Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Review

Hey, this is Steve blue and you are listening

to the geek cast radio network You are tuned

in to Steve Megatron on altered geek Hello and

welcome to the long -awaited altered geek After

taking December off for the most part, we returned

and I am Steve Megatron Phillips. Joining me

is Mike the Birdman Dodd and Alex from This Week

in Geek. Oh my God, we're on a podcast. It's

almost like we do this on a weekly, bi -weekly

and all the time basis. Hello. It may have been

a problem. It's probably been about a month and

a half since we recorded a whole slew together,

right? Like, so I'm thereabouts. It's nice to

get back into it because I'm was I the only one

sitting here twiddling my thumbs like why am

I not getting any emails? Oh, yeah people are

away Yeah, oh, it's holiday time and well, we're

back for the most part I mean to give you a peek

behind the audio curtain that exists at alter

geek. We're recording this just before new year

So belated new years because it's likely 2020

right now and we have 2020 vision. So, uh, yeah

Hopefully everyone Walters Hopefully everyone

had a good holiday. How many more Blanchard puns

can we get in here? Depends on how much of nostalgia

you want to touch on. How many Funko pops you

got? I would be surprised if he has like a like

2020 the TV show Funko. He's going to get a Barbara

Walters Funko. You know what? I would actually

want one of those. That would be kind of cool.

As long as it could talk and say, you're watching

2020 or if I could get fun goes of. Barbara Walters,

Walter Cronkite, and Dan Rather. Famous journalists?

I'd kind of be okay with that. They don't have

to be bobbleheads because by now they all have

Parkinson's. Oh, that's terrible. That's horrible.

You're going to hell, man. Let's get that out.

Hey, I said that in the past. It's now 2020.

It's okay. He's been having his palate wiped

clean. Oh, God. So yeah, hopefully. Everyone

had a good holiday up here in Canada at least

with me and Blair and this twig crew things were

pretty good quiet As I talked about on twig we

had my father -in -law pass away a couple a couple

of weeks ago And thank you to everybody who reached

out to me definitely meant a lot In short his

service was attended by like 300 people So this

guy was huge in the community. So that was rather

nice Our Christmas was kind of, it was small,

somber, but very, very sweet. Highlights included,

um, my sister -in -law, Kara got me pictures

of Wiley and Ayla as a Duke and Duchess from

the 1800s. So they look ridiculous. Um, and I

got Blair, a life -size crocheted baby Yoda,

which she cried. She was so happy. I saw that

thing and for something handmade and that quickly,

it's insane. The quality. Oh yeah. Like the girl

who makes it is I know her. I used to know her

as Toronto Wonder Woman. She was a cast member

with me on MTV creeps a couple of years ago and

we've just stayed in touch ever since she's given

me a few handmade items over the years. But if

I need something made, I go right to her and

her quality is second to none. Nice. And oh,

and she got me a cup that says, don't be a cuntasaurus.

So I love my wife and my coffee tastes that much

more vulgar. So good times. What about you Alex?

I have been sick, which I very rarely get, but

I decided that I'm going to visit my mom and

my grandma for Christmas. I went over Christmas

Eve and immediately was sick for what it felt

like forever. I basically slept from Christmas

Eve until I guess the 27th, 28th maybe. And then

finally feel like 100 % now. And I'm like, where

did my Christmas go? At some point I made a turkey

for everybody, but I have vague recollections

of doing that half asleep. Did you slaughter

it yourself? Yeah. But overall, I mean, other

than being sick, it was again, pretty low key.

I got a ton of clothes from Santa, like a whole

bunch of socks, which is what I wanted. I'm like,

I'm officially an old person. I wanted socks.

And that's about it. The only other thing I've

been doing is I'm putting together my own modified

original Xbox because I was thinking when the

new Xbox comes out next... year, I guess, still,

or at the end of the year. They said it's going

to be backwards compatible with every generation.

The only thing is, if you don't own those games

physically, you're probably going to have to

own the licenses, right? And I went, well, I'm

not going to be able to buy digitally every license.

They're going to charge a ton of money, whereas

you can actually get the original games fairly

cheap in disk format. Also, the homebrew community

is pretty crazy, still on the original Xbox.

And I went... Hmm. There's all these after Christmas

sales. So I ended up getting a original Xbox

for 36 bucks that included cables and two controllers.

And I'm in the process of modifying it and I'm

still waiting on the mod trip to come because,

you know, mail is slow, but I'm teaching myself

to do some basic soldering. I got a soldering

kit for it. blah blah blah yada yada uh the only

thing i've changed so far with it is i i did

open it up and and clean out there's a little

rubber band in the dvd drive that you know makes

open and close and it was uh stuck it wouldn't

open so i had to use a paper clip to open it

and apparently it's a very common thing where

there's like dust that gets on and dirt that

gets on the the rubber so you take it out wash

it with a little bit of soap uh dry it off put

it in that works perfect And I replaced the IDE

cable, because yes, that system is old enough

that it still used IDE cables. Wow. But it used

really old IDE cables, even though newer ones

had been available. So it was a 40 wire cable,

which is slower. And I paid $10 to get a 80 wire

cable, which is more standard with what we were

used to in the home building scene back in the

day. So it basically doubles the bandwidth. So

the load times aren't cut in half. Like, when

I put a disk in, it's surprisingly fast, even

though it has a maximum data rate, I think, of

100 megs a second on those old IDE cables. But

I also purchased an IDE to SATA adapter so that

I'll be able to plug in a solid state drive once

I modify it. Nice. I didn't get really anything

geeky for Christmas myself, but I got a bunch

of gift cards and stuff, and that's what I'm

putting it into, is building myself a... and

like an ultimate retro Xbox. Yeah, like when

you get. emulation running on those things. You

can do so much cool shit. I have a modified Xbox

myself. I've got MAME on there. I've got PS1.

You can get PS2 running on them, but it's a lot

harder. I actually want it fairly vanilla. The

ability to install stuff will be there obviously

once I put a mod chip and I can put anything

on there. But the reason I want to modify it

with a mod chip is not just to teach myself soldering.

uh because you can soft mod any of these this

is the newest 1 .6 version which is apparently

the one that had the most uh the revisions were

done to make it so that it wasn't really soft

moddable but you still can i mean it's been long

enough people have figured out how uh but it's

that you can once you have a mod chip in you

can pop any hard drive in and not have to go

through a whole bunch of steps of making it work

so i did purchase a 480 gig uh solid state drive

so it's gonna be it's hilarious that like the

the hard drive and all the little cables and

everything end up costing as much if not more

than the system, but I'll be able to basically

have an entire digital library of every exclusive

game on it and just futz around with that for

fun whenever I want. Nice. So just out of curiosity,

isn't Windows 10 supposed to be able to play

Xbox games? Xbox One games and only certain games.

So you have to have a Blu -ray drive, which I

do have for my Windows 10 PC. But you have to

own them physically, and it has to be Microsoft

first party titles that are certified for play

anywhere. So if you have a Halo game, sure, it'll

work. Or Gears 5 or something. Yeah, but if you

pop in just a random title, no. Okay. So this

game pass is wonderfully worth it if you have

if you have the need to play some of these games

like I recommend stuff like the outer worlds

or Yours or halo. It's totally worth. I also

don't I have a GTX 1050 which is good enough

for Entry level 1080p gaming, but I'm it's mostly

there just for the video encoding capabilities

of it I don't have a card powerful enough to

really run those games a max and I have an Xbox

one X so I would have to go, I have a really

good PC when it comes to the CPU and everything.

It's the Ryzen 3 series, the newest Zen 2 architecture,

which is great, but my video card is five years

old. So it's not really worth me doing that on

there. Otherwise, I could see myself playing

some games on there if I had the ability, but

I'm also not the guy that's going to spend 500

bucks upgrading my video card. No or more. I

don't understand people can put like $1 ,200

in the video cards. Yeah. Well, yeah, my dad

spends like About that, but he buys two so he

can have them Oh, yeah, that's a lie But like

honestly I have one and it's a GeForce GTX 670

and It's it's got two gig of memory on it and

it works fine with everything that's out now

and it's probably six years old. It's probably

more than that. That's a generation or two before

mine. Okay. Yours is about seven years old. Yeah.

And honestly, it works with everything and I

can plug in three monitors. I think Mike's is

the same generation as mine when I checked, but

yours is actually one or two models higher. Mine

is? Yes. Cool. I'm pretty sure yours is a 1060

or 1070. Yeah, I'm going to upgrade this year

at some point, but I don't know. But I'm not

sure. Yeah, we'll figure it out. But yeah, I've

been holding on. I'm just going to throw money

at it until the problem goes away. I've been

holding off because I've got that like the new

AMD system and everything. I'm just waiting probably

for like there's the 5 ,500, the new AMD ones

that are coming out. I'm waiting for something

to come out at the and not like in American dollars,

but like something in the like $250 Canadian

range, which will be like one step below that.

Probably in the summertime, they'll come up with

something, something that has the newer encoding

capabilities of the newer codecs and then is

like a marginal upgrade to my gaming. Like I

would like something like that, like just like

keep me modern so that it can do anything. I

don't expect it to do, like I'm not going to

be doing 4k gaming on my PC unless it's through

like Stadia or something, because I just don't,

I don't see the point. I'm a console gamer. Mm

-hmm Yeah, I I That's one thing. I don't want

to upgrade Anyways for now is is the video card

because I just don't want to dump the money into

it And honestly like I used to be a console gamer,

but I'm not anymore like I just I pretty much

do PC and that's about it. Yeah For you from

your taste of games and like the fact that with

your kids and everything I could see you, if

anything, eventually getting a Switch. And that

would be plenty to do with games. A Switch is

a pretty good investment, I'd say. I don't know

if you necessarily want your kids playing, but

if you were to have them play games, it is family

-friendly enough that you could lock them down

on that. The switch is getting to the point now

where it gets most ports anyway, and anything

that it doesn't get is very PC -centric anyway.

Actually, hey, wait a second. I just thought

of something. Steve, remind me to talk to you

about an Xbox when we get off this call, because

I just had a thought for you. Okay. I'm going

to bring you into the next generation of console

gaming. Okay. Because up yours, you're going

to join us and you're going to like it. Yes,

because that's how we make friends. We force

them. That's right. Play us. Damn it. That's

how I learned about Mass Effect. See, it's worth

it. It's gorgeous and so beautiful. And then

actually it was really good, so. But yeah, so

I mean, like as far as the stuff's concerned,

you know, it's. That's kind of what I've geared

towards. I've been an Xbox fan for years because

I just prefer their architecture and their controller.

And before that, I kind of played Nintendo and

some of the Sony stuff, but I've been more of

an Xbox fan the last couple of generations, so.

But yeah, so yeah, so how was how was Christmas

in the? The Megatron house The Megatron house.

Yes, so I made it one of the gifts for my wife

Which was like a picture frame that we saw at

a store that was like insanely overpriced For

what it was and I like that I can do better So

she probably loves it even more She does because

I took time And I had this block of wood that

I've I brought with me from the old house And

I actually have a lot of wood that I brought

with me But this particular piece was about the

right size as this frame that we saw in the store

And I you know smartly when she picked it up

and looked at it was like oh, that's really nice

You know I cost too much and then put it down

And I was with the kids and they were struggling

behind so I shot a picture of it like filed it

away mentally for later and then Come to close

to Christmas and I'm like I need to make something

and then I found this block of wood that I had

saved Four months ago and spray -painted and

had to do all the painstaking drilling into it

and trying to make sure everything was working

the way I needed it to to resemble what was in

the store. And so she thought that I wrote on

it, but I bought the one from the store. So it

kind of worked out for me. And then we used an

old coffee table that we got at a yard sale for

five dollars. and finished it, repainted it red,

and then glued eight 10 by 10 Lego boards to

the top of it to make a Lego table for the kids.

Oh, cool, dude. That's pretty cool. Yeah, and

so when you lift it up, because it's one of those

ones where you lift up the table lid and then

you've got the compartments inside. They've got

compartments for the Lego kits already, but what

I was thinking is the instruction manuals. didn't

have a place to go before and so now they do

and they love it because they can build on top

of the table now and so that'll be a nice little

fixture for when we move and they get a ton of

Lego stuff and we have this Lego store that's

close to here that I built custom Lego figures

for them that kind of look like them and They

thought that was the coolest thing in the world

and I got an air compressor which was awesome

because the week before I get a flat tire my

minivan and I was going to take my my son up

to the store and I get in the minivan and I start

getting out of the driveway and I'm realizing

that it's not sounding or driving right and so

I pull back in the driveway and Realize that

I had a completely flat tire no air compressor

and the van doesn't come with a spare tire so

I Had a well and the other vehicle was gone because

my wife was gone with my older son out doing

something school related and So I got out the

the bike tire pump And 15 minutes later I had

a fully inflated tire that I was able to take

up to the the tire shop and Luckily, it was in

the same plaza as the stores we needed to shop

at anyway, and so I was able to get the tire

patched, but yeah, that was just I'm so excited

to have a Air compressor and for all the the

nerdy needs like you'll never have to buy compressed

air to clean any computer parts or electronics

ever again No, no I'm so excited about that because

I can I can turn that sucker on bring in the

house and then just air blow out the computer

And think about all the balloons you can blow

up for birthdays Yeah, that's true. I didn't

even think of that. That's funny and Clean off

the garage floor and other things like that.

So yeah, I was I was super excited about it About

getting that and we got a board game. We we got

what was it seven wonders? I've heard of that.

Yeah, yeah, it's played it but I've heard of

it. Have you played take it to ride? Once yeah,

okay. I've got a lot of those type of games like

I've got Got that got Splendor got Settlers of

Catan and a bunch of other games like that. So

you guys do like a board game night at home.

Oh Yeah all the time So I don't I don't have

many but What we do have it's it's what one of

our hardcore board game friends got us into so

it's been nice But yeah, that's right. Yeah,

sounds like a lot's gone on with all of us Yeah,

so should we get into the meat of this the yes,

we should get into the meat potatoes of it So

Star Wars sucked. All right. Good night guys

Unless you're the Mandalorian. Okay. Well, let's

talk rise of Skywalker first We'll go around

the panel and each give our you know Reader's

Digest version of what we thought about it what

we'd liked and what we didn't like So I'll start

with either of you. All right, I'll go. Because

I know that Dodd's going to say what he wants

to say and be long winded and then never want

to talk about it again. So I'll be very simple

because I was very elaborate online with it.

This is a movie that is two hours and I think

10 minutes long in theaters that should have

been four and a half hours based on the plot.

So it either should have been two movies. but

they were obsessed with having it be a trilogy

or they should have found a way to tell the story

with actually having a proper pace because the

movie starts never gives itself at any time to

breathe is MacGuffin after MacGuffin after MacGuffin

bad writing after bad writing after bad writing

also bad take after bad take after bad take,

which was surprising because even with the original,

or not the original, the prequel trilogy, as

wooden as the dialogue was, it still sounded

like it had been well rehearsed. There's a lot

of scenes in this movie where it sounds like

they're saying the lines for the first time and

then never ever come back to it. Plot holes abound.

What else? There's no point to anything. It seems

like it was written by a six -year -old. And,

uh, I hated every, I hated every aspect of it

with every fiber of my being except for Palpatine

because Ian McDermott is a fantastic actor. And

I'll give him, he did a fantastic job with what

he could also wedge shows up for like three seconds

on the screen. I'm okay with that. And that's

it for me. Done. Okay. So where does one start

with this? Betrayal if you at the end at the

end. Okay, so I just read this today Rumor or

maybe it's confirmed now. I'm not sure Kathleen

Kennedy the president of Lucas Film wanted to

bring Palpatine back and Palpatine has been the

bad guy throughout all these movies Okay, that's

cool. But you've just undone what the heroes

have done in six movies. Okay First off, when

the Emperor comes back in this movie, it just

comes out of friggin nowhere. And this seems

like way over correction for The Last Jedi. I

neither love that movie or hate it. I'm indifferent

to it. It was okay. I didn't hate it, but I didn't

love it either. The Rise of Skywalker, it never

gives anything a chance to breathe. It's nothing

but fan service moment after fan service. And

while some of that is cool, It doesn't connect

with you the way that it should. And I was watching

Mark Bernardi from Fat Man Beyond, Kevin Smith's

podcast, and he made a really, really, really

good point. Do you remember in Avengers Endgame

when Cap has the shield and Mjolnir and his shield's

cracked and he has the shit kicked out of him?

And he says, and you hear Sam the Falcon say,

on your left. And he's like, my friends are coming.

And you have that emotional moment and that really

connects with you. In that moment, that character

was reinvigorated, alive again, and you as the

audience were right there with them. In this

movie, Lando and Chewie take off with the Falcon

like, don't worry, we'll bring help. And just

when the fleets of Poe Dameron and all his buddies

are having the crap kicked out of him, you hear

a voice over the radio say, we're here, who's

here? all of us and poe dameron is really excited

poe dameron has met lando for a grand total of

five friggin minutes so you don't connect to

it you don't care we're excited as the audience

because we know who lando and chewy are we know

that they've got this audience but poe dameron

does not give a shit that lando brought his buddies

because he doesn't know him that that emotional

payoff moment is not there And that's the problem

with this movie. This movie is supposed to have

all these emotional moments. And while there

are some in here, like one of my big problems

with this is this movie had a chance to be ballsy

because at least with The Last Jedi, they killed

Luke. That's a pretty big friggin deal. And this

one had the balls to kill Chewbacca and 3PO,

but both those are retconned. or reversed within

like 20 minutes of each other like like you see

right sith lightning and blow up a transport

oh he's dead oh wait he's on a star destroyer

that just so happens to be in orbit okay i'll

let that go and then 3po the line from the trailer

i'm taking one last look at my friends and you

find out he asked to have his memory wiped to

read this sith dagger which by the way to hell

with that um And like, his memory is wiped and

he gives them the location to exit all cool.

Oh, there's a backup of 3PO in R2's memory. How

convenient. And it just happened before the mission.

Yeah, exactly. Oh, thankfully, there's an iCloud

backup of that. And the most annoying thing to

me about Rise of Skywalker. And I've said this

many times before. Even I said this on national

radio. a couple of weeks ago, is when you look

at Rise of Skywalker, it's like somebody handed

Kathleen Kennedy, J .J. Abrams, and the writers.

They looked at Star Wars canon since 1990 and

forward because all that's been wiped out now

with the exception of Clone Wars, Rebels, and

some novels and some comic books, which is fine.

But they took the existing EU, wrote, read through

it once. didn't understand what they were reading,

wrote down what they could from memory after

only having it read once, wrote it down in crayon

very, very fast while someone was swapping out

Rise of Skywalker and said, okay, here, here

are some cool ideas. Can you make it work? Um,

yeah, sure. Maybe I guess. And what we got was

very sloppy, very fan service you without making

any sense. I mean, the Emperor's coming back

to life happened in a comic book series called

Dark Empire in the nineties. Which was awesome.

Yeah, which was great. We had Dark Apprentice

Luke. We had a really weird storyline where the

Emperor was going to be born into Leia's unborn

son. Okay, creepy and weird, but cool. And he

kept cloning his body. Yeah, and he kept cloning

his body. There was a reason for him to come

back. I mean, I'm sorry. When the Emperor got

thrown down the shaft of the second Death Star,

he was frigging atomized. You ain't coming back,

Mr. Darth Plagueis the Wise. No, you are wiped

out. You're Darth Sidious. You are dead. D -O

-friggin -A. and no just there were some cool

moments and oh and then this randomly throwaway

lines like you're part of a dyad now excuse me

you're a part of a what oh we're we're just gonna

gloss over that don't worry lightsaber fight

oh and now teleportation is a thing in star wars

because randomly you can now pass objects back

and forth through the force um or you can or

you can force fight in two different locations

yeah because you know what i would because reasons

You know what I would've done if I was Ray? Always

have a thermal detonator on me. So when Kylo

Ren decides to contact me, click boom, movie's

over, roll credits. But no, there was just, this

movie, this actually happened. So when I'm in

Rise of the Skywalker, I'm sitting with my wife,

Blair. I'm in my wheelchair and the second credits

rolled. I turned on my wheelchair and I drove

out of there. pissed off. And I ran over my wife's

purse. Thankfully, our phones weren't crushed.

Um, because I was that mad. And Blair's like,

Did you not like the movie? Like, no. And Blair's

like, I hated it too. And people were coming

out of the theater and they were talking and

I could tell I was a minority. Although reading

the responses online, I know I'm definitely not

alone in this. I was talking with my friends

from Nerd to the Third Power, which you can check

out their episode on our website right now. And

Billy, Dr. Gonzo puts it very well. The expanded

universe should expand the universe, tell more

stories, give you a little bit more background

if you want it. It should not have to explain

it. When comics and... books and everything have

to explain plot points for you to understand

the movie you're watching you have failed as

a property in that regard it's cool to read the

mass effect novels that explain who the elusive

man was but you don't need to read those to know

who the elusive man is in mass effect two and

three you just know he's the bad guy he fronts

a human supremacist or organization and he sucks

but you know he came this is where he came from

okay cool that it just it expanded it but it

didn't explain it to you and that's the problem

with these things is there were so many things

that were left unexplained that there's so many

as Alex put it plot holes that if you're a huge

fan of the franchise and you genuinely care about

it it really gets under your skin when you start

think thinking about it And don't even get me

started how they sideline certain characters.

I mean, I love Finn. I think John Boyega is a

wonderful actor, but he is woefully inconsistent

between all these movies. I mean, they had an

awesome romance set up for him with Rose from

The Last Jedi. She gets a minute and 30 seconds

of screen time in this movie. And they try to

explain this away in a Hollywood reporter article,

like yesterday as of this recording. And I'm

thinking, wow, bullshit. Sorry, Steve, you're

going to have to edit a lot in this episode,

but it's just, it doesn't fly with me. There's

just so many problems with this. And I understand

there are problems with Carrie Fisher passing

away and that's okay. You have to work with what

you got because they didn't want to dishonor

her memory by doing the weird photo digital.

And that's fine. I'm fine with that, but don't

piss in my ear and tell me it's raining. This

script had problems from day one. The problem

with the new trilogy is Canon was thrown out

the window and it doesn't make any sense. There

was no creative and directorial vision from movies

one to three that said, okay here's what's going

to happen in movie one here's what's going to

happen at the end we'll make it work there was

no unified vision say what you will about the

prequel movies but that was a democracy that

turned fear into fascism and you saw how the

galactic republic fell You knew what the plotline

was. If I ask either of you, explain to me the

new trilogy in an elevator pitch. You have 30

seconds or less to tell me what the new movies

are about. You probably can, but you can tell

me what the prequels are about and what the original

trilogy is about. The new movies, you cannot.

I can tell you what it's about. Here we go. Yes.

No, no, here we go. JJ Abrams only makes remakes.

The first movie is a remake of a new hope. Disguise

is a new movie, so it's a lie. Last Jedi is a

side story masquerading as a main story with

a stupid, stupid, stupid way to kill off the

main character of the entire series. And the

newest one is a convoluted mess. It's three movies

mixed into one. In other words, you want the

actual plot? Okay. Everything is cyclical, and

this is just a remake of the original trilogy,

almost plot for plot point, with a lot of special

effects that didn't need to be there. Done. Okay.

But again, that doesn't explain everything because

you can't. You cannot explain everything. I mean,

that being said, I will say positive things about

the new trilogy now. I like some of the characters.

I like Rey. I like Finn. I love Poe. Hell. I

wanted to see the Poe and Finn romance. That's

a bromance. When they meet each other in The

Force Awakens after they think each other's dead,

they give each other a look of, man, I'm so glad

you're back. And it's a little more than friendship.

And I'm okay with that. They pushed for that,

according to Oscar Isaacs. But Disney, they're

not ready to take that risk. Give it 20 years,

probably. And I like Kylo Ren. He looks Cool.

He sounds cool. Adam Driver is a great actor

with what he's given. He's neat. I like him.

He's really neat. The first order design aesthetic.

I love the look of Imperial technology always

have. Although if you paint the bottom of the

first order Stormtrooper helmet, it looks like

Donald Duck. But that aside, there are some really

creative decision or locations in these movies.

That's neat. We saw a different we see different

biomes. That's cool seeing the original characters

back. That's kind of neat Making some ballsy

decisions like killing Han Solo. Okay, I'm totally

fine with this but half cooked ideas and cool

concepts are not enough to carry a saga 42 Years

in the making of this is the capstone to the

Skywalker saga. It ends with kind of a wet fart

Well, okay. Wasn't there some sort of big, big

hubbub over the last two movies building up,

uh, his, uh, Kylo Ren's basically like enforcer

group. I forget the name of them now. The Knights

of Ren. Oh boy. Yeah. They're in what is it?

30 seconds of footage and they get killed in

like two seconds. Yeah, and if you want to know

more about them, you have to read the comic books.

And here's the thing, even if I read the comic

books, if I was a fan of those comic books, I'd

be like, they're so cool. Wait, they died in

like 30 seconds. There was nothing to them. So

what was the point of buying the comic books?

Yeah, it's lame. Like I actually went on Wikipedia

last night to read up on the Knights of Ren and

you know who they are? They're not Sith. They're

just dark side warriors who've been gathered

by Kylo who now leads them. The largest, largest,

largest stupid thing that they've done with casting

is cast famous people and then have them die

or disappear within like two seconds. Oh, what's

her name from? Or have them hide underneath a

stormtrooper costume? Whatever her name was,

leader of all the... Oh, Gwendolyn Christie.

Yeah. Yeah. She was the Boba Fett of this franchise.

They pumped her up in all the pre -release stuff

to be a hugely significant part to the story.

and she's in a total of like less than five minutes

of the entire trilogy. Yeah, it's disappointing.

And it's still almost immediately with no consequences.

Like if I was her, I would be fucking pissed.

I would be mad that I was part of the sham. Yeah,

like I actually read about Phasma and she does

appear in Star Wars Resistance, which is the

animated series, which is cool. But yeah, she's

essentially the Boba Fett in this franchise.

She looks neat. She has a cool backstory. She

has she's vastly important to the First Order,

but she gets killed off by Finn in The Last Jedi

and I was hoping she would somehow still be alive.

But no, she was Boba Fetted and that bothers

me. Cause she's a wonderful actress and that

character deserves so much better. The whole

trilogy screams corporate meddling, meddling

mismanagement and Hey, look who we have under

contract for something. Let's just keep hiring

people and we'll create characters for them and

see where it goes. It's like, like this trilogy

should have had all three, uh, Bibles for this,

for the stories written before anything was shot

for the first part. Mm -hmm, and you can clearly

tell they didn't because that's exactly what

they've had for the Avengers They have had every

phase Main story plots not the not every statement

of dialogue But all the main story plots for

every movie is written for each phase before

the next phase starts And that's because Kevin

Feige is running it I Mean I'm not knocking Kathleen

Kennedy because I mean we got the Mandalorian

but Although she's connected in that with name

only because she's exactly producer on everything

there. Is it Dave Fiona? Yeah. Yeah. There's

John Favreau. He's the guy that did the Clone

Wars. Well, and I wrote an Iron Man. He launched

the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Yeah. No, but

I'm saying as far as if you wanted somebody to

run somebody to run your continuity for all your

movies, you should get the Filoni guy because

He's somebody who's done multiple episodes of

animation. If you watch the end of the Mandalorian

episodes, he's the guy doing all the art for

those still shots. Those are all the storyboards.

Oh, wow. Usually storyboards are wireframe. No,

he's doing entire paintings. So those shots are

not based on like, hey, we shot this on film

and then I'm drawing it after. Those are what

they're basing the film on. So it's like that

guy's super detailed. Why don't you use him?

Oh, but Kathleen Kennedy, I feel like she's,

if you look at her history, she started like

anybody else as an executive assistant. But the

problem was she got a lot of producing power

without ever having actually produced. You know

what I mean? Like she's been given a lot of executive

power without actually Getting her hands dirty

making the films she would have done that had

she not gone and shot up from being an assistant

to being a producer almost right away I Mean

maybe if she'd cut her teeth maybe doing like

another Property animated show or something that

would have been fine like she started as she

was an like an executive assistant to Spielberg

and then like on In the early 80s like when when

Amblin just started and then worked her way up

in different companies from that. So it's like,

great, but I've never heard of her actually being

a hands -on producer. She's somebody who sits

there, takes notes, and then goes, here's what

I want you to do, even though she doesn't have

an eye for cinema, if that makes any sense. She

is more of a business person than anything. Which

would be fine if she didn't try to tout herself

as being like, she clearly... takes all the successes

and like praises herself, but then tries to deflect

all the blame when something's wrong. There was

one thing that she said. This was a recent quote

from this past summer. She said in an interview,

and I quote something along these lines, he says,

the problem is making Star Wars movies is we

have nothing to base them on. We have no books,

no comic books or any established television.

You are so beyond full of shit. Yeah. And she

didn't correct herself either after they, they

said, what about the expanded universe? She could

have said, we made a conscious decision at the

company to move forward without these. No, she

just doubled down. Yeah. I mean, it's one thing

to have the new Disney cannon with be with rebels,

clone wars, and the novels and comic books. Now

that Marvel is a part of Disney as well. That's

fine. But I don't know, because the thing is

with the expanded universe, yes, there are problems

with it. However, it was more or less, I'd say

probably about 75%, maybe if I want to be conservative,

about 70. a consistent universe, starting with

Timothy Zahn's Hair to the Empire trilogy, which

started in 1991, all the way to the end of the

Yuuzhan Vong war and beyond when the Disney deal

happened. And then that got turned into Star

Wars legends. And there was some great writers

in there. There's Michael A. Stackpole with the

X -Wing series. There was Timothy Zahn with the

Thrawn trilogy. Now Thrawn has been brought back

as a character. Thank God for that. And other

characters, but also Kevin J. Anderson's New

Jedi Academy trilogy from the nineties. So it's

not like Star Wars Canon wasn't good and it wasn't

filmable. It's just for whatever reason, parts

of it got discarded along the way. And I guess

Disney wanted to own it all and start with their

own things. The problem is there was some cool

things in there you probably could have salvaged.

Oh, yeah, totally and see my my whole take on

on the movie was is I didn't like the last Jedi

And I know that I'm back peddling one film the

the force awakens. Yeah, I felt it was okay It

was I mean it was a remake so you kind of you

know get what you get but JJ Abrams really needs

to, I don't know, get a stroke or something.

Because I feel like all he does are remakes.

Every single thing he's done is a remake. Look

at the Star Trek movies he did. I liked the first

one. I liked the first one. But then Into Darkness

was horrible. Even the first one was like...

Oh, it was a remake. Of sorts. Yeah, exactly.

But they're tying that into the card now, so

that's... Yeah, the part with the Romulan star

going over. He's all style and no substance in

anything he does. He's made a... Like, and I

haven't seen Super 8, but then I hear, oh, it's

just basically he took all his favorite 80s movies

and remade them all into one movie. Okay. So

again, remake. He has made a total of one movie

that was an original idea. And even then it was

part of a franchise. And that's when his first

directorial movie, which was... Mission Impossible

3. And ever since then, everything he's done

has been a remake. And he'll try to lie and dress

it up. And everything is, he's so boring. His

stuff is visually boring because it's just lens

flare after lens flare. Well, and then they got

to make stuff shiny just for the sake of it.

He's worse than Michael Bay. At least Michael

Bay blows shit up. And he knows he's a bad director,

but a great action director. The problem is J

.J. Abrams isn't even a good action director.

Yeah But yeah the my whole gripe with with the

last Jedi was it felt like it was like the Star

Trek insurrection of Star Wars like it felt like

it should have been like an in -between like

storyline or like a an episodic episode of the

show of whatever it is instead of an actual film

and the rise and I also hated how they killed

off Luke, but and almost made him like this vindictive

evil, you know, master. And, um, granted, I liked

his force projection, but at the same time, like

I didn't care for how they get rid of them. The

problem is, and they've been having fun killing

off the old cast. Why can't any Jedi's just actually

die? Like, like it's always the disappearing

force ghost shit. It's like, okay. But every

time that we have this happen to a main character,

it's a stupid way that they did it. Well, that

reminds me in the the the second film Is that

the Clone Wars? Yeah, or the They they killed

off a ton of Jedi and they didn't just miraculously

just exactly because Becoming a force ghost is

a skill and it's something you have to learn

and remember that technique wasn't perfected

like until quite gone quite gone well quite gone

yeah quite gone did it but nobody else had done

it whatever but sure but like i feel like this

new trilogy okay why is everybody jar jar why

is everybody silly why is everything silly in

these movies now because they have to like and

plus they they they have to have their their

their massive list of MacGuffins and the one

character that's female that can save them all.

Jar Jar was terrible and it was silly, but everybody

else was serious in the prequel trilogy. And

I think, if anything, Lucas will end up laughing

and laughing and laughing and laughing because

his prequels, which were derided initially, are

going to be viewed as so much better than this

trilogy. Well, it's funny because people are

already ranking his films higher than this trilogy.

And what's funny is some people regard The Last

Jedi really high, even though it was garbage.

And solo was garbage too. It was entertaining.

Solo was garbage. Aspects of it were decent.

Solo was okay, but it wasn't what a Star Wars

movie should have been. Exactly. Rogue One is

the only one that actually works. And if you

look, Rogue One has more in common with obviously

with the original. Who directed that one? That

was, uh, I can't remember. I know. I know you

on this too. I know Ron came in for, for, uh,

yeah, he came in. Maybe Ron Howard came in to

fix solo. Like can you imagine how bad solo would

have been if they hadn't had Ron Howard to try

to fix things? Actually no switch that because

the pro what happened with solo is the two guys

who did it were the guys who worked on the Lego

movie. And they had the actors do multiple takes,

like a crap ton. They went way over budget. Kathleen

Kennedy or whoever was in charge of the budget

didn't like that. So the actors were doing a

great time, but they didn't like how the script

kept changing because they were having more,

the movie was more funny and things were changing

on the set on the day. So they brought in Ron

Howard with three weeks left of shooting. So

Solo would have been a completely different movie

had it been finished as intended, but the people

who were in charge of the script and the budget

didn't like that. Okay. So Rogue One was Gareth

Edwards. He's the guy that directed the new Godzilla

movie that was really good. Yes. Yes, and there

were even problems with that because there were

many script rewrites and stuff We saw that was

shot specifically for the trailer never made

it into the movie. I watched these one I think

I think it was on Joe blow videos on YouTube.

It's called what? It's called what the hell happened

to this movie or whatever and they do wonderfully

deep dives on solo and rogue wanting you see

the production problems that each had though

rogue one of the star wars movies Is probably

the best under the new lucas deal because it's

the one that feels the most like a war movie

It's so different. It doesn't need jedi bs to

hold it up And the comedy that's in it is it

not silly Yeah, it's it's the kind of stuff you'd

find like the best way to describe it was it

was the dirty dozen or the great escape mixed

together as a star with blasters yeah and it

works and like how is it that darth vader in

the last two minutes of that movie can be more

menacing terrifying and amazing looking than

any bit of of lightsaber battles we've seen over

the course of seven hours of the new trilogy

Yeah. There is only one scene in Rise of Skywalker

where Kylo Ren looks really bad ass, where he's

marched into this random crowd of people driving

his lightsaber to them. And for some reason,

I don't even know who he's killing. He's just

there because, um, yeah. When he's stealing the

one of only two MacGuffin items. Yeah, exactly.

That's the only time he looks badass and You're

right like and they filmed like they got special

money to film that Darth Vader scene For rogue

one and it's one of the best things to come out

of the Lucas deal in the last five years It's

the only one that is like actually good for the

lore. Yeah, you know, I'm not I usually am a

guy who hates You know bridging the gap between

things. I am the person that didn't like that

enterprise took place, you know before something

I don't I like when when movies and it's move

the cannon forward But this was the story that

people had been wanting to hear for a long time

because it was always mentioned like Too many

people lost their lives to get this, you know

get these plans And then you find and you see

it you're like, holy shit. It was a really good

movie I hope that all these other star wars movies

are gonna be like this wrong. Like, I hope they

get this director back. Like, like, you know,

it's because I don't think we want to dive too

much into this because we're going to want to

talk about the Mandalorian on another episode.

Yeah. But I'll say this. The cinematic universe

has to take a two to three year break. They can't.

They can't have another one. I think it needs

to take longer. I think they need to just double

down. They're actually they're serious. Twenty

twenty two, I believe, right now. They were scheduled

and that's one. Uh, they're supposed to be doing

Knights of the old, they're supposed to be doing

Knights of the old Republic, which will take

aspects of maybe the Bioware established universe,

but not because that's all legends now, but they'll

take the idea. Nicely Republic one and two were

not considered canon anymore, but the old Republic

MMO is because it's still something like that.

Yeah, that's it. That's what I meant. But yeah,

they're, they're going to take the idea 4 ,000

years or so before the battle of Yavin. Which

I'm okay with because that's so far back that

it's basically a different civilization and culture

So we're we're not gonna worry about oh, we're

gonna creep into fucking up the rest of the lore

in the series Yeah, we're not gonna see death

stars. We're not gonna see It's also gonna mean

maybe hey, we're gonna see like the one thing

that the prequel movies did do right was showing

a clean universe That's like, hey, you know,

uh, everything was, yeah. And this will be like

when everything was really new, like, Hey, there's,

there's, there's not going to be a whole lot

of like ancient technology. You're going to have

ancient ruins of like, you know, pre space age

stuff, but you're not going to have like, you

know, uh, relic old ships being, you know, pieced

together. It's going to be like when, when the

population was a lot more and there were a lot

more people that were forced users. Yeah, exactly.

Like there's so much from the old Republic era.

That's exciting I mean I used to read the the

Dark Horse comics when I was a kid they were

called tales of the Jedi and There's like blind

force users. There's no me Sun rider Xr couldn't

the great Sith Lord the Sith Wars There is so

much storytelling potential here. Yes, it's more

Jedi crap, but I'm okay with that as long as

it's cool and it'll be Neat. I mean, at least

we're getting on television. We're going to get

the Obi -Wan series. I think in like two years.

Thank God for that. I still think we'll get a

Mandalorian movie considering the success of

the TV show. My guess will be like, again, we'll

talk about that during the Mandalorian. We're

probably going to get three to four seasons of

the Mandalorian and then they'll do a movie.

You know what I want? And I've talked with Alex

about this. in our just general nerd talks. I

want something along the lines of Rogue One,

but I want it as a TV series. I want it set during

the Clone Wars following a Republic commando

unit. So bring back Tamora Morrison and have

it be about a squad of clone commandos and have

it be like band of brothers. Make it a war story.

Have them go behind the lines of Geonosis or

something or something like that. And we discussed

it. Not this would not be a series that has multiple

seasons. It would be, Hey, we're going to do

a limited like it's going to be like a four or

five week event. Each week is going to be an

hour, hour and 10 minute episode. And you're

going to show chapters like you know, here's

how we banded together, here's how we fought

alongside the Jedi. And then at the like, if

it's a four part at the end of the second part,

you're like, execute order. And then you the

preview for the next part, maybe you have to

wait six months to watch the last two parts.

But like the preview is just them maybe fighting

the programming, or maybe somebody in the in

the band or one or two people, it doesn't work.

Maybe their chip is defective. And they're looking

around like they get headaches and see weird

shit happening. And they're like, why is everybody

turning on the Jedi? Maybe they're the only squadron

that doesn't turn. They don't turn. And it's

them having to fight their own brothers to protect

the Jedi. And then trying to seek out whomever

tainted them in their mind. Well, it's funny.

I just watched the Clone Wars one where, um,

fives figured out. Yeah. Well, he figured out

that his, um, uh, his buddy went nuts and then

he had his chip removed and, um, found out that

there was this whole conspiracy and genosis and

with the clones and yeah. So it was, it was a

little crazy, but, um, they could do so much

with these, with limited series on the, on the

network. Cause we've know that you know, there's

more risks they can take by not having it go

to theaters. And they'll put the budget behind

it because look at the success the Mandalorians

had. It's the second most on -demand show right

now. The only thing that's beating it right now

is The Witcher. Yeah, so let's, I'd say let's

cut it off there as far as Star Wars talk, right?

Because we want to talk about the Mandalorian

separately. Well, true, but I did, out of the

last, out of this The rise of Skywalker. I did

like the Emperor coming back I wish they would

have explained how he was back besides plugged

into a machine with chemicals being pumped in

The DA was weird the teleportation of the lightsaber

was weird like it like all they would have had

to do like in my mind and it would have Been

hokey, but it would have been an explanation

is You know, you really want to mess with people

have him have him reveal like hey You think you

had one up over me? And find out that he's the

first Sith Lord to figure out how to do Force

Ghost. And he basically is inhabiting a clone

of his own body. Bam. Done. I think that should

have brought back Snoke and made him still be

the big bad because they built Snoke up over

two movies and just have Palpatine come back.

It's like, oh, yeah, Snoke was totally my idea.

Well, they should have read. Sorry. Well, I was

going to say they should have put Palpatine at

the end of the last Jedi and had had some kind

of a sinister after credits thing where you see,

you know, the tanks of Snokes and, you know,

have some kind of a line like, you know, this

was only the beginning and, you know, now I will

execute the final order and then it just cuts

to black or something. And then or he should

have been able to walk around. It should have

been that, you know, maybe he wasn't completely

vaporized, used all of his energy force energy

to just like. you know, protect himself, but

he's like, he's, he's a husk and he, he should

have been like when he, when they went into that

weird rock pyramid, whatever it was on Exegol,

it should have been that, Oh, he's legit. Like,

like when they see talking to him, he's not actually

there. Like that's a force projection. And if

you look behind, like he's literally on life

support hooked up to a bunch of machines and

that he's doing everything through his mind.

That would have been cool. And then like how

they beat him would have been not How they beat

him it could have been like, oh, what do we have

to do? It's like then they're like trying to

like destroy the machine that doesn't work doesn't

work And it's like it takes all of them to basically

blast the machine away. I did like how I did

like how He was able to restore himself using

them But I thought it was dumb at the same time

that he Basically was done in by the same thing

that killed him the last few times. Yeah force

lightning good idea stupid Like it mutated him

in Revenge of the Sith with Ace Windu's lightsaber.

I was fully, you know, Samuel L. Jackson has

said for years, he goes, I didn't officially

die. So and it's true. Every single Jedi, he's

either died on screen or turned into a force

ghost. So he should be back in the Mandalorian.

I was fully, I would have this movie I could

have ignored. every single stupid thing is if

when they were all being you know electrocuted

by him and all this crazy shit happened he's

like surprise motherfucker and he shows up and

throws his lightsaber at him and that's how he

kills him oh i've been waiting i've been waiting

35 fucking years to do that motherfucker let's

go go go go go motherfucker and they'll get in

a plane and fly away but i would have been so

happy so happy if tamil jackson is the guy who

beat them and he would have been so happy i'll

tell you that I would have paid double admission

price to see this kind of movie. I mean, just

to watch all like the super fans faces freeze

and then like break. It's our malfunction. You

thought Luke was the chosen one? It was me. Yeah,

but just or even not so much more. Just one.

I mean, they're they're rated PG. They can get

away with one swear. Just surprise, motherfucker.

And he just you see a lightsaber fly through

the air like a javelin. And it's a purple one

hits him. You don't even see Samuel Jackson.

You just see you hear his voice and you see the

lightsaber. And that's how they win. And you're

like, holy shit, Mace Windu did survive 35 years.

Or even if he didn't just have his force goes

do it because Yoda could send lightning from

the sky Okay, even better. Yeah, he was surprised

and his force goes goes behind him puts his hand

puts them in a full Nelson Get him now kid or

his hand does that whole thing like the reverse

flash when he's about to like yeah Choke out

somebody in their chest like he does it though

To Palpatine. Turns to the camera and says, use

your life, use your life support now. What you

didn't think black guys could be force goes either.

And then it ends with like a Warner Brothers

closing. That's all folks. Yeah, that's that

that that I would have I would have been in the

theater laughing hysterically and then I would

have been like, oh god, JJ Abrams is brilliant.

He just trolled us with a two hour movie. And

then you have Jar Jar pull down his cloak and

say, miss, I think this movie is over. Oh, great.

Yeah, it's true. Samuel Jackson goes, Jar Jar,

hold his legs and Jar Jar goes and holds his

legs down and they start kicking him and stomping

him. Surprise motherfucker puts them in a full

Nelson charge I get his legs. I said get his

legs and he grabs It's just it's just raised

and they're stomping on him get him get him get

him good She has no idea who these two guys are

but they're helping her out I knew you was useful

for something, Jar Jar. Hold his legs. Oh, man.

Oh, OK. And with that, I think we've ramped up

the rise of Skywalker. I think we have our episode

title, Hold His Legs, Jar Jar. Surprise, surprise.

Hold his legs, Jar Jar. So Jar Jar Abrams. That

works Hold his legs charge our Abrams. All right.

Oh So, how can the fine people reach you on the

interwebs Well, you can find me on Twitter at

at Birdman dot I'm almost always around or you

can send me a friend request on Facebook slash

Birdman Dodd. Um, so yeah or on Instagram Birdman

Dodd as well And for me, it's pretty much the

same if you can find me on Facebook Any if you

wanted to really contact me you can go through

Mike as well Twitter is death face twig Or just

if you want to contact either of us feedback

at this week in geek net And if you want to get

a hold of me you can get a hold of me on the

Twitter's at SCP 21 or at altered geek So until

next time get altered geek geeky with the altered

geeks Hold yourself. A lightsaber. Interesting.

If there's one chat I left, it's not you. Affirmative.