like that's why I can't be that mad at this movie, even though I am that mad at this movie. I can't really be that mad at this movie because this is this is the neuter ed version of Jeff's uh criticism of the movie. I could have really gone. You could have really torn into it. It's just not that the the thing is, it's not even it's not I don't feel the same way I felt about Rise of Skywalker. Right? Because like this movie is a trifle. It's it is a it is a garnish. It is it's a it's it's a it's the it's the mint of the things the. It's like piece of parsley next to the steak. It's like yeah, it's like Or whatever it is. We don't even expect you to remember this 10 minutes after you leave the theater. The filmmakers don't even expect you to remember this 10 minutes after you leave the theater. It is as a cotton candy a movie as could possibly be made. It is insubstantial by definition. Like it has no desire to nourish you on any level or push this franchise into new interesting places. It's just it just sits there exploding every 15 minutes and you're like, oh hey, that's fun. Look at the firewall. There's an explosion and then baby Grogu does something cute. And you're like, oh yeah. Yeah, we get to. Uh I will just say that I largely agree with you guys. Uh so this is yet another review where we're mostly on the same page. I think to me, uh, watching this movie as a let's just say fairly new to the world of Mandalorian, right? So I'm not like I don't have a lot of like Mandalorian expectations. I think the biggest issue with this movie as a standalone film is the Mandalorian himself as a protagonist. Now, I I have posted about I've made like a video about this and some people are like saying, well, Grogu actually no David, you're wrong. Grogu 's the protagonist, which which I say again very little. Point to the character arc for either of these people, yeah, in this movie. Like the Mandalorian character, it's not even that he doesn't have an arc in this movie, he barely encounters any challenges in this film. And he had he doesn't have a personality, is the thing, too. So it's like it's not even I understand it's that's like partially by design. That's like kind of what the origin of the character is. But then you have to ask, like, do you want this guy to be headlining the first Star Wars movie in theaters of seven years? And I don't I think the answer is no. The the the character is very un is not compelling at all. Um he encounters obstacles in the movie, but he never needs to make any interesting decisions. There is one decision he makes early on about who he's going to trust, but we don't see him or hear him navigate that decision or like understand what the trade-offs for him about that decision, are. He does not make any interesting decisions at all. As far as I can tell, he does not grow at all emotionally or spiritually. Rogu kind of does, but it's very minimal. You know, during the course of the movie. And so it it it it is not even like, oh, they tried to have the Mandalorian have this arc and it didn't go very well. It's uh it's like they didn't even try at all. That's like they they didn't even feel like that was an important that not even an important part of of yeah, not even just this movie but any uh a movie in general yeah a simple thing they could have done by the way which the series like really built up to it's Pedro Pascal under that armor. Let us see his beautiful face. I understand it's a defining part of the character and system, whatever. Bad guy takes his helmet. Bad guy takes his helmet at the beginning of the movie. He doesn't have it for the rest of the movie. We get to at least see Creator Pascal's face. Well he spends he spends five minutes. It is fair to five minutes. It is fair to say most of the film he is wearing his helmet. Okay, so it's ninety five percent of this movie he has the helmet only. And that's tough unless you're unless you're a movie called Dread starring Carl Urban. You know, like and you're showing his like lower lip frowning. That at least expresses something. This guy is the rocketeer head. You know, it's like there's n there's nothing there. Yeah. Jeff, what were you gonna say? Jeff, go ahead. My favorite part of this though, you know, Pedro Pascal has famously said that he he saw himself in the Wonder Woman movie and vowed never to shave his mustache again. That's right. Because he hated hated how he looked so much. It is so hilarious to me that in the context of this movie, a man who never removes his helmet also somehow meticulously shaves his mustache. Like he's grooming a mustache under there for no one. He like he it's called himself, Jeff? When he goes to sleep, he thinks for self-love, Jeff. Yeah, so oh sorry. Sorry, Jeff. I didn't know we only took care of our bodies for other people . It's very funny to me. I'm wear a mask all the time. But also, dude, like let's let's make sure that that stash is tight, baby. There was a scene in the show of him like shaving or at some point. There's a scene in the show where they like he takes off the helmet, you don't see the face, but he's doing like face stuff, and it may have even been grooming. Yeah. So I think just terrible protagonists, it's it's as a result, it's a very uninteresting film. And I think that there is a lot of spectacle, there's action scenes, and they are okay. You know, they are they're not some of them are as you said better than others. There might be like one or two good ones, and like a bunch of okay ones. Um, but what is there, you know, you can do a movie with no character growth or anything like that. Uh as well. It's called John Wick. Well, if if your action is like top of the line, like incredible, mind-blowing. And this uh does not rise to that level. You know, it it is not good enough to overcome the storytelling flaws, in my opinion. Uh and then so really friggin' long this movie. Yeah, it's about two hours long. A little over two hours and twenty minutes. Yeah. It's over two hours long. And you feel it. Something we we can't we we have to mention, by the way. This week I saw a movie directed by John Favreau in which a uh sort of like anti-hero masked character with a with a you know jet pack goes around trying to do good. But enough about Aaron that how many of these movies can he make? Yeah, well, that was a much better version of the same story. I'm just gonna say also, I think that I am sad that this is how they chose to reintroduce Star Wars to the big screen. Like, I think if their if their intention was let us bring more people back into the fold, this was a bad movie to do it with. And uh I'm curious what happens when Starfighter releases next year. We only have initial, as we're recording this, we only have initial box office results for Mandalorian. It's looking like it's gonna make about as much as Solo made in its opening weekend, which was widely considered a failure. Uh so I am curious, like what they're gonna learn from this, probably all the wrong lessons , but uh either way, the whole you know, I think I'm the most bummed out of the three of us uh watching this movie. So uh it's it's not horrible. Like people are saying this is the worst Star Wars film ever. I don't actually know if I agree with that. No. It's not as bad as Solo. Solo is straight trash. Really? Solo was trash. Rise of Skywalker. Solo keep people keep trying to like recover solo . I remember that movie uh just being very, very boring and badly made. At least the action is like interesting in this one. Do want to shout out Ludwig Gorgon's score for this ? Talk about film scores. This is a score that is so much stuff. This is a score that is so much better than the movie that it is in. It's like wow. Every time that score comes on, it's like that is badass. I love that they leaned into the synthy sort of uh synth wave kind of times. So cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah, this the score is great and lends it this uh gravitas , and the movie does not rise to that level, sadly. So all that said, let's get to spoilers for Star Wars, the Mandalorian and Grogu starting right now. I thought of an ending for my book. It makes no damn sense. Compels me though. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. When I buy a new book, I always read the last page first. That way in case I die before I finish I know how it ends. You can't handle the truth. Inconceivable I came here to tell you how it's going to begin . Alright, so which one of you had stuff about the ending you want to discuss ? Uh there's nothing. What is there to the here's the thing about the spoiler section? There is nothing to spoil because there's nothing surprising about this movie. Nothing surprising happens that you can actually spoil. I think that there is a cool sequence when the Mandalorian is incapacitated. Yeah. And and the movie grinds to a halt. Really? I thought it was kind of cool, like seeing the thing inventive thing the movie gets to do. That's like, oh wow, this is unlike most Star Wars stuff we've seen. It's so we can get the little cane that came with the Yoda action figure in for that Kenner. The Kenner Yoda action figure came with a little cane. We can give that cane to Grogu , and then we can have him make the little hut like we saw Yoda living in on Dagaba. That's the only reason those things are. It's very custom of his people. When he does the little padding on the hut, it's very, very cute. It's all very it's how Grogu moves is actually interesting. Like it and and the the Grogu's and the Babu Fricks are the best part of this movie. And you know, a lot of people have been pointing out that the movie feels like two episodes of the show stuck together. And the second episode, the second half of this movie, is so much better than the first half, in my opinion. And that is because you you get the fun babu fricks and you get, you know, Grogu having a little bit of something to do and being and the way they move, it's very henceon. I was talking to Carboni uh on my other show about this, and you know, we agreed that like the Babu Fricks are like as close to dozers from Fraggle Rock. Yeah. You know, it's they're very hence and the way they move is Henson, the way they do the jokes, very Henson jokes where the camera has moved on to the next part of the scene, but the Babu Fricks are still talking off camera, you know, and it's always funny. It's always funny to do that gag where like, okay, we're moving on and they're like, okay, see you later. It's the the the extended audio, like they don't know that their scene is over. Yeah, it's very uh very the Muppet show The name of the species is called Anzelen, which I know. Among many things, this movie will never tell you. Who's the co-pilot who who the Mandalorian relies on? His buddy for all his adventures. They never see I maybe he vaguely mentions his name doesn't matter towards the end of the movie doesn't matter doesn't matter that dude yeah yeah go no finish the but that dude is voiced by frickin' Steve Bloom like a a note notable voice actor you. You hear his voice,'d be like, that's fucking Spike Spiegel in Star Wars manning another spaceship. Like, that's cool. That is a cool thing. We don't even need to mention that character's name, really. I will say that the seeming lack of interest in introducing any characters does make this feel like this was just supposed to be season four of the Mandalorian, right? Like in a in a sort of big tentpole release like this, you typically be like, hey, who is this guy? You know, like introduce have an audience surrogate come in and be somebody's walking Mandalorian through the camp like Mandalorian's walking somebody through the camp and somebody's asking Mandalorian like who is this guy? Why is Grogu with you? Blah blah blah. And like you know, explaining some of this, and none of that happens because I think they just assume that you know it all, and also ultimately it doesn't really matter at the end. I think the second point is the more important one. Like, none of it matters. None of it matters. Uh, you you know, DaVindra, you said like if you go into this movie, movie you, haven't seen anything, you're you might be completely lost. No. Because you know, I think we've gotten to the point as an audience, you know, well, Marvel has done this too. I'm not gonna not blame them, but you just sort of accept it, you're like, okay, the little the little Yoda looking guy is on his shoulder the whole movie. Okay. You know, uh we don't there's no there's nothing that relies upon your knowledge of any of that. You can just accept it a priori and let it let the movie do its thing. And its thing is just let's blow stuff up every 15 minutes. Let's have another moment where we're zooming through space or sh shooting something or it's like you know and I know a lot of movie critics said that about the first Star Wars in the 70s. Yes. But this is really that. And you know it it really has nothing to say. This movie has nothing to contribute. Yeah. Yeah. I j I just rewatched a new hope with my daughter. And like it is well, that movie, you you are just kind of wasting time, you know, but it does, it does also take its time to build the world and build some mystery. Yeah. And I don't think this movie, for its two hour and twenty-minute length, it rarely does that. The only time we get to do that is that whole section with with Grogu, like where he gets to kind of, okay, I gotta deal with this on my own now. Like I'm a kid. You kind of think a little bit about how Grogu would think in that in a way that you wouldn't otherwise Don't do any of the things that happen in this movie. What happens? I mean Amanda dies. Yeah, I mean I mean it is very Your father figure dying is kind of a big one. Like I felt stakes in that moment, but not during the fights. Mistakes as to what's the downside of not doing the cards on the day. My favorite part, by the way, is when he's like this guy and he holds up the card that has no picture on it as an evidence of that he's gotta be attacking that guy. It's like that is a terrible way to the uh is that what the rebels are the new republic is doing? Like we've printed the set of cards, we're gonna hand them out to bounty hunters, go go chase that guy. That's what the US government did. It's true. The war, you know, uh again one of our not great governments . But it's so video gamey and this is something Falone and Favreau have done so many times. Like you're doing a fetch quest, you're doing uh some complete the the mystery thing to like progress the plot along and it We're supposed to care deeply, I think, about Rot of the Hutt. I think we're supposed to, I think the the stakes are entirely about wanting Rot of the Hutt to be okay. And I just don't. Like at no point do I give a crap about that character. It's ridiculous. It's well maybe it's because he looks so much like Jabba, Jeff, and you should check your biases. You know, that's something you should consider. Maybe he wants to just uh leave the the you know, the crimes of his past behind him and start a whole new life. Maybe he's the new host. It's just so ridiculous to have a character that looks like that have a scene where you are like having this heart-to-heart. It just steals away any kind of suspension of disbelief. You're just watching this C G character whose mouth moves weird and l looks insubstantial in every way. Right. Have this kind of like silly, you know, he's talking English. He's just it it it's it's so bad. I I will say that uh going back to the Sigwani Weaver of all of it all, you know, there's this scene at the beginning where she sits down and it's like, hey, we we gotta find this guy because they're up to this stuff building liter literally, let's never talk about it again. Yeah. Literally let's never bring it up again because it's completely unimportant what's whatsoever. Um we get to see her in full X-Wing pilot garb. So I guess it was all worth it. Dave Filoni in there flying one of those X wings is a little bit more than Filoni in two gets two cameos in this movie. Two cameos. He gets to wear his hat in the in the bar scenes. Gets to wear the hat. Sigourney Weaver is in a frickin' is in a frickin' X Wing. Again, seems like she wants to get the get the hell out of there. Like she's like, bring me back to Avatar. Is this what Star Wars is? I want to go back to the water tank. Somebody drown me. James Gentleman over here to drown me again. I will say my my favorite moment from the movie where I like genuinely left was they were uh they had extricated Mandalorian from the uh the hut palace and they're running through the woods and they get to the ship . Yeah, that was the ship is like this big. It's like tiny. It's like the size of a bread box. And he realized I can't go with you. And Grogu is too stupid to understand basic size requirements . Goku is still like, come on, man, what's the what is the issue here? He barely has object permanence apparently. Um but yeah, and and so I th I genuinely laughed at it. I was like, that is some good visual humor right there. So my favorite was the was trying to fit him in the m much too small hut and and and uh bonking his head over this is the this is the level of quality that the movie aspires to these are the best moments of the movie. It really should have been bonk in his head. He's bonk in the bank. Repeatedly. It should have been Grogu and the Mandalorian, right? Like we just camera focuses on Grogu , bab babbling like a baby, eating stuff, Mandalorians off in the background on adventures. Camera only on Grogu. That would have been at least like a That would have been like an interesting like film experiment. Right? All through the perspective of Grogu at Grogu level . Yeah. Right. Like an Ozu movie or something. Yeah. Could have been. Could have been. Any other thoughts on Star Wars The Mandalorian? There's no good villa like for a Star Wars movie. There's actually not like a good defining villain in this. Like the the evil bounty hunter is like a thing by the way never actually named again um just like big tall lanky bounty hunter yeah the guy with the raiden hat right was super cool get super cool fights i think like is a character that has appeared in the series or something. Like he , I think is his name, right? Endo the bounty hunter. He is better than Mando. Like he has bested Mando many, many times. E MBO. Yeah. Embo. But it lacks a defining real villain because the the huts again, they just I can't take them seriously. Like I was I was never scared to job at the hut in return the in return of the Jedi, but he was at least like an interesting weird character. These CG turds are not. CG Twitch is a good way to describe it. I will say one of the most terrifying ideas in the original Star Wars movies was that I think the Sarlac Pit, right? The idea that you could be digested for like a hundred years slowly and that was like a thousand years. Right. And you know, I don't believe that would actually be possible because of how life works. But uh but that was a scary idea. So the idea that they're gonna torture rot first of all, wow, they really um really flipped on a dime there, right? Like i i f we're gonna kill him painlessly, but now he's gonna be tortured for like three hundred years. Like, whoa, that's a really they c he cost no middle ground there. Yeah anyway. The huts are not reasonable people. They're not really known for that. So you say. So you say. Anyway, okay. I guess the last thing before we close, right? Which is just to to reiterate a point that we discussed earlier, I do think I I just don't know where this leaves Star Wars at this point. Nothing matters. It doesn't matter. Starfighter is going to be a stand alone, no future franchise, no previous, you know, like it's going to be completely standalone. Um and as far as I can tell, um there are no other like imminent Star Wars project. You know, there's stuff that's in the works and in development and like you know, but like I don't know that there's anything else like super imminent coming, certainly not in the next year or two. It's a it's a weird place for it to be because it's both both Lucas film and Marvel are facing the same dilemma. They they over they overplayed their hand. They had a great decade plus of like movies and like some TV and then the TV kept dragging them down. So creatively, like they are they're just left empty now, and I wonder what they're gonna do. Like, Jeff, you were wondering like what will push Star Wars forward, and I'm gonna say it because I have to say it every goddamn time. The acolyte did it. The acolyte did it for say what you will about that show or the plot or whatever. It tried to do something. So the the stats I keep seeing, like people keep going back to watch the Acolyte after watching all these other new Disney series. It has like stayed at like a high level among their like most watched shows. At some point, Jeff , just uh take a take a gander over at the Acolyte because I do think it has it does some cool things. I know you didn't like it much, Dave, but it does cool things. It's dark. And you know, Star Wars should dare to try something new. Would you rather watch the Acolyte or The Mandalorian again, David? I'd rather watch Andor, frankly. Sure. Sure. But it's again, Andor Andor is such a good thing. I agree with you, Divin Dre. You know, this is the thing, is uh even though I thought the Acolyte was very poorly made as a show, uh I and like from a storytelling wise a complete disaster, I still am disappointed that it failed because it's like it was very different than anything else, and Star Wars fandom seems to reject anything that is not what they've already seen before. That's basic that's basically it. That is a tries putting you in a death spiral as a franchise. Um so I think that I this when I saw the the acol when I heard the acolyte was canceled and skeleton crew is probably not coming back. I was like, oh wow, Star Wars is in a terrible place. Terrible place. And I still think more Ahsoka, which is a series which which is bound to like Dave Filoni's mythology of everything, which is a series. So it's impenetrable. It's like going to it's like when you walk into a comic book store or like a a a gaming store, right? And the nerds are like having their convers ations and they never let you in. And it's it's a bit like it's being it's going to an unfriendly geek shop of some kind. And that's kind of what his stories feel like. Sure you could go back to the beginning, watch all his shit to get on it, but even then I don't know if that's even gonna be worth it. So yeah, I hope that's it. Ahsoka is gonna end with season two, I believe. Right. So it it it's uh I know there's like a Ray movie and James Mengold and Damon Lindolph went out and talked about what some of the challenges that he's been having. But I I just feel A , like this is a bad movie to reintroduce Star Wars to the general audience. And B , I don't know where this leaves Star W ars. It still looks quite bleak to me moving forward. Again, Starfighter could change everything. Starfighter, people Starfighter comes out. It's a massive hit. Sean Levy's like, okay, I lied. I'm gonna do three of these. You know, like Oh god. Like everything could change next year. But like right now, at this moment we're in, it's like, wow, this is bleak. Like I forgot, I forgot that. I don't see any future for this franchise, really. You know, the thing is like this movie serves to be like, bring in people like Jeff's son. I wanted to bring my daughter to this, but the screening was late and she didn't want to like leave home to do anything. But she wants to see this movie. So like this will could activate a whole new generation of kids and then maybe they could go back and watch the originals. Maybe it's weird because this movie's a little scary and a little extra violent at times, and the Mandalorian show is the Mandalorian murdering folks like in cold blood in ways that they try to make you know uh Hansel would not do in the first movie. So it is more cold blooded and a little more adult, but this movie could could help you know uh encourage a whole new generation of Star Wars fans. question any you know any anything that leads someone to walk out of the theater and go, oh, what else could I check out? But your son your son is eager. Your son is eager to watch it. She is primed to go off and do to do more. So like I just watched a new hope with my daughter and she's like, So uh what happened to Darth Vader? He's just kind of spiraling off into space. Is he okay? Yeah. I'm like, oh, you will see. You will see what happened to Darth Vader, my child. Um, you there is still so much Star Wars to discover. There is the original trilogy. I'm kind of interested in doing the prequel trilogy with my kid too because like um for as much as like you know um phantom menace is like a messy film that's way too long there's really good shit in there and those scores are great so like just the Star Wars experience. Star Wars has always been for the longest time has been kind of messy. Um I mean I I'm happy I'm still excited and like going back and exploring stuff with my kids. For as much as we've been sort of complimentary about the action beats in Mandalorian and Gl , there's not a single one that touches any sequence, action sequence in Phantom Menace. And I don't even like that movie. Yeah. In Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones or Revenge of the Sith. Like they all have good lightsaber battles. They have good action. I'm gonna put this out there. I'm gonna put this out there. I don't even even think this touches Rise of Skywalker's action sequences. Yeah. And and Rise of Skywalker, in my opinion, terrible film, but it had an epic scale to it and an incredible look to it that this movie does not re replicate. I know you guys think that this movie is better than Rise of Skywalker, and I think probably technically I said it's less disappointing that it's probably technically true. But like if you go and just you know, we talked earlier in the podcast about watching movies without any audio, if you just put Wi Rise of Skywalker on the on the screen with no audio, it looks incredible. The the big lightsaber fight in the rain. Yeah, cool rain, cool ship. on the ship Yeah, uh that movie. Yeah, that's the shit. Yes, jumping over the ship, the desert planet, all the stuff on the desert planet. This movie does not look incredible, in my opinion. No, it looks okay. It looks decent at times, but it does not look incredible. I agree. And that is a disappointment as well. So anyway, we'll see what happens with Star Wars. Go ahead, Jeff. Yeah. Um two things. First is, in my opinion, and I know I'm crotchety old guy now, but uh best thing that ever happened to Star Wars is nothing for 20 years. That's the best thing that ever happened to it. That is real old nerd lore. I know just don't touch my shit. It's not don't touch my shit. It's like it grows in estimation in your imagination because it just it just was this perfect thing in Amber. Whatever. I know. That's your imagination. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. It's the best thing for your enjoyment of Star Wars, maybe because, there's nothing to disappoint. No, broke it. But to actually push the franchise forward, you get you gotta make shit. You gotta do shit, unfortunately. Yeah. The other thing is we w at some point maybe we should have the conversation of uh you know, who is the greatest franchise actor of all time? Because I think Sigorney Weaver now