Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (with Chetan Puttagunta, General Partner at Benchmark)
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Well, I only have one way that I can open this. The dead speak. Oh, that's morbid. That's morbid. Yeah. All right, listeners. Despite my failure at a killer opening line, we are doing an LP episode on The Rise of Skywalker.

Actually, I was thinking about this. I was like, this is as far away from the type of content that we normally do as you could possibly get. But the amount of times on this show that we've covered like Disney, Star Wars, Pixar, it's actually like not shocking that we would do a Star Wars review episode.

I think it's crazy we haven't already. Yeah. I mean... We did an episode on an airline merger, so... And it's kind of like enterprise software. So, yeah. That voice you hear, listeners, is Chetan Puttagunta from Benchmark. And I was thinking about this. Chetan, I think you are the only repeat guest in the history of either acquired show. Wow. I'm honored. Yeah. We're going to have to give you a special title. Yeah. Honored guest...

Co-host emeritus? Yeah. What did the honorary degrees you get? Like Muhammad Ali got one in my graduation. Oh, really? Like a doctorate? Yeah, the doctorate. You got an honorary doctorate. Yeah, I think it's something like that. Arts and letters? Yeah. What's the... Well, he could be a strategic director. Yeah. Oh, I like that. There you go. Venture partner? Because since this is an LP show... Oh, it could be a venture partner. Yeah, I think he's a venture partner. Venture capitalist? Venture partner. Yes, that's right. Great. There we have it.

So LPs, Chetan and I were catching up a few weeks ago and we spent like 45 of the 60 minutes that we had together talking about... It was before the movie came out, talking about our excitement for the movie and expectations for it. And Chetan gave me a spoiler, which I didn't appreciate, and mentioned some of the reviews. I was like, you know what, if we can spend 45 minutes of our time catching up on this, maybe we should actually...

Yeah.

But I have not watched a... We're not going to talk about this. No spoilers on this episode. There are spoilers for Rise of Skywalker. No spoilers for Mandalorian. I have not watched a TV series since Friday Night Lights was the last one I did. Oh, wow. I can't justify the amount of time. Sure. It takes...

I did The Mandalorian. I watched a lot of TV. I loved it. Yeah. I thought it was so, so good. Yeah. So three times now, I've told David the show is, this episode is not about The Mandalorian. And like somehow he found a way to steer it. Mandalorian is very good. And then we're going to do a lot of spoilers for Rise of Skywalker. Have you seen Mandalorian now? Yeah, I have. Oh. I watched it a lot. Okay. Okay.

I wanted to wait until like the last episode was a day away so that I could just see it as a like a continuous. You wanted to truly binge it. Now that you've seen it, do we want to say it's okay to have Mandalorian spoilers or do we want to make this episode more accessible to more of the audience and stay strictly to it? We can refer to it, but I don't know. It's pretty distinct universes at this point. Yeah. I mean. Yeah.

Eventually the Mandalorian will show up into this trilogy, but it's pretty far removed. Yeah. Okay. All right. So listeners, from here on out, this is officially the spoiler horn of sorts. You have been warned. Rise of Skywalker, if you haven't seen it and you don't want spoilers, do not continue to listen. And Mandalorian, we will have light allusions to things happening, but we will try to stay relatively spoiler free on that front.

So structure for this episode. First, we're going to go around the table. We're going to talk about our overall impressions of the film. Then we're going to move into specific things we liked about the movie. Then go into things we did not like about the movie. And then we may bring in some standard acquired episode structure from there, depending on time. And I'll leave that. I won't talk about what that is yet. We'll let the conversation evolve organically.

So does anyone have a burning desire to start about what you think of this film? I want to go first. Yeah, I think you should. Look, I think the part that Ben started this episode alluding to of the minor spoiler was that I was telling him about the Rotten Tomatoes score. And, you know, you see this clear bridge between critics and fan score. The tomato meter has it at 54% and the audience score is at 86%.

You know, it's a pretty remarkable... Disparity. Difference, yeah, exactly. And then if you compare it to like...

Last Jedi, it's 91% tomato score and 43% audience score. It's a great way to frame it up that like The Last Jedi was much more a film for critics and a film for sort of like film buffs. If you can make a Star Wars film for film buffs and like The Rise of Skywalker is a little bit more sort of a popcorn fan service movie that is definitely not designed for film critics. Yeah.

Which is, of course, the difference between J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson. The interesting thing is Force Awakens was beloved by both. You know, like, Tomatometer, it's like 93% Tomatometer for The Force Awakens and 86% for Audience. So The Force Awakens, you kick off the new trilogy, it's like, okay, we're back on solid footing again. Right. Like, hell yeah, everyone feels good about it. I basically just watched A New Hope again and, like, it was awesome. It was like, okay, we hit reset, we can, like...

whatever you feel about the prequels, whether you want to be like super unique and contrarian and say they were good or logical and say they sucked. For the record, where are you on that? I was not a fan. You know, I will say that the very Phantom Menace, I enjoyed because I watched it. Yep.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, it was like a kid's movie. Yeah. And it had pod racing and the pod racing tied to a great video game, video game on N64. Oh yeah. Some of us played that on like Mac OS nine. I mean, I, I played it on a console, but like there was a clear link to a video game. Um,

There's a really funny YouTube video about the last fight in the Phantom Menace. It's like Miss and Dodge in case it's hilarious. I encourage everybody to check it out on YouTube about how it's a terrible fight actually. But when you're like watching it, it's really fun. And the John Williams score behind it is like really fun. And so I thought the Phantom Menace was really fun.

The following two episodes in the prequel trilogy left me with a lot of desire for more. And so you get to Force Awakens and it's like a nice reset button. Kylo Ren's really cool. You're starting to see like... You start seeing Luke Skywalker. Han Solo was amazing. He is such a good arc for that character. And then...

You go into Last Jedi, which I frankly enjoyed. I thought it was like a fresh take. But then you come into this one, The Rise of Skywalker, and you see how problematic The Last Jedi was because you killed Snoke. So it's like, who's the bad guy now? Uh-oh. And, you know, it was kind of cheesy to go back to the Emperor. Yeah. And then it was like, okay, well, we're going to go back to the bad guy. And then, well, how did he come back? And it was like...

Yeah, yeah, don't worry about that. And he's in this faraway land and he's built this amazing army with all these people. Where did they come from and how have they been hiding for 40 years? And you're hearing all of my dislikes about the movie like one by one. And he had a child at some point. There was a woman that was whatever. So it was like, oh, just accept this. And it's like, okay, fine. And then what I did like about it was that they just started with it. They were just like...

We're not even going to hide it. Like the emperor's alive. Deal with it. Now go. And it's, it's crackling throughout the galaxy. Yes, exactly. And what I enjoyed was it just felt like one of those Disneyland rides where it was just like, yeah, we're going to take you to all these different worlds. It's all going to be really fun. Don't worry about it. Don't be too serious. You're here for the lightsabers. Like it'll be fine. Yeah.

and you know what i enjoyed was that it was a pure popcorn movie it was like it was a really nice fun film it's rewatchable um you would know yeah it's obviously rewatchable um it's fun every time through it's fun it's like it's light there's nothing you know nothing too serious like it's

it's a very much like on the surface and like doesn't want to deal with too many serious themes. And it just, it just moves. And the movie moves too. And because they're going to so many planets. It moves fast. They cut so much out of this movie. Like I, I know you want to talk about the JJ edit later, but the, we should point out that like,

The script was clearly like twice as long as this movie ended up being because it just, the pacing is nuts. They move. Did you know that opening scene is actually on, what's the planet where Vader becomes Vader in the lights of the castle? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right. And then he builds that crazy palace that we see briefly in Rogue One. Yeah.

Which, um, well, well, well, Chet, the opening scene where he's like finding the wayfinder and he's like, you know, fighting Mustafar. Mustafar. He's on freaking Mustafar. And like, it's, it's so cool. I didn't realize until Googling afterwards, that is the same planet, right? Where, where Obi-Wan, you know, de-limbs him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's all Mustafar. Yeah. De-limbs him. But yeah,

Like, can you imagine? I'll have the higher ground. Which obviously means you win the fight here in Star Wars. Like...

Oh, that's all it took the whole time was to get the higher ground. Exactly. But the, I mean, we're on Mustafar. There's so much interesting lore there. And like, what do we get? We get like eight seconds of slashing through a forest, him grabbing the wayfinder and then flying off through the gate. I was like, whoa, okay. Like we're not, that's all we're going to get a Mustafar. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, so my pacing. So just to start with the overall impressions, I am more in the audience score camp, which is that I thought it was really fun. I thought it moved really well.

It was a lot of fun. It's really rewatchable. I think it'll stand the test of time as just a fun movie. I think Force Awakens...

was better because it was such a such a wonderful reset and then the last jedi is just different it just takes star wars to a place that that it hasn't gone before and so i think those two are the outstanding movies of this trilogy but this was a fine fun way to end it i mean it's not it's great i i enjoyed it that's so that's my initial impression all right i can go next i i

I have some other stuff I want to get to, but I'm going to save for a later section. Very similar reaction. I felt the whole time sitting in the movie theater next to Jenny, we kept turning to each other and just smiling. It was like, it was one of those where you're just like, yeah. It's a Disneyland ride. It's a ride. That is exactly, you nailed it. But the minute I walked out of the theater, I was like,

It hasn't stuck with me in the same way as almost every other Star Wars movie. And while I did then Google all the lore and find out about Mustafar, I was kind of, I was like, it felt like I was doing it because I had to. I didn't want to Google all the lore. And like, whereas definitely Force Awakens and Last Jedi too in its own way. I was like, I cannot wait to get on

Wikipedia and Wikipedia as soon as the credits roll. And I just didn't have that desire to go deeper this time. That's my hot take. I largely agree with Chaythen. And the thing that I'll throw out that is sort of my overriding angst with this film is they really needed to pick one director for this whole trilogy and let it be their vision. And it was just so clear that JJ was sort of undoing and or mopping up

the Ryan stuff. I can't remember where I, maybe Chetha, maybe you told me this, that like the, yeah, this was you that, uh, JJ has this sort of like film style where he tees up, you know, these like big questions of who, who are Ray's parents, you know, who is Snoke? Like we got all this interesting stuff in, uh, in the force awakens. I mean, force awakens, let's be clear, was a new hope in like,

a modern era with slightly newer characters and really awesome graphics, but like plot lines. It's a bigger Death Star. It's a planet. It was a new hope in for the modern era with like female lead. Tons of fan service. Yeah, exactly. Star killer base, not Death Star. Which is a great reference to the whole like. Yeah. So, but, and then Rian Johnson comes in and for anyone who saw Looper, like Rian in his element is an amazing director and he's like,

He's an artist, but it's not... It's by no means popcorn. And so then Ryan comes in and says...

those questions JJ asked, not only am I not going to tell you the answer, I'm going to basically tell you those questions don't matter. Like the answers to those questions are unimportant. I know we were built up to this, but like, it's almost like a melody that doesn't resolve. And your brain is stuck on this note of like, ah, I thought it was supposed to resolve and it kills you. And then, so when JJ comes back in and he's like, oh, I really need to deliver a finale for this franchise. Like he kind of undoes that and says, oh, they do.

And here's what they are. And the pacing required to do that and the convoluted insanity of some of the plot points, you walk out of the movie and you're like, I can kind of see...

how that works, but like, gosh, that is a, that's not like an elegant threading of an explanation to these answers. That's like, uh, I, I did check all the boxes in answering those, but gosh, it was kind of painful to get there. It's like, I created Snoke. And then you see this like little test tube thing. I created Snoke. Yeah. Oh, look at all these baby Snooks floating around. We're never going to explain. Oh,

You're like, so there were multiple snooks? Okay. And at first I'm like, so okay, like figuratively, because this guy thinks he's like really important. You know, Palpatine is like the big bad emperor. And so like, oh, he created everything. You know, he's like, no, no, no. Like I literally grew him in this weird tube. I'm like, okay. I guess we're not going to explore that at all because pacing. Boom. There

There's a term for them in the lore, but all the people in the stadium audience around at the end with the final battle, like, who are all those people? It's like all the Sith. It's like all the Sith. It's like a big party. It's like the Super Bowl of Sith. Like,

okay so i have a question on that is this and like i know this is the wrong section for this but whatever this is acquired and like all the sections bleed together and everyone knows this if there's only ever two siths at once like is that still true that there are only ever two yeah what happened to that like i am all the you get all the siths it's like how like in the phantom menace it was like they're always two they made that right here

And so, like, in the baddest living Sith, is it always true that then they contain all the previous Siths? Like, is that what we were sort of, like, told to walk away with there? I guess. Yeah.

I guess. I had a little bit of confusion around, like, were those all Force ghosts? Or are all those Siths, like, actually active and alive here in the world? Because, like, they should have felt... They're like the mid-level managers. Yeah.

They sure felt more present to me than like, you know, Obi-Wan did in A New Hope. But in getting into this convoluted crap, like Force ghosts can now like use the Force now and can like grab lightsabers out of the air. Oh, yeah. So what is the difference between a Force ghost and like the real world anyway? Well, they can do lightning too. Remember Yoda does lightning. Yeah, what the hell? Like as a Force ghost, he lights up a tree. That's true.

So, yeah. Well, we should talk about what we liked. So what did we like? What did we like? Okay, guys. Number one thing anybody should like from this movie is Chewie gets his medal. That was cool. Best thing ever. And it took me a second to realize what was going on. And I was like, oh my God, like this is the fan service moment that was like, that everyone's been angsty about since the end of A New Hope. It's a beautiful, wonderful thing. Why didn't Chewie get a medal? Right. Yeah. So that.

This would be a bad movie if I said that was my favorite part of the movie, but I thoroughly enjoyed that moment. I really liked the end. I really liked Rey Skywalker. I thought that was... It just made me smile. I 100% teared up. I almost actually cried. Even though we'll get into...

Rey's parents and her family in the backstory. But I loved the end. I thought Kylo was just really great. I thought Kylo was... He's such a good actor. I think Adam Driver did a really good job. I think Adam Driver is a really good character. And I liked the allusion to Kylo Ren's suit, to Vader's suit, the similarities between...

the inspiration from samurai suits. I liked when like the mask broke and they put it together with like that red stuff, which was like another... When the ape did it? Was it that? I don't know. I swear to God, it was a monkey reassembling his helmet. But it was like, that was another like allusion to like Japanese pottery. So like I thought that Kylo was a really great character. I didn't get that. That's cool. I thought that lightsaber fights...

They did really well. I thought Kylo and Rey's fight on the Death Star. Yeah, that was fun. Oh my God. That was another time that I got really emotional during the movie was when they play, I think it's technically called the Emperor's Theme, but it's basically a modified version of the Imperial March theme.

when Rey comes into the basically Palpatine's chamber in the Death Star where the last... The throne room, basically. Yeah, the last scene of the Return of the Jedi takes place. Everything about that scene is incredibly well done. I mean, I know it's a fanservice moment. And let me be clear about why I'm mad about fanservice moments. I think they're cheap. There are ways to get people to smile during the movie, but then it doesn't survive as...

and create like this is a great movie 20 years later in the same way that like A New Hope is a great movie 30 years later. So like every time there's a fan service moment, there's a part of me that's like lit up inside and like, this is so awesome. And then there's another part of me that's like, ah, this is kind of a cheap thrill. So like I, even though it was a big fan service moment, I thought it delivered just like incredible deep emotion where you're, you felt like,

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I liked Han Solo coming back. Anytime I can get more Harrison Ford, I'm all for it. I know. You guys made him more than me. Didn't Harrison Ford not want to be in the trilogy? And so that's why he negotiated to get to die in Force Awakens. Yeah.

Yes, and then J.J., they convinced him to come back for this one because I heard that actually some of that dialogue was going to be that this scene was actually originally going to be Carrie. It was not going to be Harrison Ford. And this was like a nice way to modify it. But I actually thought if this was ever intended to be Carrie, this is way better. Way better. Yeah. Like this, this I think is the best dialogue ever.

Maybe in the whole movie where you have... When Harrison Ford is first talking, it's the exact thing that he said to Kylo right before Kylo killed him. And then they're able to fork from that conversation. I think it's new dialogue that continues from them when he's able to make a different decision and not repeat history. And I also thought that ending where he says, Dad, and he's about to say, I love you, and Harrison Ford says...

I know. That's like the greatest both moment of fan service and new dialogue at the same time. That is like the moment on the bridge in the Death Star with Rey where it's like, it's fan service, but it's... What's the right way to describe it? It's like, it's so smart that you know it's going to stand the test of time. So I really like that. There's a lot of stuff going on in the final act where they're in Exegol, but I really liked when...

both Ray and Kylo are separately fighting. Yeah. You know, they got to get through that, you know, initial before the final boss. But I thought that was fun. And then the two lights. Amazing moment in the film where she puts the lightsaber behind her head. Yeah. That was like that. And then he stands up and then does the little shrug. And then he's like, the Han Solo shrug. It's like, you are Han Solo's son. Yeah, exactly. That was awesome. And then that, I

I loved. And the dual lightsaber defense, again, like huge fan service, like loved it. And like also the deviation from like, it is Return of the, when is it that they use the two lightsabers and then behead the guy? That's in the prequels. Oh, you're right. Yeah. I don't think that's in the original. Anakin does that.

Anakin has two lightsabers. Yeah. And it's showing like a departure from like if you were dark side, if you had turned what you would do with these two lightsabers heading towards someone's neck is pull that move. Yeah. And like here you are like a centered Jedi and what you're going to do is just...

the force light, like just push back hard enough to use his own force lightning against him and not let your anger get the better of you. Which, by the way, so the first time I saw this, I know I'm taking a derailment here. The first time I saw this, I was really mad because at the end, I was like, what the hell is,

it turned from this moment where if she kills Palpatine, then like she becomes the new Sith Lord by like using her anger to kill him. Why is it that now, like now that she has two lightsabers, like she's,

She kills him and she's like not the Sith Lord and like didn't inherit all the thousands of Sith in the Super Bowl stadium behind her. And I like finally on the second viewing was like, oh, I see. Like she didn't act. It was she was playing pure defense the whole time. And she just let his force lightning reverberate against him. And he sort of like killed himself there. Yeah. Which is a little bit of my like frustration with JJ convoluted plot.

stuff but like on the other hand i was like that's actually a pretty good way to differentiate it yeah yes should we talk about so that's what i like so it was it was anakin fights count dooku with two lightsabers uh and then and ah that's what it was yeah oh that was revenge of the sith so yeah that's when anakin's turning yeah yeah all right should we talk about the dislikes well i gotta know everybody's gotta go yeah yeah oh oh

So I thought at the end, Rey's lightsaber was awesome. Like the little clicky turnaround thing was like a pretty sweet little mechanism. I also thought it being yellow was really cool. And like more than just like, ooh, a yellow lightsaber. The only time we've seen a non-green, blue, or black one was Mace Windu because of Samuel L. Jackson's special request for purple. The yellow, I think, is her fulfilling the prophecy and bringing balance to the Force. Yeah.

where it's the first non-Jedi or Sith lightsaber she has officially brought balance and is like her own new thing now. That's great. Maybe. Like, I don't know for sure that that's what that is, but I was sort of like, of course if she constructs her own lightsaber, it's not going to be pure. I can't remember now, but there was, there have been yellow lightsabers in non-canon Star Wars stuff. Get out of here with your Legends bullshit. Ha ha ha!

Why are we making non-canon references? It is fair. The non-canon stuff, or what was it before that? I can't remember what they used to call it, but that stuff is the inspiration for new canon, and they sort of choose what they want to bring in. So it's a worthy... Yeah, I don't know why... By the way, as a side note, that's such a great...

Disney does so many things so right but that's such a great business strategy right like embrace the fan you know it's like that's like an extend if only someone else had thought of that before yeah no you're right that's a great it's a great point and also by like

being like talk about an acquisition done right. They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to make a bunch of new stuff and it's all sort of confusing right now. So we're going to like choose what is canon and like, sorry to everything else, but like there is a Disney canon now. And like that actually worked. Like it went over pretty, there's fights on the Reddit, but like, that's okay. Those people are still going to see the movie. Yep.

And remember, the movie is about to hit a billion dollars in ticket sales. Yeah. But it's underperformed broadly, right? Like it hasn't been as big yet. Like it certainly wasn't as big as The Force Awakens. No. Force Awakens was huge. $2 billion. $2.068. I'm on box office mojo right now for all three. But it's doing well. I think, you know, it's going to hit... It's going to cross a billion. So...

Last Jedi worldwide, 1.33 billion. Rise of Skywalker, 927 million right now. Now, I don't know enough to say like, to predict where that's going to like, okay, that's going to end up, I'm not close enough to the media world anymore to say like, oh yeah, that's going to surpass 1.33 or not. It's likely going to hit a billion. I mean, it's going to hit a billion for sure. Yeah. I mean, if Chasen just keeps going at the rate that he's started. I personally will take it to a no.

All right. I got a few more things I really loved about this movie. The scene where Ray and Kylo are both sort of like force fighting over the ship. I thought,

was one really amazing to show that like wow she has power beyond any other Jedi that we've ever seen before like no one's ever stopped a ship and sort of pulled it back down to earth and then to layer on top of that like she has Sith lightning as like one of her powers and she can't control it like that was a like really badass way to tee up

sort of like wrestling with these visions that she's seeing and maybe she does have a destiny to sit on this Sith throne and I think it was like surprising like I was shocked in the moment to see it and also I think it sort of like holds up when you're you're thinking about like her journey as a character and hero's journey through this movie yeah the force lightning part was really awesome super cool

Yeah. There was a cute little illusion toward the end when she's bearing the lightsabers and she goes back to visit Tatooine, which, by the way, ending on the binary sunset. Chef's kiss. Fan service. For sure. For sure. But she she gets on that little piece of scrap metal and she sleds down the thing. And the music is raised theme from The Force Awakens. Like that was just that was like more fan service. But again, really well done.

It was interesting, though, like if you think about JJ's fan service versus Rian Johnson's fan service, which is like...

DJ Abramson's fan service is like, look, Raison Tatooine, two sons. Whereas like Rian Johnson is like, are you getting it? And, you know, Rian Johnson's fan service was like so subtle when like Luke, you know, like just disappears and just that like the like coat just floats down and then you see the like horizon and

And it's like, it's a very subtle reference versus a very heavy-handed, like... Rian Johnson thinks his audience is smarter than J.J. Abrams does. Let's just say it. Because we're, like, holding The Last Jedi up as, like, the thinking man Star Wars here, I just have to, like, shit on this one thing. The entire decision to go to this, like, Vegas planet is, like, the most... Not only is it pretty boring, it's also...

completely pointless and actually serves no purpose in the movie and all that work gets undone. And so like, and then there's this weird sort of like physics question, which is like these two ships that are like moving through space with no gravity. Somehow when one of them like runs out of fuel, like they start like slowing down and fall back within range where like they can be shot down. So that's this whole like,

slow chase through space I think was really poorly thought out and like a terrible use of 40 minutes so I just want to like before we put the last Jedi on a pedestal I've always had an issue with that I've had a couple issues with last Jedi which we can just throw out one was the casino planet thing is fine because he's they're trying to make a point that like you know the rebellion is still alive and the kids and the ring and all that stuff cool but

If you like rewatch The Last Jedi, like it's really long. Yeah. It's really long. You almost wish they had replaced some of that with more time with between Luke and Rey. And if you watch the like cut out scenes in the special edition or if you buy the movie on the extras, you'll see that Luke, when he decides to train Rey, says, I have three lessons for you. And you actually only see two because they cut the third one out. Oh.

And it's like, it's so, you know, you see this like far away settlement that's on fire and, you know, Ray like gets her lightsaber and like runs there to like,

because she thinks it's a raid and she like runs there and once she gets there she realizes it's just a party and Luke is like what were you gonna do like get your lightsaber and kill everybody like like what were you gonna do and that was supposed to serve as like a third lesson that like the world it's a fun extra that's as part of the last Jedi but like

That felt like it should be part of the movie because he's like, I have three lessons for you. It's like, I have something to tell you. Yeah. Then it's like... Wouldn't that be great if that was resolved? Yeah. Then it's like... What's interesting is remember when they started this new trilogy, the three different movies had three different directors and then they replaced the third movie director. Didn't they offer...

8 and 9 to Ryan. I don't remember. And then midway through 8 told Ryan he was out. I don't know. I don't know. I don't remember that. I don't know. Maybe. But if that's the case, I think one of the things that I... If you reflect on it, it's like, okay, well...

J.J. Abrams set up these questions. Rian Johnson said, hey, guess what? Those questions don't matter. And it's like, I would have actually liked to have seen his finish to this. And it was like, okay, fine. These questions don't matter. What questions do actually matter? Yeah, I would pay money to watch another episode nine. Like a different universe episode nine. Yeah, it's like Rian Johnson's conclusion to this. Yeah.

Ryan Johnson, some studio should fund Ryan Johnson to make a movie that uses no Star Wars IP, but is like a subtle wink at who the characters are and just make a movie that's his episode nine. It's like Galaxy Quest is like a subtle wink at Star Trek. Like we should do the Galaxy Quest of the Star Wars universe. Oh my God, that would make so much money. It would. Oh yeah. You gotta go on Kickstarter. There was a James Bond that was that way. There was a James Bond that was not 007 and was not-

Oh, was that the original Casino Royale? No, but there was an original Casino Royale. Oh, I don't know. It was during one of the transitions where it was like it was like one more Timothy Dalton movie before the next guy came in or something like that. But that that has happened where there's like a sort of like and they couldn't use the theme. That was one big thing where it's like a Bond movie, but it's like doesn't feel like Bond because it doesn't have a theme.

So, yeah, like a Galaxy Quest version of the Star Wars universe that is Rian Johnson's episode, like the third installment of the trilogy that, you know, is like his own vision of what would be. That'd be fun. All right. What else do we like? Anything else before we move into... And we can come back to some stuff here, but...

Poe's always... I thought Poe's a really good character, too. Yeah. Oscar Isaac's a great actor. He's a great actor. He did really well. I think, you know, the... I thought they were going to go full total fan service by establishing a relationship, like an actual romantic relationship between Poe and Finn, but they didn't, like, they didn't, they, like... Yeah. I was like, I thought that's where they were going. Oh, no, they're just bros. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

I thought that's where it was going. And, you know, we'll go back to the JJ cut. But like, there's so many, like, all the criticisms of like this episode are always like, well, that's not JJ's decision. JJ wanted to go a different direction with that. It is worth saying that I did see, it's really weird. There's like sub thousand views on YouTube, but there's a, somebody filmed JJ and like

10 of his creative lieutenants on the film went and like talked about a bunch of stuff at a premiere. And one of the things they actually talk about, someone asks him like, so what was the big secret? Like what did Finn have to tell Ray? And JJ's like, oh, that he was force sensitive.

And, like, he, like, does that make it canon if J.J. is, like, saying that on stage? Like, first of all, that seems ridiculous to me. Was it really not I love you? Like, it really was I'm force sensitive? Like, that's the thing that you have to say when you're about to die? I just, like, I could not believe that when someone was, like, telling me about this thing and then I watched it for myself. And I was like, either, like, J.J.'s trolling us or...

I did like that Finn was Force sensitive. Yeah, that was cool. It was like, I like, you know, more people in the Star Wars universe being Force sensitive. It's like, like a little boy who could grab the broom. Yeah. So that was, to move on to dislike, that was my biggest thing that I disliked. That was, I thought the coolest part of Last Jedi was, it's like,

Oh, everyone can use the Force. Or maybe not everyone, but like so many more people than you thought. Yeah. And then that just kind of... Like there were little bits of the like, oh, Finn is Force sensitive, but that was... No, you have to be a Skywalker or a Palpatine. Exactly. And like, I just thought that... Sorry, this is dynastic. That was what stuck with me so much from Last Jedi. I was like, wow, what if like this isn't just... We've been watching...

seven and a half episodes where we think this is about special people. And it's like, wait a minute, it's not about special people. It's about everybody. Yeah, fuck that. It's about special people. Like this is Star Wars. Yeah, you have to be a Skywalker or a Palpatine. That's it. Or a furry green alien. Yeah, it was like... Okay, while we're into dislikes, I think it was the worst of the Matrix revolutions meets the worst of Harry Potter.

Yeah, like Voldemort sucking your life. I was like, as soon as it happened, I was like, is this Harry Potter? It was like, okay, so let me talk through the Matrix Revolutions thing first. So lots of things are wrong with the Matrix Revolutions, as you shouldn't, much like the Star Wars prequels. So the Matrix is cool, right? Agent Smith is this badass, you know, he's like this incredible enemy to fight. There's bullet time. So like for Matrix...

what's the second one? Reloaded. Like what would be, what would be cooler? I don't know. Like how about a thousand Agent Smiths that we have to fight? And then you have Matrix Revolutions and they're like, I know. We gotta keep escalating. What if everybody in the whole goddamn world turned into Agent Smith? And then you had to fight all seven billion people in the world. And like, what do you think about that? That's an escalation right there. It's like, I wish, it was like, gosh, I wish you could get more creative than just like multiplying the boss by a thousand. Yeah.

to like make it more epic and it it really bothered me and so then it's like star destroyers are pretty scary you know it would be really really yeah really scary like 10 000 of them and you know what like you know what's pretty scary like the death star weapon what if every star destroyer has the death star weapon and you're like god damn it can you not think of anything more original and on top of all that then like they were not powerful they

It was like, oh, well, now that all these other ships show up at exactly the right time from nowhere altogether, like suddenly these teeny little ships can go shoot at what is effectively a Death Star weapon, presumably made out of kyber crystal. And like they would just blow up.

Like, oh, boom. And then when they blew up, the whole ship blew up. And you're like, oh, this thing that was like times 10,000 that was supposed to be like the big scary thing is like really, really randomly weak. So like everything about that whole thing, I was like, this is like the... And like exactly how does Neo beat 7 billion Agent Smiths? I don't know. He shouldn't, but he does. And like in the same way, we...

we had 10,000 Star Destroyers get blown up. So that really bothered me. And it is like the war, like to me, that is like the crucial flaw in a saga is when that's the best thing you can come up with to make it like hyperclimactic.

And on top of all that, we had the Harry Potter thing where like Palpatine is Voldemort and he's like stealing life with this like white wispy shit out of people. And then he's like using that for himself. Like there's even like elements where like, oh, Rey can like heal a snake. And it's like, oh, shoot, like very Slytherin-y. And it's like there's it's they're on this planet where there's like it's it's it goes even it's like more fantasy than sci-fi. Do you think that was intentional?

The Harry Potter reference? The Snake Voldemort thing? I don't know. No, but... Subsume Harry Potter mythology into Star Wars? But you nailed it. It gets mythological. It goes from what was a sort of like...

you know, a space opera with like metal and like shiny armor and shit. And we're in this world of like, it's like mysticism toward the end. This whole Exegol thing is this weird, like Harry Potter mystical thing. So it was like, you have that element and the matrix thing. And it was just like, God, kill me. How did you really feel? Yeah.

What I didn't like was it's just because of this like, oh, we're just going to make this like an adventure ride. They just do so much crazy stuff in the movie. Like the cavalry charge. Can we talk about the cavalry charge? What? Wait, what was that? Is there air in space? Yeah.

Well, no, they're still on Exegol. Like they haven't. Right. But they're pretty high up. They are pretty high up. I mean, maybe the atmosphere is like extremely dense that high up on Exegol. Wait, wait, wait. What are you talking about? You know, when they rush in the final battle, like Finn leads a cavalry on horses.

on the surface of a star destroyer. They're clearly in the atmosphere. Yeah, it's like gravity functions exactly the same. It's a mythological planet. It went straight fantasy. So all these rules don't apply anymore on Exegol. We can't even find the planet. Who knows where it is? It's in the unknown regions. Yeah.

I told you so many Star Charts. The Voldemort scene, I was just like, what is happening? And then you're just like, as it's happening. But they're not dead. Like he sucks the life, but then they're able to sort of. And he just like, there's like unnecessary things there, right? He's like, oh, you're a forced dyad. Okay. Whoop, it's mine. Okay.

Yeah, and it's like, it's interesting. It's like, I'm not sucking your life force out. I'm sucking the dyad out of you. So you're no longer like bridged in this special way where you can force time through, you know, miles and miles of space. But you can, I took the life of the dyad and now you just have your regular force sensitive life. And it's like, and then the cool part is, so you've got Kylo and who's now Ben.

And you've got Rey. And they light up the lightsabers. And you're like, oh, man. Oh, yeah. Shit's about to get real. And then it's like, Voldemort! Yeah. And they just, like, it's gone, right? Like, they, like, line up with the two lightsabers. And then it's over. It's like, they just don't, they don't do anything. And you're just like, oh, man. Like...

You want to have them like, yeah. Like, give me my moment of like, like, hell yeah. Like, let's get him. Especially in a movie that is a adventure. Yeah. It's like, we set this up. They're both ready to go. We haven't yet. Like they fight their own little battles and then now they've unified. It's like, okay, let's go. Like we've got this, like two Jedis basically now that are going to fight Palpatine. And then it was like,

No, they're a forced dyad. Voldemort. Look, my fingers are healed. You guys are fainted. I forgot about the finger healing. His fingers are healed. And then he like... And then like Ben wakes up. His eyes coming back was pretty badass. Like the yellow from the... Yeah. And then Ben like wakes up and then the Emperor's like, oh, I'm going to throw you like...

I was once thrown and you're like, dude, what? Yeah. Yeah. The thing that didn't kill me somehow is going to kill you. I'm going to throw you down that hole. And then you're like, what's going on?

But then at least the force lightning part I thought was cool where he just like turns it up and then it's just got... Okay, this is another times a thousand thing though. It's like, oh, remember how badass it was in Return of the Jedi when like he's force lightninging Luke and then like Vader is like, no, and he throws him down the hole. It's like, whoa, the force lightning was like really badass because it basically paralyzed Luke. And then this is like,

His force lightning is so powerful that he can fire it at the sky and it disables every rebel ship. And you're like, okay. I think the Exegol scene is where all my problems with the movie are. It's just like, you know, I watched it in a movie theater, but when I finally watch it on my TV, I'm literally going to fast forward through the Voldemort scene and then throw Ben into a hole scene because it's just like...

okay, we don't need that. Yeah. Like, let's just get to force lightning. That brings up another point here, which is you can't have your cake and eat it too, guys. Like they wanted the kiss scene, but they also wanted him to die. And so somehow he like brings her back to life, like transfers, you know, when Kylo saves Rey, uh,

So then they have this, like, I don't know, minute, minute and a half where, like, they're both kind of, like, alive and it's, like, it seems like it's going to work out. They're, like, kissing. It's kind of shocking. Can't believe they made that decision. And then, oh, and then that took it all out of him. And you're, like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Either he saved her and transferred his own life force or he didn't. By the way, Matrix...

All over again, right? Like Neo pulling the villain out of Trinity. Like in Matrix Reloaded, it's just like Matrix plus Harry Potter again. And you're just like, no. Are you guys a fan of the Ben Solo and Rey Skywalker kiss? I don't know if this is just me. I actually was very surprised by it. I was thinking of them much more as like siblings than a romantic type relationship. But yeah.

I was surprised by it. How about you, Ben? Yeah, I was surprised. I'm not sure I was that mad about it. I actually liked that the two of them have this really deep and special relationship that really trivializes Finn when they're fighting and like...

when they're on the Death Star in that, off the coast of the Cliffs of Moer in that choppy ocean and like they're having it out and like Finn tries to run in, like I actually think the writing in the direction there was great where you're like, no, like Kylo and Rey are,

are like really in it here emotionally with each other. And like, you are a child in this and like, get out. Like, and when she like throws him back to safety, it's like, I want you to be safe, but like you have no place in the like intensity of the relationship that is happening here. What I have with you is friendship. What I have here is like,

something much more tied to my soul, whether it's in a romantic relationship or like an enemy that I'm going to kill, whatever. It's much more significant and at a higher level. And I, so with the kiss thing, I was like, okay, like I think they felt like they had to do that, but I did think that they had some like really intense, deep relationship that, that I'm glad she didn't end up like with Finn somehow at the end. I thought they could have had Finn, uh,

do more with the force sensitivity. He senses Kylo on that planet, right? Because Poe's like, what's wrong? What's Rey up to? And he just senses that this is what's happening. I bet they did and I bet that is some of the stuff that was cut. Hmm.

It just feels like that they wanted them. Towards the end, like going back to what I did like, I really liked the three friends hug at the end. It's like, oh, that's really sweet. Yeah. It's nice. It's like. It was great. And, you know, like Lando's back. Lando has some time. Does Lando have a daughter? Is that what that was? I don't know. Well, supposedly from the JJ cut. We're going to find out. It was. That was. But I don't know.

Yeah. Chayton, tell us about this JJ cut. We've alluded to it here a few times. Yes. So the, so it started up as a rumor and then one of the actors that was actually in the movie actually makes a reference to it. And now it's like all over the internet. And so if you just simply Google star Wars, JJ cut, you'll see it.

There's a number of rumors of scenes that were cut that made the movie a lot shorter. One is that apparently there's a lot more content of Adam Driver in sort of this turmoil of, you know, picking between good and evil and sort of that flip back to Ben Solo that apparently was cut more. There is also a rumor that the Force ghosts show up.

In Exegol of, you know, instead of just being like audio voices, like apparently like force ghosts actually show up, including Anakin and Mace Windu and Obi-Wan and a couple others. Apparently that was cut. And apparently there's like actual film scenes with, you know, Samuel L. Jackson and stuff. Wow. So rumor. That's a rumor about the JJ cut.

So all these rumors about like what's in that director's cut that apparently extends the movie to be quite a bit longer. You know, we might see like in Force Awakens and Last Jedi when those movies were released for sale in the extras, they put in extra scenes that were unfinished that you could go watch. If they did tape these scenes or film these scenes, I hope they have them in the extras when the movie actually comes out. Oh, for sure.

What do you guys think? Maybe this is preving ahead to normal acquired sections, but what do you think Disney does with Star Wars next? So the thing they've announced they're doing is they're done with trilogies and they're done with the story of the Skywalkers.

What they didn't say was they were done with the story of the Palpatines. So like we already know they converted one movie that was going to be the Obi-Wan movie into a Disney Plus TV show. So they're going to do that. But I suspect there's... I don't know if they're going to call them episode 10, 11, 12. There's going to be some, I think, Palpatine backstory. I mean, if you think about it, like...

The Star Wars IP has withstood the test of time. Yeah. I mean, if you think about New Hope was over 40 years ago. Yeah. And, you know, we're talking about this movie generating 50 years ago. Yeah. Like generating a billion dollars of box office revenue.

It's just amazing that this IP has that much longevity. And we keep alluding to The Mandalorian. I feel like it was a huge essential component of Disney Plus doing what they've done. If you just look at the numbers on Disney Plus, they're remarkable. And so the amount of original content you can produce for Disney Plus...

I mean, think about it. What if they don't release the JJ cut as something you can buy? You can only get on Disney Plus. Yeah, there's Disney Plus now. Yeah, you only can get it out of Disney Plus. Well, they're going to release... It's actually... It looks awful, but they're going to release eight more Marvel series. Every one of these minor characters is getting their own series. So I hope it's not like that. Yeah, but I mean, there's just so much IP. Yeah.

And look, Star Wars survived the prequels to generate three additional like multi-billion dollar box office hits. And so I think there's something super, you know, like you create a sense of ownership amongst multiple generations now of like, you know, like our generation got access to Star Wars and

Whether through our parents or through the prequels. Or the specialized editions. Yeah, the specialized editions. I mean, I'd seen Star Wars in home video before, but the special editions in the movie theater, that was like a big moment for me growing up. Right. And so we got to experience nostalgia with this series that I think the previous generation got to experience a little bit with the prequels. Yeah.

And so this like nostalgia fan service like ticket is a one that you can keep. Yeah. Like that is accessible to you. And like if they revisit the Skywalker movie,

arc again like who's gonna complain like if they do another three movies yeah that's the thing like i totally would not be mad if we stayed in scope here yeah it's like it you actually raise this amazing point that's like a movie that came out in 19 i'm 30 years old and they in this movie when they were doing fan service i had these emotional moments of nostalgia around a movie that came out in 1977 and like somehow they've pulled that off through the special editions through whatever else like

holy crap, that was 12 years before I was born and like,

the binary suns are setting and I'm like, Oh my God. Yeah, exactly. It's like a movie from 1977 creates nostalgia for people that weren't born in 1977. And so, you know, I think bar mitzvah in between when that came out. Like it's, you know, you have to go back and really credit George Lucas for this. Like the IP creation of the star Wars universe is probably one of the biggest media IP assets ever.

ever created. I mean, I think as a singular story and piece of work, the Star Wars IPS, the original trilogy, one of, if not the best mythological creation of the modern era.

Yeah. And those that aren't interested in Star Wars will always tell you, you know, there's better sci-fi than Star Wars. There's better like mythology than Star Wars. There's better like sword fighting than Star Wars, et cetera, et cetera. It's like, no, but what's unique is that it ties it all together. It has become such a central part of American culture. It is...

This substrate that unifies, not unifies, but creates common ground between generations and across sort of like

It's so easily identifiable no matter where you grew up. The energy that binds the universe together. There you go. Yeah. Like, and you've got like these cheesy things that like, they're so good. Like it's so good. And you know, like I wore to the first viewing of star Wars, I wore a millennium Falcon t-shirt and it's like, yeah, this was literally IP. Like Ben was saying like IP that was created in 1977 and,

But in 2019, somebody that wasn't born when it was first released is wearing a T-shirt from that IP. It's like the longevity of this is what's really, really impressive. And I think because it's like space far, far away, long, long time ago, like timelines and modernization, you can just play with it all you want. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it is true. They'd get to drift in and out of fantasy. There's these lines that jump out at me now in A New Hope when I rewatched it where they say... They refer to Obi-Wan Kenobi as that crazy old wizard who lives out there. And you're like, what? They do sort of toe this interesting line between it's not the best nuts and bolts sci-fi. It's not the best nuts and bolts samurai sword fighting. It's not the...

It is the best soup anybody has ever made. Yeah. So then the next question is that I think we have to ask, given Disney, given everything, how do we compare that with Marvel? And the state of, you know, now that the new Disney trilogy has wrapped up, the Mandalorians out there, we have a good picture what Disney's doing. And we have a great picture of what Marvel's, what they're doing with Marvel. They're so different in so many ways. Yeah.

I feel like Marvel gets completely reinvented with each generation in a way that there's not really a link to the past. Marvel really wasn't successful before. Like if you think about like buying Star Wars and is like, whoa, like that is a that's a major cultural icon that you are on a on the risk of reappropriating or B could make a zillion dollars off of because look how many people care about it.

Like Marvel, when they bought it, was like, that's like that old set of comics. And like a lot of people have made movies already based on these comics. Remember, it was Brian Roberts, you know, in the Disney Plus episode. It was Brian Roberts, the Comcast CEO. I mean, like you bought Marvel? You paid how much for a comic book company? Right. Yeah. But $4 billion, right? Star Wars and Marvel were both around $4. Pixar was $7. Lucasfilm was $4.05 billion. And I believe Marvel was...

I'll say 4.1. I could be wrong. But anyway, you know... The MCU, I think, is much better executed than the more recent trilogy of Star Wars.

No doubt in my mind, in like breadth and in ability to, for Jon Favreau, honestly, to tie it all together in a really compelling way. Like somehow they whiffed on that with Star Wars, which hopefully actually they're giving Star Wars to Favreau now, now that he's EP of the, or producer of The Mandalorian. Yeah. Like I'm hoping that he's going to sort of do the same thing, but...

I'm honestly worried about the post MCU future of Marvel after watching this like Disney plus show. That's like, here's all the new Disney plus Marvel shows that are coming out. And you're like, Oh, never watching that. But like, I'm very excited for all the future star Wars stuff, despite the fact that they kind of bungled the execution of the trilogy. The Marvel studios has a president.

And Star Wars. Is it Kevin Feige or Feige? Yeah, right. Yeah. And Kathleen Kennedy. Kathleen Kennedy is the president of Lucasfilm inside of Disney. Yep. And so, you know, if you look at the execution of, he became president of Marvel Studios in 2007 and is largely credited with, you know, Iron Man, which was like the first

That was so, and we talked about it so much in our episodes. That was so, we talked about a lot of the Tesla episode, you know, I mean, Elon Musk was Robert Downey Jr.'s, you know, inspiration for Iron Man. Yeah. And so if you look at Iron Man and what they did with Marvel Studios and like just basically they got a fresh start. There was no expectation. It was just like. And we've covered this before, but like that.

business decision creating marvel studios within marvel small independent public company headquartered in new york reclusive ceo you know making that decision to we're gonna build a studio nobody built studios at that point in time that was like one of the very very very best business decisions in the 20th century so they get to play a lot with that cinematic universe and

And what's interesting now is that under the Disney umbrella, they brought back X-Men back into the fold. You know, Spider-Man sits in this weird... The Fox transaction. Sort of, right? Like, had they fully... It's not in the MCU, but Disney owns it now.

Oh, that's right. I was like, no, it's still licensed to 20th Century Fox. That's right. Yeah, so there's a lot of potential there because they've had this weird stuff with these tertiary X-Men characters coming in tomorrow. Yeah, so then there's this understanding between Sony and now Disney with Spider-Man. Yeah, and so I just feel like Marvel Cinematic Universe gets to reinvent itself and there's not this whole like...

of what is a Jedi. It's like they just keep changing the rules. They're like, oh, Thor. Yeah, this is Thor now. There's less expectations with Marvel. Yeah, there's a lot less weight. And that's why I was getting with like the... It's not... You don't have to carry the weight of those links generation to generation. You can reinvent. Yeah. And what will be really interesting is if Disney tries that playbook with Star Wars. Basically says, you know what? Like...

At some point, do you basically say like, we're just going to like create new stuff? I wonder if the Solo movie was a toe dip in the water on that front. Might have been. I'm still a fan. I know lots of people hate it. One of our most prominent and active listeners who's in the Slack, Preet Anand, is very critical of me and says that I have no taste in anything in my life because I liked Solo, but...

I didn't like it as much as Rogue One, which I think Chazen was talking about. Rogue One was a great movie. That was the best Star Wars movie of the five that Disney's done. You think better than The Force Awakens.

Yeah, man. The battle scene on that planet was so awesome. Yeah, it was. And they brought Darth Vader back. That is as much fan service as it gets. It was an amazing movie already, and then it's like, and we're going to show you the exact moments before A New Hope and how badass Darth Vader is right before he bursts into the ship. That is the only time we get full Darth Vader. You're right. And Chatham, that's the only time where he's like...

I think he almost flies, doesn't he? Like he's like throwing people at the ceiling, like breaking their back by force lifting them against the ceiling. He's like actively sword fighting in like an athletic way unlike all his other... It's the first time... That was badass. Yeah. You see, that was really good. I mean...

The thing about Solo is they bring Darth Maul back, which was weird, which was just like, he got cut in half. What happened? He has spider legs now. Yeah. It's like, what? Okay. Wasn't there a rumor that Snoke was Darth Maul?

That would have been a good rumor. That would have been a good rumor, but now Snoke doesn't matter. That was one of my biggest disappointments. Snoke didn't matter. Puppet? That's the best you can come up with. And I thought in Force Awakens, it was actually, he did a really good job. Like Snoke was this like good character. Yeah, he was all big. You didn't know his actual size. There was the whole wizard of Oz analogy. Yeah.

I can sense where we're sort of heading here. So I want to get a few more loves and didn't likes in before we transition. Babu Frick is an amazing character that I really wanted more of. Like the line when C-3PO looks over, goes, Babu Frick, he's one of my oldest friends. I just died. That was so good.

C-3PO does a really good job in that. C-3PO is a good character. Oh, dude, this is, I think it was John Gruber, the Daring Fireball writer on Twitter, he said, this is C-3PO's best movie since Empire. Yeah, for sure. He's really, like, really, really good. Yeah. Is it still Anthony Daniels? Yeah. It's amazing. I love that these guys have this longevity. Like, who's Palpatine?

The actor that plays Palpatine, it's been the same guy since the original, since 1977. And amazingly, like he looks like the emperor does, or I'm sorry, in 1983. He looks like the emperor does in 1983. And then he looks like Palpatine does in the prequels. Like makeup is amazing. Ian McDiarmid. Ian McDiarmid, yeah. Yeah.

So it's like really cool to see some of these people play the same character over all these years. Another thing I wanted to call out, Poe Dameron's like look at the end with his lady friend. Like so good. Like movie making, like body language, acting. Hansel and Gretel. All really good. Yes, very much so. Thing I didn't like, what a waste of the Knights of Vren. Yeah. Yeah.

Hopefully that's in the JJ cut, but we have no explanation of the backstory. We have no explanation of... I guess they're not Force-sensitive, but...

what other Sith assembles this like random band of like Knights to, it's like blending this random mythology. And then he takes them out like nothing at the end. Like he just wrecks them. It's too bad that Disney, and I think Luke, well, but Disney's video game strategy is mostly outsourced now instead of in source, but, and there've been some good ones, but, um,

Knights of Ren would make an awesome video game. Like, I would play that video game to get the backstory and just to, like, be badass as, like, all the various Knights of Ren. Yeah. EA's doing Star Wars now, so...

I'll be curious to see what they'll do, if they do anything with Knights of Ren. But yeah, you're right. The most hype that the Knights of Ren got, I felt like, was in the trailer for Force Awakens, where you see them in the rain, and you're like, whoa, this guy has a crew that he's rolling with. And then it's like, okay, so you go through the Force Awakens, and you just see it in that Rey vision, and you're like, okay, okay, we're cool. We're going to get this in The Last Jedi. And then The Last Jedi, you don't see them.

And then you get all the way to the Rise of Skywalker and they just are serving in the desert and then they're searching on that other planet and then they're just gone. And then they get worked. Yeah. On Exegol. It's like, okay. Honestly, the best thing about them was that they got to be the prop in the fight scene at the end, particularly when...

Ben Solo gets the lightsaber, he's fighting them, and he takes a break and he leans over with the lightsaber behind his back, kind of like up his spine. He takes the hit. It's like he gets to show off this interesting... It's basically a new character because he's not playing Kylo Ren anymore, and it shows Adam Driver's depth that he plays a completely different role where he's like...

It's more like Han Solo. He's confident, he's cocky, but he kind of doesn't know how to use a lightsaber, and it feels like he's figuring all this out for the first time. First of all, he had no lines in the last 60 minutes of the movie, which I found unbelievable when I learned that. His last line is, I think...

when he's talking to his dad and he says, and he says, dad, and then Han Solo says, I know. Like, dad is his last line other than ow when he's falling down that hole. Yeah. Which that was, I think, like, that was a screw up. They totally should have, like, made his last line be dad. But the last 60 minutes of the movie where everyone's crediting with being this incredible actor, like, no lines. That's awesome. Really cool. So anyway. Do you guys think he...

I've been thinking about this. Is he genuinely a different person when he comes back to them? Because like, you know, there's the redemption arc and all that. But then he's like, dude, you killed like billions of people. Like billions. There's very much a Catholic last rites thing. Do you really get to be redeemed for that? Yeah, like he gets to be like a Jedi in heaven. Like he gets to be a force ghost. Really? You killed planets, man. No, Anakin. Look, Anakin got to be a force ghost. Yeah. So...

If Anakin got to be a Force ghost... They established the rules of the road. Yeah. It's like, Anakin got to be a Force ghost. So... All right. Good to know. But, you know, I think the one thing that is interesting is that I do think that this movie is rewatchable. I think all three movies in this trilogy are really, really rewatchable. Because, like, there will be scenes that you won't like, and you'll just get used to, like, going through them. Like, every time I watch The Last Jedi...

Like, you know, the horses escaping. Yeah, you do everything you can to get to the throne room. Yeah, and you're just like, okay, like, we're just going to get past this and we're going to move on. And then, you know, The Last Jedi has some really good spots. And then, obviously, in The Force Awakens, there's, like, really fun scenes. Like, you know, when they're on that planet and, you know, Han offers Rey a job. It's, like, a really fun scene. And then...

you know, Kylo shows up on that planet and that whole like fight. And then if you'll remember when you were watching the force awakens and the X wing shows up onto that planet and you feel like goosebumps, you're like, Oh man. And, um, and the formation and they're like skimming off the water. Like it's, it's Star Wars porn. Talk about fan service. And then,

Oh, dude, it's the first time the Millennium Falcon flies in an atmosphere. Like, when we're seeing it fly... It was in the trailer, like, through... Next to or through a crashed Star Destroyer? You're like, oh, my God, the Millennium Falcon can fly, like, out of space? You know, like, around in planets? Yeah, and then...

you know, Finn handles a lightsaber and is, I think the final time he touches the lightsaber, right? Cause he doesn't, yeah, I don't think so. He doesn't touch it. Yeah. And he's not, he's not doing anything lightsaber. I didn't see that. I didn't notice that. So like Finn handles a lightsaber kind of holds his own for a little bit with Kylo. Yep. Um, it,

I didn't think Force Sensitive then and I didn't remember a lot of talk about it, but it's only now. But yeah, that was set up. There's also a little bit of a power leveling issue there where Kylo and Rey are a power unseen in the Force in Generations and he's getting beat by Finn, an untrained, mildly Force Sensitive Stormtrooper.

He's shot. That's the, that's the justification. Yeah. Like JJ does this thing where he's like, Kylo is bleeding and he has to punch himself to like, which, what is that? Yeah. It's like, Oh, I'm healed. I'm healed.

Does that work? I don't know. He's just typing himself up, man. There are some loops that are closed in this trilogy. When Rey's holding that lightsaber with Kylo and then the Force actually talks to her almost and she feels it and fights back.

So, you know, I think that all three movies are really rewatchable. If you guys have not tried to rewatch the prequels, I would really encourage... I watched like every movie up until like before this one as like a... Oh, you did the whole series? Oh, you did. Like, did you do it 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. So did you do the prequels first? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Seven, Solo, eight, Rogue One, and then this. Okay. Wow. You did do Rogue One before, for?

No, I messed up. Yeah. Next time. But honestly, like it is, it is like a, you feel like I'm like eating my vegetables watching the prequels. You're like, yeah, it's tough. Like, especially like episode two, it is tough. Yeah. Like two, two major beefs with the whole prequels, but episode two in particular, cause I think it's the worst one. One is, um,

there's no subtext ever in dialogue. Everyone just says what they're feeling. It's like, it's like the guy who wrote it has like never written any sort of fiction before. It's really strange. You're like, didn't you write Star Wars? Like it's, he's like, from my point of view, the Jedi are evil. And you're like, well,

damn it. Can't you find a better way to express that through like, like amazing narrative? Anyway, so that really bothered me. The second one is the dialogue between Anakin and Padme is like nothing about any of that screams wooing. Like you watch it and you're like, where's the part where she could have credibly fallen in love with him? He's, it's like, is the strangest like, and then she just arrives at this moment where she's like, but I love you so much. Um,

And you're like, what? How? Absent us knowing that that's where this was going, if this was any other movie, in what world would you have been like, oh yeah, the things that you said to each other definitely are like a romance. It makes me infuriated to watch it. Yes, that is the worst part of watching the prequels for me. It is. It's tough. It's really tough. And you want to talk about like...

you know it's like you thought lightsabers were cool how about two lightsabers oh how about a droid sith thing that has four lightsabers six and it's like oh you're right it's like and he coughs yeah it's hard that's a follow-up episode of like that but that would just not be that fun maybe we should do like episode four five and six and rogue one

Rogue One. I would, I'd be down for a watch, um, a Mystery Science Theater 3000, Acquired Science Theater 3000 of Rogue One. And then that's actually kind of fun. You time sync it. You start the, start them at the same time and we should totally do that. All right. I have one closing take on, before we go into whatever our next sections are, the, uh,

The best take that I saw was this movie, evident by the pacing issues and a lot of the sort of rewrites and retcons that are happening, is basically J.J. doing his own eight and nine combined into nine, where he's saying, I kind of want two movies to do all this, but I just get one. So here's what I'm doing.

Yeah, I mean, the Palpatine reveal is big. It's like, raise a Palpatine. I mean, if there was a spot to reveal that, it's when she's on the planet and in the dark zone looking into that mirror and it's like, that's the spot! You mean looking into the mirror of Erised? Like, in the Chamber of Secrets? That is where you're supposed to see your parents! Like, Harry sees the parents. Yeah.

I think we've uncovered the whole thing, the inspiration for this trilogy. It's Harry Potter. Here we go. Yeah. Ray Slytherin.

Maybe. You just uncovered even more. Like, Rey's not Slytherin in the same way that Harry wasn't Slytherin. Harry just had a bond with the worst Slytherin person of all time in the same way that, like, Rey has the dyad with, like, the most powerful Sith of all time. Yeah. You heard it here first. Exactly. Like, that's when, like, the reveal was supposed to happen. It was like, okay, like, tell us that she's a Palpatine. Yeah.

Wasn't it odd? Yeah, like when she's down there and she's like looking in the mirror and like it's kind of a long scene where it's like, no, no, no, no. And you're like, what's going on here? Only to show that it's her own reflection. Like it's a very Rian Johnson way to be like, you thought you were going to get an answer here, but...

All she's showing is she can only rely on herself. And it's like, her parents don't matter. And it was like, and then they go back into this, like they have that amazing Snoke fight. And then, you know, Adam Driver is telling, is saying, has these lines. It's like, your parents, they're nobody. They're nobody. You're nobody.

They're garbage. Exactly. Sold you for drinking. Like, he's just like... You had that voice. Yeah. And he's just like... And, you know, you're there and in the context of all three movies, you're just like, oh, what a missed opportunity to like... If that's where you were going...

why didn't we decide this? Like, why didn't somebody write this down at the beginning of the trilogy? And it was like, Hey everybody, here are the rules you have to follow. Raise a Palpatine.

like she has force lightning there's a lot of money riding yeah it's like here are the biographies of each of the characters do you know like it's like we couldn't mess with harry potter halfway through and be like yeah i should have looked this up before but so lawrence cast him co-wrote force awakens right was he involved in eight and nine no he was not involved in nine see that's it

He's like, he's the magic. Yeah. I mean, it's all that comes on, but like he is such a big part of the Star Wars magic. Yeah. He was involved in four or five and six, right? He wrote, he was, um, I believe most well known for Empire. I think Empire is my favorite Star Wars movie. I mean, that's, that's not questionable. Yes. Green Bay.

Do you guys know how they filmed the I Am Your Father scene? Mm-mm. Do you guys know the lore behind this? So the scripts that were distributed to all of the actors... Confirmed, by the way. Cast in, co-writer on Force Awakens, not involved on Maiden Knight. Yeah, he's in Return of the Jedi. He's in... Good to know. Empire Strikes Back, obviously.

Sorry, the scripts to keep the... Yeah, yeah, that none of the crew knew what the line was. That George Lucas said, oh yeah, the dramatic reveal is Luke, I killed your father.

And like, that's what it said in the script. And like, it's not like that. That's not really a reveal. Cause I think we knew that, or that was what we were told to that point. And then like five minutes before filming, like George goes and tells David Prowse and Mark Hamill, like actually, and that like they were obsessed with the secret, not getting out. That's so good. And so the scream that Luke, like when he's just like yelling, no, it's good. Like he didn't have time to process that. Yeah. Yeah.

Right, that was authentic. He was actually reacting to George telling him no. Yeah. And so we didn't have that Empire moment in this trilogy of like, you know, if New Hope and Force Awakens are the parallel, you know, we didn't have the Empire, you know, Last Jedi reveal. When I thought in Last Jedi, what I thought it was going to be is,

I mean, they couldn't have done this, but for a moment when I was first watching it in theaters in the throne room scene, I thought that, um, Kylo and Ray were going to do it and they were going to throw away the past and be like, yeah, no more Jedi, no more Sith. Yeah. This is the future. And of course they didn't, but yeah. Yeah. I got chills at that moment. I'm like, this is the empire moment. Yeah. And,

He is. And he's really convincing. Like when he delivers that line, let the past die. And he, like he looks at her, he holds out his hand. I mean, it's like really like, Oh, I kind of want to do it.

Okay, what sections do we want to do? So I think it'd be fun to do grading for sure. There's a way we could kind of do what could have happened otherwise, but I think we've done a zillion other like... Yeah, let's do grading and then it looks like we have an hour and a half of content, which you will probably cut down anyway, so probably good. Yeah, let's just do... Ben loves... We're keeping on another hour and a half. Yeah, Ben's like, we're keeping my rats.

This is good. This is actually really good chemistry because David is too nice to rip on me. It's true. It's true. It's good to have a foil here. This is what happens when you have a venture partner on the show. I get the venture partner on the show more often. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead, Ben. All right, so we're in grading. Or, you know what part of grading is like? Relative to the other Star Wars, of just the trilogies, so of the nine...

Where would you place Rise of Skywalker? Ooh, I like that. Yeah, stack rank. My stack rank? So give us your full list. So Empire, Star Wars, Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens, Rise of Skywalker, The Last Jedi. This is a little bit of a curveball, but the Revenge of the Sith is...

The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones. I would put it sixth. I would say Empire, Star Wars, slash New Hope. And this is where, you know, this is a bit of controversial opinion, I think. But, you know, I really like The Force Awakens. I was going to do the same thing. Yeah, Force Awakens and Return of the Jedi is a toss-up. It is pretty good. And I do think...

Return of the Jedi with all the special editions and like the added scenes, it gets a little goofy. So I think, you know, coin flip. I think Return of the Jedi is where the crazy George Lucas started to show through. And then the prequels are just like, oh man. So, you know, I would actually take Force Awakens. I'll take Force Awakens third. Yeah. Or Return of Jedi. I put Return of Jedi four.

Last Jedi 5, Rise of Skywalker 6, then Phantom Menace, Revenge of the Sith, and then Attack of the Clones. I'm going to do the same order as you except reverse Revenge of the Sith and Phantom Menace. Put Phantom Menace number 8. But yeah, I'm with you. For me, Force Awakens ranks in above Return of the Jedi for me.

And Last Jedi above Last Skywalker. I think we often forget how much time we spend on Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. Yeah. Which, by the way, are never spoken. They never say Ewok. And it's just like the numb amount of time you spend on that. I mean, it's great, but it's like then you just kind of realize like,

is this a kid movie? Like, are we, are we doing a kid's movie now? Like, you know, there's like, which George Lucas would tell you. Yeah, they've all been kids movies. Right. That is true. Like you do have this sort of random, like, and, and the,

the power dynamic gets all messed up again. Like the thing that really bothers me in, in mythical universes is when they don't keep power levels consistent. And so like you have these like Imperial, like they're not the ATATs or the ATSTs, but like there are these Imperial walkers that like are able to be taken down by Ewoks. Like really? And then the very same Mandalorian. Yeah. Mandalorian. Yeah. Yeah. And you're like, I'm sorry. What? Like those little bears. Yeah.

Like, they threw some rocks and it fell over and like, it's like, yeah. It really bothers me. Yeah, I mean, and then like, in Empire, I mean, everybody just gets crushed. Like, the Empire...

you know, is so powerful and like Han Solo's for, I mean, it's just, it's brutal. Dude, that scene when the doors open and Vader's sitting there at the Thanksgiving dinner table waiting for you. It's brutal, right? It's just like, you take a loss after loss after loss and you get into Return of the Jedi and you're like, why is it flipping so easily? Like, we just got crushed. It's like, what? Like, you know, it's like, we couldn't, we can't win this.

No matter what. And then like in the other one, it's like we can win. We can't not win. Yeah. It's like it's like the Empire's like that. Like the Golden State Warriors. It's like last year's Golden State Warriors versus this year's. It's like all of a sudden we can't, you know, we're just going to win every shot here. Can I also say like Boba Fett dies a very, very,

very like ignominious yeah he just like flies off yeah to terrible death and then oh he's down in the sarlacc pit dead and you're like i'm sorry he's like the best bounty hunter to ever live and he's a mandalorian and like he's like storied warrior and that's how it ends like again the power leveling you're like okay i guess that's how he dies i got one more question

Where would you guys place Rogue One if you had to insert Rogue One into the number of episodes in your ranking? Probably above Force Awakens. So I'd probably put it... Number three? Yeah. I think it's above Return of the Jedi for me. So it's also number three. How about you? I'm number four. Force Awakens above Rogue One. Yeah.

By the way, so you guys know Empire Strikes Back being the favorite is not necessarily a widely held belief. It's like usually three with it being A New Hope and then Return of the Jedi and then... And the reason is because it really doesn't end. Like the way it sort of ends is this anticlimactic depressing like there's no sort of like...

classic hero's journey of the rise the fight the win the come down it's it's like it's a perfect transition movie where actually very similar to the last Jedi's credit they end it in a very similar way where it's like is there any hope that's true but like when we sort of see them all sort of just like regrouped on the side of that carrier ship the rebel carrier ship and at the end of return I'm sorry Empire Strikes Back and just going off into space and then we get the credits it's like yeah pretty rough

That's true. We've only experienced Empire, well, all these, but Empire included, with the like, oh, time to queue up Return of the Jedi. Yeah, that's right. I can't imagine waiting two years after that. Yeah. I mean, well, we waited two years after The Last Jedi. Yeah, it's a fair point. We know exactly how it goes. Yeah, exactly. But you know what's interesting is like if you go back to some of the interviews that the original cast members did around the release of

The original Star Wars, New Hope now. I just don't think they knew how big of a deal this was going to be. I don't think that anyone realized at the time...

that you're creating a Star Wars movie universe that was going to extend decades. Dude, because everything they did was out of... I mean, we can use whatever stupid investor comment we want here, whether it's contrarian or whether it's non-consensus or whether it's narrative violation, but sci-fi was a genre for serials and sort of goofy Star Trek-like things. Flash Gordon, I mean, you didn't have...

big budget blockbuster sci-fi so that's not what it was for and coupled with that like you didn't have big classical scores like that era was dead and here we are with a john williams london symphony orchestra composed like the whole thing is like so counter to what movies were at the time so like of course there's no indicators to you that like this will be a big blow up yeah yeah it's pretty amazing how that worked out so you know i if you just look at

this universe as it's set up today, if you look at what Disney is doing with The Mandalorian, there's no way, I mean, of course we're not done with the content because they bought Lucasfilm for $4.1 billion. I don't know that, because when we talk about the movies, we're talking about ticket sales, so it's revenue, not profit. And so we're not sure if they're back to 1X just yet. These movies cost $200 to $300 million to make each season.

Yeah. And then your marketing budget. But there's the Disney flywheel. Yeah. Right. Then you have the theme parks. Remember BB-8 sales of toys. What was that company, Sphero, that did the... Sphero. The Techstars Disney Accelerator. Dude, I still can't get over the fact that toys and theme parks make 2X what the movies do. Yeah. Like for every dollar that you get out of the content this way, you get two out of theme parks. So look, I mean, I think...

if you are Disney and you paid $4 billion for an IP portfolio, like you have a return threshold you're expecting. I'm sure there's an investment. There's an M&A memo. Oh, for Disney? Of course. Strap planning. Yeah. Like somebody wrote that memo that was like, didn't expect a return matrix. And, and,

you know, I'd love to see that leaked at some point, but like, you know, I, you know, I'd love to see that, that memo, but there is an expected return. They have a plan. I think Star Wars is the worst of the three though. If you look at Pixar, Lucasfilm and Marvel, I think Marvel might be the best. Like, I don't think it's even close. Lucasfilm,

Like how much movie operating profit do you think they make or gross profit do you think they make on each one of these? So like if they gross on average one and a half billion. Well, yeah. Okay. So on average one and a half billion, let's assume 300 million production, double that for marketing. So you're probably looking at 800 to 900 million. I feel like they're pulling half a billion dollars. Yeah. Somewhere between half a billion and a billion in gross profit.

So let's call it $750 million per film. So now there's three films, and the other two did a little bit smaller. So you've got, call the other two combined about a billion of gross profit, maybe about a half billion, because I think they actually may have gotten close to a loss on Solo. Yeah, Solo performed very poorly. Yeah.

About $2.75 billion. So you get a half a turn on a $4.1 billion purchase price. You've got half of that returned on gross profits from box office. So they got me to go Disneyland to go see Galaxy's Edge. I haven't been yet. I'm sure there's lots of other people. Yeah, I have to go.

Have you been to Galaxy Edge? Oh, I need to. We're thinking about planning a February trip. Dude, I'll go with you. I want to go back. Great. There we go. There we go. That is ROIC for Disney right there. Yeah. Honestly, I bet they're about break even. Like when we're talking through this, $2 billion from movies and another $2 billion from merch and theme parks. I bet somewhere in the...

six months before to six months in the future. And only Disney knows this, but somewhere in this 12-month time window, I bet they're exactly breakeven on the purchase. So that's... Okay, now is that good? Eight years for Return of Capital. No. Yeah, no. I mean... Eight years for Return of Capital, but...

Disney Plus, you've got the assets now. That's a big driver. And we've talked about the Mandalorian is like the driver. Well, I mean, if you're Disney and you're thinking about aggregating IP and the Star Wars deal is up, you kind of have to go get it. Yeah. Right. That's true. In the same way that WhatsApp had to be purchased by Facebook for whatever price. If you are in an IP...

If you think the future is IP aggregation... And you think it's a zero-sum game, essentially, where you, as we talked about in the Disney Plus episode, you can't let any of the other major media companies get enough critical mass to... Like how much would Apple...

or Netflix pay for Star Wars if it was an independent organization today? Right? Like, if you think about... Would Netflix have been a bidder today? Absolutely. Of course. Of course. I mean, yeah. I mean,

Like if you look at who's in the streaming wars today, like of course you'd go buy that IP portfolio. Has Netflix bought any IP? Has any, who else has Amazon? I guess Amazon bought the expanse, but who else has bought IP? But there haven't been any IP on the scale of these, the trilogy of Disney acquisitions. Like Marvel, like Marvel. Yeah. Marvel hasn't been. And Disney lucked out at that moment in time because Netflix wasn't big enough yet that they could bid for them. Yeah.

Universal and Harry Potter is kind of the only other. Yeah. But they haven't been successful in creating any Harry Potter spinoffs. No. Harry Potter does not look like it'll extend like Star Wars. If you're Disney, you had to make the purchase. Again, going back to the Disney investment memo, it'd be really curious how quickly they thought they'd get to 1X. Yep. And then how quickly they thought...

When will they hit 2X? That's sort of the interesting question. That is. Let's say they've reaped their cost now. How do they generate another $4 billion of profit? It has to be. I mean, how could you do this without movies? I don't know. You have to do movies, right? Although the economics of Disney Plus are so good.

Now, not as good as ESPN carriage fees. That's the best business model in the media business ever. But if you drive, how many incremental Disney Plus subscriptions is Star Wars going to drive? Yeah.

And what's your average lifetime? I mean, they drove all of them that weren't Verizon so far. You think it was all Mandalorian? That's actually not true. A lot of people signed up to get access to the movies. But I mean, I feel like the running joke on Disney Plus right now is like, it's cool that I get access to all the Disney movies with my $6.99 purchase of The Mandalorian every month. Yeah. $5.99? $6.99. Yeah. And then Mandalorian, if you just look at...

how you'd get to another 4 billion, like incremental subscribers of Disney Plus. That's like a big, I mean, you are, you are generating real big shows then on Disney Plus around this IP. So you are. But the beauty, the beauty of the subscription business model that is a,

different economics than anything else is you leverage fixed costs across the subscriber base. And so if you're playing the subscriber base game, you can... Yeah, you're thinking about cash flow returns on individual properties, but you're really thinking about how can I dump as much fixed cost as possible into this? So, yeah. I mean, who knows? Maybe you don't need another movie. Maybe you can just...

do shows. I'll throw this out there. You generate $4.2 billion from Disney Plus in one year in revenue with 50 million subscribers. So you need additional 50, like, okay. I mean, and like, I think they'll be at 50 million subscribers in a year or two. And that's recurring annual revenue. Of course, this turn and whatnot, but like, yeah. And like how much of that is attributable to Star Wars? Yeah. But that is the beauty of subscription economics of like,

recurring annual revenue fully incremental cash flow across a fixed cost. I promise you somebody at Disney has done this analysis. Just one guy in the corner who's curious. Yes. Bob's doing it on his whiteboard. It's the third time Bob's at a whiteboard in 25 years. And so, you know, that's...

So I think we're going to see a lot more of stuff. We have to. Like it's just, you know, if you put this much fixed cost into it, it's just a matter of time before they keep trying to go back to it. And so. All right. On that note, we wrap it up. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Both of you. This is fun. We'll get you your venture partner paperwork this afternoon. Thank you. Do I get a jacket? T-shirt?

Yeah. So far you get a t-shirt. Okay. You'd be satisfied with that for the time being. Thank you. My pleasure. Looking forward to doing this again. Next time we'll like go back to Enterprise Software. Return of the Enterprise. Yeah. Return of the Enterprise. Yeah. All right. Thanks everyone. Thank you. LPs. See you later.