#80. Joss Whedon and Boba Fett
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This bonus episode skips the usual how's-everyone-doing banter and dives straight into two topics. First, the New York Magazine profile of Joss Whedon: Sonny walks through the piece at length, framing Whedon not as a Weinstein-style predator but as a serial casting-couch practitioner and world-class workplace bully whose "male feminist" image collapsed once Charisma Carpenter and Gal Gadot went public; JVL, a longtime admirer of Whedon's writing (Buffy, Firefly, Astonishing X-Men, Serenity, The Avengers), argues the profile shows a man who'd been "passing" as sane his whole career and predicts he'll never work at scale again, while Sonny is slightly more forgiving, guessing he could still land script-doctor work. Vic mostly plays host and adds color, including noting Whedon's Buffy pedigree, and all three needle profiler Lila Shapiro for gratuitously smearing Zack Snyder as a Riefenstahl figure mid-piece. The conversation then pivots to The Book of Boba Fett episodes 3 and 4, which all three hosts trash: Sonny mocks the cut-rate green-screen work (comparing it to shooting in Robert Rodriguez's garage) and the glacial pacing, Vic compares Jabba's palace interiors unfavorably to the cramped sets of Silver Spoons, and JVL doubles down on hating even The Mandalorian, which he now dismisses as no better than this. The trio riffs further on whether Star Wars is salvageable as a brand under Kathleen Kennedy, wondering if Kevin Feige could be poached from a Marvel operation they also see wobbling (Black Widow, Eternals, and the loss of Chadwick Boseman all cited as bad omens), with JVL cracking that Star Wars is destined to join the ranks of Air Bud and The Mighty Ducks.
From the show notes
Shockingly, the guy who wore that hat is kind of a creep. Also, The Book of Boba Fett is terrible.
Full transcript
Vic00:00:00Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of the Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a reminder, the Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe and tell your friends. Today, we're talking about episodes two and three of the book of Boba Fett. But before we get to that, as promised on the free episode for those who have to wait two weeks to get that one, this bonus episode for those of you who pay for it, we're discussing Joss Whedon and his latest Travails. Give us a little background here.
JVL00:00:52Sonny, would you like to give us a big boy review of the Joss Whedon profile?
Sonny00:00:55So there was a big Joss Whedon. Profile in in New York magazine, and it went about as poorly for him, I think, as it could have gone. Not because anybody new came out and said, oh, he he he forced himself upon me sexually.
JVL00:01:15Let me stop you right here. He didn't try to rape the writer. He did not. He did not try to rape the writer. He could have sexually assaulted the reporter.
Sonny00:01:27So here's here's what is here's the most interesting thing about the Joss Whedon case is that to my knowledge, no one has accused Joss Whedon of actually committing sexual assault. Correct. Right. So so he isn't he's actually a very interesting me to case in the sense that he he was having a lot of consensual affairs with people on his cast and crew that we can discuss. Listen a minute, too, because I think this is a separate secondary issue that gets kind of pushed under the rug. But anyway, he was he was a notorious asshole is his is his biggest crime. He was like he was constantly belittling and demeaning people using his cutting wit and snark to to tear them down. And that eventually backfired on him when Charisma Carpenter came out and said, you know, he fired me after I got pregnant and he you know, he was. He was he was rude and awful to me and belittled me, blah, blah, blah. But then more importantly, I think when Gal Gadot said essentially the same thing, that he threatened her career if he did if she did not do what he told her to do on the set of just the Justice League reshoots. So he he's essentially he is he has been cast out because he has been exposed to be a bad male feminist, a fake feminist ally, whatever. This was supposed to be his effort to defend himself from all of these charges. But again, the charges are simply that he's kind of a prick. He's he's like an enormous asshole and nobody likes him. And he did not do a very good job of rebutting any of those charges. He tried to he tried to say, oh, I had complex post-traumatic stress disorder. So, you know, this explains how awful I behave to people. The most the most fascinating thing about this. There are two things that are very fascinating about this story. The first is what is actually interesting about Joss Whedon is the fandom that sprung up around him and then turned on him and tore him down. He is he is very much a cult figure and the cult turned on him and threw him out of the temple and said, we don't we don't want you anymore. But the the second thing that's interesting about this story are the people who come forward to defend him, at least slightly. For instance, one of one of one of these women. Women now go like has abandoned her patriarchal last name and asked to be identified as I think what was it? Laura X or something, something Rebecca X, something like that. And she sounds like a deranged, crazy person in even when she is defending him. And there's another woman who was like a an assistant who worked on one of the shows and he hired her on. And then she he paid her twenty five hundred dollars to just watch him write. That's part of the story.
JVL00:04:29Come over to my house and I'll pay you twenty five hundred dollars to just watch me write. Yeah. Anyway, the whole thing, by the way, as soon as I read that, I thought to myself, that is a weird fucking kink. Yeah, right. Yeah, this is and turn on. He's getting out of the weird keys, but it's the type of kink that only a writer could look at and say, I'm sure that somebody I know has that kink. Yeah.
Sonny00:04:54Anyway, the whole thing is that space. Or the whole thing is is very it's very bad for him. He comes across as he comes across as terrible. The piece is written in a way to really destroy him and it gives him, you know, enough rope to hang himself again. What was it was interesting. And this is this will be my last thought before I before I leave off on this. What is interesting about the Joss Whedon case is and I want to be very careful what I say here. Everything I understand. About Joss Whedon is, again, that he is not he is not a Harvey Weinstein style violent sexual predator, but that he was a practitioner of the casting couch. And the the tricky thing about that part of the meat to, you know, imbroglio is that unless unless I unless a woman comes forward and says he offered me roles for sex and I turned him down, it's very hard to talk about because nobody wants to be out there saying he was casting women that he was banging.
JVL00:06:14Look at actress X. And this is why she has a career. Nobody wants to drag these women. And
Sonny00:06:19understandably so. Right. Because they're whatever. Like it's it's it is it is they've made choices. And it's the world we live in whatever nobody wants. Nobody wants to like, attack those women with the exception of like Rose McGowan, I think is the only person who has actually like, gone to war with any of these folks. But like, but it's a very tricky part of it. Because like the real problem, the real one of the one of the things that me too, and Time's Up and all of this was supposed to end was this practice casting couch practice this trading of roles for sex. And his downfall, I think is one of the signature achievements there. And nobody knows how to talk about it.
JVL00:06:59Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean, so part of the the reason for his downfall is because it was all against type, right? This is I mean, Larry Miller used to make this a park all the time. You know, if Tom Hanks goes into a bar and gets into a fight, and then gets arrested, that's the front page of the New York Times the next morning, because Tom Hanks, if Mickey Rourke does it, even the tabloids don't care, right? Because that's just what Mickey Rourke does. And Joss Whedon was an excessive, it wasn't just the liberalism, it was the accessibleness of him and the idea that look, he had created this family, and they all went over to his house and did script readings. And they had an amphitheater in his backyard, and they would do Shakespeare for fun. And they did their own version of I think it was Much Ado. Yeah. And there were indications, so I was a, not a stan, but I really do believe that he's an incredibly gifted writer, or was an incredibly gifted writer.
Vic00:08:07And this is, his big claim, his early claim to fame was Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
JVL00:08:11Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he did the series Angel, he did the series Firefly, he wrote what I think might be the best confined run of X-Men stories, in the Astonishment X-Men, Astonishing X-Men series. He did, you know, he did, he did part of the first Toy Story script, I think. He was a script doc, a very famous script doctor in Hollywood.
Sonny00:08:39I think he did work on the Quicken, the Quicken the Dead, the first X-Men, and he famously
JVL00:08:47takes credit for writing the, "What happens when a toad gets hit by lightning?" Oh. That awful, awful line. He said that was his line. But that it was supposed to be supposed to be given as a joke, right? The line read is supposed to be like, she's making a joke about it.
Vic00:09:03That was Halle Berry's line.
JVL00:09:04But instead Halle Berry, like, reads it like she's doing Shakespeare. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so he, uh, and he did, he did Serenity, which is a really good movie. And, uh, and then he did the Avengers, which I, again, you guys have heard me bang on it about this far. I think the Avengers is a signal accomplishment. I forget that he did moviemaking. Yeah. Uh, for how you tell a story like that with that many characters, giving them all meaningful arcs anyway. Um, but there were signs along the way that he was a monster. And the, the biggest one was Sarah Michelle Gellar leaving Buffy. And the way this broke down is, uh, we were midway through season seven, the end of which was the end of her contract. And at the very last possible moment, which is midway. So the, you know, the way they used to do is they would shoot 11 episodes, go on hiatus, come back and shoot 11 more episodes. It was over hiatus that she decided she wasn't going to come back and, uh, basically never talked about it and never looked back. You know, Buffy had this cult around it. And, uh, most of the other people kind of played around. The other people involved in the, in the production were in and around that sort of convention like atmosphere. And she clearly wanted no fucking part about it and never said anything. And there's always a story there, right? When, you know, the, the lead actress whose career was made by this TV series, never talks about it again and, you know, wants nothing to do with like, that's, there's something happening. And then you saw it with the, the, the young women who were sort of moved in and out. And you could tell watching the show that there were actresses that he really liked, you know, actresses that he was, he was having the story do favors for. Um, and I, when the Gal Gadot stuff came out, amazing. And the, the most amazing thing about this profile is that he, you know, everything he says is it's somebody else's fault, right? You know, this, this, the, these five people said that you did these, these 10 things. No, they're all lying. You know, uh, his mother who used to talk about is this absolute hero is now the person who is responsible for why he would do all these bad behaviors. Uh, you know, everything is somebody else. And when they get to talk about justice league, he starts talking about the problems with, uh, what's his name? Ray Fisher, Ray Fisher, right? And he started sideboard bad telling how terrible to bad human being Ray Fisher is, and then start talking about how terrible an actor he is. Yes. And the problem is. We've all seen the footage now. Yeah. Ray Fisher's not a bad actor in it. Maybe he's a bad, I don't know if he's bad, but he's not bad at that. In fact, he's quite good in it. Yeah. And the, the pathology of a guy who clearly walked into this story thinking I'm so fucking charming and so quick on my feet that I can, I can win over anybody. Uh, because he just says shit that anybody with two eyes. To see in two years to hear can know isn't true. Yeah. And uh, it's an amazing, amazing piece and I think he'll probably never work again because that was my question is what
Sonny00:12:40happens to him now. I think it's, I think I, I, I hesitate to say he will never work again because I think a person of this caliber can frequently get script doctoring work. I think he could be a behind the scenes guy for sure, but he's never making another Avengers. I mean like he will never, he will never make another film on that scale again I think is
JVL00:13:07probably right. Well, but the, the reason I think he, I don't think you'll work again is because you know, so with crazy people, sometimes crazy people go crazy, but sometimes crazy people are always crazy and they just pass, right? You know, like they just move through the world without anybody ever really figuring out they're crazy until the dam breaks. And after that they're crazy for forever, right? They're never able to pass again. I think this looks like he was always just passing. And now that the dam is broken into like, I just don't think he's capable. I don't know that he can write anymore. Like as you know, in, in the way that he used to, because all of that stuff that he had kept at bay, that's just out there now. And this is who he is. Look at what he did with, with the justice league movie. That is a work of utter incompetence
Sonny00:14:01just as a director and as a screenwriter, he never, I think he says in this, this piece that his biggest regret was taking that job and he should regret it because he did a, he, he was put, he was put in, I want to be, I want to be as fair as I can to Joss Whedon. He was put in an impossible situation. He was asked to like rewrite a script that was already being shot. He was asked to reshoot a bunch of stuff that had already been shot. He was not, he was not put in a position to succeed. Um, but him taking on that job was a very, it was a sign of hubris and hubris always destroys you. This is the one thing that we know from the classics, hubris gonna tear you down. That's right. Sonny, were you,
JVL00:14:49did you rebel at all? The, the, the profiler for, for this piece whose name I'm forgetting,
Sonny00:14:56Lila Shapiro, something Shapiro, Lila Shapiro, Lila Shapiro, somebody else, Ilya, Ilya. Anyway,
JVL00:15:03the point is she goes out of her way to take a swipe at Zack Snyder. She does who she says is basically just, just another Joss Whedon. No one of these guys with a cult following except that he makes Lenny Riefenstahl movies. Yes. And I thought to myself. Did, did he kill your dog? Because that's a weird drive by.
Sonny00:15:31It was, uh, what, what it is. If I'm, if I'm being, uh, if I'm being cynical, what that is, is an attempt to inflame an easily inflamed fan base to, uh, to get them to start saying very mean and angry things about you. And it worked. A lot of Zack Snyder fans, very angry at Lilla Shapiro in to the point where they were saying, oh, this piece is defending Joss Whedon. It's like, no, you dumb, you dumb dumbs. I also think that this was an unfair drive by hit, but like, this is the most damning thing that has ever been written about Joss Whedon.
JVL00:16:11See, so my, my read, and this is a journalism thing that both you guys will recognize my read on that was that she was determined to shiv somebody else in the course of the piece to show that she didn't. Just have it out for Whedon. And so, you know, by making sure she took, she, she pull laxed some other director. It wouldn't look like she just had it out for Whedon for some reason that she was being unfair to him. And so I think it was one of those weird, like, you know, I'm gonna establish my bonafides here by, by calling Zack Snyder a Nazi. Yeah. Well,
Vic00:16:48strange. Maybe is that, uh, maybe Joss Whedon can find a job as a script doctor for the book of Boba
Sonny00:16:53Fett. I'm sorry. When I just, one more thing on the, on the side, if you're, if we're going to talk about that, the thing about the Zack Snyder drive by, uh, that is, that is very, the funniest part of that is her like taking the words of the, uh, Iranian Muller's at face value. There's, there's like a, there's like a part in the story where she's like, uh, even, even the leaders of the P the democratic Republic of Iran said that 300 was an anti Persian hate film. I was like, oh, even, even, even, uh, the fucking Ayatollah. Oh wow. In that case. Anyway, sorry for my language.
Vic00:17:39Sounds like there was real bounty on his head. Speaking of which, uh, for the last five minutes, let's talk about the book of Boba Fett episodes three and four, which is by the way, you could see it on the USA network. That's where it follows.
Sonny00:17:55I keep saying this. I keep saying this. It looks like TNT was given $10 million to make 10 episodes of a mortal combat series. That's what they spent. They spent eight and a half
Vic00:18:10million the first episode, maybe the first two. And then that's it. Um, I have to say the scooter seed was one of the worst things. The scooter chase with the, with the speed Walker though, that thing, that was the worst thing I've ever seen with the eighties.
Sonny00:18:25Teen gang that looked like they were back to the future too. Yes. What's happening here? We might have to stop talking about the show because it's terrible. And I like, I don't know how many more ways to say it's terrible. I mean, it just like, I w I was watching this week's episode, episode number four with my wife and I turned to her and I said, is it just me? Or is like the, the green screen background work, especially bad this week, like especially bad for this show. Even, even this week, she was like, it looks like, it looks like they shot it in a garage. It looks like they, it looks like they put up green curtains and shot it in some, in Robert Rodriguez's garage. Uh, I am, this, this show, what is happening? I mean, it has all sorts of pacing problems. It's taken us four episodes to get through all the backstory of like how he got out of the Sarlacc pit and how he danced with Tuskens. And then like, I just, it's yes, you're dancing
Vic00:19:21with Tuskens. Also there's this brief moment where, yeah, I'm waiting. Oh, he's going to the whole thing about him. He's going to eventually, we're going to see him, uh, when he kills Bib Fortuna. And it's this, it's this brief flash of a very fat Bib Fortuna, fatter than the other one. And he's going, Boba. And then that's it. And then he's gone.
Sonny00:19:42Well, that actually happened at the end of the Mandalorian.
Vic00:19:45I don't know. Really? I don't even remember. Oh my gosh, I already forget about that. Yeah. Oh man.
JVL00:19:50It's as bad as the Mandalorian. I thought that it was better. The Mandalorian's good. The Mandalorian's good. The Mandalorian's not good. And this is, this is just as bad as the Mandalorian.
Vic00:19:58He can't believe that you're saying that, but no, Mandalorian, I think is better.
JVL00:20:01No, I think I'd said after the first two episodes is the first Star Wars series that I was like interested in watching. No, I'm out.
Vic00:20:09This is, it's really something because it's, you know, the whole, the whole brand of Star Wars now, you know, it just gets a shrug when you think about the excitement. First of all, the excitement, obviously for the Phantom Menace, JVL and I remember that vividly. And movie of all time now is, is still, uh, we were literally jerking off in the theater waiting for the trailer. You know, let me tell you, you went to meet Joe black and you
Sonny00:20:36were like, ah, we got, what else are we going to do? We're going to stick around through the end. We'll watch it again at the end. We did the beginning and the end. I was hoping
Vic00:20:44that there was going to be something else at the end. You know, it was really interesting. That was just, we, we watched that whole movie. Claire Forlani. She's good. She's good at it. There's some good scenes. Uh, so, uh, the book of Boba Fett it's, it's, it's okay. I, I, I see where it's going, but man, just, uh, it just looks, it
Sonny00:21:03just, it just, it looks cheap. It is boring. The, the, the action sucks. The only thing that I liked in either of these two episodes was the funny little rat catcher droid in the fourth episode. And like, and when that is like the thing that you're hanging your hat on, like this is, I enjoyed this 60 seconds of like childlike action comedy. That's it with this dumb robot. I was just, Oh, I'll tell you my observation. My observation was,
Vic00:21:32uh, I was reminded. So you see the, the, the beautiful sort of the exterior, which is the best looking thing. And it is Jabba's palace. You see it. Okay. Oh, there's Jabba's palace and it's massive. It's this thing. And then when you go inside, it's pretty much the same set, his little throne room. It's like the action figure version of it, where you buy that, the little throne room. And I was reminded. JVL of the Ricky Schroeder, um, sitcom silver spoons, because in the beginning, you see this castle, like, you know, it's like, it's like noise for its title, where he's living. It's a mansion castle. And then the whole sitcom takes place in the living room with a train set and the kitchen. That's right. And there's like the train set and the dad always comes in and everything's crammed together. And it's like the same thing.
JVL00:22:19Uh, so here's a question. Yeah. Is Star Wars salvageable as a brand? Will it ever be what it was when The Force Awakens came out? Right. Or has it been forever tainted by all these mishaps? Because I think that it turns out that The Force Awakens, the success of which is truly astonishing, uh, especially since it's a bad movie, that was the culture willing to give a second chance to Star Wars after the prequels. Yes. And basically, they've turned, they, they, they've said, okay, this, this universe has had its second chance. I'm not interested. That's right. They've expended it. And I don't know, you look at everything they've done. So what the Dave Filoni stuff has done and the Bad Batch and, you know, they've really layered on the Clone Wars. I think they've leaned into the idea of just trying to rebuild from scratch by playing not to the nostalgic, you know, Gen Xers, but to kids. Cause the Boba Fett and Mandalorian are both basically kids shows, you know, they're not really for grownups and, uh, that they've decided they just, the people who are Gen X, they're never coming back. And so we're just going to try to make this a kid's universe that we can capture another rising generation into.
Sonny00:23:52I mean, the Mandalorian, I like, I think, you are slightly underselling how well the Mandalorian did with audiences. It drove a ton of subs for Disney plus it was, it was, it was well watched as far as these things, as far as these streaming shows go as best as we can tell. Uh, but, but the kids, I mean, I think the kids went crazy for it. The kids bought the Mandalorian. You, you did not like the Mandalorian, but many lots and lots of people like the Mandalorian JBL. I know, I know that you, you are an outlier here. You're not representative. I mean, I think, I think we all know that what's really going to turn it around is the Ahsoka series. Is that? With, with Rosario Dawson. That's going to be
JVL00:24:35the thing that turns this whole thing around. I love Rosario Dawson so much, but she's 22 years, she's 20 years too old to play Ahsoka. I mean, she just, Rosario Dawson is not the right age to play Ahsoka. She's playing old Ahsoka. Oh my God. Um, the, the,
Sonny00:24:55the Obi-Wan show, man, that's going to turn it all around. Ewan McGregor's back, he's back.
JVL00:24:59So is, is any of this going to work or is, is Star Wars just going to become the, really the third rung of the Disney ladder, right? With Marvel, the Marvel is the crown jewel, Disney animation, right? Disney animation is number two. Uh, maybe Pixar is three. And then you've got like, you know, everything else. You've got your Air Bud and your Mighty
Vic00:25:32Ducks and still your Star Wars. And Star Wars is going to be at the same category as Air Bud.
JVL00:25:36Air Bud, Mighty Ducks and Star Wars. Yeah. That sounds about right. Is that, is that what it is? Did Kathleen Kennedy really gack it that badly? Yeah. That's a, cause that is a, that is a multi-billion dollar mistake. The big question is how long does it take to pull Kevin
Sonny00:25:55Feige in to take over and like, and write the ship? I mean, that, that is the real question.
JVL00:26:00You can't, you can't do that. And the reason you can't do that is cause you can't spare him from Marvel. This idea that you can just like bring him in and he'll do his magic in two places at the same time. I am telling you. You'd have to, you'd have to make a choice. That, you know what the choice is? You keep Marvel going. Don't. But here's, here's the, here's the secret about Marvel.
Sonny00:26:25It is faltering already. Oh, I know. Black Widow and Black Widow and Eternals were not, were not very good just as movies. Shang-Chi was better, but all of those movies did modest business compared to what those movies. I mean, remember No Way Home is a Sony movie. It is not, it is not a Disney movie. They have a profit sharing, right? They have a, they have a, they have a profit sharing deal on it. It is part of the MCU universe, but like that's, that's a Sony Sony is getting most of that money. Venom again, Sony movie, that's a Sony movie. And Venom did better than a Black Widow or, or Eternals did. I mean, I like, I think, I think, I think Marvel ship might be hitting the rocks here and he, if he has an eye on the future. Jump now. Yeah.
JVL00:27:16You know, it's funny. I, the answer is you always pay your stars. You know, just whatever it costs. You pay Chris Evans, you pay Robert Downey Jr. Whatever you have to pay these people to keep them in, you do it because the characters are worth it. And to transition from these lead characters to the fourth and fifth tier of the Marvel
Sonny00:27:48universe. Now look, they will still have Chris Hemsworth doing the guardians of the galaxy movie, the guardians of the galaxy.
Vic00:27:54Is that next? Is that going to be the next one?
Sonny00:27:56I think it's coming out next year or the year after. And then Doctor Strange, people like Benedict Cumberbatch. But yeah, I don't know, man. Not great, Bob. And they were not done any favors by Chadwick Boseman very selfishly getting cancer and dying. That was bad for Marvel. I do not think we will appreciate how bad that is for Marvel until we see Black Panther 2.
JVL00:28:24What are they doing? I mean, is it just are they just going to make Michael B. Jordan
Sonny00:28:29into Black Panther? They are not. They are not. They are not recasting T'Challa. T'Challa will be a retired character and they are just going to have a new character be assumed the man.
JVL00:28:37Right. But it should be Killmonger. This is what I'm like, Killmonger.
Sonny00:28:40Well, he died. Didn't he die? Didn't Killmonger die again?
JVL00:28:41Oh, I'm sorry. Somebody died in a comic book.
Sonny00:28:43Can't come back. Death is forever. That's why that's why we're that's why we're definitely not going to see Robert Downey Jr. in like three years.
Vic00:28:54I'm sure it's not.
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