Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Delving into THE MANDALORIAN Chapters 11 and 12 | 016
9 Plays7 hours ago
Join Branwen and Seah as they deep dive into all things Star Wars. Follow along as we fly off exploring all the wonders and geekery of a Galaxy Far, Far Away, chatting nostalgia, worlds, lore, sound, music, story, behind the scenes, and much more with each other and some very special guests.
It's Season 2! This season, we're on a rewatch of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett in the run-up to the release of The "Mandalorian and Grogu" in cinemas in May.
In our sixteenth episode we're continuing our way through season 2 of The Mandalorian, Chapter 11 "The Heiress" and Chapter 12 "The Seige". We talk about themes, performances, story details, lore drops, the genius of Bryce Dallas Howard (again!), dusty TIE fighters, aqualish variants, and much more. Watch out for our brand new segment "West End Geek Girls", which now has a little theme tune!
Sisters of the Force is a weekly, UK-based, Star Wars podcast, produced with joy and love by Seah and Branwen.
Follow us on Instagram @sistersoftheforcepod, Bluesky @sistersoftheforce.bsky.social, https://www.youtube.com/@SistersoftheForce, and www.facebook.com/sistersoftheforcepod.
Merch now available: https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/174934721
Recommended
Transcript
Favorite Lines and Introduction
00:00:15
Speaker
Hi Branwen. Hi. Hi. What is your favourite line from Mando season two episode three and or four? I was born on Mandalore and fought in the purge. I am the last of my line and you are a child of the watch.
00:00:30
Speaker
o Oh. If that's not intrigue i don't know what is. Intrigue, I know. That was my note around there was just intrigue all over the place. There's a lot that in episode three.
00:00:41
Speaker
Sia. Hi. What's your favorite line from the Mandalorian season two, f episode three and or four? Fix it? Nah, but I can make it fly. Yeah, I wrote that one down as well. That was a close, probably second, I've heard. him. I don't even know if we know what his name is, but love him. Oh, he's great. So good.
00:01:03
Speaker
You're listening to Sisters of the Force, a Star Wars podcast with me, Branwen. And me, Sia. Hello. Love how I keep changing the format of that. Completely very off guard. went with it. I rolled with it. It's just us two this week, which I love. I love our episodes. It's so fun. I mean, I love our guests. I love all of it, but I really love being with you. We're also in separate places again.
00:01:26
Speaker
Yeah, we are, sadly. But I feel very familiar looking at your living room. Yes. yeah Today we're going to be yeah delving into some more Mandalorian, continuing our journey through season two. We're now on episode three, The Heiress, and four, The Siege.
00:01:45
Speaker
Yeah, what a couple of episodes. This is very exciting. So good. Before we even start, I'm going to go on a slight tangent. Okay.
Surprise Gift and Bryce Dallas Howard's Direction
00:01:50
Speaker
ah We've been given a present. Oh my gosh. This is unexpected.
00:01:57
Speaker
We've been given a present. It's this, this is again, audio medium. It does make noise. ah lush I can see it's an R2 unit. There's a little tiny R2 unit.
00:02:09
Speaker
He's cute. He is quite cute, isn't he? He's come to us via my friend Mary, but he's from her friend Chris, who loves us apparently. so Shout out to Chris. Thank you, Chris, for giving us a present. And shout out to Mary. And shout out to Mary too. I fixed him today. He wasn't working, but now he does.
00:02:26
Speaker
Do you remember the game Bop It? Yeah. He's a bop it. Oh my gosh. Oh wow, he's got the logo on it. He's got the logo. If I press him, he does this. better start And then he's got C-3PO's voice saying bop it.
00:02:41
Speaker
High score for... Bop it. Wow. Twist it. Bop it.
00:02:55
Speaker
We have to make a tune out of that. That is sample material written all over it. Isn't he cute? I think his speaker might be a bit gunky because he's definitely a bit... Oh, he's powering off. There we go. Bye. is it's It's kind of weird because he talks with C-3PO's voice as well. Weird. So the instructions all come through C-3PO's voice, but all the sound effects are R2.
00:03:16
Speaker
It is quite glitchy, like the sound effect. It's so glitchy. I did clean out some ah battery gunk out of there, so it might be bad. you that I mean you are someone who has taken furbies of heart oh yeah I forgot about that yeah yeah have circuit bent everything to make electronic instruments so ah oh that was terrifying they scream when you take the skin off as well which is really I'm not surprised that's cruel it's quite cruel but yeah we could definitely circuit bend artists thank you Chris he's amazing thank you Chris I absolutely love him i love him he's going on the soundboard so that he's going on the soundboard yeah
00:03:59
Speaker
Oh, Lush. Anyway, that's my first dungeon. I love it. I'm here for it. I'm also here in a big way for Bryce Dallas Howard once again. Yes. She just does the best Star Wars. It is a good episode, this one, isn't it? It is. It's another lore fest. Yes. Probably the most lore we've had since season one almost, I think. It feels like we learned a lot about Mandalorians in particular. Yeah.
00:04:25
Speaker
And also a bit about like where the Empire is at this point. Yeah, and what's kind of going on. yeah Yeah, I do have some questions. Yeah, that's cool. This is what we're here for. I may have too. You may also have questions. Excellent. Well, we'll see if you can answer.
00:04:39
Speaker
I wrote the word intrigue probably more than I have a lot. Yeah. Mando isn't always very intrigue heavy, but this episode but was, I think. yeah For sure.
Travel Times and Bo-Katan Introduction
00:04:49
Speaker
So we start, we've come out of the scary, scary, scary spider zone. Oh, yes. Because that was our last bit, wasn't it? I forgot about that. forgot about that? I hadn't. The nightmares. And then now, I suppose this journey's taken them quite a long time because...
00:05:07
Speaker
they're not allowed to jump. Yeah, um he would have been doing it at sublight. Yeah, I've been trying to do a bit of like geography on the Star Wars website. They've got like a map of the galaxy, but it's not searchable, not that i can figure out. So it takes forever to find anywhere. Because I feel like Trusk must be quite near Navarro yeah and quite near whatever the ice planet is called. I've now forgotten the name. Pagoda, I think, or something like that. okay And yeah, if you're travelling sublight, it's going to take weeks or years, potentially. Yeah. I feel like they must be quite near each other, unless sublight is a lot faster than we think it might be when we think it is, yeah. But maybe.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah. As he arrives, I think it's when he's arriving at Trask, we get the sound design. oh yeah, because it wakes them up or wakes Mando up. is There's a little ah warning alarm to sort of say that you've arrived at your destination. And it's the same one as on the Millennium Falcon in A New Hope when they arrive at Alderaan or the remains of Alderaan. Yeah, yeah. we get the little same little sort of two bleeps, two-page bleep thing.
00:06:07
Speaker
yeah Did you know that from listening to it? Yeah, just immediately I heard it. I was like, oh, yeah. Hans Holo's about to say. We're coming up on Aldran or whatever the line is. Yeah, I definitely recognised it. Right at the very beginning of it, we've got this lovely bit of exposition from Mando where he's just like he just talks us through everything. They're good at that. I mean, I think the recap's really good generally for the episodes, aside from Mando giving us exposition. I noticed in this recap, we suddenly have all this stuff about helmets, and oh which is obviously a big story point of the episode. Yeah. I'm going to admit that I normally skip the recap. Don't skip the recap. The recap is always from a different bits from earlier seasons. I do sometimes watch
Grogu's Adventures and Pirate Themes
00:06:55
Speaker
it, but if I'm short on time, I just go, na Fair enough. Yeah. yeah
00:06:59
Speaker
We do have to watch quite a lot for this podcast. that's Fair enough. There's a very sketchy entry into the Trask atmosphere. Yes. Which apparently, i think is this bit, but apparently it's a homage to Ron Howard's Apollo 13 movie. Oh, okay. Which um obviously Bryce Dallas being Ron Howard's daughter, she yeah obviously was doing it around. The kind of burning up of the Razorcrest as it dropped into atmosphere. Yeah. very much like what happened to poor Apollo 13. Excellent. Note the large hexagonal buildings on Trask as we descend.
00:07:37
Speaker
The large hexagonal, we're coming back to those. Oh, intrigue, more intrigue. More intrigue. This is a podcast intrigue. There's a beautiful overhead shot of the city. And yeah, um yeah you can see the big buildings are hexagonal. I think it's hexagonal, might be octagonal.
00:07:53
Speaker
It's geometrical. just cover all bases there Yeah, just in case I got the wrong shape. But yeah, go with it. So we get in and it's it's a very, very ropey landing. Here we go. Nice and easy. Splash.
00:08:08
Speaker
Into the water. And the instant thing is everyone's wearing jumpers. Yeah, it's a proper fishing village, including monk owls that like swim in the sea quite happily. They're all wearing jumpers. They've all really jumpers on. I think the one in the bar that he goes into has got a scarf on. Like a red willy scarf. And that's Quarren, I think. Yes, so incidentally, yeah. It's interesting to note that Trask has both Quarren and Moncal, which, as we know, share a planet anyway. yeah And this is like Moncal's and Quarren's away from home, but they're still living side by side. yeah I guess if you're an aquatic species... Because that's why the frog lady's trying to get there, because ah yeah her husband's there. Yeah.
00:08:50
Speaker
So that I guess like the kind of aquatic alien species probably congregate on water-type planets. Which would make the guess It would make sense, yeah. That super cool walker thing lifting Razor Quest out. Oh, the crane! Yeah, sort an AT-AT or an AT-AT, but with a different top. With a crane lift on it. Yeah, I think we see another one later on in season two when they go to break Mix Mayfeld out. He's like working on a prison planet in a scrapyard and there's some similar cranes there.
00:09:22
Speaker
Really cool. That would make sense. My next note on this was the froggies. I love them. It's a lovely reuniting of Frog Lady and Frog Man. They've got a really lovely musical cue as well that comes in. It's my favourite musical In fact, it sort of becomes the Trusk musical cue. I'm not sure whether it's specifically them. I think it is them because I think it's related to that sweet little synthesiser cue that...
00:09:45
Speaker
We were hearing when we were seeing Grogu looking through the eggs yeah last episode. Yeah. But it's very orchestral in this version. And I think it's in the Lydian mode, which has got that kind of sharp fourth for all you muso geeks out there. It's kind of the mystical, magical mode, yeah like a scale that, you know, gets used in a lot of fantasy stuff. Yeah. It's very sweet. I just wrote that it was lovely. It is lovely. And I think here is where the intrigue really starts because we see a mysterious figure oh yeah in the crowd who magically vanishes in that classic cinematographic, is that word? I think it's a word now. I think I made it up. Like that technique where passers-by come in front of the camera and when they've gone past, the persons vanish. Yeah, yeah. yeah Nice.
00:10:31
Speaker
There's your first moment of intrigue. My notes are all over the place. That's fine. We can jump around wherever we want. Grogu isn't very much into Chowder, it turns out, especially way especially when an alien facehugger leaves out and attaches to your face in another homage to another classic movie. I love that. That was the other don't play with your food line. Yeah, don't play with your food.
00:10:58
Speaker
So funny. I've got to say I didn't fancy the chowder either. No, grim. Well, i'm I mean, I'm a vegetarian anyway, but but it's like squid things, too intelligent, don't want to eat them. Yeah, living squid things. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. There is a really, really gross scene later on with one of the Mandalorians eating one. Oh, yes yeah.
Mandalorian Battles and Bo-Katan's Quest
00:11:19
Speaker
Swallowing like a tentacle of something. and it's moving as she's eating. Oh, it's so grim. but but Don't mess with the Mandalorians. grim. On any level.
00:11:31
Speaker
My next note was pirates. Yes. Oh my gosh. And then straight after that, double-crossing pirates. Yeah. For the starters, we get the Mandalorian theme, which it turns out works brilliantly as a pirate theme. Yeah. There we go. It's just like ready-made pirate theme. Don't really have to do anything to it. I was trying to listen if there's any interesting orchestration to change it from the original version, but it's no maybe a little different, but mostly it's just the theme. And it works for Pirates. It's very, yeah, Pirates the Caribbean.
00:12:00
Speaker
I remember listening to um the Children of the Watch break this down and they got very excited about it being a boat in Star Wars. Ooh. Trying to remember if we've ever seen any other boats or ships. Have we had any boats? I don't think so, apart from Jabba's sail barge. But also the... um Oh, Naboo? Yeah, Naboo. The little Naboo kind of gondola type things. Yeah.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, that's where I've seen boats. But not full-on pirate Not a pirate ship, no. With a monster in it. What? Yeah, a monster that's apparently called mamacor, or mamacor. Okay. Which i don't think we hear in the episode, but I may have done a bit of Googling. No, he says something about it, because he says, have you ever seen mamacor being fed? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:12:44
Speaker
It's quite a sight to see. Yeah. So fiery. And then he says, the kid might be interested. And you're like, yeah i know Feed the kid to the mamacool.
00:12:55
Speaker
Outrageous. But no worries, because no the night owls are going to show up. With their incredible gated synths. I know. Gated, distorted synth mayhem. Yes. It's amazing. so I don't know if it's Bo-Katan or the Night Owls or whatever the theme is, I love it. It's pretty much a sound rather than a tune. is yeah like just a single note, but it's very rhythmic and it's very distorted and it really suits. And it sounds cool. Yeah, definitely. ah Question. Yes. You just referred to them as the Night Owls.
00:13:29
Speaker
Where are are we getting this from, please? Okay. We're going to find out a little bit as we go along. We certainly will in Clone Wars. Right, okay. I'm going to try not to go down an entire breakdown of the history of Mandalore. Okay. But back in the pre-empire days, yes or at least, yeah, pre-empire, there were a lot of political problems on Mandalore, as you can imagine. yeah There are various different houses, which are like royal families, if you like.
00:13:55
Speaker
that ah kind of There's kind of an interesting hierarchical structure between them. There's usually a leader in some form, and the title of the leader changes depending on what era we look at. right But Bo-Katan was part of a fairly influential family called the Kreese family, House of Kreese. She does mention that.
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah, there's a surname, effectively. And her sister is Satine, who was ruler of Mandalore during the Clone Wars era and had a bit of a thing with Obi-Wan Kenobi.
00:14:27
Speaker
Ooh. Plot twist. Jedis aren't allowed to have things. That's apparently not, yeah. But, proof well, we'll see. We can speculate when we get to that, what was going on there. But yeah, she was part of that. And at that time, Satine, the sister, was ah part of like a peaceful movement of Mandalorians. And they were trying to rule Mandalore as a peaceful planet, whereas previously they are very much like a martial planet. They're ah a warrior race, you know, or a warrior creed, I should say, because they're not race. They're not a race, they're a creed. As we've been told many times. Yes.
00:15:05
Speaker
And a lot of the Mandalorians did not like that. They wanted to go back to the martial ways. And Bo-Katan kind of estranged herself from Satine and her family to go off and join the splinter group that became known as Death Watch, who were kind of looking after Mandalore from a different place. right And eventually she had to help kind of retake Mandalore when the Empire...
00:15:33
Speaker
Well, or when we're about to reach the Empire era. Right. And there's a whole story with Maul and okay it's wild and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Okay. It's phenomenal and Ahsoka's involved. It's really, really cool. So that's where she comes from. So the night owls are kind of a...
00:15:53
Speaker
after, they were kind of a a small part of Death Watch. And I don't know if Bo-Katan is still calling herself and her group the night owls, but they've still got the owl signal on the helmet. Oh, yeah, yeah. yeah Or at least Bo has. I didn't notice whether Cosco and X have got them on. I did notice they were a bit birdy looking. Yeah, yeah. There's definitely like an owl logo right or a night owl's logo.
00:16:16
Speaker
Gosh, yeah. Yeah, so that's i'm I'm calling them night owls, but they may not be. They may not be. Okay. My whole note for this section was, ooh, Mandalore lore lore, awkward to find out you're actually from a cult. Yeah.
00:16:30
Speaker
It's such a moment for Mando and he does not like it. but
Mando's Identity Crisis and Bo-Katan in Live-action
00:16:34
Speaker
He just goes away, runs away. He's not having that. I mean, they're not like, Bo is being quite nice. yeah Don't worry, brother. She says at one point, we've got this.
00:16:44
Speaker
But Axe is like, he's one of them. He's very dismissive. yeah And they, yeah, apparently they consider the children of the watch zealots. Yeah. which is Religious zealots. Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:56
Speaker
whoa yeah so We still don't know an awful lot about this and like who the armourer is and who the children of the Watch are. And yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. Very interesting. And I'm dying to find out more. Maybe we will in the film. I have a feeling we won't much in the film. Okay.
00:17:13
Speaker
Because it's going to be a feature film that they're trying to bring new fans in with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're not going to go too heavy. No. We'll see. We'll have to see. We'll We'll see. We'll see how heavy we go. But I'm sure will get some more at some point. I can't believe they're going to create a character like the Armourer and a sect like the Children of the Watch yeah with these very specific rules and then not do... Not go into it, yeah. Not go into it in some kind of detail. Not tell us about it.
00:17:38
Speaker
But I loved seeing these three. ah Having seen Bo-Katan in Clone Wars and Rebels yes quite a bit, it's lush. I mean, apart from the fact that it is Katie Sackhoff who voices the character the animated series and she just happens to look like her animated version-ish. Give or take a red wig or tea. That's fine. What's a red wig between friends? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
00:18:09
Speaker
But yeah, it's so cool. She's talked a bit about the challenges of playing the character in real life. Because obviously you do a job as a voice actor, you don't ever really think about physicalisation. You probably physicalise in the booth, but nobody's ever going to see that. Particularly, I think sometimes they capture facial movement, yeah motion capture, yeah they don't do full physical. Like full body stuff. Yeah, they possibly do that, but with like physical actors rather than...
00:18:33
Speaker
the voice actors yeah kind of thing, if that makes sense. I did have a bit of a note about her just being like, she's quite harsh, yeah but like this is my first meeting of her. I haven't met, I so i haven't seen any of the other stuff. I haven't seen Boca Tan before. mean, tracks, like she does have a troubled background and a mixed relationship with the Darksaber. And there's a whole she's been through a lot. Yeah, she's probably suffering a lot of trauma. As we find out in season three, they go deep into that. Season three is very much like,
00:19:03
Speaker
Bo-Katan season one almost. Right. It's very much about her. Yeah. Spoiler alert. Thanks. But yeah, Katie Sackhoff said she adopted this kind of quite still performance. She was trying to be regal and stoic, yeah but not become wooden. Yeah, yeah. And I guess she got lucky because this is the first time we see her and she's got Bryce Dallas Howard directing her, who is brilliant at like characterization yeah and those kind of like personal moments so it's really cool that she was being directed by her and i think it helped her she has spoken about it quite a bit on her own podcast which is worth a listen if you're into boca town and katie sarkov she interviews lots of different people you know it's not all star wars but yeah there's a fair amount of stars as you can imagine excellent yeah
00:19:53
Speaker
Like you say, it's a big lore dump. We learn quite bit. Such big lore dump. but I feel like we're left with more questions than answers. Yeah. But it's all like, it's so casual of like, oh yeah, here's all the stuff, but also we're not really going to talk about it there.
00:20:05
Speaker
And yeah you're discovering with Mando what he's... kind of yeah who he is at the same time case because yeah he's been raised by the religious zealots. like you say a cult yeah really that has maybe had very little interaction with the outside world yeah at all let alone with other Mandalorians. And he's having to like rejig his whole idea of what Mandalorians are. He's horrified when they take their helmets off. Yeah, yeah, he's not having it at all.
00:20:33
Speaker
and Especially when they're just like impatient with him for that. Yeah. They're just like, oh, right, it's it's one of these. Yeah, yeah. But then he leaves Grogu with some frogs to go on a side quest. Yeah.
00:20:48
Speaker
With Okatan. Yeah. what a Good idea to leave Grogu with frogs. I think When he's repeatedly tried to eat their offspring. I think the frogs are, a they're trustworthy, and B, they kind of know the deal, and they know they've got to keep an eye on him. And and this is the perfect opportunity for Grogu to learn about... That he's not allowed to eat their children.
00:21:09
Speaker
Yeah, about eggs and what eggs become and that they're big, humanoid, sentient frogs. That he can't eat. Yeah. yeah It's very cute and we get some more of that lovely theme yeah as he watches in wonder. i just loved it and one of them starts to hatch and his expression is like, ooh, this is cool. I thought he was eyeing that up as a snack as well. Yeah, very slightly.
00:21:34
Speaker
He's going to find that very hard to shake off, I think. So the plan, yes after a little discussion where Axe Woves gets into one of our tracking things and says they couldn't hit the side of bantha when he's talking about the stormtroop.
00:21:50
Speaker
Which prior to doing this podcast would have made me chuckle, but it made me laugh out loud now. Yeah. Yeah, no, they still can't shoot. So they've got to go and take out this Gazanti-class cruiser. Yes. Which is quite a mission. Yeah. I love the detail that they go into in the plan of like, well, it's not going to go up into the atmosphere until a certain point. Yeah, yeah. So we can kind of rock it back along You're getting kind of like the flight control laws of the land. Yeah, exactly. Air control. very detailed.
00:22:25
Speaker
But they're leaving nothing to chance. They possibly underestimated resistance a little bit, but but not too much. I mean, the way they steam in there. There's as a classic imperial alarm goes off yes when they when they start infiltrating.
00:22:42
Speaker
So this is potentially where we get to my favorite music cue of this episode. I love the other music cue, but there's like this, when the bridge have kind of figured out that they're being attacked yeah they're like, oh, it's
Empire's Presence and Cloning Experiments
00:22:54
Speaker
pirates. yeah And then a bunch of stormtroopers get gassed.
00:22:58
Speaker
ah And then the Mandalorians appear and the build of that queue is amazing. It's amazing. It just sounds so good. And I was like, that is quite downscy i'm enjoyed yeah, Yeah. electronica. It's kind of an extension of that initial theme that we heard with Bo-Katan when she first appeared, that kind of gated stuff. Yeah.
00:23:20
Speaker
But more fleshed out. Bigger. Yeah, it's he's awesome. Very, very awesome. Loved it. ah The Captain. I love the casting of the Captain. I've seen him in other stuff. I i didn't check his name. I thought I recognised him. Yeah, he's definitely been in plenty of shows. i didn't I have a feeling he's British. He spoke with an American accent, but I'm sure I've seen him in like interest British dramas.
00:23:43
Speaker
have to Google him afterwards. Fact check. Yeah. Swift little fact check. He's so good. And as is the young pilot guy, like the super young. The two, they're both like, they just look terrified the entire time. And they're like, what is happening? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:24:00
Speaker
As you would. i mean, they must know the reputation of these Mandalorians. Yeah. Even though they're trying to downplay it all the time by referring to them as pirates, as Gideon does when he comes on the hollow. Yeah.
00:24:13
Speaker
But it's clearly something they should be worried about. Yeah. but but And Bo-Katan's just super cool the entire time when she speaks to them once well on comms and you're like, oh, okay. She says, put some tea on, we'll be up in a minute. What a line.
00:24:31
Speaker
I mean, all of the combat is just, they're very intentional, definite about their moves. It's very, very slick, all of them. They use the elevator trick, which we're going to see later.
00:24:42
Speaker
in the finale of this season, which I believe you've now watched. I have watched it. Where where we watch like the elevator lights going yeah and there's this kind of air of tension, but it's this time it's Mando and everyone coming up. Yeah, they're bringing the fear with them.
00:25:02
Speaker
There's a bit of a New Hope line where it's sort of exchange where we hear, close the doors. Which one? All of them. of them, yeah. I think that's generally an original trilogy kind of dialogue. It feels very original trilogy. I love like the way this episode and the next episode as well, like the way the Imperial ships and the Imperial base in the next one, they look so original trilogy. Yeah. oh definitely The look and feel of them is just so familiar. Absolutely. I mean, that's our nearest frame of reference timeline. one so
00:25:35
Speaker
We're only a few years out from Return of the Jedi. So it stands to reason the Empire effectively has fallen, although many of them are in denial about that. yeah So they're not getting new ships built. you know They're having to keep and make do with their existing equipment. And that's why stuff is starting to look a bit worn. yeah I noticed in the next episode, the TIE Fighter chase, yeah there's dust moats in the TIE Fighter cockpit that are caught up by the light, which I'm sure we don't see that normally. And I feel like it's a sort of subliminal, everything's a bit worn. These are getting a bit old now. Yeah.
00:26:12
Speaker
I've got some more thoughts on that, but i'll I'll save that for the next episode. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I didn't want to jump ahead there, but it just it struck me as in in relation to what we're talking about here. yeah. yeah There's ah definitely a ah return of Gideon's theme yeah after he's been on the hollow and he's talking to the captain and then the captain suddenly sort of shows a certain amount of determination and yeah he knows what he's got to do. He's been given his yeah very dark instructions. Very dark orders. Yeah. immediately takes out the pilots and then st struck goes to crash the ship. yeah And I think it's Gideon's theme. It's kind of an imperial theme anyway, with these like deep 808 bass drums, the kind of distorted kicks with the low strings doubling them, which makes for really lush texture, which is very imperial.
00:26:59
Speaker
It's really, really cool. Very Ludwig. Yes, sir. My next note about that after the self-destruct orders was, ooh, Darksaber intrigue. Yeah, we get a bit about this whole kind of what Bo-Katan is doing there, why she's so intent on questioning the captain. Yes. And she is determined to find out where the Darksaber is. We've seen it briefly in Gideon's care. Yes.
00:27:27
Speaker
Obviously, anybody who's new to the show and hadn't watched... any of the animated series would be finding this out along with Mando. As I am. Yeah.
00:27:38
Speaker
Whereas those who have watched those shows are like, wah, as well. so you know, there's like, it has to work on both levels, which think is really cool. How they kind of weave the intrigue in and it's like double intrigue yeah in a way, which I like.
00:27:51
Speaker
Clever. Because yeah even if we have seen the animated shows, it's still... not clear what's happened there's there's a big chunk of dark saber history that we don't know about the last thing we saw was bo-katan with the dark saber in the animated shows and then all of a sudden but this guy gideon has got it we didn't know before yeah and he's wielding it like an imperial despot yes And we're like absolutely what's, you know, we're in the dark as everybody else yes to what's happened to it along the way.
00:28:25
Speaker
Yeah. It's quite dramatic load of lore again at the end where, you know, Ahsoka suddenly gets a mention. Yeah. And apparently she's on Corvus. Yeah.
00:28:37
Speaker
Which is cool. When Bo-Katan is interrogating the general, is he a general? I don't know. he yeah I think he's just a captain, but he may have another rank. I mean, captain, I'm not sure if that's a rank. I mean, he's captain of the the cruiser, yeah but he may be... and Yeah, I was struggling to like keep track of that. I don't know the imperial red and blue things. I should get to know those one day. Just another thing, innit? Something else to memorise. But he's got an incredibly horrible... like the self-destruct pill thing or like yeah where he just like clenches his teeth and dies. That's horrible. It's like the cyanide tablet. Yeah, but it's like it's almost electric. It's got an electric... Horrible.
00:29:17
Speaker
Didn't like it. Did not care for it. Again, his performance. I just absolutely loved him. What guy. He was fab. What an actor. So yeah, then we have all of the slight more lore drop.
00:29:30
Speaker
Bo-Katan tries to get Mando to go with her. Yeah. But he's got his own quest. He's got his own thing. He's busy. This was just a side quest, Bo-Katan.
Expanding Star Wars Lore and Trask Architecture
00:29:40
Speaker
Leave him be. I'm sure they were rolling their eyes. It's like, oh, the armourer again. Oh, yeah, off you go. Yeah, carry on. Send him off on a mission. But Bo-Katan did know Ahsoka, so it's super cool that she is that source of information for him to go and find her on Corvus. And I bet if you had all of that, obviously I'm doing this without all of the animated shows, but just having Ahsoka name dropped at that point must have been pretty exciting. Definitely. It was like, what? They kept it a secret really well, I think. I have a feeling we might have known about Katie Sackhoff.
00:30:17
Speaker
Okay. But I don't know how far ahead we knew about Ahsoka. I think we did know bit. At this point, I, and I'm sure most other viewers who were followers of the animated shows, were thinking, okay, so that's going to be the last episode of the season.
00:30:33
Speaker
Right. But no. We don't get it there in the next episode, but we do get in the one after that, which is wild. Yeah. Yeah. I guess the scale of the finale reveal is like... Yeah, it needed that. Yeah.
00:30:47
Speaker
It's a big season. There's a lot in this season. It is big season. Loads of stuff happens. I'm still like reeling. I've only just finished the season. like This is how you knew about it is because I was furiously texting you the entire time I was watching the finale.
00:31:03
Speaker
It's big. like I think there are people who say that season three is just too lore-heavy and too Mandalorian- As in the Creed, not Din Djarin. Like season season three or this season? Season three. Season three? Ooh. Yeah. okay They say it kind of deviates too far away from what the show was originally. Right.
00:31:24
Speaker
Whereas in this season, it's still Mando. He's still got Grogu. He's still on his mission. Like that stays in check for the whole of the season. Yeah. That goes off the the rails a lot in season three, for for better or worse. I mean, I love it because I just love Mandalorian lore and I love Bo-Katan. And for me, it's like, I'm just quite happy to have this. And the show is called The Mandalorian. There's nothing to say that refers to Din. that It could refer to Grogu. It could refer to Bo-Katan.
00:31:50
Speaker
There's all of those people that that could have that moniker. Yeah, sure. But this season, I feel, has the sort of sweet spot where we keep getting all these like big reveals and big story points, but we are still on the hunt for Grogu's people. Yeah, still on a Jedi mission. Yeah.
00:32:09
Speaker
So my next note, we've got Grogu playing. So don't let him fondle baby frogs. That's not a good idea. He will eat them. He's got a froglet. Yeah.
00:32:20
Speaker
And this is where I really felt we found out that that wonder music, which I'm going to call it from the last episode, and the Trask kind of Lydian orchestral theme, all kind comes together. together there, yeah. It is really lovely.
00:32:34
Speaker
We also find out that a thousand credits buys you some very ropey shit. Like literally ropey. This is the definition of ropey. I loved it so much. I love the Razor Quest's new look. I don't know if you get this in any other country than the UK, but if you go to seaside towns in the UK and go in a pub, the walls surround, like, they always have ropes. They have those little glass balls and, like, lobster nets and stuff. Yeah. yeah yeah All of that. In, like, near us, there's a village called Llangranog, which has got a couple of pubs in. Llangranog is all over that. Nautical pub themes. I'm sure only get it here. Maybe you get in the US. I don't know. and europe I think you probably do get in the US a little bit. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. You can tell us. Anyone that's listening from the US, if you can tell us, that'd be great. Let us know about nautical pub themes. yeah If you don't know what that's like, just look at the cockpit of the Razorcrest this
00:33:28
Speaker
Okay, I have a tangent here. Yeah. Because my favorite piece of sound design happens at this point. wo Ooh, interesting. I'm an absolute sucker for squishy, squishy, visceral, squelchy, squelchy things. And we've yeah got a very squishy, squelchy creature.
00:33:46
Speaker
yeah What is it? is it like it's like Is it a bigger version of the facehugger that tried to eat Grogu out of his own dinner? I think it might be. It's like a starfishy thing. Yeah, it's a starfish. And it's incidentally hexagonal shape. Oh my god, no!
00:34:04
Speaker
Is that a callback or what? That is good. yeah So did the inhabitants of Trask base their architecture on on the sea features? Oh, is that a question or do you know the answer? i'm just No, I'm just throwing that to the Star Wars universe to find out.
00:34:23
Speaker
I have a feeling knowing the deep dives they do when they're doing design for the shows, I'm pretty sure that's a thing. Oh, interesting. It's too much of coincidence. I mean, we even get that weird POV shot of... Of the hexagonal thing of his eyes looking at Grogu. It's multifaceted... Yeah. And it's the same shape again, as if that's when I noticed I was like, oh, weird. And then I had this flashback that I'd actually written a note of. It's interesting that the hexagons were in my head because I've been reading Star Wars sourcebook from the role-playing game. interesting.
00:34:57
Speaker
Imperial garrisons were designed in the role-playing game in modular hexagonal units that could be ah lifted and rearranged yeah to like help them to expand and stuff easily. sure And it just struck me that this planet had a similar thing. And then all of a sudden at the end, we meet this creature and i'm like, hang on a minute. This isn't to do with Imperial architecture. This is to do with the native the creature fauna of this. model So I have got a whole sound library.
00:35:26
Speaker
Of squelches and squelches. This does not surprise me. so This is some lore about me. I often perform as a slug.
00:35:37
Speaker
Slime time. Look it up. Slime time, slugtopia. As part of that performance, we make slime and I've done loads of recordings of the slime in various different states. Amazing.
00:35:49
Speaker
And do have you made anything that gets used in the slug? Yeah, I've done a lot of sound design for the slugs and that's it's all been recordings of the slime. And my other squishy sound library is jelly.
00:36:01
Speaker
Oh, wow. yeah I've recorded a lot of jelly, just like played with it. don't know, just as you do. It's a very specific type of sound. And I think it probably horrifies some people. Yeah, I love it. In the same way as it fascinates others like you.
00:36:21
Speaker
You're looking madly uncomfortable. Yeah, I'd possibly fall into the former. I mean, I'm not a horrified, horrified, but I think if I spent too much time listening to those sounds. I love it. I could listen to it all all the time.
00:36:35
Speaker
It makes some really impressive pops as well. I love it. But yeah, anyway, that's what it reminded me of. And I was like, I love it. This is my favorite thing. left up for week
00:36:49
Speaker
We'll have to get some squishes on the soundboard. Oh, I can send you plenty of squishes. I've got loads of them. We need to find out what the name of that creature is because it will have a name, I'm sure. Yeah. The ship is literally falling apart. It's leaving little bits in space as he continues his journey. It's pretty grim.
00:37:07
Speaker
He decides rightly that he's not going to make it to Corvus in this shape. So he decides to go and check out an old friend. Yeah. Which I think is actually, I'm saying all that, I think that's in the next episode. I think it is. I think that's the beginning of the next episode. Let's segue into the scene.
00:37:27
Speaker
That was my sound effect. Maybe we can have a squishy segue sound. yeah My intrusive thought said do it with your mouth and then I thought no, that's going to put this in soft. Don't do that. I already have suggested eating spaghetti on this podcast. We're not going to do that.
00:37:44
Speaker
You have it there ready. got the spaghetti just in case we need it. You could have started the episode with the whole Cosca Reeves sucking up the you tentacle sound design. I could have done, but that puts a lot of people off. yeah So Carl Weathers directs this episode, which is so amazing. We've sadly lost Carl Weathers in the last year and it means we're not going to have Grief Karga again, as far as we know.
00:38:11
Speaker
ah so it's lovely that he directed this episode do this and is a brilliant episode. It's full of action, which I guess is a lot of us know Carl Weathers from kind of his action roles. Yeah, sure. But definitely this one, he absolutely smashes it. It's such a ah ride of an episode. This one is so, so full of like really lovely, nostalgic
Navarro's Transformation and Empire's Hidden Operations
00:38:34
Speaker
callbacks. Yeah, there's a lot. It's very, very Star Wars. love it. Yeah, Carl Weathers must have been a big Star Wars fan. Yeah, yeah. I don't think he's one of those actors that just got kind of cast and then, oh I better go and watch the films. you know and I feel that you can't direct an episode that comes out like this if you've not been into the original trilogy. Sure. Sure. Grogu is learning his colours, it seems. yes
00:39:01
Speaker
This is some more questionable parenting, really. Just send him in Send him You would not stick a toddler in the engine of your car and ask it to rewire the battery. exactly yeah
00:39:17
Speaker
He's doing a pretty good job. I think he is knowing the colours, but i don't think he's following the instructions at all well. It makes us wonder whether he can actually understand basic very well, yeah which we've speculated before. Well, another note, I think I might have said this in our last episode, that sometimes he babbles in a different language. Yeah. He does it in this episode as well. Right. Yeah. A little bit in the last one.
00:39:40
Speaker
He has a little tantrum about the frog eggs where he doesn't do the baby talk anymore. He's got a little babble noise. And then in this one, he does it a few times. And this is, as you said last time, like a potentially new recorded stuff, perhaps. Not from the same library as his Googles cardinals. It doesn't seem to be. It's lower and it sounds more like alien speech.
00:40:02
Speaker
I meant to watch out for it since you mentioned it last week. Yeah. Next episode, shall be listening for it. He's got some very specific sounds in the next episode, so it should become more apparent, I think. Yeah, this is where I figured that Navarro must be quite near to Trask. Yes. Because, again, they do seem to have hyperdrive. Even when Grogu's trying to fix the thing and the ship is not working, we get this same sound effect from Empire Strikes Back when the Falcon hyperdrive isn't working. It's like trying to start car engine. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kind of a sound. Yeah.
00:40:38
Speaker
And it's the exact same sound, I'm sure. But there's been no mention of hyperdrive, so whether they're just, I don't know, ship systems going wrong, generic Star Wars sound. Yeah.
00:40:52
Speaker
I wonder if they've got that all labelled in the library somewhere, like ships going wrong. Yeah. I bet there's loads of ship going wrong. Yeah, there must be. There's quite a few just associated with the Falcon, but then there are other ships along the way that have gone wrong.
00:41:07
Speaker
Through the animated shows, there must be loads of that kind of stuff. Oh, the double drinking soup. The double drinking, synchronised broth drinking So good. It's such a like, well, we can't do it.
00:41:21
Speaker
Kind of both drinking tea. I think Grogu's like taking his first steps into emulating. Yeah, yeah. His new dad. Yeah. Which the most adorable thing ever. It's very cute.
00:41:34
Speaker
And then we're off. Back to Navarro. Okay. Back to Navarro. It's at this point that it's time for... Oh my God. I'm so excited.
00:41:44
Speaker
West End Geek Girls. Which you've not been listening, where have you been? Incidentally, if you're wondering why Sia's so excited about this theme song and you've already heard it in previous episodes, it's because of my weird i recording, editing ah schedule.
00:42:02
Speaker
Which means you may have already heard it but for us, it's new. So this feature is where we delve into the role-playing game books yeah from the late 80s, early 90s. Tell me. To find out something about something in New Star Wars. So I thought I'd do about Aqualish. Aqualish. Because Cara Dune is about to take out a little band of Aqualish raiders. Excellent. Who are kind of like ransacking the armorer's workshop.
00:42:31
Speaker
Yeah. And the role-playing game... Did a wonderful thing in terms of many of the aliens, because yes prior to the role-playing game, these aliens had names like, well, in the case of Aqualish, Walrus Man, or Hammerhead for the Ithorians, or whatever. There were a few alien names like...
00:42:50
Speaker
No, I don't think even Rodians didn't have name either. Did they not? So, no, the people who put the role-playing game together at West End Games came up with a lot of these alien names. And Lucasfilm wasn't for it. Oh, my God. Rude. No, they're called Wurrus Man. They're called Hammerheads.
00:43:09
Speaker
good old Bill... ah i um I am so glad that this is the one you want you were going to go with because my note on this was, who are these hairy bugs, please? There we go.
00:43:20
Speaker
yeah Bill Slavicek, who was the co-writer of the original source book. He talks about in his memoir how he came up with most of these alien names. I'm not sure if he came up with Aquilish. Pretty sure he did.
00:43:33
Speaker
i certainly named Rodians and Ithorians, which are from the same... kind of family of aliens that came from A New Hope. so They're in the cantina. So the Aqualish are the race that Ponda Baba is from. And Ponda Baba is the alien that talks to Luke in the cantina. um He says something aggressive. And then Dr. Everson says, he doesn't like He doesn't like you.
00:43:55
Speaker
but yeah I don't like you either. The guy with the tusk, the big teeth, is an aquilish. And according to the Galaxy Guide 4 alien races, oh they come from a planet called Ando.
00:44:09
Speaker
hope Ando. Mando, interesting. Didn't that together while I was researching. And in this era of this role-playing game book, which would have been probably about 1990, there were two kind of subspecies, the Aquala, who have got fins, who are more water-dwelling and perhaps less physically evolved as the other type, which are called the Quora, or Quora, which...
00:44:36
Speaker
these guys are. right And they've got fingers, they've got five fingers. So they've kind of evolved that kind of manual dexterity. yeah So generally when Aqualish travel away from Ando, they are the Quoras, which only make up less than 10% of the population, I think I said. So they're kind of in a minority of the kind of physiological race, two races of Aqualish.
00:45:00
Speaker
So yeah, that's about all need to know about them. They're quite violent, apparently. They're violent. They had bit bad time with the Empire trying to take out their planet. This is according to the role-playing law.
00:45:13
Speaker
After that, they appeared in Legends in the Expanded Universe books prior to Disney. And in that instance, there were three subspecies. There was another kind of subrace as well.
00:45:25
Speaker
Since Disney have taken over, they've kind of scrapped a lot of that. So we don't know how much of this is still going to be true. yeah i think when it's something as like unexplored as this, it's probably safe to say if we ever do find out more about Aqualish, it's probably going to be in line with either role-playing game or the original Legends because that tends to be what happens. Yeah, sure.
00:45:47
Speaker
So yeah, that was your little aquilish deep dive. I mean, we didn't go very deep, really. I'm so glad that that's what it was, though, because I was very confused about them. Yeah, it's weird seeing them out of the context. And I think appearance-wise, they've changed a little bit since A New Hope. We've seen them in the animated shows quite a bit, usually as background characters. I don't think we've ever had like a lead story or revolving around them. yeah They were in the prequels as well, just in the Senate chamber, in one of the pods. I thought they looked familiar, but I was like, I don't know who these are. They're more recognisable from that than from A New Hope. Yeah. yeah
00:46:24
Speaker
Ponda Baba is probably the most famous Aqualish as far as Star Wars goes. Lovely. These guys aren't going to last very long because Corradine is badass.
00:46:35
Speaker
She just takes them out. Very short-lived characters. And I think what pushed her over the edge to take them out was the fact that they were going kill the little larva meerkat thing. They were going to eat the meerkat thing, yeah. And now she has a friend. She now has of a pet, but not a pet. Sort of a meerkat friend. I wish they'd given them a name, but I think the name is Lava Meerkat. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:46:57
Speaker
there's anything more spacey because in the um artwork bit at the end on the credits yeah there is a picture of one and there is a picture of that scene and it breathes fire on the at the act oh i guess they probably run out budget yeah yeah fair enough they're like we're either gonna have an extra tie fighter in the chase at the end yeah or the mea cat can breathe fire yeah fair enough we'll go for the tie fire I guess that the fact that it's in the artwork suggests that it could be canon that they briefly. It's just that we didn't see that happen we just didn't see in the scene. yeah Maybe that's yet to come in a future episode. Navarro looks very different. He's very colourful and light and hopeful feeling.
00:47:40
Speaker
ah like it. Greed's doing a great job. We've got this really, really, it felt to me like an incredibly classic Star Wars shot where ah Kara and Grief are just like standing watching the Razorcrest come in. I was like, oh yeah, that's a very Star Wars shot. Very. Slightly spoiled by the fact that his ramp won't go down. And he must have crawled to the end of and climbed off.
00:48:03
Speaker
But grief gives us, ah and and I think it's a word for word Lando quote, I'll get my best people on it. Yeah, he say that. don't know if he says that exact line, but he says something about that. Yeah. To fix the Falcon when they land on Cloud City. And then Grogu gets to go, oh, before that we have a suspicious red alien. And only knowing he's suspicious because there's a little shot of him looking over his shoulder.
00:48:25
Speaker
Is he one of the like repair crew that Groove sets? Yeah, he's one of the crew. So i guess he's the one, or she, we don't know the gender, they're going to be the one that put the tracking beacon. Yes. We do find out that later, but it's just nice point of that that shot of the look over the shoulder. i was like, ooh, well, that's suspicious. clear Foreshadowing, yeah. Something's going on here. And then Grogu goes to school.
00:48:47
Speaker
Yes! So the school teacher, the protocol droid, is voiced by Catherine Elyse Drexler, who apparently was a post-production assistant on the show at this point. Oh, wow. So it's lush that she got to do some voice acting as well as being post-propercent assistant. I think that's really, really cool. As a post-production mixer, you do end up voice acting occasionally when things have gone wrong. Yeah, I'm sure you're right. There's plenty of Bender in the original trilogy. Yeah, yeah. I think I may have done as well. Yeah.
00:49:22
Speaker
and It's like, there's who can do this? There's nobody here. It's just me. I'll do it. Yeah, sure. Fine. It's a really nice little role, though, because she gets to deliver all that like geographical lore of like the galaxy, which is stuff that we've kind of heard bits of in the sequel trilogy. And I don't know how much of it was in the in yeah what's now Legends, but... Yeah, we get to hear about all the trade routes like the Corellian Run, the Hydean Way and about the different areas of the galaxy. I mentioned the Star Wars map earlier on is very clear on there where the outer rim is, where the expansion region is, ah the core and so on. It's super interesting. I just want to kind of like have the audio track of her delivering that lesson because you can't hear some of it because there's other dialogue going on. No, you're too busy focusing on what Grogu's up to.
00:50:07
Speaker
Yeah, the music and very distracting with his little blue macarons. Stealing his macarons. I love it. Chandrila gets a mention as being the capital of the New Republic, which is interesting because I think we all possibly assumed it would be Coruscant at this point still. We know it.
00:50:25
Speaker
Well, do we know it's Chandrila? I think it's in novels that it's Chandrila. Okay. But if you hadn't read any books, you wouldn't necessarily know that. We've met Chandrila in Andor. Oh, okay. Which you've yet to see, which is amazing. I'm doing it this weekend. Yes. Yes. Yes.
00:50:44
Speaker
<unk> so good. I've been roped. Chandrila or Chandrila. Some people say Chandrila, but I would have always said Chandrila. and But it's where Mon Mothma comes from and it's another quite opulent world. yeah A bit more refined than Coruscant. It's a very, very beautiful place.
00:51:01
Speaker
I did have a little note on Grogu's stealing of fuckcker yeah the my
00:51:09
Speaker
My note was just, to be fair, if I had power of the force, the amount times I've sat there and gone, oh, it's over there, I would use it for snacks. Yeah, 100%. Fair enough. So he other people with snacks. Yeah. Steal from under their nose.
00:51:23
Speaker
And then we're going on a side quest. This is classic Mandalorian side quest. You've got to do a deal to then get to the next step of your adventure. I'm here side quest. It's so video game. I'm here for the intrigue and the side quests. And the Mithral, who still doesn't have a name, is back in it.
00:51:44
Speaker
Yes. And he's very nervous to see Mandalorian. gives us these but spore things. i don't know what it was, like a cloud of... I did look up Mithral, but it didn't really tell us anything on the Wikipedia page about it.
00:51:56
Speaker
He said a lot about the fact that they are called fledglings. I think he mentions fledglings when they're young. i think he mentioned that in episode one, season one. Yeah. Who's apparently still blind in one eye. He's got hibernation sickness, but he hasn't quite got over it. Carbonite.
00:52:13
Speaker
It's another nice original trilogy callback. A little throwback. Okay, ah my next note was, well, no safety rails here. We're at the base. Yeah, this base has got big lack of safety rails all over, from the landing platform to the reactor core. And this one's like lava, come on. Yeah, it's particularly dangerous, and yet, no, absolutely have to save money. Yeah.
00:52:37
Speaker
So at this point, I have a question about the Imperials at this point, because yeah they're obviously managing to hide reasonably well, but they're also like, they seem to be everywhere and they've still got really nice uniforms. Yeah. They obviously still got laundry. they've They've obviously still got laundry. They've still got like...
00:53:00
Speaker
ability to keep everything quite neat and shiny, but yet they're still hiding. Okay, so i think yeah what's going on multiple things I think there's multiple things going on. okay One is we are in the Outer Rim. I think the fact that we're in the Outer Rim is key to all of it because the main New Republic is still centred in the kind of core worlds area, like further deep into the galaxy. Yeah. And as Carson Tavis suggests, the X-Wing guy, yeah there's stuff going on in the Outer Rim that the New Republic is missing. yeah And we're definitely going to see a bit more of that in season three. yeah And his kind of concern about that is quite important.
00:53:35
Speaker
okay So yeah, it's like the Empire... has technically fallen as far as the New Republic goes. yeah But there are different sects of Imperial remnants still out there. Some of them are in denial that the Emperor is dead. They still believe that the Emperor emperor is alive. yeah Some of them have been given specific missions to do by the posthumous Emperor. yeah I mentioned really early on somewhere the sentinel droids that had his face projected onto them, the Emperor's face. So they've been out there you know keeping some of the Imperial remnant alive. yeah
00:54:08
Speaker
In the the end of the Aftermath books, we find out that the Emperor has another contingency plan, which is in the Unknown Regions and the Outer Rim connects with the Unknown Regions in a couple of places. So it could be that some stuff is going on in the and Unknown Regions and feeding some of the remnant in the Outer Rim. So that could be where the funding is coming from. yeah yeah ah the The Emperor obviously had massive coffers and massive business dealings and had business dealings with the underworld. We find that out a lot in the Clone Wars and Rebels and stuff.
00:54:43
Speaker
So there's still a lot of like financing, I'm sure, going on, which is why some of these remnants can still keep going. yeah And somebody like Gideon, who we don't really know where he's getting his funding from, but I'm pretty sure it's the underworld somewhere. Right.
00:54:58
Speaker
So he's obviously got money and he's, I think this sect of this part of the Imperial Remnant that we're seeing in The Mandalorian, which involves like the client from season one and then these guys on Navarro and it's all part of Gideon's little kind of corner of it. Yeah. Okay. But there are more things going on besides what Gideon's doing. He's like one little bit of it.
00:55:20
Speaker
Right. That's how I understand it. Yeah, yeah. Like from the various stories. Because whenever you meet Imperials in this timeline part, you know, the post Return of the Jedi era, yeah which is where a lot of these TV shows are based and some of the novels are based, we find Imperials in different states. Like there's some yeah Imperials on Kashyyyk in the Aftermath Trilogy. Yeah.
00:55:43
Speaker
that are basically feral, like absolutely feral. Then we meet some Imperials in Ahsoka who are out in a completely different galaxy, spoiler alert, and they're having a really bad time, you'll discover. And yet there are people like Gideon's forces that seem to be quite well-to-do. Yeah, yeah. Because even the clients weren't... They were really tatty. They weren't shiny, they were pretty tatty. Yeah.
00:56:10
Speaker
But then Gideon's got... dubstep troopers which we'll talk about later on. He really has. love some dubstep troopers. and And places like this base, which as we discover throughout this episode, is not just a military holdout.
Imperial Lab Discoveries and Character Speculations
00:56:25
Speaker
No. It's a science base yeah where some interesting experiments. Should we just jump straight to that? Let's do it. Let's do it.
00:56:34
Speaker
The episode is in this this one scene, really, yeah is where they find the hollow of Dr. Pershing yeah talking about how his experiments are not working. They need more donors with high enough M count. I mean, we can pretty much guess what M count What that yeah. They're just not saying Midditorians because it triggers some of the fandom.
00:56:53
Speaker
ah ah And they've only been able to harvest a little bit of blood from the child, thank goodness. Because he's tiny. Yeah. Yeah, Yeah. So we also like see bodies yeah in tanks. Yeah.
00:57:08
Speaker
And I think when it first came out, had people talking about them looking like Snoke, which I kind of get. But I remember my first viewing of this episode, I thought one of them looked like Palpatine. Okay. And bear in mind, I think the Rise of Skywalker, had it come out at this point?
00:57:26
Speaker
Yes, it had. Yeah. So we knew that Palpatine had been cloned. So I feel like, obviously, this is where the cloning program is ultimately going to get to, yeah is Palpatine. But to me, one of the body remains of whatever it is,
00:57:44
Speaker
It really looked like Palpatine's sort of like bubbly forehead that he's got. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. It's difficult to see. It was very murky in the tank. It was murky, murky, murky tanks.
00:57:54
Speaker
But ah for me, this is like intrigue all in caps. Because i thought I thought Palpatine as well, but then obviously we quite recently watched Rise of Skywalker. Yeah, yeah. don't know. Maybe we'll do some little screenshots of that moment. Yeah, yeah. if we can figure it out. what we think. Because it looks like Palpatine to me, but it could equally be Snoke. I mean, we saw Snoke in a tank just like that in Rise of Skywalker. Yeah, that's true.
00:58:19
Speaker
So there are obviously all sorts of experiments going on. And it is... very so curious and I love it very intriguing Yes, I've got ooh, cloney intrigue and ooh, more lore. Yeah. Moff Gideon is alive and well. We knew that. but Yeah, definitely. It's the first time Mando's hearing about it.
00:58:37
Speaker
I like how Kara's like the one who observes that it's a lab. she Yeah. Having been in the kind of rebellion or at least the old republic yeah or whatever her role was, she may have you know seen military installations and seen labs and those the difference between the two. Yeah.
00:58:56
Speaker
So then they've got to fight their way out it. Yeah, we get loads of Trooper, classic Trooper lines. Yes. There they are. Blast them. Yeah, they're on the move. All right, men, load your weapons. Yeah. If you've ever played Jedi Fallen Order, listeners, you will have heard all of these. All of those, many, many times. Stormtroopers, they always... ah yeah we have them, which they actually don't any point. you never do. No. We've got some imitation Wilhelms as well. Yes. None of them are the actual Wilhelm, but there is like... Oh, I was going to ask you because there's a really huge one when... Well, there's a couple. There's one where Mando rockets through the reactor shaft yeah onto the roof. yeah And I think that's probably the biggest one and he falls down into the lava. Yeah.
00:59:41
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's an imitation. He's okay he's doing it himself, probably. They're very Wilhelm-esque, we'll They're Wilhelm-esque, but they're all like, I listened to all of them multiple times and I don't think any of them are the actual Wilhelm scream. You're very thorough with your Wilhelm research. I am very thorough. I do appreciate it very much.
00:59:57
Speaker
i I listened to each of them at least four times and was like, yeah, nah, nah. and There's a little ah payoff from earlier in the episode where somebody noted the Trexler Marauder, which is technically a Trexler 906, apparently. which is that I think earlier on they mentioned that it's in mint condition, which I think is kind of a meta reference to collectors of Star Wars toys. because It's like how you describe them on eBay. And as someone who may have started to collect toys again after all these years, I'm beginning to be familiar with that kind of language. And it sort of jumped out at me. It's like, yeah, this is just Jon Favreau.
01:00:34
Speaker
Take it I love it. It feels like the Marauder is is, I did Google it, and I think it's like an upscaled or more military version of the troop carrier that we saw in an earlier episode that's based on the toy where you put the stormtroopers in the outside bit yeah and you'll drive it along the ground.
01:00:55
Speaker
It's the same sort of design, but it hasn't got the troop carrying carrying bit yeah pods on the side. It's just got some more weaponry, I think. Cara talks to it, but she talks to it like I talk to my car. I love it. Yeah, you I can see that. I can imagine you talking to car. talk to my car all the time. In a car routine kind a Several of the um troopers fail their repulsor lift-up rolls yes as they scoot down off the mountain and they just crash into rocks. Oh my god, that's awful. That whole, like, it's quite quite harrowing. It's brutal, yeah. i thought they were going to make it down and and, you know, get into a proper chase. Absolutely not.
01:01:33
Speaker
It's quite a steep hill, to be honest. a very steep hill. They sound, we've got kind of quite podracery sounds again. Yeah. That whole, like, yeah little sequence. so I guess being in a canyon there is is very kind of canyon-ish, isn't it? Yeah, that's the sound.
01:01:47
Speaker
But then we're back. We're back to whooping murders. Yes. Several. Kara. Kara does it. When she squishes one. yeah she Grief does it. Yeah, he does. Well, he sort of chuckles. He laughs. Yeah, there's a really interesting kill that he does. One of the scout troopers has managed to get on top of the marauder. And in his little graphic interface, which until now has only ever been like a little triangle and a grid, he's suddenly got this animated version of yeah the scout trooper. Yeah. tracking exactly what he's doing like about to build up kind of thing yeah it's very interesting chased by TIE fighters yes which again in a canyon is really exciting the sound design of all of that is really cool
01:02:30
Speaker
I love that. We hear like another Imperial Siren over these two episodes. with I think we've heard the full range of imperial Imperial Sirens. Oh, speaking which, we didn't talk about the um the shaft.
01:02:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Into the reactor, which is like the big safety rail moment. And the sound design on that, which is very much like the Obi-Wan Kenobi deactivating the tractor beam. Yes.
01:02:53
Speaker
yeah The visuals are the same. He has to do the same kind of lever thing. Yeah. Anyway, sorry, that was a little tangent. And this is where we see the dust particles I mentioned the TIE. Yes, in the TIE Fighters.
01:03:06
Speaker
So even though this base looks as though it's still being funded, in that it still has guards and it still has scientists. Plenty of troopers, lots of scientists. Well, actually, we did we see? Yeah, we did see scientists because they were like erasing the data, weren't they? Yes, they were erasing everything as they came in, shooting the board.
01:03:21
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, they tried to do the scientific erase. Does that work? I don't think shooting it. I've never tried shooting my hard drive, but you know. don't think it'll survive.
01:03:33
Speaker
but Aside from the reasonably well-kept nature of this Imperial base, there is dust in the TIE fighters. They obviously haven't been been attacked for a while. yeah And then Razorcrest is back. Razor Crest to the Rescue. Crest to the Rescue.
01:03:48
Speaker
More whooping. Grogu is having a whale of a time. Even when he throws up, he's still having a good time. still smiling. Blue sick. So grim.
01:04:00
Speaker
The fact he's still kind of eating them while they're on this high-speed chase. Yeah. ice speed chases Not a good idea, Grogu. No, no. But he whoops as well. They all have a big whoop. Yeah. And then Grogu's laughing and yeah and then he throws up.
01:04:16
Speaker
There are two epilogues yeah to this whole episode. I thought the first one was it. I'd forgotten about the Gideon epilogue. But yeah, we see this thing with Carson Tavor. We mentioned him last episode. Yeah, we did. He's in the Spider episode. yeah And he is very much the kind of voice of the New Republic in this part of the Outer Rim. yeah He is very suspicious. I love his little talk that he gives about how he's sure there's stuff going on. Yeah, yeah.
01:04:46
Speaker
He's talking to Kara about yes trying to get her to join. Yeah, and she says she's not a joiner. It's pretty dark conversation. He does put his foot in it when he says, did you lose anyone? yeah Come on, Carson, what are you thinking? Of course you did. I did say this is a little bit of Kara lore that we probably could have worked out. Yeah, if anyone's from Alderaan, just don't ask about it.
01:05:06
Speaker
um assume that they're all gone Yeah, show some sympathy. He does offer her some sympathy, but a little bit late. Yes. He's not going to give up. He leaves her with that little puck thing. Yeah. Is that like a business card? don't know. don't know. I was wondering what that was.
01:05:22
Speaker
It looks almost like a medal of some sort, but like... Yeah, I think it's a signet of the New Republic. so Calling God? I haven't watched Beyond This for ages, but I have a feeling it comes up again. It was shot in a way that said it would.
01:05:36
Speaker
Yeah, there was emphasis. Emphasis were put on it, for sure. yeah And otherwise, there's no point in the prop. There must be a for it. um I like the way Grief says, I'll send you a gram. yeah like Is that a telegram or Instagram? Yeah, what are you on about? It's very old man speak. What? But I i love Carson Tover. I really hope he's the film. I'm pretty sure he's going to be in the film because he seems to be based out of Adelphi, which is a planet in the after him. And i think we've seen Adelphi in the trailer for the film. So I'm pretty sure he's going to be in it in some way because he's just such a great guy. I love him. I love him.
01:06:16
Speaker
He seems really sweet. I like him. yeah And then the next epilogue, yeah I knew that red guy was suspicious. Yeah. So is he the same race as Ochi of Bastoon Rise of Skywalker? Because he's got these weird eyes. does have these weird eyes. I don't know. He might not be.
01:06:36
Speaker
He might just be headgear. Didn't have a proper look. It was only like a hologram, wasn't it? so At the end it's a hologram, but at the beginning you see him. Oh, yeah, yeah. Sorry, I forgot we saw him earlier on. Yeah, of course. Because I didn't twig the two with the same ah until like after and I was like, oh, right, yeah. yeah yeah I did because of the framing. Yeah, okay. I'll need to re-watch.
Character Highlights and Armor Discussions
01:06:58
Speaker
The comms officer we now know is called Aliyah Kane, who's played by a brilliant actress called Katie O'Brien, who smashes it. And she has a big part to play in season three and beyond. ok i She's such a great character. yeah.
01:07:15
Speaker
I think she's only in one episode of season three. There's this slight random episode in season three where we like find out what's happening with Dr. Pershing and she's involved. And she is such a brilliant actress and a brilliant character. It's like both things...
01:07:32
Speaker
Whether they intended that, maybe they cast her just for this scene because she quite underplays the scene. She's just there to kind of report to to Gideon. But she does have a little bit of something. Something going on. It feels like she knows what's going on. yeah like there's more stuff going on. Yeah.
01:07:46
Speaker
I did say that this point, we've got some nice evil Moff Gideon musical cues. How would we ever know that he was evil without the dramatic music? It just felt quite hammy, but in the best kind of way. Yeah, yeah. I think it works. I think it works.
01:08:03
Speaker
And if that's not enough, then the dark troopers definitely it away. Dubstep troopers. evil looking. my God, they're not dubstep yet, but they will be. No, they're going to be. You sort know they're going to be before you even hear their theme. I was so excited. So these guys, they are from a computer game. can't remember what the game is. It's not a particularly well-played computer game, I think. Right. And they just had this kind of role in that game, but they've been brought into canon. There's a bit of debate about their backstory as to whether they were part human, part droid. Okay. But I think it you know it turns out that they're droids, but you could imagine that they might have been.
01:08:46
Speaker
Because we've seen Death Troopers yeah in Rogue One and and death troopers yeah in Yeah, Mandalorian. The Death Troopers, the ones that have got the black. Yeah.
01:08:57
Speaker
And they're they're flying the TIE fighters in this one. Possibly. Well, something different I think TIE pilots often have different colour armour. But they could be Death Trooper versions of TIE fighter pilots. Yeah, maybe. I didn't think of that.
01:09:11
Speaker
Yeah, I think specifically Death Troopers are like Stormtroopers that walk rather than fly. yeah But yeah, that's a good point. They were flying. So they're all black. I guess it's the link is that the armor is black and the Death Trooper's shell is black and shiny in a similar way. yeah So maybe there's like some evolution stuff that happened along the way. Going on.
01:09:31
Speaker
Well, we'll go into this later when the dubstep troopers are fully revealed. Activated. Yeah. But there is a whole little spiel that Moth Gideon does about them yeah where he does talk about that.
01:09:43
Speaker
So,
Episode Comparison and Future Show Expectations
01:09:44
Speaker
yeah yeah. It seems that there are there were earlier iterations. Yeah. I only know this because I watched it like two days ago. Yeah, yeah. No, it's ringing bells now. i I'm basing my memory of it on podcast. Stream of text that I sent you the other day. And your stream of text.
01:10:00
Speaker
But it's ah it's a pretty epic finale to pretty epic couple of episodes, really. Yeah. It was a lot of fun. Did you have a favourite of the two episodes? Which one did you like the most? I love the nostalgary thing of this one. Yeah.
01:10:18
Speaker
But I really love the fishing jumpers. Yeah. The other one. Yeah. They were both very different episodes. I think the first one was a lot about Mandalore. And it was, yeah, kind of a battle of wits almost between Bo-Katan and the Mandalorian that know and love.
01:10:36
Speaker
yeah But also, yeah, it's very, there's some very lovely moments with the frogs. and Yeah. There's also very sweet bits. Yeah, whereas this one doesn't have so much of the sweet bits. but No, it's kind of all action. Yeah, very much more action, a bit of comedy as well. The Mythrol is quite a good comedy character. Yes, he's good.
01:10:53
Speaker
We got some Grogu comedy too. Yeah. Yeah, I'd have a job to pick between them. is that theyve Considering they're just like episodes three and four, you know, the midway through, they're not like openers of fun, but they're both brilliant episodes. Season two is phenomenal. i do love it I think all of it is really up there, isn't it? All of it is whole way through. It's all really beautifully made. I'm very interested to hear what you make of e of season three. Because it is quite different.
01:11:19
Speaker
There's possibly more variety of... I don't know. Some of it still feels like this, but some of it feels quite different. Got to do Book of Boba Fett first. Yeah, yes, which I'm also intrigued by. There's been different responses to the Book of Boba Fett.
01:11:35
Speaker
I'm sure it's going to be something that when people go back to it, without this sort of high expectation, I think this is where The Mandalorian as a show wins because it's all It's new is new character characters. characters, yeah, sure. People can't have expectations. yeah Whereas as soon as they announced the Book of Boba Fett, people's minds started to race about yeah Boba and what we were going to get. And the same with Ahsoka as well, to an extent.
01:11:56
Speaker
So that's already new tricky. Yeah. For the the fandom, it struggles with that. But often when you come back to these things without those expectations, you kind of love them more. So yeah be interesting to see how I feel about it. I've not rewatched The Book of Boba Fett yet. I've only seen it once. I'm really looking forward to seeing it because I really loved it. Yeah.
Social Media Engagement and Closing Remarks
01:12:16
Speaker
Excellent.
01:12:17
Speaker
Cool. Right. Don't forget, people, you can follow us on all the social platforms. Well, not all of them. Not all of them, but most of them. Facebook, Insta, Blue Sky and YouTube. Is YouTube and social? I don't know. You can follow us on there anyway. You can talk to us on there. We've got a few followers YouTube. We'll talk to you on there.
01:12:36
Speaker
Found a few people liking our videos and commenting on them, which is kind of cool. I mean, they're not videos because they're just audio, but you know what I mean? There might be some videos at some point, if you're lucky. Maybe. Maybe. We are talking about... It might just be me playing with this.
01:12:53
Speaker
Copy to start. High score 14.
01:12:58
Speaker
Oh, no, I can't make him stop now. I have a bad feeling about this. LAUGHTER Go away. I mean, if you've been and wondering what we look like and you're just basing our appearance on our graphic logo thing, which kind of looks like us. It does look like us. Yeah. My nephew worked it out. He's five. Oh, well, it does look like us then. That's quite cool.
01:13:19
Speaker
But yeah, if you want to see us in real life, then you can, if you go on our Instagram, sister then we're often doing little video reels, which are very silly mostly. We'll be there. We're always there. because I've ever wondered what my bathroom looks like, there's a real up about that.
01:13:39
Speaker
We re reveal all our secrets. Yeah, all of our secrets are on Instagram. Come give us a follow. Yeah. Meanwhile, we will see you next week. It's just us again. Is it?
01:13:50
Speaker
What? I'm excited for these next two. Episodes five and six. Yeah. Big episodes again. Excellent. wow Until then. See you then. Bye. Bye.