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#125. The Substandard Solo Redux
Listen to this episode ↗on Substack, where the show lives now
Dudes Chatting — Solo week two and Star Wars reckoning: Vic returns from a Rome pilgrimage (stayed at the Papal Residence, met the Pope in the cafeteria, scored a private Sistine Chapel tour, received Swiss Guard salutes, and met listener Kishore Jayabalan of the Acton Institute). Vic gives his belated Solo take: liked the opening, lost patience at the Enfys Nest reveal ("young Maya Rudolph"), found Fat Darth Maul annoying, but the kids loved it. JVL introduces the Rushfield thesis — Disney is systematically dismantling Return of the Jedi's happy ending (Han killed by his son, Luke embittered and dead, Leia floating in space) and has made Star Wars ordinary. L3-37 revisited: Vic does his "Gene" impression for L3's aggrieved droid-rights monologue; Sonny defends L3 as comic relief and the droid breakout as a Marx Brothers set piece; JVL counters that shoving L3 into the Falcon without consent is droid slavery — and notes he wrote a Free Beacon piece on this topic three years prior. Toxic Star Wars fandom: Sonny argues the studios encouraged these obsessive fan cultures and can't now disclaim them. Sonny also plugs Superhero Ethics by Travis Smith (Templeton Press). Woody Harrelson's career revival gets an appreciative detour.
Box Office: Solo cratered 65.2% in weekend two to $29M; Deadpool 2 at $23M; Disney stock dropped 5%, raising questions about the Disney/Fox merger timeline and Bob Iger's rumored presidential ambitions.
Spirit of the Week: Johnnie Walker Black. The episode closes with an original fan song by Scotty Henthorne ("Scotty Rock").
Full transcript
JVL00:00:00I've got a really good feeling about this.
Vic00:00:07Hello, and welcome to another edition of The Substandard, sponsored by Wink Wine Club. I'm Victor Matus, along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. I'd like to remind you, TheSubstandard is available on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher. Just look at our podcast and search for Substandard. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. Gentlemen, how are we, and how was last week's podcast?
Sonny00:00:32It was a pretty good show. Frankly, I pushed very hard to have you removed permanently. I don't have enough to do here, working the board and the levels. I also want to run Traffic Cop here and do it all. I gotta say, and again, I don't shill.
JVL00:00:49Not every episode of this show is great. Not even every episode of this show is good. It was a really good episode. Matt brought his A-game. I thought it was great.
Vic00:00:57I knew he was going to knock it out of the park because he has stores and stores of Star Wars knowledge. He knows so much about Star Wars. The mention of Boba Fett on the parade in 1970, that was weird.
Sonny00:01:09It's creepy how he has, like, this is my theory on smart people, and Matt is a smart person. Matt is one of the smartest people we know, I think. It isn't so much that they're necessarily smart. It's that they have, like, perfect memories, and he has this really fantastic memory for, like, lots of little political details, and that's why he's so good at that sort of thing. But also on Star Wars. I mean, he, like, probably, he almost certainly knows more about Star Wars.
Vic00:01:30And he also made a Star Trek reference. I mean, so you know you could mine that as well when they come up with an extra Trek movie.
JVL00:01:35When he started talking about the weakness in the three-and-a-half-inch action figure market, I was just like, yeah, baby. That was hot stuff. Hit me with more. That was great.
Vic00:01:42I listened to it. I thought this is a good episode. Did you listen to it in Rome? No, no, no, no, no. I listened to it when I came back at work, of course. As one does. It was only hour and a half, and I think that was the longest Substandard episode. It was a very long episode. Not very long. Not longer than, no. Is that right?
JVL00:01:58We did like an Avengers. We had one show, which is like fully 90 minutes. Is that right? Yeah. It might have been the last Jedi. One of the Rogue Ones.
Vic00:02:08I listened to it, and I thought, this is good. I might not have to come back until September, maybe if ever. I thought that was really good. Don't say that. We need you. And you could have all sorts of guest hosts, Sonny.
Sonny00:02:19See, this is the problem. Jonah. Kristen. Ben Shapiro. Ben. I mean, this is the problem, is I wouldn't actually mind having any of these people on the show. It's just like, I don't want to have to be fending off people who I don't want on the show.
JVL00:02:33Could we do Smug? I would kill to have Smug do a guest.
Sonny00:02:37No, that'll never happen.
JVL00:02:38Why don't we Skype him in? That'll never happen.
Sonny00:02:39He's a man of mystery. He doesn't want his voice out there. We could do Run Through a Voice a lot. JVL, he's here right now. No comment.
Vic00:02:49Yeah. No, that was good. I enjoyed it. You were absolutely right. It's so much more interesting when you haven't listened to the episode. Yes, and you're like, oh, this is, oh.
JVL00:02:58Some of my favorite episodes are the ones I'm not on.
Vic00:03:01It's a good show. It's a good show that we did. You don't know what's coming up yet, and that was a very funny how dare you tease about Gene. I know. I had it. I had half of a Gene review written. Is he going to do it? You should have done it. You should have stuck it. And I didn't want to hurt you, because I know you would have been hurt. It would have broken my heart, because, well, your Gene, if I may say so, he kind of came off sounding like a perv.
Sonny00:03:23And that's not Gene. That's not Gene. That's not the Gene we know about.
Vic00:03:25There's more nuance to it. There's more nuance to the Gene than that. You also have a higher voice. So I would say a little lower and rasp.
JVL00:03:32Not today, I don't. Oh. You will notice my voice is a little on the scratchy side. How are you, JVL? Why is that? Because last night was round two of the baseball playoffs for the mighty Woodbridge Pirates. Oh, my gosh. And so in round one, there was an incident. What was the incident? Flash last got the start for our team. He needs a nickname.
Sonny00:03:55I'm sorry. Is this new? Did you call him Flash last weekend?
JVL00:03:59Last week? So I don't like using his name on air. And I wanted to name him Flashman. My wife will back me up on this. Lightheart from Bottle Rocket?
Sonny00:04:08No. Oh, no, that's Future Man. Sorry, not Flashman.
JVL00:04:10I wanted to name him Flashman because I was convinced that if his nickname was Flash Last, he is a natural-born ball player. It's the most baseball name ever. It's the nuclear ruch. It is the nuclear ruch. And so I am, for the purposes of this podcast, going to simply refer to my oldest son as Flash from now on.
Vic00:04:25Before you had kids, JVL, you always told me you would love to have a kid named Flash. And if it was a girl, Tallulah.
JVL00:04:34Tallulah. I love Tallulah. But anyway, so there was an incident on the mound in the first game of the playoffs. He had to work through it. There was some stomping around. He may or may not have started arguing balls and strikes with the umpire. And after that, there was, you know, I like to think I did some good parenting with that when we got home. Did you lock him in the basement? I didn't lock him in. Did you put him in a closet? We spoke, I spoke sternly to him about what, the key of baseball, the essence of baseball is that you do your job. The umpire's job is to call balls and strikes. That's not your job. The pitcher's job is to pitch. And if you don't like the call, you pitch again. Try again with another call. You do not argue balls and strikes. I do not want that kid, my kid. It is not going to be that kid.
Vic00:05:28That's good, because to compare it to tennis, was it Federer or was it Borg, who supposedly when they were kids only had one outburst and the father had set him straight and terrified him. It wasn't Federer. It was Federer. No, who was it? And it wasn't Agassi, because they were comparing it to Agassi, who was very bratty when he was growing up as a star. Federer in high school. Not Federer.
JVL00:05:51So anyway, I did some, I've been doing some research into advanced statistics, and did you know this? It's clear to me now, we need to work about Cody's exit velocity when he's at the plate. Did you know that there is a linear correlation between exit velocity and batting average? Not on base percentage, not slugging percentage, which is where you would expect exit velocity to show up, but in the actual batting average. Now, do you know why this correlation exists? Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Sonny, Sonny just tipped over his chair. What happened? Sonny just literally. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you started talking about
Sonny00:06:29numbers and statistics that just, they're nonsense. They're nonsense words. I can't believe we filmed Facebook Live. And I passed out, I just passed out for a minute.
JVL00:06:39I couldn't handle it. Well, you know what? You'll have to show up for show notes to find out why there's a linear correlation between exit velocity. I'm sorry, go ahead. I'd have to crank up the volume to hear the crash. It was really quite stunning. Could you talk about some war, possibly? All you need to know is that Cody is now on a regimen of push-ups. Because we've got to bulk up his upper body so we can up his exit velocity. And I am, no kidding, Amazon Prime is sending it right now. Well, I won't tell you.
Sonny00:07:06No, no, what is it? One of those things? Is it one of the rubber bands?
JVL00:07:10No. What is it? There is a special sensor that you can put on the nub of the bat, which tracks all of that stuff. Swing, your angle of attack, your exit velocity, hand speed, et cetera, et cetera.
Sonny00:07:26Wait, wait, wait. So we're talking about his batting now, not his pitching. Because previous episodes have been focused entirely on his pitching. Yeah, I'm talking about batting right now.
JVL00:07:33Oh, okay. It's very important to me. But I want to tell you something. Can I tell you about a story last night? Yes. So not all of the kids on Flashes Little League Team Do we need to beep that out? Should I beep out? Yeah, you should. Are at the same level of baseball talent or interest. I would say about half the team is really into baseball and the other half of the team is like, hey, my mom and dad signed me up as an activity. And I don't want to say names of any kids because I don't know if their parents are listening, but there is one kid in particular who I think has not gotten a hit all season long and who, whenever I've been helping out at practices or in games, he's clearly just showing up because somebody has told him to show up.
Vic00:08:13I've seen that, yeah.
JVL00:08:15And last night, he triples in his first at-bat in a playoff elimination game. And then in his next at-bat hits a bases-clearing double. He drove in. Half of the team's runs. In his third at-bat, the kids in the dugout were all chanting his name. And the look on this kid's face. That's great. And he had a little swagger to him. It was so cool to see. That's great. It was pretty great. He got the game ball. It was just so cool to witness a moment in another child's life that you know is going to be part of their mythology. He'll be 20 years old telling his friends funny stories about the time. My parents made me play. They made me play baseball. We were in the playoffs, and I actually won the game for the team. It was awesome. Sonny, how was your weekend? Is it hot in here, or is it just me? It is hot in here. It's very warm in here. I thought it was just me. It's very warm in here. Do you guys mind if I take my shirt off?
Vic00:09:10Yes. Yes. Thank God. I bet my first fear everywhere I go is just me. Am I about to die?
JVL00:09:18How are your triglycerides? Well, this is interesting. We'll get to it in a second. Sonny, how are you?
Sonny00:09:24I'm good.
JVL00:09:24Sonny, actually. He died in Rome, and this is his life model decoy.
Sonny00:09:29I wouldn't be surprised. I'm actually an astral projection. Would that be shocking? A la Doctor Strange. I mean, he's basically... I wouldn't be surprised if he was the first Westworld robot, frankly. That wouldn't shock... I mean, he's not sexy enough, really, but... Leave me.
Vic00:09:40What do you mean? I have all sorts of enhancements.
JVL00:09:44Go ahead, Sonny, please. He has wind chimes for his... That's for you, Kristen. That's for you. Okay.
Sonny00:09:53I'm pretty happy because a... A project that I have been working on for some time has finally come out. There's a book by the title of Superhero Ethics, 10 Comic Book Heroes, 10 Ways... By Travis Smith? 10 Ways... I'm gonna get to that.
JVL00:10:09Sorry, I'm trying to make it feel organic. There's a book here... I'm trying to make it so it doesn't sound like a read.
Sonny00:10:14It's not a read. I'm just reading the title. Jeez. The book is called Superhero Ethics, 10 Comic Book Heroes, 10 Ways to Save the World. Which one do we need most now? By Travis Smith, who is... He's a college professor up in Canada. Canada. And it is out by Templeton Press. I have done some kind of editing work. Mostly, I was just a whipman. I was whipping Travis, trying to get him to file his copy. And it's really... It's pretty fun. I think it's a sort of book... Again, this is me shilling right now, but I also mean it. I think it's the sort of book that listeners of The Substandard want to read. It's kind of a mix of highbrow ideas about classical philosophy and that sort of thing, with lowbrow comic book stuff. It's literally... It's right in the wheelhouse of this sort of podcast. And basically, the book is kind of set up as five battles between various superheroes that culminates in a kind of battle royale at the end. But it's not a punching and shooting and laser eye... sort of fight. It's a kind of which provides us the best model to live, which superhero is the sort of ideal to which we should strive. I'll just give you the rundown on the matchups, and then we can move on. But I'm really excited about this book. I spent a lot of time working on it with Travis. I hope people like it. JVL, as you were mentioning before the show, this actually kind of began as a Weekly Standard project, right?
JVL00:11:51I like to think of myself as the godfather of this book, because I wrote a piece about Batman. Batman for the Standard, and Travis sent a very funny email in response, and then a couple months later sent in a giant piece arguing back against it, saying that actually Spider-Man is the best superhero. And it was great. And the greatest trick I ever played, I convinced Bill to run Travis's piece in the magazine. Fantastic. And I think this is what began his idea for the book, right? So that is, I have read the book, because I got a galley in advance. It's great. People did really, this is not just Sonny Schilling. If you like this show, you will like the book.
Sonny00:12:26So the first matchup is Hulk versus Wolverine. It's kind of an idea of the most beastly of the superheroes going against each other. Then we step up to Iron Man versus Green Lantern, which is a question about willpower and imagination and how far we should go to improve the human condition. So Marvel mixing Marvel, DC. It's Marvel versus DC.
JVL00:12:45It's Marvel versus DC.
Sonny00:12:47Travis has done a very good job of picking 10 heroes who not only will be familiar to most people, but who have actually had major movies come out in the last 10 to 15 years. So this is... This is exciting. Third chapter is Batman versus Spider-Man, which began life as a Weekly Standard piece. Then we have Captain America versus Mr. Fantastic, which is kind of this idea of, like, do you want to live the ideal intellectual patriotic life or the ideal intellectual life? And then finally, Thor versus Superman, which is kind of the big battle royale of the most mythic of our heroes. I won't spoil... I won't spoil anything about who wins what. You should read it and find out for yourself. But I really do think everyone will have a good time with this, the Substandard Moves product, as we have mentioned many times. So hopefully at least, like, two or three of you buy this book.
JVL00:13:41Yeah, I don't know what the real target audience for this book is, book reader-wise. But for Substandard audience-wise, this is, I would say, in your sense, right up the route. I mean, I would say it's in the wheelhouse.
Sonny00:13:52If you listen to this dumb show, then you'll... You'll enjoy that not-dumb book. It's a very smart book. Travis is very smart.
Vic00:13:59Very, very.
Sonny00:14:00So anyway, I hope everybody really enjoys it. And yeah, we'll move on.
Vic00:14:06Vic, how was your week? How was my settimana, my week in Italian? It was spent, I think, annoying and torturing Mike Warren with my various Italian phrases that I just like to throw out there. And I was on a trip to Rome, which, in fact, was a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage mixed with lots of pasta, veal, and wine at every meal. So I think it was a good deal. And Andy Ferguson was there, too. And there was a big group of us. So that was... Did Gene review the trip? I know. Gene almost... Mamma mia! No, Gene almost was going to review movies that he watched on the plane. I thought he would do that. And then I just could... He could not get himself to watch Call Me By Your Name. That was the... That would be the end of the show. That would be the end of the show.
Sonny00:14:59If you had a Gene Call Me By Your Name review.
Vic00:15:01Instead, I didn't intend this to happen, but going to... It's a long flight. Going to Rome and coming back, it was strictly Cabaret and Crow. I didn't realize that until it was over. I watched almost... Almost Famous. Going there, and then I went... Jerry Maguire? No, I went old school. Old school coming back. Oh, Fast Times?
JVL00:15:17No, no, no.
Vic00:15:18After Fast Times. Jerry Maguire? Say Anything. Oh, Say Anything!
Sonny00:15:22There you go!
Vic00:15:23I know. Well, okay. Confession. I'd never seen it before. Did you... Iona Skye? Yes! Oh, she reminded me of my wife. Were you watching... Question.
Sonny00:15:33Valedictorian... Question. Oh, no. Salutatorian, sorry. Yes. Were you watching the programming from the airplane? Was it like the airplane had a Cameron Crowe section, or did you...
Vic00:15:42No, it was a mishmash of everything, and they broke it down by category. Mike Warren and I were sitting at the very front of Economy Plus, which is good and bad. I mean, you're there early, you're out of the plane quick, but you're right in front of the curtain,
Sonny00:15:56and you can see what life is like on the other side. You can hear the clinkage. Did you... Does Economy Plus come with, like, free food or drinks or anything? Yes, and drinks, I believe, so... And actually six inches of pitch. Yes.
Vic00:16:06Except for we got the...
Sonny00:16:08You know, there's a solid wall. Ah, but... I like that, because you can throw your feet up on the wall. Well, I did that, yes.
JVL00:16:13And also, you can pretend, just visualizing, that you're actually part of the clinking in the first class, and you can ignore all the animals behind you. I hear crying back there. Oh, no, I'm not like those people. I'm like those people.
Vic00:16:28Yeah, I believe Andy... We were in 16. That's where it begins to come. Class was really 16. Andy was, like, seat 42. Economy Plus is... Against the back of the bathroom.
Sonny00:16:35Economy Plus really is, like, the best deal in flying, because... I remember once I was going to Vegas, and I was flying Virgin America, and I was given an option at, like, the check-in to, like, upgrade to Economy Plus. And it was, like, that first row that's, like, 40 bucks. And it was, like, a $40 upgrade or something like that. And I did. I didn't do it. And I didn't do it. And this was after having done... I'd done Virgin America, Economy Plus, like, the last time I flew. I really liked it. And I was like, oh, $40. Virgin America, it's, like, free food and free movies. Free food, free movies, free everything. I like that. Free drinks, free alcohol. I mean, it was, like... It was, like... Anyway, so I didn't do it. I prefer Virgin. I didn't do it. And when I was... When I was... When I was walking to, like, through security, something in me broke. And I was like, I have to get that immediately. So once I got to... Once I got to the Virgin America booth, I ran up. I was like, hey, there was an option to upgrade. Can I still do that? And the lady was like...
JVL00:17:34$80.
Sonny00:17:34The lady was like, you could do that, but it's a middle seat. You have an aisle seat. I was like, all right, I'll keep my aisle seat. She talked me out of it, which means I am 100% certain that either she or some other Virgin America employee was in that seat. Was sitting there. Yeah, yeah. Deadheading. Ten minutes later. So I... But Virgin... Well, Virgin doesn't really exist anymore. But, like, it kind of...
Vic00:17:56Economy Plus, totally worth it. Best deal. So I sat there, and Mike was on the other side. Speaking of getting through security, Mike got stopped at security, because, you know, if Mike decides not to shave... Swarming. If he doesn't shave in the morning... Swarming. It's coming... In fact, you know, we were nine hours on the plane. By the time we landed back at Dulles, I thought I was sitting next to an imam.
Sonny00:18:13That's like the Seinfeld, where he's on the bus. He's on the tour bus, remember? Oh, is that... Like the Kramer tour? Oh, yeah, the Kramer tour.
Vic00:18:19And he's like... Right. Oh, and it's hot. So, in fact, Italian security at Da Vinci Airport they came up to Mike, and they took him aside, and they said, okay, where are you going? Where were you from? And why were you here? And he's, oh, pilgrimage. What did you see? Did you see... And they just... And I went right through, but they peppered him with all sorts of questions. So, that's Mike. But it was a great trip, and we did something. Unlike your previous trip there, JVL, we stayed at the Dulles. We stayed at the Papal Residence. And as you know... You saw him, didn't you? I did. At the cafeteria.
JVL00:18:52Yeah. Did you heckle him?
Vic00:18:53I know. I went to get salad, and I look up, and there he is at a table.
JVL00:18:57I stand with Cardinal Pell. Well, he's...
Vic00:19:01But you know, he still likes Cardinal Pell.
Sonny00:19:03Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, he doesn't. So, wait, wait, wait. You're at the cafeteria at the Pope's house. Yes. And you go, and you get your food, and the Pope's just sitting there?
Vic00:19:12He's just in white. Everyone else is in black. They never had journalists like this before staying at the Papal Residence, so we were warned by... Was he by himself? He was with his secretary, his right-hand man, this young fella.
Sonny00:19:22You didn't just go up and ask for a Pope selfie? They told us ahead of time no Pope selfies?
JVL00:19:27Did you stand, like, ten feet away from him and pretend, like...
Vic00:19:31This guy, like, taking a picture. And they tell you not to go up because it's kind of like his home, so it's his home, so it's different than when he's out and he's on. Yeah. So I said, okay, fine. But there are times I look down in the lobby, he's walking past.
JVL00:19:42He's visiting, too. He could be staying in the Apostolic Palace if he wasn't such a show-off.
Vic00:19:46I'm a... Look at me, I'm so humble. I'm a domus. And then he's on. But it was... You're both going to hell, by the way. I'm gonna earn it. I'm going, I want to earn it. You earn it. And the best part, though, is because they never had this situation before, the Swiss guard that's posted outside the hotels, they didn't know it, too, so they would salute us every time we walked by. Did you return their salute? Well, I love being saluted. It's one of the little perks. I'll tell you the other perks of the trip in a second. I love being saluted. It's one of life's moments for me, as you know. It's what I live for. In what other context in your life have you been saluted? No, I haven't. When has this happened before? This is so good. So I'm like, do I salute back? And they told me, as class president at Monsignor Donovan,
Sonny00:20:29the interns address him at the free beacon,
Vic00:20:33Mr. Matus, good to see you. So here's the thing. So you walk out, and they say, you know, they say, buongiorno, or they say, salve. And so you say, salve. And they say, well, you're not really supposed to salute back because you're not in uniform yourself. But I'd feel like a jerk if I don't do anything, if I just nod my head. So I did the half-sieg thing. I don't know how else to call it. What about the double guns? Exactly. No, I did the... The wink and the gun. You got to do the wink and the gun. The wink and the gun. I might have done that once, but really it was the half-heil, you know, just up the shoulder.
Sonny00:21:02No, it's like the casual Hitler. It's the casual Hitler. The casual Hitler, where he would be like... That's exactly...
Vic00:21:08It's a casual fascisti, as we would say. The other perk I liked, and JVL, you've been in this situation, the private tour of the Sistine Chapel, right? The private tour of the Sistine Chapel. It would have been awesome already if you just entered the room, and it's empty, and you had the tour, and you're just there, and the security did not care if we took pictures. It was better walking in and seeing a crowd being pushed out. That's what I enjoyed. So people got forced out. It was closing time. It's closing time, and you see them, and they're all staring at you. Another one of my highlights of the trip.
JVL00:21:41Did you salute them as they were leaving?
Vic00:21:43The great thing about being in the domus is you could just cross over the rope and go in through the side entrance. There's no lines. You just go in and out any time you want, and people stare at you, like, where are you going? So that was great. Met all sorts of interesting people.
JVL00:21:54This all sounds like it really, aroused some very Catholic feelings in you.
Vic00:21:58If by those feelings you mean, yeah.
JVL00:22:00Did you have to go to confession because of your pilgrimage? I'm not too scared to go to confession there.
Vic00:22:04I'm like, oh, you don't try to confess over there. No, not there. The light is on. It's Dominicans. No, thank you. You don't. No, thank you. Those are the bigs. You try to do a confession there.
Sonny00:22:14Sorry, could you explain to the lay people out here what that actually, what the difference would be between confessing to them in your normal place?
Vic00:22:19You know, they're pretty hardcore over there. I think they would make you do some serious, they would really get on your case about where a lot of times there's other places if you go to confession, you know, here, you know, they're much more... You're divorced? Yeah, that's fine. Hey, listen.
Guest00:22:33Bath houses?
Vic00:22:33Try to pray for these people. You know, say this prayer, say that prayer.
JVL00:22:37Two Hail Marys and you're all set.
Vic00:22:38Who am I to judge? Do something nice for these people. This is Catholic gold, by the way. And over there, they'll be like, what's wrong with you? And why did you do this? Okay, and then they want to get in.
Sonny00:22:46So they're more like psychotherapists than priests? That's part of the job.
Vic00:22:52And I mean, you talk to somebody about these things. So it's very interesting. What would they have made you do, though?
Sonny00:22:58They just would have been angry with you. They'd just be angry and I don't want them to be angry at me. In the movie, somebody goes in and they're like, oh, I banged my secretary and the priest is like, okay, we'll do 10 Hail Marys or whatever, right? But out here, in this situation, what sort of penitence would you have had to do? I don't know, but I think Jonathan is right. I think they just start yelling at you. They just start yelling?
Vic00:23:18Yeah, maybe. I'm too scared. And I'm not going to do it. I tried.
JVL00:23:22I got halfway into a confessional in St. Peter's once and I was like, I'm out.
Vic00:23:26I can't.
JVL00:23:27The priest is already angry. Are you ready for this? I've already done something wrong.
Vic00:23:30Somebody on my trip said they went to confession and the priest only spoke Chinese and they said it still counted. What if you... And then I stuck her body in my trunk.
Sonny00:23:39If you go to... All right, question, question. If you go to one of these
JVL00:23:45super priests who get angry at you
Sonny00:23:47and you lie to them about your confession, can you just confess the lie to the nice priest later?
Vic00:23:53Later on, if you survive, if you live.
JVL00:23:55If you make it... Yes, if you make it home.
Vic00:23:57So the great news is when I was there, we met all sorts of interesting people, various cardinals, archbishops. We met Archbishop De Noia, who was the head of the Congregation of the Faith, what used to be called the Inquisition. And that was scary. But then he comes up to me and he just says... And I said, I don't want to sit next to him, but Ann Corker said, oh, you're sitting next to him. So I said, okay, fine. What am I going to talk about? He comes up, okay, get extra chairs, boom, boom, boom. He walks in. He's got his magenta cap on. He sees me and he goes, by the way, I have your book. And then I thought, I thought, oh my gosh, he mistook me for somebody else. Wow, they have Google. They have Amazon, huh?
JVL00:24:32They have... Oh, Sonny. That's mean. Very good, very good.
Vic00:24:37Wrecked.
JVL00:24:39Wrecked. Google.it. Did he bring his copy over for you to sign?
Vic00:24:43I would have loved it. I blushed. At first I thought he must have mistaken me for somebody else. Serious. But then he goes, vodka, what's that all about? And so everyone laughed and then I said, it's a good thing I didn't skip the meeting. And yes, so I guess he got it on Amazon.com.
Sonny00:24:55Amazona. Amazona.
Vic00:24:56And then we met a really nice guy, Kishore Jayabalan, from the Acton Institute in Rome. He comes up, he sees Andy. I met him. He's a nice guy. Loves your work. Very nice guy. Sees Mike. And then he says to me, by the way, I don't think I've missed a single episode of The Substandard. He listens to it there.
Sonny00:25:13Where? Spanning the globe. Spanning the globe. He would probably love a copy of Superhero Ethics.
Vic00:25:18I think he would.
Sonny00:25:20That's great. Yeah, he was great.
Vic00:25:21And he said a couple of hours, it was very funny to meet somebody who is an avid listener, of the show. And he was saying, oh, he was saying things like, you know, my voice sounds higher in person than it is on the show. And then he said, Your head is even bigger in person? Well, that was, but he would say things like, oh, like you, you know, I'm the son of a doctor. And then he stops, he goes, gosh, it feels like I really know you so well. And it's a weird thing about doing the show. Biblically. That's fine. And he said, Sonny Bunch, that Sonny Bunch is a funny guy.
Sonny00:25:50Funny how? Funny how? Like a clown.
Vic00:25:53Like you amused him. Like a clown. So that was, lovely. And in terms of the triglycerides, I think it was a draw. I think I only ended up gaining about a pound and a half. We ate a lot of pasta. They love veal there, by the way. They love veal. And wine at lunch, wine at dinner. But we did a lot of walking, something like 18,000 steps, almost 18,000 steps a day, including the big Coliseum Forum tour with Liz Lev, who's amazing.
JVL00:26:18Yeah, when I was there, I went running and I ran six miles in the morning before, like at sunup every day. Did you do that?
Vic00:26:23There's no running inside the Vatican. You can't run inside the Vatican. Not really. In the Vatican. When I ran around the Tiber.
Sonny00:26:30You can't jog around the Vatican? I think they would be
Vic00:26:34weirded out by that. In like your short shorts and your tank top? You know what? People were running through the Roman catacombs. That was like a running trail. What? Yeah. That's gross. And you saw, and bicyclists, they love biking. You know what? Sickos. They love biking. But no, we had like mass at seven in the morning, so I'm not getting up before that. And then we're off to the races. You're not getting... And then, here's it. Never mind. Mass at seven in the morning. I give up. Mass at seven in the morning and then by the time dinner's done, it's 11 p.m. I'm done. I'm not getting up
JVL00:27:04So what do you do from four to seven? 4 a.m.? Yes.
Sonny00:27:11Sonny. Never mind. You know, some of us sleep. Some of us enjoy the amount of sleep that we get. No, thank you. My wife gets up at 5.30 and I resent that, but I get a lot of reading done in the morning, so it's fine. Four o'clock What are you, high? That's nuts. Also, Kishore uses the Quip toothbrush.
Vic00:27:30Oh, no. Substandard booze product. Substandard booze product. Did he get it through Arco? Yes. Yes.
JVL00:27:34Yes, he did.
Vic00:27:35Boom. Amazing. Amazing.
Guest00:27:37Roasted.
Vic00:27:37So that was great. It was a lovely trip. I do wish Kate was there. She would have loved it, too. But this was, you know, it was just me. I was traveling solo. Speaking of solo.
JVL00:27:49Oh. Wait, can we get a grade on That's a Macon that he couldn't do. Transitions. True.
Sonny00:27:55Can we get a grade on my transitions, by the way? I gave you an A. That was pretty good, right? You got an A. I did some work. A solid A. You did. I can tell you did work. B+.
JVL00:28:02But honestly, a Harvey Mansfield B+. Oh. So like a real B+. That's like an A. Well, that's like an A from a real professor.
Sonny00:28:09It's from a regular professor. A Harvey Mansfield B+. Good 30-minute recap of our week.
Vic00:28:14We knew we didn't have much time. We knew we had nothing much else to talk about. We had two weeks off. We had a lot to talk about. We did. Speaking of solo, over the weekend, Solo, a Star Wars story, did a solid 29 million. No. That is incorrect. Oh, really? In its second week, followed by Deadpool 2, which did 23 million over the weekend, and a drift. Deadpool 2? And a drift. Will it beat Deadpool 2 in weekend three? That's a good question. A drift in third place with 11 and a half million. What does this all mean? I wrote that. I actually wrote down what does this all mean.
JVL00:28:46Do we get a... No, no, no, no, no, no. View? From Gene? No, no. First?
Vic00:28:54No, no. You kind of did a Gene teaser, and you're absolutely right. It would all be solo jokes. It's true. Question. The listeners must wait again. Yes, Sonny.
Sonny00:29:02You have seen it. You're the only one here who wasn't here last week. Can you give us your thoughts? I saw it with my family. Your thoughts on seeing it as a film, but also as a Star Wars fan, and also seeing it with your family. These are the things I want to know how you reacted to it.
Vic00:29:15Kids loved it, of course. They think it's fine. They liked it. They will admit that it's better than The Last Jedi. Okay? I thought it had a good start. I liked the opening. I thought, this is good. I can get into this. This is fun. This is great. And then it slowly lost me by the time that, what's her name? Enfys Nest. Thank you. Her name, Enfys Nest, takes off the mask, and I did think as well that it was a Maya Rudolph at first. I was like, what's happening here? And it was young Maya Rudolph. One of you said that on the show. Sonny? No, I think that was Matt. It must have been Matt. Okay, so the whole thing is, again, once again, I felt like we're finding ourselves at the last Jedi with the children. The children who will lead us. The children who will lead us. The younglings who will lead the rebellion. Okay, so that. And then the overweight-looking Darth Maul. Fat Darth Maul. Fat Darth Maul. Same actor. Interestingly enough, same actor. Same actor.
Sonny00:30:15I'm the last person in the world who gets to make fun of people for being bloated and heavy.
Vic00:30:19You were just explaining your sartorial choices, Sonny, too. We don't have to reveal that on the show. But in that part, I said, oh, come on. Really? And then, and I just, it was a short, I was like, okay, now they had to incorporate that. And Michael, my son, actually explained to me that Darth Maul survived the fall.
JVL00:30:41Did Michael find this preposterous?
Vic00:30:44No, he understood it. He said, did you notice the metal legs?
Sonny00:30:47Has Michael been watching the cartoons? Does he understand? So you see the laser sword quarterizes the wound
Vic00:30:53as it passes through the body.
Sonny00:30:56And so there was no blood.
Vic00:30:57Ever.
JVL00:30:58And so, and he rolled, as he dropped,
Sonny00:31:02he rolled with his torso? Parkour style? He's a master of the force. Yes.
Vic00:31:08Why couldn't he levitate himself? He pulled a Deadpool, is what he did. And he put himself back together. So initially, I told my son that, that's not true. That can't possibly be. That's impossible. That's impossible. No. That can't be That can't be true.
Sonny00:31:22That's impossible. You know it'd be true.
Vic00:31:25And so, my feeling was that I liked half of it, and then the other half was meh. And I thought Alden Ehrenreich was fine.
Sonny00:31:35I thought he was fine. He's good. I thought he was actually good.
Vic00:31:37And I thought Emilia Clarke was fine.
Sonny00:31:40Yeah. She was, she was better than I expected her to be. In what sense of the word?
JVL00:31:43Oh. Oh. Oh.
Vic00:31:46Yes. Okay.
JVL00:31:47So you're like,
Sonny00:31:49you're like two, two and a half.
JVL00:31:51You seem more critical than Sonny and I.
Vic00:31:52You're more meh on it than we were. Yeah, I think so.
JVL00:31:55We both were kind of,
Vic00:31:56it's fine. As a movie, Chewbacca was nice. Chewbacca was nice. I like Chewbacca. I'm trying to think about other, and Paul Bettany's Paul Bettany. Okay, fine. And Woody Harrelson, I'm always fascinated by his career arc, because yet again, you know, he finds, there was a time where he, they thought he was done, and he had all these problems, personal problems, and they thought, what did he have, post-cheers, what did he have? He was high all the time. Yes, yes. Really, really bad.
JVL00:32:20And then he talks about the moment that he was held at gunpoint. But then he did Natural Born Killers, and he kicked it all behind him while he was on the set of that movie.
Vic00:32:25That healed him, yeah. No, it's therapy. You go on that show, that movie, I think they talked about how Sonny insisted on having the weird music play constantly throughout so it would get into your head.
JVL00:32:33He was probably on peyote the whole time.
Vic00:32:35Yes, and then they talk about, I think Woody Harrelson, what happened, he got a gunpoint, he was held at gunpoint while in a convertible, and he was almost killed, and it was a life-changing event for him in any way.
Sonny00:32:44Woody Harrelson is one of my favorite people, he just looks happy all, if you flip through like, I wonder where that is. If you flip through like Getty images of like him at award shows or whatever, He's got a natural grin. He's always just got a big goofy grin on his face because he, look, even if he's stoned all the time, that's fine. Look, weed is good for some people. They need it. Weed is good for some people. They need it, they need help. And if it gets them to that good place where they're also productive members of society, Yeah.
Vic00:33:10Fantastic. Absolutely also good for you. Are you high right now? He was,
Sonny00:33:13well, I'm getting there, I'm almost drunk. We're actually drinking again for the first time. We are. It's been months. It's a later taping. Like 30 minutes.
JVL00:33:21Yeah, well,
Sonny00:33:22we have some plausible deniability. I wasn't drunk at 10.30 in the morning, officer. No. But, like, Woody Harrelson has actually had a bit of a late career resurgence here. I mean, he was great in Three Billboards, Outside Ebbing, Missouri. He was just fantastic in that. And he was, like, totally, he was one of the highlights of the Dumb Hunger Games movies. I mean, he's, I like Woody Harrelson a lot. And I thought he was very good in this. I thought he was, like everybody else in this movie, I thought every performance in this movie was very good. Good to very good.
Vic00:33:54It's hard to fill in for Alden Ehrenreich, Han Solo's shoes, and it made me think of other... Harrison Ford's. Harrison Ford's shoes. And it made me think of other actors who were in similar positions. And you know who does, it was great in this situation? Josh Brolin in Men in Black 3. As Tommy Lee Jones.
JVL00:34:12No? You saw Men in Black 3.
Vic00:34:15On TV? Not in the theater. Not in the theater.
Sonny00:34:18It's actually pretty good. It's interesting time travel, poignant. It's actually shockingly poignant. Question, Sonny.
Vic00:34:27Did you get teary-eyed at the end?
JVL00:34:28Yeah, I did a little bit.
Sonny00:34:29Is this the Linda Fiorentino? No, that's the second one. Oh, I like her a lot. The second one was not good. The second one was bad. The third one is... The first one is not good. No, the first one's good. The first one's good. We saw the first one together. The first one is a totally acceptable action sci-fi movie that established Will Smith as a legit box office star. Perfectly good movie. Okay. That's fine.
Vic00:34:49And do you agree with me with Josh Brolin being... It's perfectly okay.
Sonny00:34:52Not... It's good. I would say it's a three-star movie. Three out of four stars. But you would agree that... Well, how many stars would you give it, JBL? I'd give it two and a half. I'm not going to fight over half a star. Give me the... Then give it to me. If you're not going to fight over it, give it to me. That's what I said. Three stars. I just said fine. So it's three stars. There you go. Three stars. Say it's a three-star movie.
JVL00:35:09It's a three-star movie.
Vic00:35:11There we go, JBL. But am I right about Josh Brolin? Yeah, he's great. He does a good Tommy Lee Jones.
JVL00:35:14He does a good Tommy Lee Jones.
Sonny00:35:15And it gets to one of the reasons why I like Tommy Lee Jones in that movie for some of the same reasons I like Donald Glover in Solo. As Lando. It's not so much that he is doing an impersonation. It's that he is picking up on the cadences. It's like how he... Josh Brolin is doing a very good job of how Tommy Lee Jones talks, but not how he sounds. And that, I think, is the key to an impression in a movie like this that doesn't annoy you. Like, you can do impressions that, like, oh, he sounds exactly like him, but it sounds lame because it's not quite the same. You get into this weird uncanny valley thing. But when you do the cadences as opposed to the sounds, it's much better.
Vic00:35:53Very interesting. You guys have more solo thoughts, and I want to hear them more.
JVL00:35:58I do. I mean, I want to talk about the box office and the broader implications for America. But before we do that, I want to share something. So, I always shill for Richard Rushfield's Ankler. He ran a little bit of analysis, just story analysis, with why these movies are failing. And I forget, just from one of his friends, I think it was a blind item, but it was a point I hadn't heard before. And what this guy, writing in, said is that the key problem that Disney has here is that they are ruining the happy endings from the original cast of Return of the Jedi. So, you bring back all of these characters. You bring back all of these characters who had ridden off into the sunset, and now you're ending them terribly. So, Han Solo's getting killed by his own child. Luke is, Luke who was the guy who was just sort of had it grown up and accepted his role and is now an embittered old man who has, like, given up on the system and is living on a hermit. And Princess Leia is doing God knows what Princess Leia is doing. She's floating around in space, Mary Poppins. And the 101, one of the original 101 rules of storytelling is that you never invalidate a character's happy ending. And I thought this was pretty perceptive and maybe part of the reason that people of our generation, now young kids aren't going to care about that, but people of our generation look at this stuff and just sort of react against it in a way that they don't quite understand.
Sonny00:37:24Can I just hit on this briefly? I saw a Twitter thread from somebody who is, like, very into the new Star Wars, but also kind of skeptical of it for exactly this reason. You know, she was saying that she had no real interest in seeing Han Solo. Han Solo, who we have, over the last, like, three years, basically, have been led to believe has led a life of horrible sadness the whole time. Yep. Except for, like, maybe, like, six minutes at the end of Return of the Jedi. Basically, his life has been terrible. He grows up in slums. His love is stripped away from him. He is taught that he has to shoot first. And then we skip ahead a bit, and he is frozen in carbonite and stripped away from his love again. And then we skip ahead another bit, and he's... Basically, a homeless marauder running around the galaxy who gets murdered by his own son at the end of the film. It's just a horrible life that he's led. Han Solo should not be a tragic character. No, and that is exactly what he has been turned into, is a tragic, horrible, like, kind of lesson about how not to live your life.
JVL00:38:27Yeah, I would agree with that. So, I found this interesting. Again, the more and more I think about what Kathleen Kennedy has done, the more I think that, actually, Disney has screwed up. The entire Star Wars universe. This is going to end very badly. Which brings us to the... So, Sonny, there was a guy on Twitter that I was pointing you towards who, last week, kept saying, we don't know how much money this movie's going to make. Titanic opened to $40 million, and look how much money Titanic made.
Vic00:39:01It's the something about Mary of Star Wars movies.
JVL00:39:03Well, you know, Titanic had a 2% drop. This guy then pivoted and said, well... Well, you know, plenty of movies that open over $130 million have 60% drops. But it didn't open over $130 million. Anyway, we now know the number. It dropped 65.2%. Big drop. Just as a point of reference, here are some recent movies that you may have seen that sucked. Rampage dropped 43% from Weekend 1 to Weekend 2. Blockers dropped 47% from Weekend 1 to Weekend 2. Pacific Rim Uprising also dropped 67%. Tomb Raider only dropped 57%. A Wrinkle in Time only dropped 51%, et cetera, et cetera. You see where I'm going with this. You don't have to do Black Panther. Oh, of course it's not Black Panther because Black Panther is a cultural phenomenon. You could take a bunch of other super wide open, effects-heavy, laden movies from the last few weeks, and this dropped as bad as any of them. This is really bad. Oh, yeah, no.
Sonny00:40:01It dropped worse than any of them, basically.
JVL00:40:04And you, you know...
Sonny00:40:07The problem with this, like, world of franchise blockbusters that we live in right now is that you can point to just about anything that has a $150 million or more opening and be like, oh, well, look, it dropped 60% in its second weekend. That's, you know, not... But the problem is it is opening at such a huge number that that sort of drop is not only kind of expected, but you just kind of bake that into the cake. Look at a movie that didn't drop like that. Look at The Force Awakens. The Force Awakens, I think, drops something like 40% between weekend one and weekend two. And it opened at $250 million. So, like, you...
JVL00:40:51Black Panther, 45%. It opened at 160, right? Exactly.
Sonny00:40:55So, more than that, like 200, I think. But the reason that you can't, like, take those numbers and then say, oh, well, you know, Solo's drop isn't so bad because they started much lower. It started at $80 million Like, starting... If you dropped 67% after an $80 million or $90 million opening, you were in a ton of trouble. You were in a lot of trouble. And this movie is in a huge amount of trouble. And everyone who says it's not in trouble is an idiot. And I'm tired of having... I'm tired of it. I'm tired of having to hear from these people on Twitter who have never gone to boxofficemojo.com in their life and start throwing numbers like, oh, Avatar only dropped 3% in its second weekend. You know what happened in Avatar? Let me tell you about Avatar. Avatar opened... Call us, Sonny. Avatar opened to a depressed first weekend because there was a giant snowstorm on the East Coast. The only way you know this sort of thing is if you were there when it happened, if you were watching the numbers. And then in the second weekend, it dropped like 3% or something like that. And the reason that it dropped 3% was because the first weekend was depressed. But the first weekend was depressed.
Vic00:41:55These people, these people who don't understand what they're talking about, they drive me totally insane. Well, you wanted to talk, guys, about the fans, the defenders of Solo. You were talking about this earlier on. You're talking about these people. I mean, they're the same people you're talking about just right now, right? I mean, these are people who, you can go into YouTube and look at fan reaction and every little scene is, wah, right? It's amazing. This is great. You know, but, and these are people who are attacking you.
Sonny00:42:23Well, yeah, it's just like, I don't mind people who criticize my reviews because people like movies. People don't like movies. I get annoyed when people say, oh, well, your box office numbers are wrong. You have no idea what you're talking about. This movie could, could be a big hit. It isn't and it won't be and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. You only have to look at the numbers in the entirety of box office history. That's all you have to do. JV, any thoughts on this?
JVL00:42:49So we had thought that it was a disaster that was going to struggle to get to 500 million. It's now at 266 and it is going to struggle to get to four.
Sonny00:43:00Yeah. I mean, I think it would be, if it gets to four.
JVL00:43:04And so here's, I want people to understand that here's why this matters. It isn't just one movie. It isn't just one franchise, right? So on May 16th, Disney stock was at a three-month high of $105. The entire week leading up to Solo's opening, it started ticking down as people understood what the tracking was like. And then the Tuesday after when the market reopened, it dropped 5%. Disney stock dropped 5% on the Tuesday after this movie opened. Why is this important? Why do we care? Because Disney is in the middle of trying to use its stock to buy Fox. They're in a war with Comcast, who's using an all-cash offer. And so you have the actual future of what this studio is going to do, which is being in part determined by what just happened with Solo. And in fact, you can even telescope out further than that and say that Disney has a guy, his CEO, Bob Iger, who has been playing around with the idea of running for president, who may now not be able to run for president because he's got to spend all of his time trying to make this merger happen and fix the Roseanne debacle, fix the ESPN debacle, fix the Kathleen Kennedy thing, because she has to go. Hear me now and listen to me later. Never going to happen. She cannot stay in charge of this franchise.
Sonny00:44:20Never going to happen. She will be there when episode nine is released and she will crow vindication after it grosses $1.6 billion worldwide, let's say, and she will stay. She's not going anywhere. She is not going anywhere.
JVL00:44:34She cannot be allowed to remain in control of this division. She has screwed it up. I mean, this is...
Sonny00:44:42Bob Iger's going to run for president after firing the most important female executive.
JVL00:44:49First off, the whole Bob Iger for president thing is insane. Well, of course it's insane. Of course it's insane.
Sonny00:44:54It's an insane manufacturing of news by the Hollywood trades. That's never going to happen.
JVL00:44:59No, it's what he wants to do. Whether he can do it or not is not the point. The point is whether he is going to move forward in his deliberations on it. And either he or Howard Schultz. Somebody's going to... Look, we're going to have weird candidates in 2020. So anyway, you see, everything here is spinning out from this, and it's crazy, and there are fans of... Can we talk for a moment about L3?
Vic00:45:21Of course.
JVL00:45:22I thought that it was the same voice as Captain Phasma. Sounds very similar to Phasma. I thought it was. Not the same character. Oh, because it's a woman's voice? Yes. Is that why it sounds the same, Vex? Yes, yes.
Vic00:45:35No, I said... This is a sort of... Sort of toxic fandom. We need to snuff out. I was picturing Brienne of Tarth. And then you mentioned this line in last week's episode of The Substandard. Somebody did the annoying line of saying, is there anything else you'd eat? And she goes, equal rights! Is that what she said?
Sonny00:45:49That's a great laugh line.
Vic00:45:51So did you... The people laugh at the theater. Yes! That's what I want to know.
JVL00:45:54Your read on this was your read... Oh, right! ...that it was intended to be comic relief,
Vic00:45:59or it just played as comic relief? No, I agree with JVL and Matt on this, Sonny.
Sonny00:46:03You guys are so... I think you're so wrong on this. I think the role... It's not just the way the role is written. It's the way that... It's purposeful and intentional. It is the way that Ron Howard shoots the reaction shots. Look, Ron Howard is no stranger from using woke female characters as comic relief. Look at Lindsay in the whole third and fourth seasons of Arrested Development. Like, it is... It's a... This is not foreign territory for him. And the reason you can tell it's joke... Look at how everybody reacts to the character. Look at that droid breakout scene. That is straight-up Marx Brothers nonsense. The bumping around and the silliness and the, yeah, look at what we're doing, freedom. It is entirely intended as comic relief. Now, this is separate from the question of whether or not it is specifically a parody of social justice Star Wars fans. That's a secondary question. You could argue, I think, and I think, as I mentioned in the Washington Post, I think the name of the character, L337, which looks an awful lot like...
JVL00:47:06Leetspeak to me.
Sonny00:47:08Looks an awful lot like Leetspeak to me. You know what Leetspeak is? No. Yes, you do. No, I don't. All right. Anyway, nerd, it's like the, it's shorthand that gamers would use to, you know... What?
JVL00:47:20Stop it. No, I'm totally... You know, I don't know. You could totally know what you're talking about.
Sonny00:47:24Effortless, look up L3, or look up 1-3-3-7.
JVL00:47:30Or just look up Leetspeak. 1-3-3-7 meaning?
Sonny00:47:33Just look up Leet, L-E-E-T, Leetspeak.
JVL00:47:35Leet, 1-3-3-7. Leet, 1-3-3-7, also known as Elite or Leetspeak, is a system of modified spellings and verbiage used primarily in... So the argument here would be that her designation...
Sonny00:47:45Can I fall out of my chair now? Yes. Her designation of L3-3-7 suggests to me that this is possibly a parody of the way that message board people would make fun of a woke droid. So, like, I think there's a level of parody here that we're working on. I don't know exactly who is being parodied, but the point is, it's a comic role, it's played for laughs. All the reactions are played for laughs. Comic role.
JVL00:48:09Can you talk a little bit about the indignity of L3's consciousness being ripped out of her body and stalled into the Millennium Falcon? That is very weird. Without consent.
Vic00:48:19So now Lando can have sex with the Millennium Falcon. That's good.
Sonny00:48:21So we take the woke droid character, right, who is possibly a parody, definitely comic relief, and treat her concerns as jokes through the whole movie. And then at the end of the film, as she's dying, her consciousness is literally ripped from her body and shoved into the Millennium Falcon. She's stripped of her voice, which is her defining characteristic, her smart ass. Silence. Smart out. She's silenced like somebody out of The Handmaid's Tale, and she is forced to work as the slave of the Millennium Falcon. I mean this in a computer relationship, you know, you have a slave. But she is subordinated to the Millennium Falcon. She is forced to work underneath it, and nobody can ever hear her voice again. We know she still has it. She still has her voice, though, remember, from, I think it's Empire Strikes Back, when C-3PO asks, where did this, where did this, where did your computer learn to talk? She has a very weird dialect or something like that.
JVL00:49:18Anyway, point is, this is a line.
Sonny00:49:20Wow. This is a line. Mind blown. So here is, here's what I'm saying is, this is just another point of reference on the
JVL00:49:29horrible slave-like conditions that droids are made to suffer under, under the rebellion and its sympathizers. You know, I read a piece on... I read a piece on Fox over the weekend. Let's talk about that, please. That discovered that droids are slaves in the Star War. Did you read that? Mind blown. I did read that. Mind blown also, mind blown also. Would you care to comment on that, Sonny?
Sonny00:49:48Well, I know, I happen to know the foremost scholar on slavery droid comparisons, and that's one Jonathan V. Last, who wrote a very key piece on this for The Free Beacon three years ago. I read it last week, right? Three... Right after Fox wrote their piece? Three years ago. No, no references. No, no credit. No credit for this on any of the... Was there a link in there? No, no, no. In the Fox piece?
JVL00:50:09Nobody links to The Free Beacon. Well, it happened before five minutes ago, so nobody at Fox knows it. Well, nobody would know. Nobody would know. That's the...
Sonny00:50:16Jonathan, are droids slaves?
JVL00:50:17Yeah. Yeah, they are. And the L3 thing, I mean, you don't have to make too much of it. But yes, I mean, the idea like, okay, if this is a sentient creature with free will and all that, we're just going to jack it into the Millennium Falcon and then never make any attempt to remove it. Remove the consciousness and embody her again. Huh?
Vic00:50:39Yeah.
JVL00:50:39How's that work?
?00:50:40Yeah.
Sonny00:50:41You know why? Because people feel like they can do whatever they want with their chattel.
Vic00:50:45The thing about L3 that always annoyed me is, you know, she'd spend most of the show, all she'd do was wine. Speaking of wine, with online ordering, quick shipping, and personalized recommendations, the only way Wink could make discovering wine you love easier is if they drank it for you. Introducing Wink, spelled W-I-N-C. Wink makes it easy to discover great wine because Wink's wine experts select the right wines matched to your taste, personalized for you, shipped right to your door, and starting at just $13 a bottle. There's nothing like coming home to a delivery of a box of delicious Wink wine selected just for you. It's the best day of your month. Just fill out Wink's palette profile quiz. Answer simple questions that your average store clerk wouldn't ask or translate into a recommendation. Questions like, how do you take your coffee? And how do you feel about blueberries? Then Wink sends wines curated to your taste. The more wines you rate, the more personalized they are. Personalize your monthly selections. Each month there are new delicious wines, like the insanely popular Summer Water Rosé. No membership fees. Skip any month. Cancel any time. Shipping is covered, and if you don't like a bottle they send you, they'll replace it with a bottle you'll love. No questions asked. We tried at home the Summer Water Rosé. It is delicious, and more of it. As the summer only gets hotter, you'll find it much-needed relief. So please do try and check that out. Discover great wine today. Go to trywink.com. You'll get $20 off your first shipment. That's spelled T-R-Y-W-I-N-C.com for $20 off trywink.com. Did you take the palate preference quiz? I did.
JVL00:52:25It was one of the questions, do you smell oranges?
Vic00:52:29No. I said, why don't they ask me about burnt hair? I smell burnt hair. Wait, I don't understand. That's the same thing. Oh, is that the same thing? Almonds is cyanide. Almonds is cyanide, but orange and burnt hair is a stroke. We're already at 55. I was really surprised. I didn't think we'd have enough. I didn't think we'd have enough.
Sonny00:52:49Can we, the one other thing that we should address here, toxic fandom. Can we talk about this just for a minute or two? Yes, yes, yes. So there is an argument right now that the reaction to Solo and The Last Jedi is a specific manifestation of toxic fandom. That Star Wars fans are uniquely-
JVL00:53:08Just like the Lady Ghostbuster fans?
Sonny00:53:09Uniquely misogynistic and racist and all that, and that their reactions are- But, but, but, but, but, but.
JVL00:53:18Why was an L3 in the kitchen cooking and pregnant?
Sonny00:53:22Who said that?
Guest00:53:23That's good. I like that guy.
JVL00:53:24I'm trying to lower my voice a little bit.
Sonny00:53:26It's good. I am somewhat sympathetic to this argument, only in the sense that I think that the internet, more generally, is a toxic environment. That's not healthy. I think the internet empowers people who are inclined to, say, lob death threats at folks, or flood their Instagram posts with angry comments, or chase people off the internet. I heard a story about a Star Wars actor who lives in New York who has a bodyguard now because of all the various threats that they've received. Is it John Boyega?
JVL00:54:02No.
Sonny00:54:02Because of all-
JVL00:54:03He's a black stormtrooper? It's not. It's not. He really got upset about there being a black stormtrooper.
Sonny00:54:08This is, and this is, you know, I don't want to get into this, into the way that the studio has kind of leaned into this victimization mentality, but, because I also don't think it's true exactly. I do think that there are a lot of really bad fans out there who are, like, ugly and gross and say bad things. The problem is, I think that this is a relatively tiny proportion that has always been there and only are empowered by the internet, which is, again, itself the top of the list. It's the toxic thing that is ruining all of this, if we want to talk about it being ruined. And I think that the studios have some measure of blame to bear here. The studios have spent the last 10 years, 20 years, building up franchises as the thing. This is the thing that our studios are based on. These are the tentpoles. This is what keeps the roof over our heads. And they have encouraged these fandoms by having massive conferences and making the talent available to the fans and, like, having... You know, blah, blah, blah. Then they get upset when a certain segment of fans are nonplussed by changes made to the core storylines. And they dismiss those fans by saying, oh, this is just toxic fandom. We don't have to pay any attention to this. Which, in turn, I think radicalizes more fans to say, no, this isn't toxic fandom. You have messed up certain things. The point here is, I think that toxic fandom is a thing that exists. I think that the amount of toxic... The amount of toxic fandom out there is overblown. And I think it's really a toxic internet problem. I think the internet is the thing that is broken. The thing that this podcast exists on is terrible and bad for society and should be destroyed.
JVL00:55:49The good news is, we are on the verge of getting rid of this thing.
Sonny00:55:54Great.
JVL00:55:55So, you know, I would say... You mean the internet or this podcast? Yeah, no, no, the internet. The internet. No, we are this close. We can wipe it out. This close. How do we do it? We hack the internet.
Sonny00:56:06We hack all of them. We hack all the internets? All the internets.
JVL00:56:09And so, this problem that you're describing is not going to get bigger and worse for all time, to the horizon, asymptotically. It's just going to go away. The world will be a better place. If you scold people enough, they'll realize they're wrong.
Sonny00:56:25No, I mean, this is... Am I wrong here? Am I overblowing this? No, no, no. It's true. Am I incorrect in thinking that Star Wars fans are not inherently more toxic than, say, other fans, and that this is an internet problem? Or am I wrong? I mean, I'm welcome to push...
Vic00:56:42No, it's an internet problem. It's an internet problem. It's not healthy. It brings out the worst in people. Spending a lot of time on Twitter.
JVL00:56:50Speaking of worst, I was just trying to transition to get us out of this episode. Yes, let's move on. Speaking of worst, this is a bottom seven episode all the time.
Vic00:56:58No, no, no. How about corrections, additions, anything, anybody? Ready to move on? Nothing?
JVL00:57:03You know, I got something wrong last week. I've already forgotten what it is. Okay. So I'm sorry for it. I regret the error, and I will endeavor to do better next time.
Vic00:57:11Save it for show notes. Spirit of the week is Johnny Walker Black from our friends at Diageo. Always a good one. You can't go wrong with that. And I believe that's all the time we're giving to this episode. Questions, comments, complaints, compliments, tweet us at Victorino Matus at Sonny Bunch. At JV Last. Again, be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play. Just type in Substandard under Podcasts, and we're there. Leave a review. Tell your friends. Until next time.
Sonny00:57:48So briefly on the outtakes. We have a very special outtake. Very special outtake. A fan of the show, Scotty Henthorne, who we all know and love from Twitter, has sent a kind of little song. To send us out. Is this Scotty Rock? Scotty Rock. Scotty Rock.
JVL00:58:10I didn't know the Twitter.
Sonny00:58:12I knew Scotty Henthorne. It's very exciting. But we're going to, this is kind of a funny thing. You know, I would listen to Don and Mike and, you know, those guys growing up. And they would have some, or Howard Stern, they would have, you know, fans would send in little ditties. So it is nice to have somebody with some actual talent out there listening to us and sending us music. Let us know what you think. Maybe this is a real thing. This is a recurring thing. I don't know if, you know, Scotty has kids, has at least a kid, maybe multiple. And, you know, if it doesn't, if you guys like it, maybe he can do more. But, yeah, I was just going to say, I'm sure it's fine.
Guest00:59:06Infinity War Leaving viewers drained and bored Marvel continued to run up the score And they'll do it again with Avengers 4 We waited weeks for Deadpool 2 A meta-sequel for those around age 22 Didn't make as much as it was supposed to But entertaining enough for me and you Last and foremost And, well, least On what was supposed to be The biggest Memorial Day weekend In box office history Here comes another Star Wars story Without much intrigue Milking yesterday of all its glory Solo is now Disney's Justice League It bombed worse than little boy It's a dud for all time But what exactly did you expect From a film that was, well, fine? Overall, it wasn't that bad Some good times were probably had It wasn't the worst month we've ever seen It was just May of 2018 It was just May of 2018
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