The Mandalorian And Grogu (ft. Jon Favreau)

25:27But I find myself really digging that guy. And I think the fact that Zeb digs him too. Zeb's sort of like our audience, our conscience there, our audience representative. Let's go back and fight, even though this might not be the safest move, but it's the smart move. And the hero goes into the cave and fights the dragon, even though that's not the safest place to go.

25:52Chris Hewitt:That's fascinating as well, because it's quite a hard edge to move. Essentially, Mando is saying no witnesses. And you're tying it all into his honor. Well, that's also with the helmet. Precisely. That's also, we have logistical, spinning some logistical plates there that we want to show Pedro Pascal. But if he just pops his helmet off every time and goes for a bath at Mandalore, it just loses its impact. But if somebody rips it off his head. Yeah. And there he is. He says, not if you all die. You know, now it all becomes, all of a sudden, now you've got Clint Eastwood there talking, talking a very confident game, even though he's in shackles.

26:26So there's something to that, too. That plays into the gunfighter monomyth, the trope of that character, that archetype. And then he, you know, and then we go from there. But, yeah, they go back in and, you know, how do you not? You got to blow something up in Star Wars. You know what I mean? It doesn't have to be a Death Star always, but it's got to be Death Star adjacent. It's not a great example to set the kid, though, is it, John?

26:50Chris Hewitt:Wiping everyone out. Does he? Does he wipe everyone out? Roder does some stuff as well. I think for Star Wars, we're definitely on the more responsible end of things. There's a lot of droids in there. Yeah, I really want to see a spin-off about that battle droid who has a cloak. How cool is that? I mean, what's going on with that dude? That was Doug Chang, and there was a lot of exploration that went on in early days with 1313 around the droid Gatra about there was stuff that was explored in earlier media, gaming, and stories. But the idea that there's a crime family of droids that were droids built by droids, an interesting angle on things.

27:40But they look super cool, and they're fun. And again, with the movie, I had the resources and the time to have CG bad guys and to have a CG hut that we could design and do combat around. We couldn't do that in the show. Or Zeb doing all that action. And also, the technology offered the opportunity to have the huts do things they could never do in live action before. So that was – and honestly, at its core in Star Wars, it's like, what would I want to see? That's what Dave and I talk about a lot. Like, what would be – is this cool? Is this fun? Would we want to see this? And then the story cascades off of that.

28:16But it has to be – I like Star Wars. My flavor of Star Wars is the fun, exciting, surprising, humor, heart. Those are the things I associate with the Star Wars that I grew up loving. So those are the things that I try to aspire to.

28:33Chris Hewitt:You were talking earlier about this is stuff you want to see in Star Wars, but there's also new things and new approaches in this movie as well. There's a title sequence where the actors' names come up on screen, which is, I love that. Thank you. Was that something that you had baked in from the office? No, we talked about a lot. Like, first of all, Ludwig Goran says, like, I need some room for some music. Yeah. Like, you know, he was talking about, you know, like when I work with Ryan Coogler, sometimes we leave a little room here and I go back and forth. And, you know, what a great partnership that is.

29:03And it's like, okay, let's, I want to, I want to give you the opportunity to, let's make sure we create breaks for music. Because pacing in Star Wars, especially this, it can be relentless at times. And he's great for adding energy, but sometimes you want to just let it go. But you also don't want to, I think in a movie like this, you don't want to just have the, it might feel indulgent in this film to just have visuals with no story going on. And it could feel like it doesn't feel consistent with the tempo and the genre. And so an opening sequence of the Adelphi base gave us an opportunity. I was like, what was great about Star Wars?

29:46When my dad leaned over to 10-year-old John, he pointed at the X-wing, at the oil dribbling down, the oil stains on the X-wing at the Rebel base. He says, that's what's cool about this movie. It looks like an old World War II movie. It looks real.

29:59Chris Hewitt:Yeah. And it was his way of saying, not even knowing to say George Lucas is making Star Wars look lived in, but he pointed that out to me. And so the more we grounded this to feel ordinary and real and of our world, and we looked at the Tony Scott, you know, Top Gun. Yeah. We looked at those shots and we said, what if we just had the base and just showed it as though it were 80s, you know, Top Gun type thing. but except you use all the assets. So for somebody who's just watching, it's a credit sequence with cool music. You see the characters walking around, but you're like, oh, that's a B-wing.

30:37Oh, there's an astromech being loaded up into an X-wing. Oh, they're swapping out. So all those little details, the Star Wars fan is like, those are model kits I'd love to build, right? That's a diorama I'd love to paint. And to have all the characters just be bored walking around like they're at Edwards Air Force Base or on an aircraft carrier. To me, that felt very Star Wars. And it also gave us a breath. But because there's a credit sequence, you get to have that moment where people could be still settling into their seats, eating their popcorn, right? It doesn't feel like you were taking time out of the movie.

31:13So it's found time. And it also separated the front from the rest of the story so that we're leaning into the James Bond pattern or the Indiana Jones pattern where you get that sort of Spielberg set piece in the beginning. Yeah. And then you get to settle into your seats and now the story is going to continue. But it gives context of where James Bond is now and their relationship is different. And it also lets us just have a blast having a standalone set piece and contextualizing where we are with the Imperial Remnant and the Warlords. Amazing. On that note, Jon, it's been a pleasure. Pleasure talking to you.

31:50Thanks so much indeed. Thank you.

31:52Chris Hewitt:All right, we are back. That was Jon Favreau talking about The Mandalorian and Grogu. And now let's dig deep into this movie. Let's go around the table as we usually do and get general reactions first. Not general Medin, but general reactions. Hells Bells, what did you make of it? I had fun watching it. It hasn't particularly stuck in my mind entirely. But overall, I had a nice time. I just think it doesn't feel entirely to me like big screen Star Wars. It doesn't have the epic epicness that I think I wanted from a Star Wars movie on the big screen, which I'm willing to go without for a TV show but I think I wanted something more here and I know I said this on the main pod and I think you disagree Chris but I do wonder if they hit the tone right because I find some of the monster designs and monsters a bit scary for the age range that I think they want to go see this film and I thought that was an odd decision and an odd thing to, for my money, slightly miss the mark on.

32:54All right, we'll get into that later on. Benjamin? I had a really good time watching this. I saw it on release day. I couldn't make it to any of the early press screenings. And so I was there on Friday on opening night and just had a really fun time watching Mando again on the big screen. I think there are really interesting things to be said, even just objectively of what this film is and what this film isn't and why those choices have been made. And I think there's a range of opinions on like, I didn't like it because it didn't do this thing that I expect from Star Wars, which I totally understand but my pure experience of watching it was just I had a really fun time and it was two hours of wall-to-wall action for better or worse.

33:36With occasional bits of cute Grogu which I know you're not averse to. And just full of creatures and droids and you go like 20 minutes in this film and you're like I haven't seen a human face and I kind of love that. It was it ticked some of my Star Wars boxes of just loving all the weird guys and packing a film with those in a way that you can't really get away with in the Skywalker saga where it's necessarily sort of anchored by a human presence. Even though you've got Din Djarin in this, he is helmeted to cover that fleshy, fleshy head for most of the movie. So yeah, you have huge amounts of the film that is just like, here is a guy in a suit of armor with a helmet on talking to a tiny puppet next to another tiny puppet with a big CGI alien next to him flying off to a planet full of slugs.

34:36I loved that. So I had a really fun time with it, and I'm really excited to discuss it because I think it is an interesting film in what it is and what it isn't doing, and I think we're going to unpack a lot of that.

34:49Chris Hewitt:Yes, yes, we certainly are. Amon? I thought it was just okay. I didn't have an unfun time watching it. The puppetry, as Ben's pointing out, I think is incredible. Pedro Pascal looks lifelike. It's really great. I wish more life looked like that. I'm not sure. I can't wait to talk about the little bit of Goran's score. I think his value to the Star Wars franchise cannot be overstated. His score is incredible. But I did find this to be overly safe. I did find this to be lacking in a really engaging plot, and character advancement, this film doesn't really give you that. On a wider Star Wars level, it doesn't really push anything forward as well, which I think is part of what you're alluding to in terms of what this film is and isn't.

35:46So yeah, I walked away, and it does feel quite forgettable. there were times watching it there were times watching it when I was having fun there were times watching it and I felt bored and so yeah a very mixed bag walking away from this one

36:02Chris Hewitt:let's talk about I started off with Favreau instead of talking about the things that did happen in a movie I started off talking about something that I expected to be in the movie and wasn't in the movie and that is Grogu talking what you were saying there I'm on about it not really advancing the relationship between Mando and Grogu or advancing their characters necessarily or fitting into the wider Star Wars saga or indeed the Mandalorian saga that they've spent quite a lot of time on. Those were interesting choices as was the choice to not have him talk in this movie. Did you think that was going to happen?

36:39Yeah, previously, because I did the cover story for this and I did ask about this. I said, is this a chance when you're doing a movie, is this a chance to take big new steps with these characters? says, we've never heard Grogu speak, and sort of left that hanging there. And I think that was to Filoni, and he did a little chuckle and then avoided the question, which could mean, oh, he is going to speak and I'm not going to tell you, obviously. Or it could mean, in this case, no, we're not doing any of that. This is just... They did talk a lot for the cover story in a way that I initially found slightly tricky as the person writing that feature to go, what would be really helpful is if you told me, this is the biggest Mando adventure ever, and we're doing crazy new things with the characters that we've never done on TV.

37:26And they didn't say any of those things because that's not what they did. And what they did talk about was how these are characters that have an imprint in the general consciousness. If you know nothing about Star Wars, you have seen Baby Yoda. You know what Baby Yoda is. and so they have designed a movie that if it's like, hey, I know Baby Yoda, there is Baby Yoda movie in cinema. I go see Baby Yoda movie.

37:51Chris Hewitt:That's your inner monologue. This is what I think all the time. I'm thinking that now. Why am I here? I could be watching Baby Yoda movie. That they've designed this thing so that anybody can watch it and try to divorce as much of that context as possible, which as fans is a slightly strange experience, but also maybe is a good strategy to open it up to the widest audience possible. Does this feel like over-correction to you with what the reception was to Rise of Skywalker? I know that you like that film, but... I don't think it's a response to anything else. I think, if anything, I don't think it's a response to anything Star Wars.

38:31I think it's a response to where Disney is at with Disney+. If you look at the broadness of what everything is happening on Disney +, across Disney's own stuff, across Marvel, across Star Wars, we've gone through several years of, we're going to throw vast amount of money into the money pit, making streaming series after streaming series, huge budgets, give you something that's almost a cinematic experience, but in your living room, that was kind of the experiment. Now we have seen a total scaling back on that on every level. If you think of Marvel, so many of those shows have gone away and the ones that are happening at the moment are the ones that are inherently more televisual so daredevil and wonder man which are small street level character pieces essentially um all of the like disney plus original movies things like freaky at friday was going to be for disney plus why are we putting on disney plus let's stick it in cinemas and make a couple of hundred million why wouldn't we so they're pivoted in that sense and even in star wars beyond this we've got a Soaker season two coming, obviously that is Dave Filoni's baby.

39:38But beyond that, we don't know what the future of Mando is or the Mandoverse, whether that's in cinemas, whether that's on the small screen. And I think really the decision here was if we are going to try and pivot back away from Disney Plus in a Star Wars sense, the safest bet, the thing that everybody knows from Disney Plus Star Wars is Baby Yoda and the Mandalorian. Therefore, we should do a Mandalorian and Grogu movie and if we're doing a Mandalorian and Grogu movie and we don't want to alienate people who have not seen that show and just like that character in its abstract sense we make a big movie that feels true to who those characters are but designed that anybody can go and see it and that's what I think this is and I think that is the context that it has come from rather than a response to anything too lore-based in the show and the reaction to season three which was very heavily like Mandalore and the Darksaber and Bogotan and all of that stuff or the response to Rise of Skywalker I think it comes from a different place I agree I think it's essentially brand building because I think that Grogu baby Yoda whoever um has has become one of Disney's most recognizable and valuable totems if you like I mean like who's buying fucking Mickey T-shirts these days.

40:59No one. They're buying Stitch and they're buying Grogu. Right? And so this is a chance to expand the reach of that to a much, much bigger audience. It's the same reason they made Cars 3 because for some reason that's incredibly popular. And they thought, we're going to make the best one. Cars 3, it's the best one. You know what I mean? I think the merch brand is much, much more valuable. I mean, it doesn't matter to them. I think that this has been just okay at the box office. I don't think people are going to lose their jobs in the same way that Solo underperforming did. I think that the box office calculus has changed since then, even since then to now.

41:37And I think that this is an underperformance, but I don't think it's going to be dealt with as harshly.

41:42Chris Hewitt:We should explain that underperformance for people who don't know, but it opened to a four-day weekend of under 100 million in the States and under 200 million worldwide, which as the first movie of the summer season is, I mean, not great, Bob. It's okay. Certainly for a Star War, it ain't good. Yeah. On a budget of about$160 million which is around what it's taken at the worldwide box office but add$300 million easy for marketing on top of that. So it's currently still in the red. I don't think it will necessarily stay deep in the red but I certainly think with merch and everything else it will end up very, very comfortable for them.

42:22I get the thinking behind all of that, but as a Star Wars fan, as a viewer of these things, I'd rather something take a bigger swing and try and be about something rather than feel like four episodes of a TV show put together, which is at times what this film feels like. I 100 % agree with that. 100%. I don't think any of us are saying otherwise, but I think that is the calculus of the business side of things here. But I think what's interesting here is more just what we're going to get into, which is talking about it as a film, because I'm inclined to agree with you. It feels like TV episodes to me.

42:59I said on the show that it was, you know, three episodes in a trench coat. James didn't even think it felt like a season finale. I would disagree at least with that. But what I do think is missing is what you just said, is that idea of saying something about something and sort of, there's, the closest we get to that really is Mando's little thing about, you know, the old take care of the young and then the young take care of the old. And that's a lovely sentiment and a lovely thing to illustrate. And it's a lovely thing to say about, you know, a character who's still goo-goos and gagas, though, which is interesting.

43:32So I think, but it doesn't really necessarily deliver through on that. It's not about generational change. It's not really about Rotter the Hutt taking over from the twins. He's his own man. He's his own man. He's going off to do his own thing. It's not, so it doesn't feel like it does have a big theme that it wants to explore. And I think that's, I guess, part of my big issue is that it's not that I didn't have a nice time watching it. I don't require every Star Wars movie to finish with a big epic space battle, actually. That's not what I'm missing. What I think I'm missing is a sense of purpose to the film more than beyond just here are some cool characters doing some cool stuff.

44:12I want more of a purpose.

44:13Chris Hewitt:It has to feel like it matters. It has to feel like it. And that's not to say that, you know, again, that they have to end up in a fundamentally different place or that they have to become fundamentally different people. True. But it has to go somewhere and achieve something. But if, for example, and I like to film, there's a lot of stuff I want to talk about that I feel very positively minded towards. And I think there aren't necessarily in this movie, I'm on big swings, but I think there are a lot of interesting little swings from Favreau and Filoni that I definitely want to talk about. Some are stylistic as well.

44:49Chris Hewitt:but if you can skip this movie entirely say for example they did make a Mandalorian season 4 or made another movie if you can skip this movie entirely and the only thing that will surprise you when you watch the next installment of Mandalorian and Grogu whatever that is, wherever it is is that Mando's got the Razorcrest back then that's possibly a failure of storytelling I understand what you're saying Ben and I understand there are possible reasons for doing this, for having it so self-contained. I understand all of that. I'm just a little disappointed by it. I'm a little disappointed by the lack of ambition.

45:27Chris Hewitt:Ultimately, I felt that there should have been something in this movie that mattered. It didn't necessarily have to be Grogu saying daddy, or whatever it was that he was going to say. But I felt that it needed to have a bit of a longer-lasting imprint on the characters for me, as fun as it is. otherwise you run the risk i think of appearing to the outside world a very cynical in your in your thought processes uh of oh just slap a mandalorian grogan movie out it doesn't have to advance the story necessarily and just put the word star wars on it and people are going to come to it in their droves and i would say that the mixed critical reception to this and the box office so far would indicate that people from a very early stage with this movie felt that it wasn't a must-see.

46:16Chris Hewitt:And for me, a Star Wars on the big screen has to be a must-see. And I feel like, had it continued, the story, maybe not of Bo-Katan and the endless Banter-Thor civil war that was going on in season three, again, which I didn't mind, but wasn't anywhere near as good as the heights of season one and two. If they had taken a slightly bigger swing in terms of storytelling and the character development, I think maybe people would have responded to it a bit more favorably than they have. I don't know. I think it's just interesting you talking about the ambition of the film and I think to us, if this film was aimed really at us, the ambition of the film would be to do a big advancing arc with the characters and move them forward.

46:56I don't know. But I think the ambition of this film, and I'm not saying it's an ambitious ambition, but I think the ambitious, but I think the ambition of this film... Are we saying ambitious too much? Unambitious ambition. I'm being ambitious with the amount that I'm saying ambitious. It is effectively, it skews quite young. I think this is part of Helen's thing as well, maybe the tonal thing of like, it's sometimes quite violent, but it's also skews quite young that it is almost designed to be like my first Star Wars movie that if you were three when The Rise of Skywalker came out, you're now 10 and you are the perfect age to go and see The Mandalorian and Grogu and to enjoy these characters, to be shown these characters for, you know, who they are, who we've known them to be, if not particularly moving that forward.

47:42And then saying to your parent, oh, I like this bit, or I liked that monster, and it's, well, actually, if you go back, that one comes from here, and we can watch that one when we get home. It's on Disney +, whatever. I think we always talk about the fact that we all love this stuff. I love this stuff deeply. But Star Wars is and always has been for the children. and I think what I really enjoy talking about with this is that like it's our place to discuss yeah what this film is and isn't doing and the things that it's successful at and how it functions as a movie and what we think is successful but I think purely the film itself is aimed at that younger generation and giving them their first Star Wars experience rather than even for us who have followed the show and talked about it for hours and hours and hours across those three seasons in Book of Boba Fett

48:30Chris Hewitt:but I think that's the case That's always been the case with Star Wars, right from the off. I mean, that's what George Lucas, the original Star Wars, New Hope, is aimed at four or five-year-olds, really. And he took risks. And I don't think there are risks necessarily in this movie. I think you can do everything you're saying that they did with this man while also telling a good story. Din and Grogu end up exactly where they start. They have a new ship, I guess. They have a new ship. But beyond that, that's not enough to hang a two-hour film on for me. I think it's interesting, like, really the character evolution is a reaction to season three rather than something that happens across this film.

49:09Because I think the significance of this being the Mandalorian and Grogu is that Grogu has evolved from being the sort of helpless sidekick in the cot, in the hover pram, to now being a character who can operate in his own right. I kind of wish they leaned a bit more into this in the film that moment half maybe two thirds of the way through where you have that whole section where it's just Grogu has been taken out I was like oh is this what they're doing like the first half of the film was the Mandalorian and then this is the and Grogu I wish they made a little bit more of that to be honest because I think it could sustain it and it's one of the absolute best bits of the film but I don't think in season two particularly you could have had Grogu going off on his own adventure or even really in season 3 by the end of season 3 you got to the point that he is a Mandalorian apprentice in his own right and I like that they made the most of that here and gave Grogu his own stuff separately to Mando that is an evolution of the character but the characters should actually change

50:15Chris Hewitt:through the course of the film it's like between season 3 and now they're gone like okay we can do this with the characters now so let's do that rather than showing them to actually evolve across the course of this one. Yeah, that sequence where Grogu takes over as the lead character of the movie, I thought was really, really lovely. It's got this kind of, I don't know how long it lasts. It feels like it's 20 minutes, maybe. But it's really lovely and bucolic and a bit languid. It's like slow cinema. I call it Bella Tar Wars. Oh, boy. Come on. But it's really, really nice. I just wish it had been something like that maybe a little bit earlier.

50:51Chris Hewitt:but at the same time I was really enjoying Mando I love Mando I think Mando's a great character great character and his shenanigans are always entertaining I mean I'm not saying it's substance by any means but I really enjoyed how much of this film was Mando walking into rooms beating the shit out of everybody and leaving because we actually haven't seen that Mando in a while that's really more of the Mando who was in season one season two and I think because of the wider mythology thing and the dynamic with Bogotan and the dynamic with Grogu that sort of took a back seat of him as like the cool gunslinger who like walks in and fucks shit up and is the coolest guy in the room and so also if you're thinking of this film as like effectively a reintroduction of these characters to a new audience it was just cool to see Mando just being like mega cool Mando again and so much of the film is just it makes sense to me as a summer movie because it is at the expense of other things like wall-to-wall action It is just thing takes you to place where big action thing happens, takes you to place where the big action thing happens.

51:57And that's where I think they were trying to get away from this, oh, it's a TV show turned into a movie, kind of regular criticism of, oh, it doesn't feel big enough. It doesn't feel big screen enough. I think they delivered on that aspect of the big screen experience. There's so much action. There's so much, you know, go here and fight somebody, then go here and fight somebody, then go here and have a quick conversation, then fight somebody. Like, there's a lot of that going on. but it's the why that I think is missing. I don't have any major issues with really any of the action, again, except maybe some of the creature design because I genuinely think, and I know my niece and nephew are nearly six and eight and nearly a half, and I think they would have nightmares.

52:42From that dragon snake, they would have nightmares. From the big, essentially, millipede guy in the sort of stadium fight, I think that's pretty nightmarish and the camera like lingers on those for quite a while and they are quite involved fights so it's not just a flash and you miss it kind of a thing like they're you know they're kind of up close and personal and I just think a lot of that is is quite scary for the age group that would otherwise be all over this film like 90 % of this film would be super cool for a five-year-old but I just think there are some bits that are going to give them nightmares and I don't know that that's ideal because I genuinely think if you look back at the original Star Wars, you know, the thing in the trash compactor, the rancor, they're not as horrifying, I would argue, as the dragon snake up close for that big sort of extended shot and I don't think they are lingered over necessarily in the same way.

53:40So I just feel like they could have pulled back a little bit there that they were thinking too much of the adult fans and not enough of the kids.

53:46Chris Hewitt:Oh, okay. I know you disagree. I know. And I will disagree again. But I thought in the original Star Wars, they are pretty much lingered on. But maybe not to the same extent. I will say the Dragon Snake is a fantastic design. Yeah. And that is one of my favorite sequences in the movie. In fact, I liked everything with the Hutts, bar Rotter the Hutt. You thought he was a Rotter. I thought he was his own man. and you try and be in the son of Jabba the Hutt. It's so difficult. That's why you have to talk like a dude. But that sequence, for example, where Mando first arrives on the hot world, hot planet, what's it called?

54:29Chris Hewitt:Shakira. Shakira, Shakira. Shakira, Shakira. Shakira is Chicago. Shakari, Chicago. No, it's literally Shakira, but with the two reverse. Well, he had it coming. He ends as Shakari. Oh my God. One of the best tracks on the score. Oh my God. That track has been played a lot. Which one? Shikari, is that what it's called? It's just called Shikari and it's the moment where you're like, oh yeah, Ludwig Orensen, incredible composer, but at the beginning he was a beat maker. Yes, he was. A beat maker for Childish Gambino and other people. How does one make a beat? You kind of get all the little drum bits on GarageBand.

55:11You've got GarageBand. I've got GarageBand. You can do it on Logic. I can make a beat. You can make a beat. You can let it drop. What's stopping you from being the next lovely girl? I could be. Only talent. About three feet of hair. What also was cool, it felt very Blade Runner-y. It felt like Star Wars acknowledging Blade Runner. That was fucking cool. But not just musically, but also design-wise in Shikari as well. Which one's Shikari?

55:38Chris Hewitt:Sorry, I'm really confused. The Blade Runner planet. The Blade Runner. Oh, where Martin Scorsese is. Okay. But you're talking about the huts. Yes, I'm talking about a sequence where he arrives and he descends down into the catacombs and you see all these different huts in different rooms. Oh, slugging it up together. I thought it was great. Yeah, I thought there was a real sense of mood and atmosphere in there. You're into slug orgies is what you're saying. I didn't necessarily say that, although, you know, if they're doing it and I'm watching, I'm not going to look away. It would be impolite.

56:05Chris Hewitt:I just want to know how it works. Like, what, how? Anyway. And I thought there was a lot of atmosphere in certain other sequences as well. I absolutely adored the first 10 minutes, the literally cold open. Very Bond-esque. So Bond-esque, which was, I think, their model for it. But it was great. You get a great establishment of credentials for Mando, who was John Wick in the shit out of everybody in that. You get a great little moment for Grogu when he arrives on screen and does his thing with the Force. The Grogu moment where all of the explosions are primed to go, and he's just... we've really got to fucking go I also love the Adats as elephants as sort of Hannibal crossing the Alps thing I thought that was delightful and I think even if Mando wasn't there that is a treacherous journey yeah you wouldn't I mean why are you doing that these guys have flying machines why would they fly now why would they just do that I don't really understand anyway loved the first 10 minutes and you know I thought oh this is brilliant this feels this give me proper Star Wars feels but there are other things in this movie that Favreau does that I just really appreciated the Grogu sequence on his own there are little things that haven't been done in Star Wars before, there's a credit sequence there's a time lapse sequence there's small things but I appreciate that he was able to experiment within the sandpit that he and Filoni made for themselves yeah, I would agree with all of that I really liked the Anzelans and the puppetry.

57:40We were talking about the Dragon Snake sequence before. I think that's a really strong sequence in large part because we actually get to see Pedro Pascal, his face. And I wish that Played by Brandon Wayne. I wish that there was more of this film where we got to see that because as cool as a look as the Mandalorian is, the fact that we don't have anything to react of, face-wise because he's got the big helmet on at times I think is a detriment to the storytelling. So I would have liked more of actual Pedro Pascal if we actually see his face. I think that helps that dragon snake sequence be as impactful as it is.

58:23Did you think we would see

58:24Chris Hewitt:more of Pedro's lovely face? His big fleshy fleshy head? I did think we might get a little bit more than that but I get given the character it doesn't make a lot of sense. He is very busy. He made 16 other films that year. Just on that point, though, who knows how much of this is PR spin or whatever, but I did speak to Pedro for this. And, you know, in a slightly tentative way, I was trying to get to that. Like, what is this role for you these days? And he said that, and this came from Favreau as well, that he is also in the suit a lot with the helmets. And I think that the movie element was quite a big draw.

59:03Yes. And that he said, because I said oh you've had all these films genuinely how do you fit this in around everything else and he said so many of those other things are literally like a week two weeks by which he meant materialists Eddington freaky tales and he said really that year for me he said that year for me was Fantastic Four and The Mandalorian those were like my big jobs it's an obvious joke

59:28Chris Hewitt:but I think that the film and The Mandalorian has acknowledged this as things have gone on. And the fact that in the opening credits sequence that Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder are so prominently built in this movie is fantastic, genuinely fantastic, as they are as much a part of this character as Pedro Pascal. It wouldn't work without Pedro Pascal, whether it is physicality and the moments when he is in the armor or the voice. It's a really cool, laconic voice turn. and obviously we're just joshing. But I saw him the other day in the elevator at the Soho Hotel and he was in that elevator longer than he was in this movie.

1:00:14Chris Hewitt:But anyway, that was just a joke. Just a joke we say with love. I have a question regarding Pedro Dinja in Helmet. Easy now. Obviously in season three, there's a whole season dedicated to him atoning for having his helmet removed. Yes. And he has his helmet removed again in this film. But he doesn't seem that bothered by it. He threatens to kill everyone who's taken his helmet off and then sees him with his helmet off and then he does that. I'm not entirely sure. He's not like chill about it. Yeah. He's not unbothered. Yeah, I think that was one of my things. Like, I feel like sometimes we needed the stakes to be made clearer for the people who hadn't been watching the show.

1:00:59Like, yes, the Hutts say, oh, you're shamed. we took your helmet off, you suck. I'm paraphrasing only slightly.

1:01:08Chris Hewitt:Actual quote. But at the same time, I wanted that to be a little bit more of a preoccupation for him once he escapes. Like, I know he fainted pretty quickly, but even when he wakes up, he doesn't say to Grogu, you know, as a matter of principle, I'm going to go back and kill those guys. And I kind of wanted that maybe, maybe it's a reiteration, maybe that's a thing you lose when you're editing for time. but I did want stuff like that to be emphasized. He has to go back and kill them at that point because they've seen his face. I mean, he doesn't have to. He could let it go. He could let bygones be bygones.

1:01:42But that's not him. He's not that guy.

1:01:44Chris Hewitt:Yeah, but I like that. I like the fact that it became a personal mission for him. That's something that you don't often see in Star Wars where it's usually the fate of the galaxy or a planet is at stake. No, it was very John Wickian in a way and there's a lot of John Wick in this movie, A lot of, you know, putting him into situations against like 10, 20, 30 people and watching him badass his way through it. And some of the fight choreography was great. Some of it was a bit rudimentary. And I preferred the scenes where it was great. Call me weird. But I liked that it came down to... You see my face and you motherfuckers are going down.

1:02:21Chris Hewitt:And you're saying, Ben, this is aimed at kids. There is a body count in this movie. He's killing people. It's absolutely wild. It's a murder fest. What do they call those, the big snaky type aliens who are behind him? The Amani? Yes, the Amani. He straight up slits one of their throats. They're very mean looking. Fucking hell. I think obviously you get away with it because it's creature stuff. and I like how much of this film just revels in being like a creature feature a monster movie like I said earlier on just you know you go huge amounts of time without seeing human faces but that yeah there's just like there's just odd bods galore in here and that's a massive star wars that I like from a narrative perspective I do think it's interesting you said John Wick I think that's an interesting comparison and Bond as well which I had a chat with my uh Disneyverse to co-host Sam Summers about this the other night.

1:03:11He didn't love the movie but he was talking about how it felt very like 90s Brosnan Bond in that like Bond does not evolve over the course of those films. You don't go from GoldenEye to Tomorrow Never Dies and go like well they've done this with the characters. You just turn up and this is the guy you know. And the Colonel Ward Sigourney Weaver character felt a bit like an M sort of thing. So that's an interesting comparison but in terms of what the narrative is here, to me what I found interesting was the experience of it was, oh yeah, this is The Mandalorian as a movie. Because The Mandalorian has always been weird narratively to me anyway.

1:03:51It's always had its own narrative rhythm really. It's never operated like normal TV. Something we talked about a lot in season one especially. Or normal Star Wars. It was like, oh, every other TV show would have like B plots and side characters and here you've got a 25 episode uh 25 minute episode of the mandalorian and it feels complete and not too short because it's just the a plot you're just following these guys um obviously they've done different things with that over the course of like you've got season three with the new republic episode with um uh katie o 'brien katie o 'brien and so they've done different things but this film was like oh i don't know i i'm getting the feeling of mando while i'm watching it, not just because he's on the screen, but because Mando has always been stripped down, and it's like, we give you a mission to go and do the thing, and then you make a moral choice, and then you go and do the other thing, and then consequence of moral choice comes back to bite you, and now this guy's coming for you, this bounty hunter.

1:04:52But I think what's missing for me in all that, and where the Bond comparison falls down, is that the mission and the plot in a Bond movie is very clear, the objective is very clear.

1:05:02Chris Hewitt:Also not enough shagging. wow, how are they, he can't take his helmet, never mind. But I think, I think that's where it doesn't have that, that propulsion and that propulsiveness that we quite enjoyed in the best episodes of the show. It feels like a monster of the week on the big screen, not a myth arc of a course of episodes on the big screen. Well, it's interesting though, isn't it? Because that's what The Mandalorian was and that's what we fell in love with in the first place. Yes, we fell in love with the relationship with Grogu and maybe Yoda as he was back then. But we fell in love with the Monster of the Week format and the fact that it felt like a Saturday morning serial.

1:05:37Chris Hewitt:And here is a movie that is at writ large and people have reacted mixed, I guess, mixed reactions to it. And part of that might be things like Rod of the Hut not working entirely as a character. We're going to get into that in a second. But it is interesting that people love The Mandalorian and essentially they've gone, well, we're going to give you what you loved in season one and season two. Here it is, but two hours of it with great effects, mostly. Martin Scorsese playing a chef with six arms. And people are going, eh, not so sure about that. And they must be going, what the fuck do you people want?

1:06:13Honestly. I mean, obviously, all criticisms are valid within like, yes, but I wanted this to be better or to be some. But it's also the thing that we've wondered for a while of like, what is a Star Wars movie where it's not the stake of the galaxy and a gigantic conflict?

1:06:29Chris Hewitt:Yeah. A play. it's something like for better or worse or whatever the quality of this is this is a story that is the stakes are just the mandalorian and grogu and the backdrop is i'm taking out the the imperial remnant because that's the bigger picture yeah but it was interesting to see i think that's why this weirdly felt more like a summer movie to me than like a big event christmas movie like the Skywalker stuff because because it felt kind of small and just in on these characters and the action was like oh it's quite interesting to see what feels like a very summery Star Wars movie but Star Wars was a summer thing I don't I don't get this Star Wars is Christmas thing I don't approve just saying should a Star Wars movie feel small?

1:07:16I think it could because this is it's Star Wars but it's it's not Star Wars because it's Mando and Mando's always been intimate. It's an interesting dissonance. I think it absolutely could be small. I don't think there's any reason that you can't have a very focused, very intimate story in the Star Wars universe.

1:07:35Chris Hewitt:You could argue Emperor Strikes Back is quite small. Yeah, but I do think you need to have, again, you need a sense of propulsion, you need a sense of stakes, you need a sense of, you know, maybe the characters don't have to change, but they do have to come through something and work together on something or whatever. and there are elements of that here and I look again I did have a good time with this movie but I do think these criticisms are fair because I think that is where it falls down it could just be Mando goes on a mission and has to you know essentially do roughly what he does here but I do think there's a way to just give it more oomph well possibly I don't know whether you felt that part of your frustration might lie with the fact that the as you were saying you weren't sure what the stakes were and they should have been elucidated a little bit more uh clearly but is it because the the story of the movie they kind of stumble upon it it evolves so you think it's going to be mando has to hunt down this coin fella the johnny coins character uh but it's not that it's about the huts gradually emerging as the big bads and then it's what we're nearly two thirds of the way through the movie when it's like the real crux of the film is you've seen my face, now you motherfuckers gotta die.

1:08:51Direct quote. Direct quote, yeah. And I think, but again, that could have been laid out a little bit better and I know that he is a taciturn character and this is a problem, you have a taciturn guy wearing a helmet and a character who can't speak. And I realised that that is a and I said in a review I wrote that that is a structural problem that this film has to deal with and has to negotiate but even given his stoicism and his lack of verbosity, she blethered. I think that there is still a way to set out the stakes in a quick, concise way that would just have given this more of a sense of, okay, we are here and we need to get to there.

1:09:37Here is A, there is B. How are we going to have a plan to get from A to B? I think that would have given it the propulsion that I felt was kind of missing and the sense of again purpose and the sense of drive and the sense of we have to do x to do y to do z and that it just felt like they were just kind of moseying along a lot and i know that this is western inspired and some moseying is appropriate i am i am happy for there to be moseying i love that they now have a little sort of ranch house super on board with that that they've got a little farm they've got to do the roof again though, haven't they?

1:10:10They do have to do the roof. But, you know, they can do it. I believe in them. But I get that Western thing, but even in a Western, I think there'd be the moment where they sit down and they plan around a campfire or whatever. I don't watch a lot of Western.

1:10:24Chris Hewitt:I think there is, but it just comes quite late. Yeah, exactly. It comes quite late, and it's barely sort of laid out. And again, especially in a way that kids are going to follow, and it's going to be very clear, and give a sense of what this means to the characters. Because I know that Mando has to kill those guys because they saw his face. And he does say it, but he doesn't give it any sense of real emotional weight or real, like, impact in this. I don't think. So, again, I had a nice time watching it, but I just think it could have been so much more. I think the, like, thing leads to thing leads to other things.

1:11:01Structure adds to the feeling that I think a lot of people are getting from this of it feeling small, feeling like TV on the big screen because, like, because it is episodic and we're used to this being told literally episodically and because they haven't changed that structure, it's authentic to what Mando is, but it does lead to a feeling of like, this isn't doing anything narratively different than it would do on the small screen and that's a weird feeling to have.

1:11:28Chris Hewitt:All right, let's talk about some other stuff. Let's talk about something we can all agree on. Martin Scorsese is in a Star Wars movie. So this is cinema. Absent Cinema. Has anybody asked? Did you ask Jon Favreau what the relationship is between Martin Scorsese's Hugo Durant and Rio Durant from Solo, voiced by Jon Favreau? No, because I didn't know Martin Scorsese's character name, which I think is also a flaw of this movie. A lot of characters are introduced and we don't know what their names are. It's classic Star Wars. You've got to learn the names by seeing the toy packaging. No, I don't think it is.

1:12:09I don't think it is. I think it's Dave Filoni sort of banking on maybe too much people having seen Clone Wars or whatnot because Zeb, I think he's named once near the end. Maybe he just doesn't care.

1:12:23Chris Hewitt:That's not a Star Wars thing. If you go back to A New Hope, people are introducing themselves to each other throughout that movie. Getting the character names in your head. That guy, the Imperial guy, that prick, the imperial prick they're going after in the opening, the cold open. Hemke Madeira is the actor's name. I only just learned his character name by looking at the IMDB. So that to me feels like that's kind of vital information. I'd like to know who these people are. So I didn't know what Scorsese's character was called. So therefore, I wasn't able to ask Favreau that. It's obviously the same species as Rio Durant, but he is officially a fellow Durant.

1:13:04timeline wise what Solo is it's like it's nine years before the Battle of Yavin no is it nine I thought it was five

1:13:14Chris Hewitt:yeah nine years before Battle of Yavin and then this is like five or six years so like 16, 17 years apart so are they brothers are they father and son are they estranged cousins what is their what is their lifespan I mean these are the questions that will trouble us all. Scorsese, I'm sure he wanted to know. I'm sure he didn't. And is it like if you bring a director in for a voice cameo, are they therefore going to be a Durant? You know, if it's been Favreau and then it's Martin Scorsese, do you have to have director credentials? Bryce Dallas Howard comes in to do a voice cameo. Are we going to get...

1:13:53So I presume Hugo was also named after Scorsese's Hugo, possibly. So Bryce Dallas Howard, Claire from Jurassic World, Claire Durant's brilliant

1:14:03Chris Hewitt:are they related to Robert G. Durant the bad guy from Sam Raimi's Darkman that would be just fine let's say yes yeah yeah and so we also get the I guess the other option is the Dave Filoni you get to be an X-Wing pilot option right which is all of the directors Trapper Wolf so that's Dave Filoni it's Deborah Chow who directed on Mando and Obi-Wan Kenobi Lee Isaac Chung who directed on Mando season 3 and also Skeleton and crew Doug Chang legendary production designer and concept artist Doug Chang is also part of Blue Squadron are they? So that's Dave is like the recognizable one not least because he's wearing the fucking hat I am not taking this hat off for you or for anybody else If I take off this hat you all have to die I did chuckle at both of his cameos Yes indeed Yes, indeed.

1:15:01Chris Hewitt:Yeah, but Scorsese as a character, did you like him? Did you think he was more prominent than you expected? He was, actually. Fifth or sixth build, I believe. Like the most expressive voice performance in this whole film. No disrespect to Pedro because he has to do a largely stoic thing. But I mean, we're going to get onto the Jeremy Allen White performance, which literally just makes me laugh. It just makes me laugh. But Scorsese, he's really given it some and he's being full Scorsese and I love that. He did not throw it in. Indeed. He was cute. Yeah, it was fun. I liked him. Also, those sandwiches look delicious.

1:15:39I want one of those. Give me that cute meat. Do you want one of those sandwiches? Surely they are literally cooking something up in Galaxy's Edge right now to be able to order one of those

1:15:48Chris Hewitt:crazy Durant sandwiches. Give me a Durant sandwich. All right. Yeah, we liked him. He was good. What about Sigourney as Colonel Ward? I liked that. She was fine. Yeah. I thought initially it was kind of a little bit, I don't know. Why have you cast Sigourney Weaver? A little bit in this nothing role. And then I was worried, oh, because she's so overqualified, is she going to be a baddie? And I'm glad that they didn't go that way. But I liked just having her in charge of some rebellion stuff. That was fun. I think the only thing was when I saw 18 minutes of this, like a week or so before I saw the rest of it, and this was in the 18 minutes, and it did feel very TV-y.

1:16:30I mean, apart from the fact that she's Sigourney Weaver, it was just, you know, talking in a bar, giving Mando an assignment, and we've seen that so, so much. I like that apparently in the arena, there's a tribute to Carl Weathers, but it's in, I've forgotten the name of the alphabet. You'll remember the, it's in the Star Wars alphabet. Adelphi base. Yeah, so it's Weathers Apollo, apparently. Oh, written in Oribesh. Written in Oribesh, yeah. That's cool. Because that was one of my things that I felt a bit weird about. Obviously, they're trying to not bring in extraneous stuff. But honestly, I expected Carl Weathers' name in the credits as a tribute to.

1:17:09Or they literally go back to Navarro. And I was like, is there going to be some kind of acknowledgement? And I felt a bit sad. Not that it's obliged to do that, but I don't know. Carl Weathers was a legend. And he's been in that show since the beginning. And being a constant companion to Mando. It's because of Grief Karga that they live on Navarra and they have their little homestead. And so it felt a bit of a shame for there not to be something to him. But I'm glad to hear that there's a little tribute to him. That's nice. But the Sigourney Weaver, it did feel like a very nothing role. It actually made me think of Stranger Things and then Linda Hamilton.

1:17:45Just like it's been a bad year for iconic female action stars being put into franchises and then given nothing to do. So it would have been nice to have seen they've been given a little bit more.

1:17:56Chris Hewitt:You were watching it and thinking, they must have cast Sigourney Weaver for reasons unknown. Not for reasons unknown. Sorry, I can't resist. Anyway. But she did get to pilot an X-Wing. She did get to pilot. Fair play. And she looks right in an X-Wing. Yeah, she really does. It's just weird because that character also is kind of existing in a lineage of Princess Leia and Mon Mothma and Admiral Holdo and Harrison Dula of these women who were instrumental in taking down the Empire and are now trying to hold the line. And I think all those other characters that Colonel Ward is in a lineage in so far are much more interesting or much more dynamic than Colonel Ward was.

1:18:44You enjoy that presence because it's Sigourney Weaver, but there's nothing above just like me and Sigourney Weaver, which is a shame. It's a little bit Basil Exposition, isn't it? Let's be honest. Speaking of characters being given nothing to do, Zeb is just the chauffeur. He does not need to be in this film. I was fine with that given... He's obviously there as a nod to Filoni and Rebels fans, but as somebody who isn't that invested, I was like, okay, there's a nod to Rebels fans. That's fine.

1:19:10Chris Hewitt:I thought they might kill him at one point. I was like, there's only one reason for him to be in this movie and that's to die, to give them something to avenge. But no, he was barely in it. But that's okay. It's not his movie. Get his own movie. Get your own movie, Seb. So they're using Sabacc cards for their Imperial wannabes, the game that Lando lost to Han Solo to lose a Millennium Falcon. So when he says, I can take everyone out in your deck of cards, it's a literal deck of cards. It's a literal deck of cards. And then the arena is laid out as a, what do you call it? Dejaric board. Which, again, I was talking to Sam about this last night.

1:19:47It's such a funny thing that, like, they spell out many times, like this is a Dejaric match. They say it like three or four times. Oh no, it's a Dejaric match tonight. So it's telling you that that's what it is. But you don't know what that means unless you specifically know that the Holochess game is called Dejaric. I think sometimes they are getting a bit high

1:20:08Chris Hewitt:on their own supply. Who doesn't know that? All right, enough talk about Sigourney Weaver and Seb. Let's talk about the character that makes the biggest impact on this movie. It is, of course, he's his own man. He is the son of Jabba the Hutt. Jeremy Allen White is Rota the Hutt. Amon, what's your take on this character? This interesting and unique addition to the Hutt. Jim's probation is the first thing that comes to mind because the man is Hench or the Hutt is Hench. Jabba the Hutt. Jabba the Hutt, Hutt, Hutt. But yeah, I think I saw an interview with Jeremy Allen White talking about his vocal performance and not really knowing what was happening because it just feels, sounds exactly like Jeremy Allen White.

1:21:00Chris Hewitt:Choices were made. Yeah. Were they the right choices, Ben? Who is to say? Have I asked the wrong person? Like I said, to be honest, this just makes me laugh. Is it stupid? Yes. Would I prefer something different? Probably yes. Does it just make me go, Oh, Star Wars. Also, yes. Because they're going for something, right? He's his own man. He's his own man. You look at him and you're like, oh no, he looks like Jabba the Hutt. And then he talks and it's Kami from the bear. And I think they're trying to play into that dissonance of like, oh, I expect you to speak Hutties and to be really menacing like Jabba.

1:21:41And have a deep, deep voice. Deep, deep voice. And actually you're like a chill dude. I think they're going for that. the result is it is just mad to see a hutt speaking as jeremy allen white with his voice barely modulated like pitched down a bit but his again i interviewed jeremy allen white about this and it was so funny because he was doing serious things on the set of the bear season five and then answering my questions about being a big buff slug and i was thinking like part of my questions what do you do with the voice are you speaking in a different way obviously they're going to like put some effects and things but are you yeah you like changing the way you speak and he didn't really have an answer for that because it's like no i'm just saying it's hard it's hard to be your own man which they also for all the things we say oh maybe they have to cut this out for pacing or time whatever they have that conversation twice in this film he says i'll

1:22:37Chris Hewitt:be my dad's jab of the hood i'm trying to be my own man he says it 47 times i counted a bit like in the second screen, make sure the audience is paying attention, we need to say this again and again, felt a little bit unnecessary in that regard. Yeah, but with so much of the rest, like under-discussed, it just felt even more jarring. Yeah, jar-jar. Jar-jar. Jar-jar-ring, didn't jarring. But I mean, on the Jar-jar front, the thing with Rotter the Hutt is that nobody can be like, they've besmirched the name of Rotter the Hutt because Rotter, as he first appeared in the Clone Wars movie, was also like the Jar-jar element of that movie using Jar Jar we all love and respect Jar Jar now but to so much of the Clone Wars movie revolves around again a mission to rescue Rotter the Hurt directed in part by Dave Filoni as this film is too and I mean it was efficient to bring him back I guess and use him again interestingly I think a lot of people have been like why is Dave Filoni so obsessed with all his creations why has he shoved Rotter the Hurt into this film it's as far as I know it's a Favreau thing Favreau is obsessed with the Hutts because I asked Filoni about this of like how weird is it to be bringing Rotter the Hut back 20 years later and he's like oh that's that's John he loves the Hutts he's obsessed with the Hutts and he wanted loads of Hutts in this movie so they're kind of enablers for each other again for better or worse depending on how you find their stuff within Star Wars I don't know there's a lot I liked about this movie I thought Rotter the Hut missed the mark by a considerable distance.

1:24:12Chris Hewitt:I don't understand. He body slammed them up. I don't understand the choice. I don't. I mean, I guess. I don't. I mean, I don't understand. I don't understand the voice choice. Yeah, the choice of voice. I don't really understand what the abs, how that makes sense. I get that. They made him fucking sexy and it worked. Is that why you were confused? I think it's why I'm confused. But I think that the idea, I think that it's not a good idea to suggest that all the members of a race are bad, even if they're Hutts and are known as gangsters. That's not the suggestion. There's some members of a family are bad.

1:24:48Chris Hewitt:Like the Corleones, they're all bad. I think if you read the Wikipedia, wow, that, what? Which godfather did you? All the Corleones have blood on their hands. So, there. What about Sofia Coppola? Well, who cares about that? Okay. Anyway, the point is, she's her own man. I'm not my dad. But what I'm trying to say is it's not great to suggest that all Hutt's and it is if you read the Wikipedia Andrea does seem to be a race not just a family have always been gangsters and this entire sort of civilization is gangsters that's problematic and that's problematic so that's extremely George Lucas I get the urge to like bring in a good Hutt and sort of like push back on that narrative that you yourself have established a little bit that's okay I think it's just the choices in that Hutt's portrayal he's called Rota can I say genuinely the best choice they made with Rotter the Hurt.

1:25:41The scene with Rotter the Hurt that I actually genuinely really like and it's just a lovely image is Rotter and Grogu playing on the beach together like frolicking. Chris is looking dead-eyed at me. You didn't like the frolicking.

1:25:53Chris Hewitt:The frolicking was intense. I enjoyed the frolicking. It reminded me of Rocky and Apollo on the beach in Rocky. I think what was nice there is that's the moment that I think maybe convinces Mando that Rod is not a rotter. Yeah. You know, and so that was a nice little moment. The idea that he is still a kid, even if he's like adults. Does that mean that Jabba was like that at one point? Do you think Jabba had abs or jabs? The weird thing about the abs is like, they're so unnecessary. Like the whole idea is that basically, the Hutts are giant. No, but the Hutts are not fat. They're like kingpin, right?

1:26:35They're really powerful. So why would they need visible abs? It's such a bizarre storytelling decision. It's so weird.

1:26:46Chris Hewitt:It's to make sure that he is his own man. Because no one else in the huts has a six-pack. They all have kegs. And he has glorious... It's not like... If we're talking about weird hut stuff, the twins sleep in the same bed in like a yin-yang formation. There's a weird vibe between those twins. I'm 69. You said it. You're acting like this is the first time in Star Wars that twins have acted inappropriately. I'd say that's in the tradition. Yeah, Lucas cut a scene from Empire where Luke and Leia slept head to toe as well. But we don't like to talk about that. Oh, my God. So, yeah, brought to that.

1:27:30Chris Hewitt:That's a thing that happened in this movie. Totally a thing. Yeah. I was trying to imagine a Huttese gym. What does that look like? It's run by salacious crumbs. Come on, look at me. I can't imagine what a human gym looks like. I am asking the wrong person. You are correct. They do have those tiny wee arms. Hey, I'm right here. They have. All right, okay. How would they do that? They could play in gold for Everton. Anyway. All right. Hello. let's see I wrote down some things I don't think you want a hot goal for one of your opponents you do because he would fill the goal yeah that's what I'm saying but you don't want it for Everton in that case is what I'm saying oh that would be bad yeah alright we're going to take some listener questions in a second but I noticed that the first line is something like we can all agree life was better under the empire and I didn't get a chance to ask Favreau how weighted with significance that line was but they must know that some people feel that way and I think that was a little meta nod to them Amon you're one of those people aren't you um am I yes go along with it sure see I knew it what we meant to say is life is better in the Empire magazine yes and podcast yeah and the website and VIP club indeed yes we are many tentacled like the dragon snake oh boy I think he's got a one long tentacle.

1:29:03Oh, shut up.

1:29:04Chris Hewitt:All right, okay. All right, so a couple of questions here are from Blue Sky. Here are from Blue Sky. Steve Talentire, went to see Mando with my wife who couldn't pick Darth Vader out of a police lineup. I think you could.

1:29:21Well, maybe not if they all had their helmets on.

1:29:23Chris Hewitt:Yeah, but he's the seven-foot-tall dude dressed in black armor with a lightsaber. I'm saying I can pick Darth Vader out of my lineup oh dearie me and my 14 year old son who was just getting into Star Wars after years of indifference they both loved it it's a two hour live action Saturday morning cartoon Ben I found your burner account I haven't told you yet about my 14 year old child I've been keeping that secret for a long time he's trying to be his own man yeah it says I'm bitter and whinged but the pointlessness of it the lack of progression the lack of structure Ben I haven't found your burner account.

1:30:01Chris Hewitt:I found them on. But Star Wars maybe isn't for us anymore. Maybe it shouldn't be. We'll always have Andor. I agree with this, actually. I really do. I think things that you loved as a kid don't have to continue to be for you when you get to adulthood. And it is unfair to deny kids today the same experience that you had. And I think this is a problem for fandom generally. I think this is maybe something we'll be talking about again soon with another film that's coming out. But I do think that there has been a problem and it's something that Star Wars in particular, I think, has really, really struggled with to kind of figure out how to, you know, how to tread this line, how to walk this line between people who saw A New Hope in 1977 and now want something that's like that, but more violent and more grown up because they are more violent and more grown up, or at least one of the two.

1:30:55Sometimes the violent one, actually. And then, you know, the fact that it should, and probably Disney wants it to be for kids who will then buy in for a lifetime of Star Wars love as well. And I think there is a real problem in trying to figure out how to keep both those groups happy. Andor, of course, did it by jettisoning the kids. But the big screen outings that are trying to please everybody really do have a very tough time. And I think the adults in the room need to be more forgiving and understanding of that and realize that, you know, if you want a huge, gory body count and you want to see the blood and you want to see the heads pull off or whatever else, like maybe that's why you have John Wick.

1:31:42And if you are willing to kind of step away from some of the, you know, gorier aspects, that's when you can come and see the Mandalorian with your 14-year-old or whatever. I think on the big screen, absolutely, I would agree with the challenges in trying to appeal to different subsets, different groups. But in animation, I actually think they know that over and over again. And I've said it before, the most consistent high quality Star Wars of the last few years, in my opinion, has been in animation. Okay, and or, yes. But in terms of consistent, you know, show to show quality, I do think animation.

1:32:20just recently we had Maul Shadow Lord which is a darker sort of slice of the Star Wars animated universe but I think that that appeals to kids as well as adults who are familiar with that character and it moves that character forward in interesting ways and you had the Bad Batch before that I'm down as a fan of the Clone Wars and Rebels of course so yeah I think in animation they do it better but on the big screen there's definitely some challenges there alright

1:32:47Chris Hewitt:okay well let's take some questions from Instagram before we wrap this bad boy up. Taking them in the order in which I am seeing them. People DM'd me on Instagram. I'm ctah1976 if you want to do that. Darth Rodney. It's not a question. It's a comment. Scorsese is cooking using a mudhorn egg like the one Mando obtained in season one. Disgusting. The moment in that season one episode, I mean, that's incredible. You're like, why do the Jawas want this egg? And then they just crack it open and they're just gooping it in their mouths. It's disgusting. It's horrible. What else do you do with an egg, by the way, Ben?

1:33:25Leave it be. So is somebody farming mudhorns if you've got a supply, if he has a regular supply of mudhorns for his fast food joint?

1:33:32Chris Hewitt:And we know how difficult it was to obtain one egg. Right. So how does that work? Jesus. Anyway, just a thought. His prices must be through the roof in this economy. So high. So high. I'm allergic to earth eggs. I assume it's the same form. No. Oh, it's a big assumption. Yeah. I think it'd be fine. Does anyone have a piece of... I should just risk that. Yeah. For that sandwich, yeah. That's the best sandwich I've seen on screen since Birds of Prey. Also egg-based. What was the one on... Oh, yeah, that was a good one. Can we just make a nice sandwich without egg? How hard can it be? Come on. Egg is delicious.

1:34:08Chris Hewitt:Egg is delicious. I wouldn't know. Have you never had an egg because of the allergy thing? So it wasn't like a late-blooming allergy. It was something like... You've always had it. Yeah, as far as I know, like... I had the scratch test for allergies when I was a teen. After I had had an allergic reaction and we needed to sort of find pyroton and sort of, you know, calm the reaction, the following day we went for a scratch test and eggs, fish and nuts can't eat. I'm allergic to scratches. But you can eat cake, though. Yeah. Cake is a made-up drug, though. I can eat egg that's been properly cooked into the biscuits and cake and whatnot, but like scramble there go and find that that I cannot do I'm suspicious of this it seems like a likely story no absolutely okay I think you'd be okay with the Mudhorn egg I think it'd be fine but don't worry it's fictional in a different planet and it was fucking ages ago anyway so you'll be fine you'll be fine fucking ages ago in a galaxy far far away as they famously tell you which this film didn't have that no none of the opening and the opening credits sequence as well that's a brand new thing I don't think Solo or Rogue One did that so that's new new and different and I enjoyed it I liked it well done everybody Dean Bows or Bows says much like the other bounty hunter yeah he was a he was a badass embo he was cool really good couple months for characters with cool hats as weapons well this is Mortal Kombat it's like you've seen this question much like the other bounty hunter should more characters wear hats shaped like their ship?

1:35:49Chris Hewitt:Yes, his ship is his hats. It's great. Yeah, like Boba Fett doesn't have that. Slave I looks nothing like Boba Fett's helmet. It would be like us driving around in cars shaped like caps for no reason. Like a baseball cap. I could see that. I guess like Marie Antoinette, her husband technically would have been head of the French Navy and she wore those big ships in her hair. So there is precedent for it in Earth history. She did famously say, let them eat mud-horring egg. I don't remember if those were her exact words she said that she said it she said do I make you mud horny baby sorry she said I'm not sure I'm not sure it's worth repeating but I'm doing it anyway she said famously do I make you mud horny baby I don't even think she said the thing about letting them eat cake I think that's no she said it in French oh okay yeah sounds very different in French mange he's watched a brioche yes that's the one Kieran Wattie says why were the twins and Embo not named but the Jarek match was said three times like we know yep we've discussed that yeah I think that's a weird one I think also they are just happy to let you there's a lot of visual storytelling in this as much as there's not loads of storytelling they are happy for this world just to exist visually and then you can Wookieepedia names of things you don't need to know who Embo is to know that's a badass.

1:37:16Like, it appears sort of silhouetted against sort of lightning strikes. Like, that's obviously a badass. I do slightly rankle, to be fair. Batman did it first. With people, I think a lot of people aim criticisms at Star Wars and be like, oh, but then you have to watch The Clone Wars to know who Embo is. No, you don't have to. No, Embo is barely in The Clone Wars. When that character was revealed for this film, I was like, do I know that guy? And then it was like, oh, yeah, he was in a couple of vlogs. I was like, initially, is that Cad Bane? Cad Bane again? Is that his brother? Right. Cad Bane would be more recognizable because Cad Bane is a more prominent character than Embo is.

1:37:53And we all remember Cad Bane very well. I remember mostly you guys going nuts about him. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

1:37:59Chris Hewitt:He hurt a hair on Cobb Vanth's head. I know. That's who I was hoping would turn up for no reason this time. If we're talking just random cameos. He's surely out of the tank by this point. He's surely out of the tank with his hair fully restored. The flashback to tank? Yeah, I think so. He says, I heard you needed a sexy cowboy to help you out. Oh my God, he's so right. Then he strolls in. He's all sexy. He moseys. He comes from Mos Eisley. Hey. Thank you. Thank you. Thought of that literally half an hour ago and I was waiting for a moment to get it in. Anyway, yeah, I missed him. I missed him.

1:38:36One of my favorite Ludwig themes is his theme for Cobb Vanth, which is awesome.

1:38:44I don't recall it sounding quite like that

1:38:54Chris Hewitt:James Gobble or Gobble says what's your favourite unselling moment I've been quoting oh big pipe ever since that's the one yeah I think that's the best one I did enjoy that they brought back horrible baby yes that was good the best joke the best joke related to them is the size of their ship that is the single best joke in this entire film Mando looking at the ship and having to say I will not fin is so good also though that's something that we haven't necessarily touched on is well the Anzellans and all their glory but the this film revels in using its movie budget to play even more with all of those things and to like mix and match, like almost mixed media in a way with all of the Star Wars production toys.

1:39:45So when you have that moment and it's Grogu and the Anzalans off on a mission together, it's like I am watching five puppet characters all at the same time traversing this planet. That's amazing. There's a point towards the end when Mando goes back to fuck up the Hutts and he fights those like sentry robots, the big sentry droids. And I was like, I am watching Phil Tippett Studio stop-motion animation mechs. And then I'm watching a real puppet Grogu ascend a stop-motion figure. Like, how are they doing that? Well, they stop motion because someone asked about that.

1:40:28Chris Hewitt:That's Tippett Stop Motion. An intentional edge. And I believe also the ATRT that Mando drives at the start of the film on the snowy planet. which we don't know if that's Hoth. I assumed there's a chance it's Hoth. But when he's kind of going down the mountain on the AT-RT, I'm pretty sure that was also possibly some CGI, but also some of the movement of it, I think. Yeah, I liked all that stuff. I liked those mechs. I thought they were very, like the Montechi ones in The Fifth Element, who I think are great. Oh, yes, yes, yes. But I liked those big, burly robot mechs. I liked them because it was classic.

1:41:04Chris Hewitt:It's Chekhov's mechs. You see them in the, yeah, mech-offs. Mech of's mech. Thanks, Ben. You see them early on. You go, oh, man, there's going to be fighting them at some point, those big motherfuckers. And yes, indeed, that's exactly what happened. I like the Anzellans. They were freaking amazing. They were super cute. Thank you. Very, very funny. Well done, Shirley Henderson, once again. Very scared for the one Anzellan who gets cutted away by Embo's dog. Yeah. It's a scary dog. That's where it was kind of kiddish because there was lots of things where people were picked up in something's mouth and thrown.

1:41:39They weren't bitten in half. So that was, I mean, it did pull its punches for the kids, but I just think some of the, you know, the design itself was the problem for me. To be clear, I would have cried if that dog picked up whichever Anselm that was. They all have names now. I think he could kill one of them. And just bit it in half would be, but I think one of the lines, it has a line. I think it's going, he got me!

1:42:05Chris Hewitt:I've only seen the film once. I'd like to go back just to see if I can make out everything that the Anselans say because, yeah, it did make me laugh. That would be fun when it comes on Disney Plus or whatever just to watch with the subtitles for them. Absolutely. I hope they paid Charlie Henderson 10 times, her usual fee for that, for doing 10 times the work. Before we get into some more questions, a couple of scenes I wanted to talk about. We've touched them, but we haven't really talked about them in depth. The gladiatorial combat scene, where Mando and you talked about it in terms of the scary monsters, but what do you think of the scene overall?

1:42:36Chris Hewitt:very Attack of the Clones coded of course but despite that I liked it the yeah the marina fight yeah I to be honest I think that was like my least favourite set piece in the film partly because I think the staging of it was a bit muddy and eventually there was storytelling in the fight right I like the fact that it's like first he has to fight Rotter and then him and Rotter have to team up to fight all the Djarik monsters and then they escape the arena and they have to kind of escape and not get chomped by all the monsters and everybody's fleeing. So I like that there was an escalation of that sequence as it went on just from a first viewing when it was Rotter and Din fighting all the Djaric monsters I was there thinking there's no like shape within this battle it's kind of a bunch of stuff happening so I wanted a little bit more from that but I Again, I liked how much of this film was like monster fights.

1:43:37That's something I like. That's Star Wars. I feel like the end of the battle I find a little bit unsatisfying because they escape into the audience. So the most satisfying version of that is they eat the rich. Maybe that's just me. But that would have been fun. I was on board with those bits. But then they're just causing chaos. And because Mando is Mando and he's mission-focused and not just general do-gooder. Yeah, he kind of just leaves them there to work. And so that felt just a bit unfinished. I wanted him to, and maybe this is asking him to be more of an uncomplicated hero than he's meant to be, but I wanted him to almost in passing as he's going out, now he has his guns back, to just shoot a bunch of them to save the civilians while he stays on mission.

1:44:23Do you know what I mean? I think that would have, to me, been a little bit more satisfying, that's all. It would have brought the fight to a bit more of a conclusion.

1:44:30Chris Hewitt:I just don't think that's him. I think that's one of the things I like about the character. I think it is him, though, but I just don't think it was here. He's done a lot of good things that he did not have to do that made his bounty hunting harder than it needed to be. He does not need to be working with the New Republic. He has a moral code. He does, yeah, but I don't think... I don't think it would be out of character for him casually as he goes on his mission to shoot some bad guys. Agreed. Who says they're bad? They're just animals. To shoot some animals then. Yeah. Wow, you want them to euthanize some animals now?

1:45:05Yep.

1:45:05Chris Hewitt:All right, David Attenborough. That big, sneaky guy was trying to be his own man. He just didn't get to see it. They were all trying to be their own man. And just because they didn't have abs, you want to terminate them? Helen, you are a monster. Wow. Other sequences, we talked about the Grogu being on his own sequence, but what did you think of the thing that kind of triggers it, which is Mando being poisoned by the dragon snake bite and, you know, seemingly or succumbing to his wounds and Grogu stepping up and saving his dad. Building him this little... Adorable. So adorable. Yoda creatures make huts, I guess.

1:45:46Not that kind of hut, but the little muds. One T, not twos.

1:45:50Chris Hewitt:This hut had no abs. I like that he got his little stick, like a Yoda-type staff as well. I like that he made friends with the fisherman guy, even though he was stealing his food blatantly. Fisherman guy was great. Like, as much as some of the side characters of this don't necessarily meet the mark, that one, I believe, again, not named on screen, I think he's called Gatori. That's a very George Lucas name. Was he Stephen McKinley Henderson? It was Stephen McKinley Henderson. Oh, that's why I felt so warm and cuddly towards him. You hear the voice and you're like, okay I'm in safe hands here I'm in safe hands yeah and the fact that he you know it was a slight I guess hand wave but okay Embo tells him specifically hey the guy we're looking for has been poisoned by dragon snake poison and so then he's able to mix up a cure and like you know Grover's able to administer that thank you helpful Embo that was very helpful it really was but it moved us along so that was that was kind of nice yes one of the strongest stretches of the movie we talked about how there's not much character development but it's cool to see Grogu coming into his own in that sequence in particular and helping out his dad.

1:47:06Which Muppet movie was it where Kermit's in the swamp at the beginning? Is that the Muppet movie? That's the first one, yeah. It felt like that to me. It felt like it had a lot of that energy.

1:47:15Chris Hewitt:Why are there so many films about Grogu? Not enough. It's not easy being read. It really isn't. But that sequence as well, also alongside Big Pipe, is one of the funniest moments in the film. Grogu using the force to push Mando into the hut. And it's not big enough, and he's like, bing, bing, bing. It was a great moment. But it's lovely as well. I think we all loved the vibe of that sequence. And just as much as this film is, for the most part, wall-to-wall action and fights and monsters and stuff, To have a moment where it felt like the film was saying to everyone, just breathe and just enjoy this beautiful imagery and beautiful little character stuff.

1:48:04It was lovely to have a space for that in this film.

1:48:07Chris Hewitt:Because I actually thought there wasn't enough of Grogu being cute in the movie up until that point. I thought we had been not poorly served, but not as well served as I was hoping we would be. I didn't think there were enough memes in waiting in this film until that 20-minute segment of the film. And suddenly it's just like, oh, meme away, boys. Meme away. Meme away. Meme away. Meme away. Meme away. In the jungle, the mighty jungle. I was in the jungle. It was formless. The ground who sleeps tonight. Anyway. Anywho. Anywho. But a slight quibble with that scene or that sequence. It's one of my favorite moments of the film.

1:48:54Chris Hewitt:But Mando thinks he's dying. Mando thinks that he is saying goodbye to Grogu forever. He doesn't really think that Grogu has the wherewithal to do what he ends up doing for him. And it didn't have the emotional punch for me. Remember the end of season two, when Din Djarin takes off his helmet and says goodbye to Grogu and the tears stream down his face. and it's so so emotionally impactful and I felt that it didn't really grab grab me in the same way maybe they weren't trying to yeah but for him he thought it was a goodbye moment I don't think they were trying to I think they knew we wouldn't buy it and therefore didn't try but I agree it's a little bit of it again I just think it's it's where this film has a structural you know challenge in giving you the emotion between these two characters but they also just didn't really try.

1:49:51Because there's a slightly weird coldness as well when Mando's woken up and he has that line. He's like, I'm going to say the theme of the film now. They'll all protect the young and then the young protect the old. But he sort of imparts wisdom at him. But there's no warmth between them. You wanted a hug. Yeah, exactly. I wanted a little bit of something more there. Speaking of, what did you make of Mando calling Grogu heal? Oh, telling him to heal? It's not like... That didn't feel right. No, that wasn't great.

1:50:21Chris Hewitt:Well, listen, he's still learning. He's got a long way to go. Don't tell your son to heal like he's a dog. It's fine. He's his apprentice as well. So maybe that's what they do in Mandalorian culture. I don't know. I liked that not only did Mando have a tooling up sequence, but Grogu had a tooling up sequence as well. Which was very, very cute. I liked Mando's running battle with Hog's Breath, who was the Imperial dickhead's right-hand man. He rips off his horn. But what did you make of the final battle with the Hutts, where he exterminates them with extreme prejudice and calls in his mates to blow them up?

1:51:13Chris Hewitt:Like, bomb them. Fire on my position. Any particular reason, Mando? No, no. I mean in fairness yeah they're the Hutts they're baddies and there is a line of like oh yeah we did interrogate Jell-Boo Coyne and he was like oh yeah the Hutts it all comes back to the Hutts yes alright that's fair enough do they have nuts nevermind I don't want to know I think Rota does what are we asking he's his own man what are we asking here well he said the Hutts were up to their nuts and that prompted a question of course they've got nuts they've got Hut nuts I don't please don't expand further I don't want to know I'm afraid that's what happens.

1:51:49Oh, come on. I know.

1:51:51Chris Hewitt:Come on now. All right, let's have some final questions.

1:51:59Chris Hewitt:Final Shopaholic says, is it worth it? I haven't had time to see it yet. I think it's a good time at the cinema. And I think, you know, it's a nice film. I had fun watching it. I just, you know, I don't think it's up there with the best. That's all. Okay. Helen says, nope. if you manage your expectations yeah then I think you'd have a good time but yeah I do think there are some people going into this I know that I was going into this expecting more and wanting more from a Star Wars film than what we get oh well alright James uh Alex Abua Mandalorian and Grogu question where were the women this franchise so many great female characters even without Cara Dune who?

1:52:47Chris Hewitt:who? copyright Disney lawyers the film had what? the film had Commander Sigourney Weaver not a character really she was just there and none of the other characters alien or human were women apart from one of the twins why are all the disposable hench people and there were a lot all dudes yes it may be concerned about the future storytelling in this universe what do you all think this means for the future I think I'm obviously going to come to Ben and I'm on this Ben and Amon don't you agree that women have had it all their own way for too long finally a Star Wars for men it's about bloody time yes Helen what mic are you on?

1:53:26Chris Hewitt:wow are you turning it off? yep absolutely it's time for the men to speak no Hells Pals yeah look it's I think I think with a lot of male filmmakers female inclusion only happens when you consciously make an effort in that direction and I think with respect that maybe that effort has not been taken. So here's where we end up. You know, I get that there are certain spheres of activity. I'm not going to say human activity because there's so many aliens in this that are historically in this world male-dominated, but there is no reason in your science fiction or space opera to continue those kind of prejudices.

1:54:07And it makes no sense to me that there wouldn't be a 50-50 split in a film like this. Now, you could argue that given that they're voiced by Shirley Henderson, all of those, remember, Anzelans are female. I don't think that is clear in the text. I certainly don't think they're female coded. So I don't think you get any points for that whatsoever. I just, yeah, I just think they haven't tried. And to the extent that it is deliberate, I imagine that they were a little bit worried by the reaction of the worst people, of the worst people in the world, the Star Wars fans who kicked off about the inclusion of very good characters in the most recent Star Wars films who were female or happened to be female.

1:54:51I mean, the people who accused Rey of being a Mary Sue and had nothing to say about Luke freaking Skywalker can frankly get in the bin and stay there forever. So I imagine that if it was conscious, they were reacting and pandering to those people. but I genuinely don't think it was particularly conscious.

1:55:12Chris Hewitt:Do you think they had a studio like the studio the show, the studio do they think they had like a meeting like they do in the studio where they were like okay who do we have in this movie? Do we have enough women in this movie? Oh god they're all aliens they're all dudes they've got hot nuts all over the shop what do we do? No one's going to notice they'll be fine. I mean like I do think that those kind of meetings go on I do think that Disney are worried by the vociferousness and the just venom of the response to characters that we've seen in previous Star Wars movies. And I think they are scaredy cats who suck at that level and don't have the courage of their own convictions.

1:55:50And they should. But I don't know that I even think it was that here. I think it was just, I mean, you know, like Dave Filoni created Ahsoka, who's a great female character. It can be done. If you're kind of forward looking at the part of that question of what does this mean for the future of Star Wars? I think if you're asking that question with a Lucasfilm hat on and with a Filoni hat on. Filoni has created or co-created and is clearly very enamored with many female characters and stars, even, as you say, Ahsoka, Sabine Wren, even Morgan Ellsworth he's kind of obsessed with, and she's in various projects.

1:56:25You've got Hera in Ahsoka as well. Hera, Syndulla. I don't think that's a Lucasfilm problem. and that's not something I'm worried about going forward but it is weird, yeah, as you pointed out in this one there is a notable absence and maybe that's a deliberate attempt to hark back to the westerns that inspired this which are also very male dominated but I just don't think that holds up sorry I don't, I think it's a galaxy far far away and there's no reason not to have to the extent that you have two genders in a galaxy far away rather than like 16 or whatever It doesn't make sense to only focus on one of them.

1:57:07I think here is possibly a side effect. As you say, even within the alien characters, there are some who are clearly gender-coded in ways, but it's possibly a side effect of the fact that so many of the characters here are puppets and creatures. There are barely any human characters in this, and maybe if it was a film that was more focused on human characters, a more significant portion of those characters would be women.

1:57:33Chris Hewitt:alright okay just a couple of last points from Instagram TJN177 asks do you know how hard it is to be your own man when your father is Jabba the Hutt if only somebody had tried to explain that concept several times in the movie Richard Norris75 asks what's best for the characters next back to a full TV series or one off TV event or cinema? Hmm. We all went at the same time. I actually would quite like them to do another film and if this was the film to introduce people again to The Mandalorian and Grogu to, with a second film, be more ambitious with the character stuff, keep it, keep it Mando.

1:58:22I don't need it to be the crossover movie yet. I thought this would

1:58:25Chris Hewitt:set up crossover stuff at one point. I thought that's where we were heading. Yeah, I mean, I think genuinely they don't know how much road they have on that sort of, because they've created a whole mini universe. We talk about the Mandoverse, right? And so we've had this film now and they were quite clear that this is like fun, standalone adventure and lots of the New Republic lore and the Thrawn stuff. It's all going to be continued in Ahsoka season two. And I think it is probably genuinely up in the air whether they do another Mando movie or season and another season of Ahsoka or something and then we get to a big kind of finale or whether they do this film do Ahsoka season 2 maybe do something else Mando and then go we just gotta wrap this up I don't know because they have stopped throwing money in the money pit on Disney Plus I don't think we're gonna get much in the way of other new Star Wars shows for the small screen what's coming up just Ahsoka?

1:59:27just Ahsoka yeah I could see Mando and Gorgie popping up in that. It's possible.

1:59:33Chris Hewitt:Yeah, I don't know. I mean, obviously Pedro Pascal is no stranger to doing TV shows. But now he is a much bigger star than he was five years ago. And I don't know that he's going to commit to that. If Ahsoka works in season two better than she did in season one, then maybe there will be appetite for a big movie finale. You bring her into The Mandalorian and Grogu 2 or something. Call it The Mandalorian and Ahsoka, Grogu and Ahsoka. I don't know. We can workshop it. The Mandalorian, Grogu and Ahsoka. I mean, we'll figure it out. maybe that's your finale then but I mean if Pedro isn't in the costume much then it's not a huge time commitment I guess that's true for him you could do it without him and just get him to literally do his life afterwards but I don't know if I don't know if he would want to do almost nothing in it because I feel like he does feel some ownership of the character so you know maybe that would feel like he certainly doesn't want to be seen to be phoning it in right so Who made the choice not to go ahead with season four?

2:00:40Chris Hewitt:Was it Disney? It was Disney, I believe, yeah. Okay. So that's really interesting because it was written. So they have a season four. And this isn't that. This is not just season four condensed into two hours. This is something different. This is something new. So I'd like to see that. I'd like to see what Favreau and Filoni had cooked up, quite frankly. I will be honest, because I asked Favreau about this, and I didn't completely understand his answer. but the gist of it was like we kind of can't just pick up that season four now that um i think more particularly once we've got to the end of ahsoka season two which has already been shot that's in post-production that should be out early next year i think they've announced yes 2027 and not this year um but that because they pushed some of the lore elements into ahsoka season two which would have been a part of Mando season four if they had made that because if you're watching Mando season four there is a strong assumption you've seen one to three and so they could have continued some of those stories whereas bringing it into a film they didn't want to bring that baggage um and so his answer was that they they've got their idea of where everything's going but by the end of Ahsoka season two the story has pushed on past the point that Mando season four would have taken place as he had written it so he still has all the scripts and i imagine they might reuse stuff or reformat some stuff but what he wrote there is it is by the time we've seen ahsoka season two i imagine the board has changed in some way and they can't just pick that up again it's fascinating but also if you look at the box office so i mean what's this going to wind up at probably 350 to 400 million if it if it tails off like normal blockbusters tail off then it's probably going to wind up around there that's the sort of money that made disney previously back away from committing to more star wars on the big screen that's the sort of money that solo made and made them can a lot of plans yeah and go ahead just with the skywalker saga to its conclusion of course with rise of skywalker and then a seven year gap on the big screen and might they react to that again and go, well, clearly there's not the appetite that we thought there was for this stuff.

2:03:00I don't know, because I do think this isn't being portrayed the same way. They are not taking the same line on this. Now, of course, there's some spin over these box office numbers, but they don't seem to see this as as much of a rejection as that was. And I think rightly so. I think the box office generally is at a different level now, and I think it is a different, calculus for all movies right now. I also, like I say, I think the merch and everything else is going to make up for a lot of that money, and it is going to... I have absolutely no worries about Disney taking a write-down, particularly on this, long term.

2:03:39I mean, the other thing is, just quickly, Starfighter, the next film, has been shot. It's out next year. This feels like, yes, it's Star Wars, it's deeply Star Wars, but it's not the Star Wars movie, it's the Mando movie. And Starfighter feels more like that's the, like, what is Star Wars going to be now? Because that's pushing the timeline forward, that's set after the Rise of Skywalker, we're heading into Uncharted territory, and it seems to be maybe pointing towards where they're taking the galaxy next. I think there's going to be a forward-looking nature to that film, whereas this was like, let's do a fun Mando adventure.

2:04:17Chris Hewitt:This leads very nicely into, I think, our penultimate question, which comes from Strafo on Instagram, are we concerned that Star Wars is now just an endless regurgitation of old ideas? Now, obviously you can counter that immediately by going and or even though that is of course playing in a previously established sand pit. But it is something that I worry about, that Star Wars now is largely just riffing on stuff that George Lucas created nearly 50 years ago now. and even if you look at the much maligned prequel trilogy that was an auteur a man who created this this universe swinging for the fences there is weird shit in all three of those movies and i don't know how much originality there is in what we're getting in this quarter i guess Disney Plus era, that it's all just riffs on pre-existing material.

2:05:21Chris Hewitt:For example, the Amon, had they gone ahead with the George Lucas sequel trilogy, with the mad ship of the Journal of the Whills and the midichlorians, and it would be on a microscopic level, it could well have been terrible, but it also would have been stuff you've never seen before. and I'm slightly concerned the Star Wars which started out by giving people stuff they'd never seen before and there's loads of stuff in this movie of course that still feels really really cool and fresh and pulpy but it still also feels like variations on a theme and I'd like to see them push the envelope a little bit more going forward as would I it is a little bit worrying especially when you also consider that we're getting a movie like this and the Steven Soderbergh Kylo Ren movie was not green lit.

2:06:12I don't know too many details about the Damon Lindelof movie that he was trying to get pushed through, but I'm a bit up and down on Damon Lindelof, but I imagine it would have been something newer and fresher than what we're getting currently. So it's a little bit worried, a little bit worrying, but who knows, Starfighter next year might give us that new thing that we've been craving. We didn't expect much of Andor, and it turned out to be Andor, so that's that's the hope right absolutely you can you can take something old and make something completely new with it i think it does come back to that same point i made about people who fell in love with this in 1977 need to be prepared to let go not just to let it go to a new generation but also to let it evolve and let it become something i want that's what i want i wanted to evolve i wanted Yes, but not just for you.

2:07:07It has to evolve in different ways. You know, let's have a curry barker. There are new voices that it would be interesting to bring in here and do something different and let them run the tables. And that's where, you know, with the greatest of love and respect for Jon Favreau, like, hand it off to somebody else now and let's have some other voices come into this as well, you know. Because we've seen his Star Wars and it's a lot of fun and it's very Western and it's cool and it's entertaining. now I give it to somebody else it's time was the last Jedi the last time big screen Star Wars felt like it was new and moving in a slightly no good movie genuinely whether you like it or not I think Rise of Skywalker is doing things that had not been previously done how?

2:07:52what? oh my god the massive like Sith temples and ancient cults and stuff yeah I think there's a lot of stuff in Rise of Skywalker that is new, weird. It continues that thing from Last Jedi of the dyad and being able to move objects in physical space through the Force, through the connection with Rey and Kylo Ren. There is stuff in that movie that is big, mythological, epic, new stuff. Yeah, but there's also somehow Palpatine's return. And therefore, Star Wars contains multitudes.

2:08:26Chris Hewitt:All right, last question. This comes from Diona Lun Evans. Diona Lunn Evans I may be pronouncing that incorrectly does the team think that this is the best music in Star Wars? No I mean no it's incredible and I love it but catch yourself on yeah put some respect on John Williams' name I was going to say John Powell that score for solo is great look I love me some Ludwig and this score is fantastic and if we're talking about the best themes of the last 10 years then The Mandalorian is at the very top of that list but John Williams is the GOAT he will always be the GOAT and no Star Wars music is better than his isn't it amazing Helen that this this man John Williams can compose so many incredible memorable tracks despite being a GOAT yes it's one of the many outstanding things about him it's the way that Michael Jordan not Michael B.

2:09:26Jordan is also the greatest basketball player in history despite being a goat.

2:09:32Chris Hewitt:That's very true. But then as a goat, you would be able to jump up towards the, what's it called? Yeah, but you wouldn't be able to carry a ball with you usually. The hoop. The hoof. The hoof. Have I stumbled into a spoiler special for the animated movie Goat? Yes. Okay, great. So, solid movie. No, I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. But, yeah, it's Williams. Miss Williams but you know then Ludwig is terrific and this is this is great do you know what I've been listening to John Williams' Ray's theme and it's really been growing on me just thought I'd share that incredible great great thing that theme oh my god that's why he came back from the no no Ray so good so good are you basically singing the cowboy song from the three amigos right now yep okay that's what I'm doing and on that note I think that's it I think that's it for our spoiler special for the Mandalorian and Grogu I hope you guys enjoyed it there are more spoiler specials coming your way soon don't ask me what they are I won't tell you but thank you for subscribing and supporting as ever all that remains now is to say goodbye to my three colleagues of such lethal cunning Amon what are you wearing?

2:10:57Chris Hewitt:because all I can see is like are you wearing anything under that jacket? It's a shirt. Is it a shirt? It looks like a jacket. It looks like a jacket but he's wearing like he's wearing just a jacket and nothing else. It's been really distracting all the way through the podcast. What is wrong with you? All I got is a six pack under here. You are your own man. And I like that. Goodbye, Mon. It's pure best Gosteel. Peace. Dear, dear, dear, dear, dear. It's goodbye from Ben. Big pipe, huh? Enough about Rotter the Hut. Come on now. Oh, Hut Nuts all over the shop. Hut Nuts. Goodbye, Helen. Toodaloo.

2:11:38Chris Hewitt:And it's goodbye for me. I am off on another adventure with my young apprentice, Ben Heal. Oh, boy. That didn't feel good. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Bye.