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#68. The Substandard Breaks Down The Last Jedi Trailer
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Dudes Chatting — The Last Jedi trailer reaction: All three hosts react immediately after watching the trailer that debuted during Monday Night Football halftime. Sonny notes he and Vic had already seen it; JVL's first-word reaction is "I guess." JVL explains his position: he was suckered by the Phantom Menace trailer in 1999 and, more recently, by the beautiful cinematography of The Force Awakens trailer — then hated the film itself, which he calls "a steaming pile of garbage." He says he'll dutifully attend The Last Jedi the way he dutifully goes to church, but is investing no enthusiasm. Sonny, despite boycotting the NFL and ESPN, says the music in the trailer is genuinely effective — the overlay of the Imperial March with Rey's theme gets him. Vic's main takeaway is the Porgs, the small creatures seen next to Chewbacca, which he wants. The group discusses the structural misdirection in the trailer (who is Snoke talking to? Is Rey joining Kylo Ren?) and debates growing Star Wars fatigue, partly driven by constant production drama news (the Lego Movie directors fired from the Han Solo film, Colin Trevorrow's exit from Episode IX). JVL and Sonny predict the franchise will eventually produce a film that is both critically reviled and a box office disappointment — likely the first installment with no original-trilogy characters — but put it four to five years away.
Full transcript
Sonny00:00:00So we literally just watched the trailer. JVL has seen it for the first time. Vic and I had seen it previously. Trailer reaction. Trailer reaction. JVL, go.
JVL00:00:11I guess.
Sonny00:00:13Yep, that's it. That's what I figured. All right, Nick, do you want to do the real intro now?
Vic00:00:16Let's do the real intro. What a great teaser. Hello and welcome to another micro episode of The Substandard. I'm Victor Matus along with Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Just a quick reminder that full episodes of The Substandard are available every Thursday at 11 a.m. Gentlemen, as you know, during last night's Monday Night Football halftime.
Sonny00:00:39I do not know that. Oh, you don't know that? Because I boycott both the NFL and ESPN. That's very woke of you. I boycott everyone. That was a double boycott. I boycott Star Wars, too, for reasons.
JVL00:00:50I watched it kneeling the entire time.
Vic00:00:52They showed the new trailer for Star Wars The Last Jedi. But not in protest. Let's save it. Let's save it. I'm like Jon Snow. And before the two of you totally geek out, let me just first say... I'm sorry, the two of us? Oh, yeah, yeah. Because I'm not into this. Oh, yeah, no. I'm not into this. I say this all the time. Vic is way above this. It's you guys who are totally geeking out here. But let me just say, it looks like Chewbacca has a new little furry friend, and I can't wait to buy the pork, or whatever he's called. It's called, I don't know, not... Yeah. I don't know what's going on on the planet of Ach-to. Sorry.
Sonny00:01:25Okay. Give me some thoughts, Sonny Bunch. I... The thing I like most about this trailer was getting to see the entirety of Captain Phasma's on-screen running time in this trailer. I assume that this is it. This is a, you know, she's a big deal.
JVL00:01:41Now that I...
Sonny00:01:41Fifteen... We've got five seconds.
Vic00:01:43Now that I know that she's Brienne of Tarth, I want to see her without the mask. I love her. Sorry.
JVL00:01:49Awkward. JVL. You know, I got suckered with The Phantom Menace. I remember when The Phantom Menace trailer came out. I don't. And the... The creatures coming out of the mist, and the Lucasfilm green sparkling logo, and I was like... I was so in.
Vic00:02:11And... That was not my hand you were holding. After...
JVL00:02:16It wasn't. Did you put butter on my popcorn? And after that, I got wise to it. And I was really totally inured for... For the rest of the prequels. I was... Okay, whatever. Attack of the Clones, whatever. I mean, I... I allowed myself to get suckered in to The Force Awakens because of the beautiful first trailer that showed actual cinematography. The shot of the TIE Fighters coming out of the sunset, or the sunrise, whatever it is. Things that looked beautiful. And then we saw the movie, and the movie was a steaming pile of garbage. Which movie? What are we talking about here? The Force Awakens. He does not like The Force Awakens. Oh, no. What? So, I'm... You know what? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Screw it. I can't wait for them to blow up the really big Death Star in this one.
Sonny00:03:10I do hope there's another Death Star. We could use more Death Star, hot, hot Death Star action.
JVL00:03:14I'm not going to lie to you. I'll go see it. I'll take my kid and we'll go see it, and I'll give Lucasfilm and Disney my 18 bucks. Yeah. But that's... But that's it. That's the full extent. I will dutifully go to this the way I dutifully go to church on Sundays. You know, because it's... That's what you're supposed to do. Yeah. But that's it. Yeah. I'm out. I'm not going to join a monastery.
Sonny00:03:34But you also really, really liked Rogue One.
JVL00:03:37Yeah. Yeah, I kind of did.
Sonny00:03:38Rogue One, you said, was the best Star Wars movie.
JVL00:03:41Yeah. So... It was a one-shot standalone. I am not getting suckered in with the continuing saga legacy stories with these garbage characters... What about the porgs?
Sonny00:03:57...who I don't care about. What about the porgs? Porgs. You can have a porg park. Porgs. What is a porg? It's that thing that yells next to Chewbacca. Oh, next to the CGI Chewbacca? The CGI Chewbacca.
Vic00:04:06Why is Chewbacca CGI'd?
Sonny00:04:07Well, I assume Peter Mayhew can't play him anymore.
JVL00:04:10Because it looks better on your phone that way? Well, that's true. Oh, what an answer.
Sonny00:04:13Good point. That's very...
JVL00:04:15Look, don't look at me like I'm the weirder. Do you guys look at this corporate product and think to yourself...
Sonny00:04:21Yeah, all right. I am kind of curious to see, to know if your reaction is going to become more of the... Kind of mainstream accepted reaction to these trailers as we continue down the Disney Star Wars path. Because there does seem to be some sort of Star Wars fatigue setting in. And I think part of this has to do with the constant unending stream of news about all of these movies all the time, right? Like, we've spent the last two months talking about the dumb Lego movie guys getting kicked off of the Han Solo standalone flick. And then Colin Trevorrow, you know, director, drama for months and months. And now we have the trailer and it's like, okay, well, that's a movie.
JVL00:05:09That's a movie that exists. We went through a period of several years where every comic book movie that came out was a big hit. And they all built on one another. And then comic book movies became just sort of mainstream. And so now sometimes you will get an X-Men Age of Apocalypse. Right. Where it's a bad movie that bombs. Fantastic four. Are we away from a Star Wars movie bombing?
Sonny00:05:34No.
JVL00:05:35Because it will happen someday.
Sonny00:05:36It will. I don't think it's soon. This is another one of these things I think about. I do think that we are at least four or five years away from. It depends on what we mean by bomb, right? Just come out and not find an audience. Come out and gross under 200 million domestic?
JVL00:05:53No, no, no. I don't mean a disappointingly soft box office. I mean a movie. It comes out that then is instantly recognized as a mistake in the way that, let's pick Age of Apocalypse, X-Men Age of Apocalypse, which is the type of movie that is unthinkable in the first four years of the new superhero comic book renaissance that we began living through in 1998.
Sonny00:06:19But that's nonsense because you have a bunch of movies like that. You have Green Lantern. But that was late. Or Jonah Hex. No, but that's what I'm saying. Those things, it took like four or five years. X-Men The Last Stand.
JVL00:06:31Still made a lot of money.
Sonny00:06:32Yeah, but it was definitely recognized as a mistake that was reviled.
JVL00:06:37Yeah. No, I guess I'm looking for both. I'm looking for until we hit a moment where you have a Star Wars movie that A, people hate, and B, is a corporate disappointment. And I would say we're probably four years away from that. Maybe five, but it's going to happen. Eventually, if you think there can't be a Star Wars Jonah Hex, you're crazy.
Sonny00:06:55I think it is probably going to be the first. A Star Wars movie that is totally devoid of any of the characters from the original trilogy.
Vic00:07:06That would be the problem, because right now, we're still coming back in. We like Princess Leia and Chewbacca and R2-D2, C-3PO. We're going to see what happens to them, and I'm always assuming that it came in threes, right? You had four, five, and six, and then it started with one, two, and three. We went through that. We survived that. Seven, eight, nine. Some of us, we were dead, and our souls were dead. And seven, eight, and nine. And that's in my mind, okay, I've got to watch this one, because there'll be one more after that for that particular set. There'll probably be, as you were mentioning, other spin-offs, including the Han Solo, Young Han Solo, and things like that. I don't know if we'll see that, but I will see these next two.
Sonny00:07:47One thing I will say about this trailer, I will say something positive about this trailer. Tell me, because I really wanted to ask you guys. Is that I actually really do like the score on this. I like the part at the beginning that's kind of the- The imperial march that is then kind of overlaid with Rey's theme or whatever that is, that kind of like, dee-dee-dee-dee. I actually thought that was really effective, and I think, I mean, again, the soaring kind of Star Wars music at the end, it still gets me. I'm a total sucker.
Vic00:08:14Sonny, I was going to say the first thing that I noticed was I like the music. Yeah.
JVL00:08:18So what image or moment in this trailer made you think, boy, I can't wait to see that? Oh, none. None. Vic? Pass. This is what I'm saying. Now, we are, we are, these, this movie.
Vic00:08:34I want to see the pork, so cuddly. Sorry.
JVL00:08:37This, this movie will make a bazillion dollars like all the Star Wars movies before it did, but you can't do this for forever, I think, unless you start telling good stories in interesting ways. Yeah.
Vic00:08:49This could be a good story. We don't know.
Sonny00:08:51I do think that this is also an issue from the, the, the first trailer for this movie that, that there were no images from it. There's like, this, the, the one thing this trailer does better than the previous one is it gives you a sense of the stakes and what is actually happening in the movie, right? Like, it, you, you, you get, you get some idea of, you know, Rey and Kylo and, you know, and, and, and Mama Leia.
JVL00:09:15They're still trying to make Rey happen. Rey is never going to happen. Rey is extremely popular.
Vic00:09:21I think she's happened already. And it, my daughter can't wait to see it just because of Rey. Stop trying to make Rey happen, Vic. Mary Sue. The, the thing is also. They're trying to confuse us with some misdirection here of who is joining forces with whom. That's true. Right? And this keeps us, oh my gosh, is Rey going to join forces with Kylo Ren or is it Snoke talking to Kylo Ren or Snoke talking to Rey? And who are they saying when Luke says, you know, the, the, the, I have this raw strength that, you know, uh, you know, he's only seen it once before. It didn't scare me enough, but it does now. And what's happening there? What's, what's happening?
JVL00:09:53The only thing I'm looking forward to in this movie is the possibility of Kylo Ren killing off other main characters. That's it. I just, I want to see Rey dead. I want to see John Boyega dead. I want to see Princess Leia. I want to see them all dead. It would be pretty great if they killed Finn. He's the worst. He's horrible.
Sonny00:10:12I'm sure it's fine.
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