#140. 'Andor' (Disney+) (Take 2)
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This episode centers on Disney+'s Star Wars prequel series Andor, covering its first three (arguably four) episodes, and the verdicts split sharply: Sonny is withering, declaring the show classic "prequel-itis" where he already knows everyone's fate from Rogue One and says the whole franchise should be "nuked from orbit" and rebooted, admitting only The Mandalorian still holds his interest; JVL is more generous, praising Tony Gilroy's lived-in worldbuilding, the adult hardboiled-PI tone, and strong performances from Diego Luna and Stellan Skarsgård, while still griping about the streaming-era pacing problem of stretching three minutes of story into thirty-five and the tedious young-Cassian flashback sequences; Vic calls the premiere a snoozer that picks up in episode three, singles out Adria Arjona as the highlight, and complains about muddled sound mixing and impenetrable Star Wars jargon. The trio also riffs at length on the franchise's broader executive dysfunction — the Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi misfires, the scrapped Rogue Squadron, and speculation about Kathleen Kennedy's diminished authority — plus a detour weighing whether Avatar has any real cultural footprint outside IMAX 3D. Before any of that, the opening third runs long on personal banter: JVL recounts a priest houseguest and increasingly bold black bears (one nicknamed "Boo Boo") stalking his New Jersey backyard grill, Sonny delivers a soccer-coaching update on his 1-1 kids' team (complete with a ringer player, a whistle, and a son who slept in the crawl space after a loss), and Vic candidly shares grim new bloodwork — a prediabetic A1C of 6.0 — spinning it into a long riff on drug-commercial hypochondria and Camp Lejeune ads. Weekend box office also gets a rundown, with Don't Worry Darling opening at #1 (prompting a brief, marked spoiler detour around 32:40–34:00). The episode closes on JVL's "spirit of the week" (Schlafly pumpkin ale) and the group's running quest to locate a possibly-mythical Wilford Brimley diabetes ad featuring "letters from real people."
From the show notes
For some reason the audio isn't showing up in that first post despite it having been uploaded. Going to try again here; not sure if it's a Patreon-specific issue or what. Apologies for the delay. —SB This week we're talking the first three episodes of Andor. Also, just as a heads up, there are some mild spoilers for Don't Worry Darling in this episode between 32:40 and 34:00. Just FYI. Skip that bit if you don't want DWD spoilers.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00The Empire is choking us so slowly, we're starting not to notice. What I'm asking is this, wouldn't you rather give it all to something real? I need all the heroes I can get. For the greater good. Call it what you will. Let's call it war.
Vic00:00:43Hello and welcome to another edition of The Sub-Beacon. I'm Victor Matus along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. Just a reminder, The Sub-Beacon is now available through Patreon. Go to subbeacon.com, you'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and don't forget about The Sub-Beacon merchandise store at tpublic.com. Uh, gentlemen, how are we JVL? What's going on? I'm great.
JVL00:01:05I'm super, I'm ultra great because we have had a guest for the last couple of days, a friend of the show. Father Harrison came to town, uh, blessed the house, been staying with us, buying some baseball cards and saying mass in the home and his eminence, he said, it's been fantastic. I love the guy. It's, it's wonderful to have him here.
Sonny00:01:32And, uh, and so I, when, when he, when he walked into the home, did it say, get out,
JVL00:01:41get out, the home likes him swarms of flies out of the, suppose, you know, I have a lot
Vic00:01:48of thoughts on that movie by the way, but, uh, uh, has he set up like a little con confession like station? No, I, you know, you know, I, I do not do confession with priests.
JVL00:01:59I know, uh, pass, uh, you, if you know the name of the priest, you should not go to confession
Vic00:02:05with them. Yeah. Oh, do you ever, but you can go, like when you go through, you use a screen and then you use a different voice, your voice modulator, voice and accent like Bane.
JVL00:02:14Right. Uh, so, so listen, so I, I have, uh, mentioned to you guys that we have wildlife. We have, we've have sometimes some wild turkeys in the front yard and deer. We were sitting outside having pizza with father Harrison a couple of nights ago. And, uh, you know, a bear just walked across the backyard. No. And, uh, you know, I, you know, they always say like, you know, if you're chased by a bear, don't try to climb a tree to get away from them. Have you ever heard that? Yeah. I've heard, I've heard many things, but that's one of them. Yes. So, uh, I can now tell you why they say that because this bear, uh, handled across the backyard. Didn't really pass much mind, found a tree that he liked or she, I don't want to judge and went up this, this is not a small tree. This is like a, a really large mature tree. This bear scampered up the thing to the very top, probably a hundred feet in the air. No. And I mean like the, the super tippity tippy top of this tree and it went up not quite as fast. Fast as a squirrel, but nearly as fast as a squirrel, like just like a cartoon or something. That's crazy. And uh, and he was just hanging, doing whatever he was doing up there. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe not looking for honey. Maybe he was scratching or maybe he brought club international with them and was just having some alone time. Who could say, who could say Sonny, that's a reference you won't get Vic does. And uh, anyway, so I thought this was great. Uh, but you know, we were all, we were all watching. We couldn't believe we took videos, took pictures. Uh, we had another bear sighting this evening, just a couple, no different bear, clearly different bear. Okay. So these are all black bears. Let's let black bears. Black bears, black bears. Uh, now there's anything wrong with them. Some of my very best friends are black bears. So my very best friends are black, but what's their height JVL, the black bears I'm talking about. Uh, well, I mean, it's hard to say. Okay. Because they're on all fours.
Vic00:04:31Not standing. I don't know. They don't strike me as being that tall, I guess, vis-a-vis the brown one.
JVL00:04:34So the one that went up the tree was, I would say medium sized, not like grizzly sized, but no, no, no big, like bigger than me. Okay. Uh-huh. Like, you know, I'm sure way more than I do. Yeah. Uh, anyway, I, what I would like to know is, do you think I should be concerned that when the bear bear number two came, but he was smaller, maybe I'll just call him boo-boo when boo-boo. Oh, right. Your son came across the yard. I was standing at the grill, cooking a bunch of meat. Do you think that's dangerous? You know, they're always like, oh, you don't want to surprise them and don't do things that attract the bears and make a lot of noise and I'm, I'm sitting there with, you know, what five pounds of meat on an open grill. Like why am I asking to be attacked?
Vic00:05:19Yeah. It's the, they're attracted to that smell and they're gonna come for it. And, but what are you gonna do? Leave it there for them. I would, I would defend, I think it's worth defending.
JVL00:05:29We're really for Kirkland brand hotdogs. It's worth getting into a fight with a bear.
Sonny00:05:33Principle of the thing. It's principle of the thing. It is a principle. You can't let, you can't let the bear push you around.
Vic00:05:37You are armed with tongs and maybe a skewer. That's pretty good.
JVL00:05:41Tongues, uh, and, uh, uh, uh, spatula. But I do have the, the, the steel brush.
Vic00:05:47I'd say, oh, well, I got the grill brush. Don't come near me, boo boo. No, no bear would want to go near that.
Sonny00:05:54This is, this is why, this is why you just, I look, I, I, I know. That we make a lot of Sopranos jokes on the show. Now, since you have moved to New Jersey, this is why you just follow Tony's lead and you keep an AK 47 in the little locker by the door. That way you can just go right over there and pull it out there for the bear.
JVL00:06:13I do wonder if the answer is that what I need to do is leave like a big open vet of peanut butter or honey or sunflower seeds on the other side of the house. Right from the grill and the bears could just go over there and use that and it could be like basically protection money, right? The bear is like, hey, it's a nice little grill.
Vic00:06:38You got back there, you know, you just give us a little taste.
JVL00:06:41It's something if somebody shames something happened to your grill while you're trying to take care of your priest buddy there, huh? And maybe this is the bear version of racketeering and just, you know, just running a protection
Sonny00:06:52racket. Bears, bears don't listen. Bears don't understand bribes. They understand brute force. They only understand violence. They only understand violence, which is why you have to, you have to respond to aggression with more aggression. That's the, that's bear code.
Vic00:07:05Now, the thing is they're, they're, they're domestic, I mean, they're domesticated in the sense they're not scared of humans. Are they up there? I mean, they're just like, because the humans in your, in our environment, our society now, we just back away, right out there.
JVL00:07:19We just back away and get a bear skin rug and wear it over my head. Like, I mean, if you think about it, this was your uncle, if you're, if you're a bear,
Sonny00:07:28you know, the bears know that we're a cucked people. Yeah. They know that we can't, we can't defend ourselves. That's right.
Vic00:07:33No. If you're a bear, just imagine you pretty much are allowed to do, go wherever you want and do whatever you do. Does anyone, I mean, have you ever seen animal control? Like having to, like, if you ask your neighbors, does animal control ever come in to do, deal with the bears? Uh, have your neighbors had this problem? They talk about it. I don't have neighbors. Oh, okay. I know. I'm sorry. Yeah.
JVL00:07:53No, but look, I mean, I, you know, I live in the border of a forest, I live on the border of a forest. There's no reason to get there. Look, he's not trash in the house yet. He hasn't, you know, the bear's not coming in and throwing parties.
Sonny00:08:05He's pushing boundaries. He's you are, you are really, you're, you're, you're letting them get away with a lot here. And I think you gotta, I think you gotta start setting, I think this is just, this is just,
JVL00:08:18this is the culture I've moved to and Boo Boo just wants to get a taste. That's all. He just wants to get his snout wet. And if he needs to, you know, this is how the world goes round, right? We want to run our nice little family here and be able to do our grilling out in the back. Boo Boo just got to get a little bit taste of something too. That's all.
Vic00:08:36I'll tell you what's going on. Yeah. They're probing your perimeter. And I think these black bears are problem solvers. That's all I'm saying. Problem solving. Just like an alien. Problem solving smart. Or like aliens. I was thinking more velociraptor, Sonny.
Sonny00:08:52No, no, I like aliens when they have the, the, the tripod, the motorized tripod set up. Yeah. And they get them. Just that's what's happening with these bears. Look, I'm just saying if you kill one bear, you kill one bear, his carcass on a scarecrow like thing.
Vic00:09:07Just let it medieval west London bridge style, you know, you just, you just let it, you let
Sonny00:09:12it sit there and rot. So the rest of the bears can smell the, the horrible smell of dead bear for miles around,
JVL00:09:21but I have bears with my bare hands, right? Like you can't, if you use a firearm, the other bears won't respect you.
Sonny00:09:28This isn't the edge. You're not Anthony Hopkins. You don't have to, you don't have to fight the bear with your bare hands. Underrated movie. Underrated movie.
JVL00:09:37It's a good movie. Mammoth. That's all I got.
Sonny00:09:40Sonny. How are you buddy? Um, good. Do we want a soccer up?
Vic00:09:45Soccer coach updates? Oh yeah. People love soccer coach up. Ted Lasso. The Ted Lasso of Dallas.
Sonny00:09:50Go ahead. Big, huge news. Huge news. Yeah. First off we won the game. That doesn't matter. Oh no.
JVL00:09:57Congratulations. Do you keep score?
Sonny00:09:59I have a ringer. I have a, I have a kid who is slightly bigger, but also has clearly like played soccer at home and stuff and knows how to dribble up and down the field. So anytime we need a quick goal, anytime it's getting a little bit close, I just like, Hey, Hey, Hey, Nicholas, go on, dribble in the goal. And he does it. It's great. Uh, so, uh, we don't run up the score, we don't, we don't run up the score, but you know, I don't, I don't let us fall behind either. Uh, I don't let, but bigger news than that, even bigger news than the fact that I've got kids who can score goals and win, win the important game, you know, the big game crunch time players, crunch time players more important than that, much more important than that. The parents have used the signup juniors to do the snacks where we got snacks. We had two parents show up with snacks last weekend because there was a, you know, I, I feel like I'm a, I feel like I'm a shaper of, of culture, mostly women, I guess, because the moms that are bringing me, you're a shaper of mostly women. Well, I was going to say shaper of men, but that doesn't actually, cause it's like, there's no dudes here.
JVL00:11:06There's a, it's, you know, it's a culture that will last long past when you culture like, uh, Jay, what's his face from Villanova, right? Well, all the Jay, right. Like Jay, right. Remember all when he, when he retired, all the, the cult of Villanova culture that he built and that's what you're doing for this team. And this is going to last far beyond this season with the doing it the right way.
Sonny00:11:28It's the Sonny legacy. Do it the right way.
JVL00:11:30Yeah. Do you have a whistle?
Sonny00:11:32Do you use a whistle? Well, I, I have a whistle that I brought to the first practice. Let me tell you, kids respond to whistles. I did not. I was, I did not, I did not expect that to work.
Vic00:11:40But it can't be a weak whistle. You gotta be really.
Sonny00:11:43Oh no, you gotta, you gotta really, you gotta really, but I, I mean, I have, I have practice with a whistle, you know, cause I, I used to be a coach, a ref, I used to be a soccer ref. So I like, I know how to, I know how to put some oomph in that whistle to get, you know, people to stop and listen and pay attention. Uh. So that was, that was, uh, I, I, I've only used that at the first practice. I don't want to bring it to the games cause you start bringing whistles to games and it's just like, oh.
JVL00:12:06You know, at the, at the games you can use Victorino, do you remember these from like fifth grade? The turbine whistles that were. No, what is that? They were, it's like a cylinder and what was inside, it was like a turbine and you would like breathe through it and yeah, I know those things. Uh, so do you have a clipboard Sonny? Do you carry a clipboard around while you were there?
Sonny00:12:28No, I've got one of those wrist things like quarterbacks have, I flip it up and it just, it's just seven names. And you call out codes? You call out codes? It's just the seven names of the kids and I yell, I yell Steve and he dribbles, Lucy, she dribbles. Those aren't their real names. I'm not using any real names on this. No, no, of course not. Of course not. I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to blow up the kids.
Vic00:12:48Do you yell like Red 5, Omaha, anything like that?
Sonny00:12:51No. Omaha, Omaha. No, I'm not Peyton Manning. Uh, I, it was enough for me just to learn their names. That took a whole practice and like half the first game.
Vic00:13:00Do you wear, when you go out, do you wear like an Adidas tracksuit?
Sonny00:13:03No, I, they have a, they have a coach shirt. Oh, does it say coach? It says, it says coach on it.
JVL00:13:10It's blue satin. Has somebody else worn this before you? Are these hand-me-downs? No, they're, they're new.
Sonny00:13:16They're all new. Like all this stuff is, all the stuff is new. All the uniforms are new.
Vic00:13:19You ever wear a shirt that says undercover?
Sonny00:13:21I went to, I went to the YMCA. So I went to the YMCA to like get all our gear, you know, all our, uh, equipment and stuff. Or, you know, uniforms and stuff. And the guy there was like, uh, you need some soccer balls. And I was like, yeah, I guess I can use some soccer balls. He's just gave me like three brand new soccer balls. I didn't have to sign anything. I didn't have to like, they're not like numbered or anything. I, he's just like, here, these are yours now. So I guess I, now I, I'm going to keep these size three soccer balls, I guess forever. Yeah.
Vic00:13:49Uh, maybe I can fulfill all your needs at the YMCA.
Sonny00:13:52It's true.
Vic00:13:53You can do, you can, it's amazing.
Sonny00:13:57Uh, but, uh, no, we're one in one. We're one in one. It took me, it took me a, it took me a week to figure out my secret weapon.
JVL00:14:06What did you do to them after the first loss?
Sonny00:14:09I hope you give them a stern talking to, well, I, I mean, I can't really do anything to the other kids, but my, uh, my, my son who is on the team, you know, he has moved, he had moved out of his race car bed to the crawl space. He slept in the crawl space for a week and he came out of the crawl space. Hungry to win. See, it worked.
JVL00:14:29Hungry to win. Right. Now when your daughter, when you're forced to go to these games, well, for the first
Sonny00:14:37two. Yes. Uh, now starting this week, she has a conflict. She's doing some ballet thing in on Saturday morning.
JVL00:14:46So it's going to be good. So she gets out of it.
Sonny00:14:50She's getting out of it. Although I think she's going to show up just slightly later. Somebody has to be there to watch my kid when he's not in the game. Cause otherwise he'll just wander off, just wander off with any strange man passing by.
JVL00:15:02Shannon. Shannon was telling a story stranger danger today about when her sister played maybe the same age group, five or six year old soccer and, uh, and her dad was coaching and these kids were so disinterested in it that in the middle of a game, somebody was walking a new puppy near the soccer field and all of the children on both teams. In the middle of play, simply turned and ran over to the puppy. Yeah. And the ref is standing there and like, you know, her dad is standing there with a whistle and he, you know, he was a varsity soccer coach. He was like, Hey, what's what's ah, what's the, what are you doing? Get back on the, the goal is open. Go score. And none of the children had any, they just wanted to go pet the puppy.
Sonny00:15:48It's a, it's a real problem.
JVL00:15:49And, and, and the guy with the puppy, was he like, oh, I got even other more puppies
Vic00:15:53in my van.
JVL00:15:54He's wearing a trench coat. It was very interesting. It was a sunny day.
Vic00:15:57I got another trench coat, a puppy in the trench coat. Go ahead. Sonny.
Sonny00:16:03Sorry. You were saying. Uh, I don't, I don't remember. Uh, I was something probably terribly inappropriate. Uh, it does matter long, long, short version here is, uh, w the we're one in one now. We're rolling our way. We're steamrolling our way to victory. We're going to be in the playoffs. We're just getting deeper. Deeper on exciting, deeper on coming. Victorino. How are you buddy? That's it. That's all I got.
Vic00:16:27Uh, it's been, it's been a little bit of a rough week. I could, I could be better, you know, uh, last week we, uh, did your test results come
JVL00:16:37in? Were you not able to cheat them? Yes.
Sonny00:16:40And yes.
JVL00:16:41Oh, I live with the Gabriel tooth for forever.
Vic00:16:45Well, yeah. It's just not cleared for surgery. Sorry. I think I'm still cleared for surgery. Uh, you know, just, just less. Just a lot of paperwork stuff like back. Why am I in the middle of this? By the way? Like, shouldn't they just be coordinating with each other? Why am I the one having to call one doctor say what to send over the, what do you call it? The H and P or whatever it's called the history and the, you know, whatever they sent over these papers and things like that in order to get it and lab results and, and otherwise cleared for clear for surgery. But the, uh, okay. So, uh, she probably was, uh, shocked about my triglyceride levels, but I wanted to tell her it's still half what the record breaking number was. So you remember before, so, I mean, it's like, it looks bad, but not really. Um, the cholesterol, cholesterol was stock could be worse stock. I have no idea. You just met me now. I imagine you need to know what I was like. Look at the, you know, it's all there on the charts. And then, uh, and the cholesterol was high. It was, it was below 300, I'll leave it at that. It was above 200 below 300, closer to three. And uh, but the, but the worst thing was, um, uh, A1C, you know, the A1C, the A1C is the blood, blood sugar level. So if you're 5.7 or lower on A1C, if you're 5.7, that's normal. If you're above 6.4, that's full on diabetes and I am now at a 6.0, which means I am now slightly prediabetic.
Sonny00:18:28Oh no. Yes.
JVL00:18:30And - You ought to write a letter, Vic. Write a letter to Wilfred Brimley. She wrote a real letter right here.
Vic00:18:34I'm like - she's like, "Okay, this is what you need to do. You know, you're - " She called it slightly prediabetic, but she said, "I need to cut back on certain things." What do you have to cut back on? Things. Uh - Like what? Pasta, carbs. Right.
JVL00:18:56Rice.
Vic00:18:57Oh, no. Rice. That's a microaggression. How about alcohol? She can't tell me to cut back on rice. Oh, well, she asked me how many drinks do I have and I said, "I would say occasional." Oh, you're an occasional drinker. Yes. That's how it is. And just leave it at that. You don't know who's listening to this show, JVL. And I'm just - we don't have to get into details. And she says, "So, like, there was a question about, have you ever had - So, like, twice a month? You'll have two drinks a month? And - There was a - well, they're not specific, but they did - They did say, "Have you ever had more -
Sonny00:19:28They're usually pretty specific. It's usually, like, how many drinks a week?
Vic00:19:30"Have you ever had - have you ever had more than four drinks?" And I'm like, "Four martinis?
?00:19:35Rarely."
JVL00:19:36Normally, I switch drinks after the first two martinis. I switch over.
Vic00:19:42Yeah. Have you ever had - there's giant - you ever see the ones at the Palm? There's still, like, the giant goblets, you know?
Sonny00:19:48Or the ones at - the ones at Town & Country. Remember those?
Vic00:19:51Yes. Those things - yeah, you can actually - birds come in because they think it's a bird bath.
Sonny00:19:57It's so big. The ones at Town & Country - going to Town & Country was like watching swingers. Remember - have you guys watched swingers recently? Because swingers, they go to the bar, you know, they go - I watched it, I don't know, I watched it maybe six months, a year ago. They go to the bar, they go and hang out at the bar, and they're getting their martinis. Because, you know, that's what people did in the early 90s. Yeah. They got their martinis. With Ron Livingston. And they're the size - they are the size of fish bowls. They are getting, like - they are getting, like, ten ounces of vodka at a whack. Yeah.
Vic00:20:27And it's just like, whoa! It's great to just throw it out - and in fact, as you know, when you look back at, like, Mad Men in that time, in the actual era in the 60s, they're small, and you could have a three-martini lunch, you know, feasibly.
JVL00:20:38That's what they would sell at Commander's Palace, right? Commander's Palace would sell the little tiny martinis for, like, five dollars or something, right?
Sonny00:20:46Yeah. Yeah, that's why I've - I have, like, gone out of my way to buy a bunch of smaller martini and small coupe glasses. Because I, like, that's the - because I'm a responsible drinker. I have ten of those.
JVL00:20:56Swingers is early Heather Graham. Yes, it is. Oh, she was great at that.
Vic00:21:02Great. Great movie, by the way. So anyway, that's my situation. But I find myself, you know, like, during the day, I have the news on, of course, and I'm beginning to keep track of all the drug commercials that now apply to me. Because they're, like, more and more, right? Dupixent, right? Dupixent. And Ozempic. Ozempic. I said, "Oh, that's A1C. That's really interesting. You know, Shingrix. Well, you know, I had shingles before. Now, Cologuard. Maybe I need to use the Cologuard, you know, because I got to, you know, get that, you know, colonoscopy in the next year. You know, and maybe The Mesh is next. Camp Lejeune. Maybe I was in Camp Lejeune. I don't know. But it's like, which is like Chernobyl, apparently.
Sonny00:21:50I had no idea. I see those ads at the gym, like, every day. And I'm like, "What happened at Camp Lejeune?"
Vic00:21:56Let me tell you something, Sonny, between 1953 and 1985, you know, you may have given birth to a baby with three heads.
Sonny00:22:03I mean, it's like, it's literally like, were you at Camp Lejeune between 1953 and 1985? If so, the cigarette smoking man did horrible experiments on you. You may be qualified for compensation. That's it. That's it.
Vic00:22:18It's terrifying. That's it. It's bizarre. The Camp Lejeune thing is interesting. And now there are commercials about the commercials, so you'll have a lawyer say, "You've seen a lot of those commercials, but I'm here to tell you that I actually know what I'm doing about Camp Lejeune and come to me about a class action suit because you may be eligible." So there's that and maybe, you know, there's the AIDS drug. Maybe I can get into that too. The one where the guy is dancing with Andre the Giant. I don't know if you ever watched that one. That would be me. I'll be in that commercial. It's not Andre the Giant.
Sonny00:22:48Is it like a preemptive AIDS drug? What? Is it like a preemptive avoid getting AIDS drug? No, no, no. It's to treat.
Vic00:22:53It's to treat. It's to manage, to manage, to manage your rates. I'm like, "What's next?" So that's it. It's frustrating. And I told Kate, I just, you know, I mean, that's why she's there as a good wife. I just aired out all my grievances because I was really, really depressed, but you know what she said to me? Guess what she said? What did she say? What did she say, Victorino? She said, "Don't worry, darling." Speaking of which. The long game. Oh, that was the long one. Oh, I played that. You can't see the video. I'm doing the, I'm reeling you in. I'm reeling you in. It's reeling us in. Okay. Over the weekend, "Don't worry, darling" was at the top, at the top of the box office with $19.4 million followed by "The Woman King" with 11 million and in third place, "Avatar". Not " The Way of Water", but "Avatar" with 10 and a half million dollars. Internationally, it did more. There you go. $30 million. Still never seen that movie.
JVL00:23:58I would 100% believe that because-
Vic00:24:01Well, I mean, I have some, you know, I was talking to somebody about it and I told them I have some concerns about, you know, I don't really like CGI. CGI overload. There might be a little bit of CGI in this movie. Is that right? There's some CGI there.
Sonny00:24:12Yeah. I would actually be kind of curious to get your take on it because it is very good. It is like the best CGI. It is the top of the line.
Vic00:24:20I mean, after a while, do you feel like you're just watching a cartoon with humans? Yeah. Because they're, you know.
Sonny00:24:26It's funny. It's like the opposite.
JVL00:24:28It's like the negative Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Oh. Like in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the cartoons interact seamlessly with the real world. Yes. And in Avatar, like the handful of humans interact seamlessly with the cartoon world. In the cartoon world.
Sonny00:24:43Yeah. It's funny. I was trying to figure out a way to go see Avatar this week, weirdly. I just, I couldn't make it work with everything else I had going on because I was talking to our friend Tony Davis from Tessive and I had a question for him about the 3D and which glasses worked with which systems, blah, blah, blah, and I was like, "What if I went to this Dolby?" And he was like, "You could go there, that's fine, but let me tell you where you should go in Dallas." And he laid out, he was like, "You want to go very specifically to auditorium number 11 at the Cinemark- Tony. That is in Plano on Dallas road- Tony is so great. Because that's where we installed the best of the best 3D screens. There's only like 10 of them in the country and there's one that's here because it's right next to the Cinemark corporate headquarters. So that's where they go watch their 3D movies and he was running through all the numbers, of picture loss and stuff and I desperately wanted to go just to watch it on the best, one of the best screens in the country and I couldn't make it work. And this is the thing that's really annoying right now. Because the theaters are in such a shambles, there are screenings at four and seven and that's it. There's no 10:00 AM screening that I could sneak out to. There were a couple of 10:00 PM screenings, but starting Avatar at 10:00 PM, I'd get home at 2:30 in the morning. It'd be a nightmare.
JVL00:26:26You know what bothers me is that is you guys remember Seek Guru, I think we still have Seek Guru, which you tell Seek Guru which airline, which flight they know, which plane you're on. They can tell you which seats are good, which seats are bad, which seats are worse. We do not have an analog of that for movie theaters and that would be fantastic so that you could know that like screen 11 at the Play-Doh, uh, Cinemark is a really good screen and theater three at the Dublin AMC sucks. That would be very, very helpful. I have a question for you guys about Avatar though, because I'm, my theory has always been that Avatar has the smallest cultural footprint of any mega blockbuster in movie history.
Sonny00:27:14All right.
JVL00:27:15See, here's disagree. Am I wrong about this?
Sonny00:27:17I mean, I don't, I don't know what that means exactly. I don't, I don't know what that means because like, here's, here's the fact of the matter.
JVL00:27:24Quote a line. Nobody can quote any lines from it. Nobody knows.
Sonny00:27:28I see you Jake Sully. I mean, it's fine. I like any of the characters, but like, but the, but the, but the, uh, but the, I, I, I just, I here's, here's the problem with this, this analysis. You say this and it's like, oh, it's, it had no cultural impacted. But first off, like justice weekend, a rerelease of the movie was the highest grossing film in the world. But on top of all that, the movie made almost $3 billion worldwide. Yeah. So you do not, you do not make $3 billion worldwide. If you do not have a cultural impact at the very least in the moment. And like, there's, there's a whole avatar land in Disney world. It's not like there's, it's not like there's no, no, I, I just reject this.
JVL00:28:12I re I reject this compared to the other movies in that general, that general part of box office history.
Sonny00:28:21Well, the problem, the, the bigger problem, the bigger problem is not the Marvel.
JVL00:28:25Oh, there's infinity wars and Titanic and jaws and star Wars.
Sonny00:28:31Like again, the, the problem, the problem with this is not that avatar itself had a minor impact. The problem is they're now we're now like 13 or 14 years between sequels. And there is like, that's, that's, there's just the one avatar movie. I mean, I like, I don't know, man, I, I, I just don't, I don't quite. It's the McDonald's principle, but for, but for, but for movies, I mean like a movie doesn't make that much money and is not that successful without striking a real in deep cord with people.
JVL00:29:02Maybe, or it's successful because it's a, it's a great thrill ride in the theater, right? This is, I mean, my, my theory about this is always because avatar, I think does not succeed on anything other than IMAX 3d. I think seeing it in any other format other than IMAX 3d basically means you haven't seen avatar and that, that this is my. My thesis on this is that in those 13 or 14 years, anybody who has seen it on home video, uh, hasn't actually seen avatar. And if, if your only experience of avatar was seeing it like on the, on a, you know, even a very, very nice 65 inch ultra HD set, you would come away from it saying, I guess, right. You would have no understanding as to why this was at one point the highest grossing movie.
Vic00:29:51And it would be the same, like with top gun Maverick, right? Similar.
JVL00:29:55I mean, Maverick has like an interesting story and like compelling characters and avatar has nothing except the ride and the ride is amazing. Oh yeah. I'd love to do that. Right. I hear.
Sonny00:30:05Yeah. Everybody loves it. I'm not sure. I, I, I'm not sure that that's true about top gun or top gun Maverick, frankly, I think that those are, those are movies that, uh, they, they, the, the story is just a bunch of archetypes kind of thrown together and the thing that works about those movies, I, I do not think. Yeah. Watching top gun Maverick at home will be the same as watching it in the theater. I just don't think that is not that I have watched it at home and I'm, and I'm not, it's
JVL00:30:34just not the same, right?
Sonny00:30:35It's not the same, but it's still quite enjoyable for instance, I have only ever, I have only
JVL00:30:41ever going experience.
Sonny00:30:43I have only ever watched the original top gun at home. I've only ever watched it on TV and I've always been like, eh, it's fine. I mean, this is the same thing with 2001, a space odyssey. 2001, a space odyssey is a movie that you really have to see in 70 millimeter on a big screen somewhere to, to get the full effect of it to like, it just, it's a different, it's a different movie. Different movie.
JVL00:31:08You and me, Vic. Yeah. Boy, everyone would have loved to be in theater for that 15 minute water sequence.
Vic00:31:1415 minutes of something I fast forwarded.
Sonny00:31:18See this is a bunch of philistines, fucking philistines on the show.
Vic00:31:21It was just like, what is happening? Do you have to, do you have to be like on acid to watch that part? Like, what are you doing? You doing? What are you doing? What is the, what are you doing?
Sonny00:31:28What you're watching?
Vic00:31:29You just have to be open to the wonder of the universe. Oh. What are you doing? What you're watching? Oh, okay. You doing this? I'd be done with it.
Sonny00:31:36That, that, that would take less time. A lot less time. Don't worry darling. Don't worry darling. Number one movie at the box office.
Vic00:31:41Oh yes.
Sonny00:31:42So there you go. Word of mouth. Huge, huge, huge hit JVL. Aren't you excited for Olivia Wilde?
JVL00:31:47Uh, I'm sure that whatever studio had it that paid, God knows what they paid to get this. Cause there was a huge bidding war over it. They were thrilled with this result and that the 43% fresh or whatever score it had, uh, washed away is going to guarantee that, that the drop is like 30% and it's just going to keep making money hand over fist.
Vic00:32:13And Sonny, you said it's just okay. It's it's fine.
Sonny00:32:16Or you didn't like, no, it's not, it's not, it's not good. It's not a good movie. It's not a good movie. Uh, it's not a good movie.
JVL00:32:22Why do you hate strong women Sonny?
Sonny00:32:24Well, this is the problem. The movie is like, well, I don't want to, I don't want to say what the problem is because I can't really talk about it without like spoilers. People want to go see it, whatever. I don't want to, I don't want to drop a surprise spoiler on, on people, but like the, the, the big problem with the movie, uh, I skip ahead two minutes. If you're, if you're worried about it, just do that right now, uh, listeners, the big problem in the movie. And I will talk in generalities here is that the, the twist of it, it's, it's basically like the. The matrix, but for middle-aged women, if the entire, if the entire thing is set in the, in the like period of the matrix where Neo is trapped in his terrible like office job world, like that, that's like, it's like, you know, don't wear your darling is like 130 minutes or so. And like 115 minutes of it is like all set in this, you know, 1950s Fantasia land. And like, it's like, well, what if we made the matrix except way shitty? Or, and it's like a black mirror episode. That's what it, that's what this, this, that's what this anyway.
Vic00:33:32That's my, that's my second check this. So it's like one division, you know, it's like, it's exactly like one division.
Sonny00:33:38No, that's, that's like the, the, that's the comparison. And like, to the extent that like one of the characters has kidnapped another character and like brought them to this world to be their play thing. And like, anyway, I don't want to talk about it cause I don't want to spoil Florence.
JVL00:33:54Yes.
Vic00:33:55Okay. Exactly. Right. I'm looking at the clock and it's just about four to make, we're almost going into two minutes. So that's good. That's good. So people are going to be like, okay. And then we're saying, and then, and then she kills me. Okay. Um, so this week, actually this week, we're not, we're not doing a movie at the bottom. We're not doing, don't worry, darling. Uh, but we are doing, uh, a new star Wars series, uh, and it's not the one about Obi Wan. Thank goodness. Star Wars content. This is, it's been a while for us since I think we did Mandalorian and this is and or not and slash or, but and or starring, uh, I have here, Gail Garcia Bernal. Is that right?
Sonny00:34:39No. The other one. It's problematic.
JVL00:34:42The other one.
Vic00:34:43Ah, the other one, the kid, the kid from open range, Diego Luna, Diego Luna. They were both in mama. Thank you. That's the joke. So I didn't just throw out any random name there. No. Um, Diego Luna. Oh, six feet. Wow. Wow. I mean, that movie is intriguing in many ways, but okay, Sonny, uh, how, how about a big boy review of the series thus far?
Sonny00:35:11If you feel like it. Yeah. So I only watched the first three episodes. That's all. I think there's four episodes. Did the fourth one just drop? A fourth, a fourth one debuted today. We're pulling back the curtain. We're taping on Wednesday. Okay. I didn't see it. I haven't had a chance to watch that yet. I don't know. Maybe JBL did. Maybe JBL has watched all four.
JVL00:35:28Uh, yeah. Maybe he's made it through one. I couldn't stop myself.
Sonny00:35:31Um, I have to say, so, all right, so Andor is about, uh, Andor, Cassian, Cassian. I don't even know his first, which, what is it? I call him Cassian.
Vic00:35:42I'm good friends with him so I can call him Andor.
Sonny00:35:44Cassian Andor, who is, uh, uh, like a Peruvian, uh, jungle dweller. What's the name of the planet? Who gets kidnapped. I don't.
Vic00:35:54It's very specific and nobody likes the planet.
Sonny00:35:56I don't, I don't care. It doesn't matter. Uh, the, and he is, he's, uh, he becomes, uh, uh, he's trying to find his sister. I think the, the beginning of the show is he's trying to find his sister, uh, on some sort of a corporate planet, uh, and he kills a couple of guards who started giving him a hard time. And then some other guard who's, uh, he's got to stick up his ass is like, we gotta, we gotta solve this crime. We're the foot soldiers of the empire. We're the front lines of defense.
Vic00:36:25He's not even the empire. It's the corporate.
Sonny00:36:27It's the corporate. It's not even the, it's not even the empire. It's like the, it's the, it's the company, it's the company that like, I guess these are like the ancestors of the, the space guilds. I don't know.
JVL00:36:38Yes. Right. He's got a hat. The hat is very reminiscent of the Imperial officer's hats. Okay. Well, I have timeline questions, but continue.
Sonny00:36:47Anyway, I, I, the whole thing, the whole thing is I can't even. I can't even explain the plot to you because I, I care so little about anything that's happening on this show because we've, I, I, it has total prequel itis like it's a prequel of a prequel. I already know. I already know what happens to Cassian and it's not good. I already, I already know what happens to the death star that he's trying to get the plans for in rogue one. I know everything that happens in rogue one. I'm like, I don't care. I don't care about any of these people. I don't care about anything that's happening with them. I don't care about, uh, anything that's happening. With the empire or the, the corporate planet or like the people who are living under it. Like the, it's just, it's all deathly boring to me. Um, and I, I don't understand what I, they, they need to just nuke. They need to just nuke the star Wars series from orbit and start re just remake, remake a new hope and go in an entirely different direction with it, uh, and, and be done with it. Like I, I, I'm, I, I could not possibly be like more the target demo for all of this stuff. And at this point, the only thing that is even barely maintaining my interest is the Mandalorian. That's it.
Vic00:38:12Uh, what, what, wait a minute. You know what? I forgot. We actually had a discussion on a previous episode of the book of Boba Fett, didn't we? And that was, that was amazing. Uh, okay. Uh, JVL, you're, you thought, okay, well, I, I, before, before you, I have a question, I have many questions, but I'll throw it out and then I went in and then, and then JVL, the question is, are there any metrics thus far that can tell us how well Andor is doing? How many, is it popular vis-a-vis the other Star Wars series?
JVL00:38:48So popular it's, it's, it's gotten 47. 7 gajillion views of at least 15 seconds or less and, uh, they're just so pleased with it. Yeah.
Sonny00:39:04It sounds about right. Well, we don't, we don't have, we don't have Nielsen's numbers yet.
JVL00:39:06We should have those in a couple weeks, but like, so we're gonna make the nerds very angry because the nerds fucking love this. They do. Okay. Well, okay. The nerds say that this is the greatest. Finally, finally, they've gotten star wars, right? The bet as a friend of mine, friend of the show, Tom Abella texted me and I I'm sorry, Tom, I'm sorry for betraying you said this is the best star wars concept since return of the Jedi, which, and I, I am, I am taking Tom, but he is a stand in for at least a dozen friends of mine who, who have texted me or emailed me. To say this thing blows your mind. And I, I feel slightly ungrateful because there are a lot of things about this, which really do fix some of the things that we have complained about before. Yeah. Uh, for instance, it doesn't, I mean, it's cheap, but it doesn't look cheap. It doesn't look as cheap as, uh, it is a lived in universe as, as the show. Runner and creator. Tony Gilroy says, uh, you know, he, he did an interview with the ringer where he said that his, his, in truth, the production designer is his top collaborator because everything they did was in service of thinking about let's look at the world's building and how, how would it work? What would they have coffee in the morning when they woke up? Okay. They guess they'd have coffee. What would the, what would that look like? Uh, do they have pay phones? How do they make phone calls? What would that look like? How would you have a zoom meeting in the star Wars universe? And they, they've put real thought into that. And uh, the tone is more adult. It's essentially a Sam Spade style P a hard boiled PI turns into, you know, resistance fighter turns into secret agent story and they've got good actors. They've got. Diego Luna Garcia, Garcia, Luna, whatever his name is, who's, who's actually a wonderful actor. They've got, uh, Stellan Sarsgaard who's great. He finds his way everywhere.
Vic00:41:32It's amazing.
Sonny00:41:33He's great.
Vic00:41:34He's he is the only thing in this that I really, really like. That's the highlight. Adrian Arjona.
JVL00:41:40And is this, I have not wanted to fuck a character from star Wars. It's Princess Leia wore the brass bikini. It's very uncomfortable. I've mentioned Princess Leia in the bikini here, by the way.
Vic00:41:50It's very uncomfortable. Uh, is this the most sexually suggestive a star war?
JVL00:41:55This is the, this is so, okay.
Sonny00:41:57The only time anybody has ever hinted that there is, I'm gonna say, I believe this is
JVL00:42:01only the fourth kiss in the star Wars universe. The first being Luke and Leia, the second being Han and Leia, the third, I think being
Vic00:42:11in rogue one, I think they kiss before they get blown up. Well, but there's also Annie and Padma.
JVL00:42:17Oh, I guess there's any better. But this is the first time. Nobody's ever banged it out. Now it happens off camera, but the clear position is like, they go to bed and like, you know, Irish boy, there is a microaggression in this. Something that I was something Irish or Scottish, well, her, her boyfriend is Irish and he's the jealous drinking type who's at a bar looking for a fight. Have the Irish not suffered enough? Do they have to be stereotyped this even in a star Wars universe? It's the mix. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Vic00:42:54Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Sonny00:43:06Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
JVL00:43:11Yeah. Anyway, so all of this, you know, what also was terrible by the way that the, it was a little bit awkward when he said that he wanted to take her out for the Irish seven course meal, the six pack and a potato. It was like, just how can they say that? It's just inappropriate. Okay. So all. Where did they get potatoes from? Because this feels like an adult star Wars story, sort of, I guess.
Sonny00:43:25Yeah. That just makes it worse.
JVL00:43:27No, it doesn't make it worse. The problem is that it's, it's the, it's the damn streaming problem, which is that for every 35 minutes of broadcast runtime, there are three minutes worth of story and everything from the, ah, I want to pound my table from the first episode. Yeah. Everything is slow and plotting and atmospheric and nothing happens. We spend a quarter of each episode in a flat, a silent movie flashback with a, a bunch of Lord of the Flies kids. Yes. And, and, and you know what? I don't care about them. Tell me the story that's happening now. What w who is going where, what are their motivations? What are their, what are they, what are their goals? What are they seeking to do? And we get little. Hints of interesting ideas. Like for instance, there is a guy, a young guy who is part of the corporate security force who is just a real hard ass. Yeah. And as he is introduced, he walks into his superior's office and his superior, who's kind of slumpy in an old, old hand looks at him and says, I see you've made some modifications to your uniform. And this guy is such a fucking try hard that he has gone and like added his own piping. And like, uh, He's, he's trimmed it, so that it's a slim fit uniform.
Vic00:44:53Right. Hey, it was just like, as we were discussing on the last episode, you know what? That detail is Madison.
JVL00:45:00Exactly. And that detail was fabulous. That is a great character detail.
?00:45:06Yeah.
JVL00:45:07And then we just run in place for 30 minutes. We just run in place. That's right.
Vic00:45:12Right. Am I wrong? Vic is now this man. And I saw, Oh, Tony Gilroy, I said, you know, he's a serious guy. He's great.
JVL00:45:20This should be the, the wrote the Jason Bourne movies. He did. Michael Clayton. I think he directed Michael Clayton. He did.
Vic00:45:26He wrote one, which I maintain is still fantastic. Yeah. And that first episode was so, it was such a snoozer. I mean, the only thing happens is where he kills the two guards, but the rest of it, this exposition that just goes on for a, but you know, I mean, you could cut down on so much of this, but they have to stretch it out. Wow. And even 45, 46 minutes, it felt much longer just because you feel like you're going nowhere.
JVL00:45:53Oh, it's like 38 minutes because the final five minutes are credits.
Vic00:45:57And you couldn't care, and you couldn't care less for, for a lot of these people. And here, I had a lot of issues. One of them was sometimes I can't hear what they're saying. And when I do hear probably because of diabetes, but when I, you know, when I do hear what they're saying, it's like that Star Wars lingo, they're the, the jargon, they're all this terminology. So I don't know where they're going, what they're talking about that, that just didn't make any sense to me. Um, uh, what do I have here? Uh, I mean, I guess, I mean, Diego Luna is good. You know, he continues his, it's the same character. So I, I can see that I didn't, I, I found it jarring as well. The flashbacks, although the kid reminded me of young Boba Fett. That's who he looked like.
JVL00:46:36I don't, I, my interest though, every single time we flash back to the kid, the kids, you're like, uh, I basically, I just, my whole brain shuts off where you like that too, Sonny. Like I just, I know you said you didn't like, weren't interested in any of it, but certainly your brain went to like negative interest level whenever we went back to the kids.
Sonny00:46:57Right? Well, it just, it just, it felt like one of these things as I was watching it, what I kept thinking to myself was they are doing this. So they don't just tell us all of the things that we're about to see. They, they, they're trying to show us rather than tell us. And I was like, you know what? I would rather just be told two lines of dialogue. So we can cut to the chase. Two lines of dialogue.
Vic00:47:20You can easily combine the three episodes in one.
Sonny00:47:23My sister was kidnapped by the people who came to the planet. When you rescued me, uh, head mistress from the school in three men and a little lady.
Vic00:47:34I was going to say Harry. That's who that actress is.
Sonny00:47:36I can't remember what her name is. Harry Potter's aunt.
Vic00:47:39Harry Potter's aunt.
Sonny00:47:40Mrs. Dursley. One of my favorite act. I love her. She's great. I think she's a great, great character actress. And I, I like her in this. I like to see her as a nice person. And again, it's another thing. It's another thing where like all of the acting is very good in it. And I just like in the service of, uh, the service of nothing I give a shit about.
Vic00:47:56Yeah.
Sonny00:47:57I just, I don't, I don't care about any of the things that are happening on this show. It's really maddening.
Vic00:48:01JVL, you, you bring this up before and I was thinking about it again. So you're living in a universe where they have developed warp speed and you know, a hyper space and, and, and, and, and lasers and things of that nature. And yet they have a guy that has to bang out the chimes. Like they don't have that automated. Like they, they has to get up there. It's very, it's like Thunderdome.
Sonny00:48:21Well, that's another, like, that's actually like kind of a nice touch. It's like they have this, they have this, you know, society, they have a society that like it's, it's like a guild, you know, sort of, you know, about the chimes though.
JVL00:48:34This is another example of like things I liked about it, which is that that guy who goes up to bed, he doesn't just go up and bang the chimes. He himself has a whole little ritual. Right. Holding the hammers out, reaching back and pausing can't see it, but I'm doing the pausing. Right. And he does that every time because he clearly like, that's just like a thing about his job. Like he likes, you know, he's got his own story going on and I love it. And that would have been great to show us once we just need to see it once we don't need to see it.
Vic00:49:06Right. Remind me now. So I had, this was my question at the onset, the timeline here. So this, this takes place after revenge of the Sith, but before rogue one. Yes. Five years before rogue one. Five years before rogue one. And doesn't the empire exist already, but they're still referring to it as the Republic, Republic guards. He killed. Oh, we, they killed.
Sonny00:49:29They shot a Republic guard. Well, I think it was, it's five. Well, I actually had a question about this. It's BBY five. Is that five years before the battle of Yavin?
Vic00:49:38Which is the most deep question, like JVL was passed out. That is the best question ever asked on the show five years before, before the battle of Yavin. Well, let me tell you about that.
Sonny00:49:56Is that, is that, is that what's happening? I don't, I don't know. It's year, year five. I'm just looking it up on the wicca Wikipedia.
JVL00:50:03Well, you do that. Let me make Vic stroke out.
Vic00:50:05Are you ready? Because, because they show you these things at the beginning, like where you are and what's happening.
JVL00:50:11I don't know what any of that means.
Sonny00:50:12People who've read the expanded universe before, before the battle of Yavin. That's right. I know things.
Vic00:50:18I know BBY, right?
Sonny00:50:19BBY BBY five before the battle of BB eight.
Vic00:50:23Okay. Exactly.
JVL00:50:25So one of the much before baby Yoda, one of the things Tony Gilroy said, uh, in the ringer interview, which was interesting to me was that he said the entire, uh, Canon process within like, in terms of creating shit for star Wars universe had liberalized between the shooting of rogue one and this. So he said during rogue one, basically any time you wanted to do anything that had anything to do with world building, you had to fight through a phalanx of Disney people who were like, no, you can't do that. They don't have paper in the star Wars. There are no forks in the star Wars universe. You can't have a fork Disney meeting Lucasfilm or Disney meeting Disney. I don't know. I, I mean, I assume Kathleen. Right? Yeah. Oh, okay. And he said that now it's basically, you've got a free hand. Like you just get done. Do you wanna have blue milk? Great. You wanna have, uh, speckled eggs that people get from robots? Yeah, sure. You can do that. You wanna, you wanna have pay phones? I find it funny that no pay phones exist in 2022 America, but in a universe with faster than light travel, they still have pay phones. That's amazing. Wow. That's a long time ago. That is absolutely amazing to me.
Sonny00:51:51That's what you can't, it's not like you can just call somebody on your iPhone. You got to have a special.
JVL00:51:56Yeah. Nobody has a wrist communicator or anything like that. They don't have Apple watches. They just have faster than light drives. It's yeah. It's high tech. And blasters.
Vic00:52:06And blasters. But it looks all it is. It's high tech gadgetry, but it all looks beat up.
Sonny00:52:11The lived in universe.
Vic00:52:12I guess.
Sonny00:52:13Did you guys, did you guys find it mildly offensive that the like. The like band of, of indigenous children had blow guns. I've I, I, I watched that and I was like, I was like, I feel like this is stereotyping. I feel like this is just like. No, no. I didn't think so at all. Really terribly problematic.
Vic00:52:28Like they're from like a jungle, like an Amazon tribe that had never, you know.
JVL00:52:32The only way they could do children engaged in combat that isn't disturbing to adults watching it because you can't have the kids swinging swords because that means like hand to hand to combat where like children blow guns, keep them at a distance. Distance. It's kind of a funny weapon. Yeah. It's not like kids with guns. Yeah, not funny for the guy who got it, but yeah. You know, they had to hit him with like 85 darts and I kept thinking to myself, don't these things have like poison tips from tree frogs or something? Yes.
Vic00:53:00Like there's no. Yeah. Like an apocalypto. I would have, I would, if I were the guard too, I would have ran into the, to the, uh, to the ship. So I don't know what's happening there and what's, how do they die? They have that weird skin thing going on.
Sonny00:53:12Some sort of poison. I'm not sure. Yeah. I'm just reminding. There was a Republic ship that crashed.
JVL00:53:17Ecological, ecological disaster. Vic, are you, uh, are you sitting? I am. So you don't like, you're not going to stroke out and collapse. Yeah. Why? What do you got? So Adria Arjona's next project. Is? A movie called Pussy Island. Oh, she's, she's, she's in that one. The one that I, she's.
Sonny00:53:40Is that on your, is that on your.
JVL00:53:43Pussy. Island. Island. Island. Island. Island. Island. Island.
Vic00:53:51Island. Island. Island.
JVL00:53:54Island. I assume it means an island of cats.
Vic00:53:56It's like the Isle of dogs. The Isle of cats. No, like, yeah, that's great. Thank you. You know, there's no, you know. I'm sorry. I expected more from you on that. No, no. Thank you. I'm just thinking about it now. Uh, she is, uh, uh, she hasn't done a lot. I don't think she's done a lot of work, you know, because I checked. On daily motion. On the internet. On the daily motion. Yeah. And there's like nothing good.
JVL00:54:13I don't know. Can I say something? For the purposes of the show, I checked. Can I say something? We can bleep it out, Sonny. Or do you want me to just save it until we're, we've stopped taping and I'll say it after we've stopped taping. I want to know what this is now. Now I gotta know what it is. I can't promise I'll bleep it out, but if I think Sonny is the special master, as it were. I'll save it until after. I can't have this. Wow.
Vic00:54:34Speak out into the world. Okay. Uh, did you like though, didn't you think maybe because the first two episodes were so slow that the third episode was much more. Uh.
Sonny00:54:43Well the third episode things finally happened, things finally happened, but it still could have been like probably 20 minutes long.
Vic00:54:48And it was like a black Hawk down situation, right?
Sonny00:54:51For these guys. Yeah. It was like, it was, it was kind of interesting. Again, I, I, there, there are some, as JVL says, there are some interesting ideas here. I w I would love to know more and maybe we'll get that in, in the episode tonight, but I would love to know more about like the relationship between this weird company and the empire. Like what is actually happening here? What's the, but also like, I also just, I, I also just. Don't care. I don't. I hear myself saying that and I think, you know, I actually don't care that much. I really don't.
Vic00:55:18Well, I want more empire. I really don't. Doesn't the, the empire, because they tease it, they tease it in the trailer. Oh my gosh.
Sonny00:55:24There was TIE fighters. They keep talking about how terrible the empire is, but like all I've seen so far is, uh, some asshole killed a, killed a couple of guards and now they're trying to track him down. Like, I don't know.
Vic00:55:35He doesn't. Yeah. And, and the corporations clearly can't do their job or they can't be left alone. They need this sort of this empire to take at some point they take over.
Sonny00:55:43I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He's a literal murderer. He's just running around committing murders. Uh, you got, you can't have people like that, you know, rightful in the end with the right
Vic00:55:53ordered society. Like that sequence in the end though, the fight scene where you know, uh, the, the things are coming down from the ceiling, all the, the, the engine parts and what nots and, and
Sonny00:56:03no, I didn't like that at all. I didn't like that. I thought it was, I thought it was, I thought it was confusingly cut and edited. I don't know what sets off. I didn't.
Vic00:56:11I didn't. I didn't.
Sonny00:56:13Well, I, I didn't, I didn't understand if that was the goal was to knock all those things down at once. It wasn't, it wasn't entirely clear to me. And, and the fact, and frankly, frankly, I'm with, I'm with Diego Luna, I'm with Cassie and Andor on this. They just left the MacGuffin there. He's like, I, I like, we need this MacGuffin and, and still in scars here. I was like, no, we gotta get out of here. Barrett Baron Harkin is like, we gotta get out of here. We gotta, we gotta go. We gotta go.
JVL00:56:38We can't. Sure. In episode five, they'll decide they need to go back to get it actually.
Vic00:56:41Yes. And it probably turns out inside that. Well, no, there was a thing. What did he say? It's like an empire decoder thing. That's what that is.
JVL00:56:50I don't know. I, I am interested to know how much of Kathleen Kennedy is involved in this. So, so there was a different show runner. Do you guys know this? No. Uh, some of the guys, Steven Schaefer, maybe Steven something or another, uh, was the original show runner. Uh, and he was quarterbacking the idea for the series for two full years, and then he gets shoved aside and, uh, Tony Gilroy gets brought in and handed the reigns. And I wonder if that coincides with Kathleen Kennedy's cause she has been demoted, right? Or not fully. Does she still have some, it was a big deal at the time.
Sonny00:57:37No, she's still, she's still basically in charge is my understanding, but I like the, but this also happened. With rogue one. I mean the, the original director of rogue one, Gareth, no, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth Evans or whatever, whatever that, whatever is, whoever, whatever his name is, he got, he got, he basically got pushed out and Tony Gilroy came in and rewrote the last act and directed it all. And like they reshot the whole thing.
JVL00:58:01No, you're thinking of, um, Lord and Miller who got over Ron Howard from solo and then Ron Howard came in and I feel like we, we keep doing them. We keep doing this, the PR every time we get a new star Wars product, everybody says, finally, they fixed it. This is the one we've been waiting for. This is great. And then a year and a half, or in the case of streaming, uh, six months goes by and we get the next one and people say, yeah, that last one was dog shit.
Vic00:58:32But this one, this one is so they're willing, they're willing to admit it later.
Sonny00:58:38But at the time, the only thing they have done that has worked. I know you don't agree on this, but like the Mandalorian has been w w is a, is a, because
JVL00:58:48they have a merchandising opportunity inside it, but that's, I mean, it really, they stumbled
Sonny00:58:53on to like a fantastic little cutie cutesy thing. And then they wrote it out of the series.
JVL00:58:59It's back now. No, no. I believe it's back. I believe the next Mandalorian is that after all of that shit about like, gotta get it to the Jedi, let the Jedi, he goes with Luke Skywalker. Nevermind. I don't like the Mandalorian though, because that's what the, because that's what the viewers want. That's what the viewers want, but it just, just again, everything is running in place. That's all these things are is running. There are no stories. It's just, I just want a story. I would just like a story with a beginning on a middle and an end where there are characters I care about with motivations. I understand.
Sonny00:59:38Did you say that they, uh, they killed rogue squadron? Oh, was that supposed to be? Yeah. Patty Jenkins, the, the Patty Jenkins, uh, one that was, they, she'd, she'd shot like a whole video. Like my dad was a fighter pilot and I love airplanes and we're going to make a, we're going to make a rogue squadron like her actual father.
Vic00:59:57I see.
Sonny00:59:58Yeah. That was like, that was like two years ago. That video came out and then now that's, that's, that's, was it about, is it, is it, was it
Vic01:00:06supposed to be about the pre rogue one squadron? Like the blue team?
JVL01:00:12The rogue, the X-Wing squadron, I guess Star Wars basically becoming Pixar. Yes. Like it's just a streaming enterprise, IP, which is no longer viable at the theatrical level. And so we're just going to make streaming content for it.
Vic01:00:27Is that what Star Wars and just mainly, and just like just enough, we're just going to do just enough. But I feel like for me, it's like every spinoff for me is like, I get less excited every time. And that probably began with the, after the family. And after like, it was a slow descent into now not caring. Whereas before at the time, oh my gosh, got to see.
JVL01:00:51But you know what? Not the truth is it's not always just enough. Like the, as far as I can tell the could, the old Obi-Wan Kenobi thing, really? Nobody watched Book of Boba Fett. People hated. I think. Yeah, right. Like, I don't think it was just us.
Sonny01:01:05People hated Book of Boba Fett. Obi-Wan Kenobi. Did we? We didn't do it.
Vic01:01:09Nobody cared about it. Mercifully.
Sonny01:01:11You could have done it with Pod. Right. It sucked. Right. It was, it was just, it was, it was remarkably bad. And like, here's the thing, like you can make, you can, there's 100% an Obi-Wan Kenobi is stuck on Tatooine story that you could tell, and it would be kind of interesting and whatever. And instead of telling this standalone hypothetical theoretical story, they were like, all right, now Obi-Wan's got to save Leia and then he's got to fight Darth Vader again. And it's just like, what the fuck is that? What are you fucking doing? Just tell, do it, have him do things, have him do other things, have them do other things. I like, I could, I could see, I could see caring about an Obi-Wan series in a way that I absolutely 100% do not care about a Cassian Andor series because I like, I like Obi-Wan Kenobi. He's a great character. I like Ewan McGregor. He's a great actor. I like, I am like you take him and you, you have him go fight whatever Sith, whatever, often the, often the, the wilds of the outer rim, just have him have him do the Mandalorian planet hopping thing, whatever. And instead they were like, well, we're just, we're just gonna, we're just gonna have him fight Darth Vader. I guess. I don't know. Why? Why? Why do that?
JVL01:02:28I, I have to think that all the problems are at the executive level though. I mean, really, when you look at the, the problems with star Wars, they're not artistic problems primarily. They are executive decisions. Executive decision-making problem pro problems about what the products should be and what they should focus on. And this is why I lay it and maybe it's not fair. I'm not in the boardroom. I don't know if Kathleen Kennedy is championing this or if it's being forced on her by Bob one and now Bob two, but I don't know, man, like this looks like the worst IP management since like the eighties James Bond movies. Yeah. Which basically dynamited the value of James Bond except for a view to a kill, which was amazing.
Vic01:03:18Okay. Uh, that, uh, corrections shout out, uh, JVL, you've got a spirit of the week and it's
JVL01:03:24the spirit of the season. It is. I am drinking Schlaffy Schlafly Schlafly pumpkin ale. Oh yeah. It's very good. I will say this about the jurors I went to, uh, so in Jersey you cannot just go to the grocery store and get a bottle of wine or some beer. You have to go to a dedicated liquor store. Yes, but it's all liquor. It's beer, wine, and spirits. I went to this place that it's like the discount liquor Mart. It looks like a dump three minutes away from me. And I walked in and it was the best selection of beers from all over the world that I have ever seen. How about like all of the Belgian Trappist stuff, all of the British beers. There's tons of, uh, you can get, you can get kegs from Munich, like, like the little mini keg. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen that from Hofbrow house from Hofbrow house in Munich. Just, and, uh, and I just thought to myself, yeah, everything is better in Jersey.
Vic01:04:27Everything, especially the pizza. Oh, we're not gonna, I'm not even gonna let Sonny get a chance to get a word one here. And that's all the time. Sorry. We're giving to this episode questions, comments, comments. Tweet us @SonnyBunch @VictorinoMattis again, be sure to subscribe to us on Patrion. Just go to sub beacon.com. We are there. Tell your friends until next time.
Sonny01:04:52I mean, Jersey does have a Sparrows. I see them on the turnpike. It's hurtful.
Vic01:05:01Yeah. You know what the other bad one is? You ever, you know, the other bad one is, and I think it's, it's just on 95, but I don't know where it is. It's on Maryland, Delaware or Jersey. It's called La Familia.
JVL01:05:11Oh, you ever see that one? Yes.
Vic01:05:15Maryland worse. Maryland. Is that Maryland? That's like insulting to me. So I'm in salt.
JVL01:05:20Just seeing the sign on that stuff is that has the, the, the, the guy looks like Mario from Mario. Oh really? I just see it.
Vic01:05:27It's just awful. Like, yeah.
JVL01:05:29I don't know. I don't know. Pizza. Especially delicious. Just for you.
Vic01:05:34I'm just, you know, I'm going down somebody's like, where am I going to eat? Lunch? Well, I, and I can go here. There. Oh wait. La Familia.
Sonny01:05:42Oh, I got to pull into that. Yeah. I don't understand why you would go there instead of like burger. Just Burger King.
Vic01:05:46Oh, I would totally go to Burger King. There's no Burger King near me anymore up here. I don't know what happened to the Burger Kings. I love, you know, private equity.
JVL01:05:56Private equity. Oh yeah.
Vic01:05:58That's right. They took over and then they just, what? They just shrunk it.
JVL01:06:01And there's, well, I, I, there's a burger. So Burger King, Burger King corporate became just a distributor. A distributor of Burger King supplies to individually owned franchises. And what happened? The franchises just decided to just didn't work out well that, but that's how, that's
Sonny01:06:20how these, that's how these places always work. I mean, when I worked at McDonald's, I worked for some of them.
JVL01:06:25Some of them are corporate owned. Some of them, some of them are small and yes.
Sonny01:06:29Uh, well, I mean, I, I live, I live not four minutes from a Burger King. I live, I live very close to a Burger King. I probably live closer to a Burger King than McDonald's. It's a very close thing either way. And I can't, I've literally never once gone to the burger, gone to the McDonald's several times for breakfast or whatever, Burger King sucks. Why would I go to a Burger King when I can go to Jack in the Box, which I don't know
Vic01:06:56about that. People have died from Jack in the Box.
Sonny01:06:59I would say, oh, like nobody's ever died in a Burger King, nobody's ever died from eating
Vic01:07:03a bad whopper.
Sonny01:07:04People have died.
Vic01:07:05People have died from Burger King. No way.
Sonny01:07:07No way. I know what you're talking about with the, that doesn't happen anymore. That doesn't happen anymore. Jack in the Box. People died from, people died from E. coli at Chipotle.
Vic01:07:17I went there today, but I did not get the chips, but I didn't get the chips and queso because of my diabetes.
Sonny01:07:23You didn't, you didn't think to yourself, oh, I'm going to get the salmonella from the lettuce.
Vic01:07:28So listen, I, they, they changed their regimen.
JVL01:07:30They, they now wash their hands before we get out of here. I have a request. I have a request for our listeners, which is that I am concerned. So Vic and I have long joked about a Wilford Brimley ad for whatever his diabetes thing
Vic01:07:48was.
JVL01:07:49Yeah, it was a diabetes ad. Yeah. And in which he says some words to the effect of, I got letters from real people here. And he shows letters. He's got like in his hand, a bunch of handwritten letters. And I have never. Been able to find that ad anywhere on the internet. And I wonder if this is like the Shazam movie that doesn't exist or the Sinbad movie that doesn't exist. There's like a mass delusion, but it's not a massive, it's just a delusion between you and me, Vic, where we have actually never happened, actually happened. And so if anybody can find Wilford Brimley showing his diabetes letters, I would be grateful for it. Yeah. I'm sure it's fine.
?01:08:35Thank you.
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